POV Diego
The week of rest was finally over. As soon as the countdown reached zero, the island started sinking. God had prepared for us a special bubble that would've protected us from fall damage and other kinds of accidents that may have happened while we were falling back to the surface.
I remember thinking: 'It's just like that cannon.'
The last three days were pretty uneventful. Valis and the wolf were now on better terms than before this small break, Folarin… I never really cared about what the others were doing. Tsuitame wasn't an exception. He was just too obvious in his emotions. Even Valis seemed a bit uncomfortable about it.
Once the island had finally sunk down to the bottom of the floating ocean, it immediately disappeared and we began free falling. The drop wasn't as thrilling as people often make it out to be. Maybe I was just too used to being dropped into a certain location like some sort of weapon of mass destruction.
The annoying part was mainly composed of Valis and Folarin screaming at the top of their lungs out of fear. I wanted to knock them out, but that would eventually cause more problems in the future, so I simply used my ability to get out of the barrier and fall at a normal speed.
I also noticed that I've become a lot more accustomed to my soul weapons than I thought. Lately, they've all started gathering more and more energy "in preparation for the future," so they've been sleeping essentially all day long. Without their voices, my mind felt somewhat silent.
It was only after some more time that I realized just how far up in the sky that ocean was. After a couple of minutes of free falling, we were still over the clouds, headed towards our next hellish experience.
Then a random thought came to my mind.
'What would they think if they saw me doing this kind of thing?'
The petite girl would laugh it off, the gentle giant would probably watch it in silence, the deadly flower would clip every embarrassing moment/gaffe and shove it in my face all day long as soon as I returned, and the rest of the crew...
'Those were indeed my best days.'
They were the ones that lasted the longest by my side.
The words of the deadly flower came to my mind.
"How about we all rent a big place for ourselves? It would definitely be better than living alone in our apartments."
'It was impossible at the time. Maybe if my arm wasn't like that, I would've accepted his offer.'
"Maybe next time, cheeky flower."
It was a title I had given him out of respect. He was probably one of the best assassins I've met. He also had unmatched beauty. He could've easily worked as a model if he really wanted to. Maybe it was because of his twisted personality or beliefs that he never really tried to take that career path.
Then there was the reset. Finally, I could look at our new place and... it was a rocky desert.
POV Marcus
From that day, everything changed. Our town was now facing many serious problems that even Daniel and the rest of his crew had trouble solving. From what I managed to gather, the problem was caused by a sudden rise of mana in the atmosphere.
A lot of buildings were not at risk, and many people had to be relocated somewhere. Everyone was busy all the time, and they were very rarely at home. The only one who stayed with us was Kane. He alone was in charge of guarding the city.
Plus, that drunk girl recently started to appear more often, and every time she did, Daniel and Nassus would just teleport her out of sight.
"I'm bored." I sighed as I watched the people of my neighborhood line up as the golden soldiers were instructing them to.
"Have you finished your homework?" asked me, Nina.
We were all watching these events unfold from the comfort of our house.
"No, that's boring."
After hearing my answer, she simply rolled her eyes and went back to training.
"Have you finished memorizing the adjectives and pronouns of the-"
"AH AH AH, Stop! Why does everything have to revolve around studying with you guys."
"Because you're the dumb one that gets us in trouble for not studying enough." Nina's voice was extremely bitter.
"Oh will you ever not pull that against me at every chance you get? It was just one week without the internet, and I've already apologized to you."
"You didn't get punched all day long by Kane for one week straight, you wouldn't get it." Immediately responded John.
"Then quit it. He's not forcing you to become a hunter; he's obviously against it, so why-"
Nina then threw a bunch of cold water created by her aura at my face to stop me. Christ also glared at me for a short while.
"Hey! That-" This time she splashed my eyes.
"Stop it!" Then she aimed at my mouth.
"ENOUGH!" I shouted.
"MARCUS! DON'T BOTHER YOUR SISTER WHILE SHE'S STUDYING." Shouted Kane from the rooftop.
"That's right, Marcus, we're not wasting time like you." Added John.
'Whatever.'
I laid back and started staring at the roof.
'Time surely flew by lately.'
A lot had changed in the past few months. What was just once a weird world where I was reduced to nothing more than an incentive for a magical race had now expanded way beyond my imagination.
We met a drunken dragon, we learned about so many different places with different cultures, and some of us even started idolizing their cultures.
'Everything happened so fast.'
No, it definitely happened too fast. Maybe we're broken in the head, just like the rest of the cursed ones. To have adapted at that rate was surely abnormal, as the new girl still had problems even getting out of her room.
It was then that I remembered that question.
"What do you want to do when you grow up."
'I don't know.'
It irritated me.
Why?
'What's there to do? Daniel and the rest of his group seem hellbent on stopping us from doing whatever job includes combat in any way shape or form.'
What's left?
'Nah that's too much thinking. I think I've done enough for today.'
Then I felt someone poking my back. As I turned around to see who it was, I noticed it was Manni. He was showing on his phone a video of a particularly famous single-player rpg.
"You can play this?" he said.
"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." I said while patting his head.
'I don't really enjoy single-player games though.'
Most games nowadays are trash. They are either too pay to win or have too much grind that makes them unbearably boring. It was a miracle right now that even single player games were working. Most servers had shut down for one reason or the other, and slowly these companies were trying to re-start their operations. But now a new problem arose, and what little hope the players had left was also crushed.
We had a couple of physical copies of some video games at home. They belonged to the previous owners of the house, plus whatever we stole that one time we got into that supermarket. So video games weren't really off the table. I just... lately I haven't enjoyed them as much as I used to.
I never got too much into MMOS as I found them mostly boring. I was terrible at first person shooters, so that only left a handful of games I really liked.
'Maybe this is what it means to grow up; even Chris, who was addicted to gacha games, has recently stopped playing those games.'
More than likely, he stopped because, due to recent events, updates had become scarce and also he could no longer work on the game.
As I kept looking at Manni, I started thinking.
'And now what.'
He seemed very happy, I didn't want to ruin his happiness by stating that I didn't like the game he proposed.
Then he quickly left the room. With a quick glance, I noticed that both of them were practicing their aura control. The way they were doing it was by mimicking the shapes of nearby objects. Both of them were terrible at it. They were using all the four elements they learned so far, and the results were: Nina could create 1 decent pegasus, but the rest of the shapes were just spheres as she could barely control them at that point, while Chris managed to mildly change the form of all of those spheres.
I then also tried creating a shape, so I tried to redirect the flow of the aura to my hands, then I created the sphere. The sphere is the easiest shape to make with aura. Then I started slowly curving the flow of the exteriors, compressing the insides and slowly draining the excess. The form I wanted to mimic was that of a human. I was using water to make it. Once I managed to get a general outline, I started trying to work on the details, but the small amount of water that was left then dropped directly in my face. I was already exhausted.
'Yeah, I'm clearly not suited for this.'
While John scoffed at my pathetic attempt, Nina simply ignored me.
'If aura is off the table, what can I do?'
The short-best answer would be to sell myself as a mate for that race who can't store mana for themselves. I would be basically living rent free and—
Then the image of an obese rich woman came to my mind.
'Yeah, I'm not risking that.'
I'm tired.
'What's an easy job to do…'
Nothing came to mind. Most jobs require effort to be put in to gain something out of it. Maybe customer service in some sort of call center, but I don't know if that job pays well enough to sustain me properly.
'I should just pick six decent-paying jobs and let the dice choose my future.'
This way, I could answer Daniel and start preparing something for myself.
I saw a ball of water floating above my head for a fraction of a second before it came down and splashed on my face.
Some of it entered my mouth, some of it entered my nose. It was a rough time followed by many coughs and swears.
"WHY-"
"Marcus! Kane has been calling you for quite a while now."