"Can you hear me young man? Hellooo?" digging through the haze of his mind, a few words spoken by an unfamiliar but quite flamboyant voice.
He opened his eyes suddenly but stayed locked in place, his body ached all over and he was pretty much unable to move at all, his muscles refused to respond, prefering to sleep.
"Aah, you are quite lucky it seems" spoke the voice from before, he turned his eyes to looked at its owner and saw a sight he wasn't used to, a man dressed in grey and wearing some sort of mask in the vague shape of an owl's face.
It was impossible to make any detail out apart from the voice itself, the clothes were thick and no even a glimpse of the man's eyes were to be spotted from beneath the mask.
He struggled to speak for a few moments, only blurting out nonsense.
"W-Who are you?" he first asked, quite captivated by the strange man who had seemingly carried him to some sort of shack or something.
They must have been quite far since the dragon had razed an enormous area, up to at least as far as he had been able to see in the horizon.
"Me? I am no one, just a roaming doctor who happened to be wandering around, I don't know what happened but you were just laying in ashes, everything seemed to have been burned"
"Probably that dragon" added the man absentmindedly as he reached for his bag, suddenly throwing some sort of powder in the boy's face.
"That will help alleviate the fatigue" he said while doing it but the boy was focused on something else apart from the powder that was getting in his eyes.
"How do you know a dragon was there? He... Flew away!"
"You call that flying away? He was spinning in the air pretty fast, is that how dragons fly these days? Perhaps a dance of seduction, I was pretty entranced by the sight after all" the doctor let out a small laugh as he stepped closer to the boy.
"Still, what a surprise that you are alive, you weren't even that hurt, what happened exactly?" asked the doctor curiously.
"Well, I-" a blur, a complete and utter blur, only fragments came up.
The boy had barely any memories of the event after he had stepped out of his house, he knew that he had spoken with the dragon and seeing it suddenly be blasted away but no idea of how it happened.
"..."
He looked at his right hand and saw some marks on it, remembering something although unsure.
"I punched it?" he responded unsure as the doctor fell silent.
"Oh you! Not losing your sense of humor even after such a tragey huh? Was that one house the only one perhaps?" spoke the doctor as he spread his arms, stepping away.
He hadn't been thinking about it up until now but there was no denying it, his family was comepletely gone.
"You- You mentioned a house, is it still fine?" he asked shakily.
"It wasn't burned to ashes but it certainly collapse on itself, like a model house whose glue melted! Quite the strange sight" nonchalantly responded the doctor as he sorted out his various tools, putting them back in his back.
"Anyhow, I'll leave you with my friend, I can't stay forever, I have injections to make" he said, making a weird movement with his hands and fingers when he said 'injections' for some reason.
"You'll be able to move in a few days, you will feel like a newborn child!"
"Good luck Iustus!" he then slammed the door shut and disappeared.
"Where did he learn my name?" wondered the boy aloud.
"It's better to not ask any questions" responded a voice right next to him.
"I guess you're right" said the boy as if that voice had always been part of the conversation.
"?!"
"Don't scream, it hurts my ears" spoke the man who was just next to him, sitting on a chair.
He didn't seem that much older than Iustus but he had a weird air about him, there were many strange things happening, the apparition of that man and the fact that Iustus was able to somewhat read the air of that man in the first place.
He had brown hair that went down to his shoulders and were in a terrible mess, a small twig could even be spotted, sticking out from the inside of the hair.
"I am the 'friend', my name is Gregory" he said casually with an expression that appeared as bored but it was clear that this Gregory was ready to pounce at whatever could show up.
"So, you punched a dragon in the face?" he asked with a slight smile.
"I... I don't know, I must have imagined it..." responded the boy, the rapid series of strange events and weird people was keeping his mind off of the cruel fate of everyone he had ever known.
He knew for certain that they were gone, the area the dragon had scorched was enormous and the beast itself had said that he had made sure to get rid of nearly everything and everyone.
Still, it didn't feel like they were gone, he hadn't seen any of it and there wouldn't be any traces left, it was impossible for him to be certain about it.
"You didn't imagine it, you punched that dragon and you didn't just punch a dragon Iustus" spoke Gregory, looking certain of himself and serious all of a sudden.
Iustus could help but swallow his saliva and stay silent as he waited for him to continue speaking.
"Listen here, open your status, you must have seen some notifications, can you remember them?"
"Not quite..." muttered the boy as he opened his status as instructed, instead of seeing his usual status, were his stats were represented by growing plants and where his skills weren't anywhere to be seen.
He saw clear words and a concise order to things, everything was separated and everything he could think of was actually listed and detailed, the system would even give him precisions if he wanted.
"Pretty nice isn't it? Would you look at your titles and skills real quick?"
"Sure-" his jaw dropped and he was blasted away by what he saw, as well as totally confused.
"Huh... Why do all of the skills listed have 'heroic' in front of them?" he wondered.
"Iustus, you did punch that dragon in the face or rather, you punched Occult, of the lesser cardinal sins" Gregory grinned, Iustus wasn't certain who this Occult was.
*Virtuous Hero: A special existence, a hero to challenge the sins, a hero that has the slight potential of stepping into the domain of the true hero*