By the time Alicard realized where he was, he heard a knock on his door. There was no memory of the night before after he started drinking. He had a confused look on his face as he looked around his room. Not long after that, the excitement of graduation came flooding back to him.
"Bro! Hurry up and get out of bed!"
Alice barged into his room.
"I've been knocking on your door forever! After we eat, mom and dad are taking us to buy some clothes for the selection."
He went to get out of bed, but the excitement didn't last for long. A pounding headache was now attacking his mind. Grumbling a reply to his sister, he shoved her back out of the room so he could freshen up and change clothes.
After joining his family in the dining room, he quickly ate his breakfast before they took off out the door to go to the mall. There was only one large building that encompassed all of the stores in the city. Besides a few restaurants and some non retail businesses, this was the only place to go shopping. Due to a limited space and limited population, the government decided this was the best way to save space for more homes.
The mall was one of the most popular places for people to go to. When Alicard and his family arrived, even though it was early in the morning, there were already around 300 people. The building in front of them was nearly the size of the school. It was a circular building where the middle was completely open to leave room for a large park.
After managing to enter the building by wading through the people crowding the entrance, Drake took Alicard to find a males clothing store while Freya took Alice to a women's clothing store. Alicard and his father walked almost halfway around the building before they came across a high end haberdashery. Once inside, a clerk came to them to see if they needed help.
Alicard shopped around for around an hour before settling on a nice black suit that was styled after some time in the 20th century. He checked himself out in the mirror and found that he looked even more handsome than he thought he would. While he was admiring himself, his dad appeared behind him.
"You look good, son. I remember when I got my first suit. It was also after graduation. All of my hopes and dreams were wild as I went into the selection ceremony… well, I'm not upset with how things turned out."
Drake helped to adjust his suit a little bit.
"I've heard that in the times before the sun burnt out, people were able to choose anything in the world that they wanted to do. If they wanted to be king, then all they had to do was work for it."
Alicard listened to his father reminisce while he thought about his history classes in school. There might have been a lot more freedom, but the consequences to that were rampant chaos. Crime rates were sky high, and the world was overpopulated due to the fact that there were no restrictions to having children. When the sun burnt out many years ago, there was a regime change. Since most people died and there were only 500,000 left, everyone came under one rule. The first ruler during the new regime instituted certain policies to keep the new order. The two most important policies were to keep the population at 500,000 and the life path selection. Fortunately, the new ruler wasn't completely corrupt and added the life path of king to the selection.
Drake paid for the suit while Alicard changed his clothes back. When they left the clothing store, they found Alice and Freya already waiting for them. Now that the whole family was back together, they went around the mall to the food court to have a cheap lunch. Alice made a big show of showing off her new dress for the selection. The family ate in peace as they made small talk.
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After spending the day with his family, it was dark by the time Alicard got home. Laying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, thoughts were racing through his mind. After spending his entire life waiting for graduation and then the life path selection, he almost couldn't wait. He honestly doubted that he would be chosen for anything important. None of that mattered though so long as whatever he was doing, he could do it happily. He closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.