14 days before Turning Point 1.
"Woah! That looks so cool" I yell.
I'm at Mr Money's store, looking at the watch collection. Each of these watches, apart from telling the time, perform a special function.
When you twist a small knob or press a small button on the watch, the dial changes from showing the time to performing any of those special functions.
I'm looking at a watch that looks like it's completely made of steel.
"Oh, this watch is called 'the stalker's ally'. Pressing the button will show you all the locations of all the women in a 300 meter radius. A perfect gift for your creepy virgin friends."
"Uhh..ew." I reply.
I see another watch. Black strap, black dial and gold hands and hour indicators.
"What about this watch?" I ask.
"This is 'the homeless man's best friend'. Shows you the location of all the free food, available shelter and water in a 1 kilometer radius. This watch was created to fix all problems faced by homelessness."
"Woah thats's so cool!" I reply. "How much is it for?"
"90,000 Mal." He says.
"I thought this watch was supposed to fix homelessness, not cause it. And where the hell is a homeless person going to even get the money to buy this watch? Is this some sort of sick joke?"
Forget it, all these watches are dumb.
Wait, hold up.
This watch looks cool. Deep blue leather strap, same blue dial. Silver hands and hour indicators.
"What about this?"
"This is 'Umvelinqangi'. It will show you the time or the lunar cycle or star positions or a compass or space, time and entropy abnormalities depending on how much you rotate the small knob."
"What the hell? That is so cool." I say.
But that useless watch alone cost 90k. This one sounds way more expensive. I don't think I can afford it.
"How much does it cost?" Junior asks.
"30,000 Mal only." Mr Money replies.
Whaaat? How does that stupid homeless watch cost more?
Well, whatever. Even 30k is too much for me. I'll keep this watch in mind, though. I'll buy it after working for a month in that high paying job.
"Well, if that's all, can I get the gold, please?"
"Oh yeah. Here." Junior and I give him 5 grams of gold. This is the first day of our 2 week challenge. I somehow managed to get 5 grams, but it took me 15 hours (a day lasts about 40 hours in this world.) to get it out.
I calculate the price. "That's 1068.34 Mal worth of gold."
He hands over the money and we leave the store.
"1068 is a bit hard to divide in half. We could split 1000 and use the rest of the money to eat at a restaurant." She says.
Good idea, I'm starving. "Okay."
"I've always wanted to go to this one restaurant. Let's go there."
I made the worst mistake of my life: I said "okay."
Five minutes later, we're standing in front of "Jordan's Paradise: Home of the World Famous Brain Soup."
This restaurant is located in the shadiest place in the town. We had to walk through like fifteen dark alleyways.
There are at three drug addicts passed out in front of the restaurant, and all three of them don't seem to be breathing.
"Ahhh. This looks just like when I visited this place in my childhood. Brings back so many memories." Junior looks happy. She looks at the three unconscious people. "I'm glad to see that the heroin brothers are the same as I saw them 7 years ago. Clinically dead."
DON'T SOUND SO HAPPY ABOUT IT.
Someone help these poor guys.
My stomach twists into a knot. "Uhhh…Junior? I don't…."
She's salivating, looking at the restaurant. "Let's go inside."
Oh dear.
I take a look at the menu.
"Chicken livers in pig intestine."
I try not to puke. The next one can't be worse than this, right?
"Brain Soup with a side of sautéed eyeballs."
Never mind, it just got worse. I dread reading the next item on the menu.
"Timmy."
Hold up…Isn't Timmy a human name? What are you going to do to Timmy? What kind of human rights violations is this restaurant committing?
"Excuse me." Junior calls the waitress. "I'd like to order one Timmy, please."
JUNIOR YOU MORON
"Umm..Junior. I think Timmy is a human."
Junior laughs. "Of course it's not! Timmy is probably the name of the animal that 's being killed."
"Here you go." The waitress brings a whole roasted human leg.
That's a human leg.
No matter which way you look at it, that looks like a human leg.
The waitress smiles pleasantly. "Enjoy Timmy."
No, that's not Timmy. That's Timmy's leg. What happened to the rest of Timmy? Where the hell is Timmy?
Watching Junior wolf down Timmy's leg with a side of Bread and a mystery sauce makes me sick.
I wait for her to finish eating so we can get out of this hellhole.
After what feels like an eternity, Junior finishes eating a human leg.
"Aaahh! That chicken tasted great!"
In what way did that leg look like a chicken?
"Please, let's get out of this place." I beg her.
"Okay, okay. We're getting out." She replies.
Thank god.
Junior's POV
I don't understand why Onna didn't want to eat anything, and why he's so eager to get out. Timmy's leg- I mean Timmy tasted so good.
We walk out, and Onna looks like he's seen a murder.
"What's up?" I ask him.
"Nothin." He replies.
We still have a couple of hours until it gets dark.
"Wanna play ball?" He asks.
"Yeah. Sure." I reply.
We get to my "home." Which is just an abandoned, broken house.
We just throw the ball around without saying anything for a while.
"Do you like mining?" He asks, finally breaking the silence.
"Hate it." I reply. It's boring and repetitive. Once you earn how to do it, you just do the same thing over and over and…that's it. Radar. Pull. Radar. Pull.
"I don't know what to do." I say. "I'll make some money first, then think about another job once I live a comfy life."
Maybe I'll become a chef. I love food, and the thought of making tasty food sounds appealing.
Onna replies, "My dad told me that we should try a bunch of different things out. Only then we will know what we like."
"That makes sense."
Silence. For quite some time.
"How was your day?" He asks me.
"I get to eat great food, sleep with a blanket, earn money, live in a house by myself. I'm happy." I leave out the part where I tell him that I've got a good friend, because it just sounds embarrassing to say.
"How was yours?" I ask him.
"My day was shit, until my best friend showed up and made it better." He says without any shame.
This idiot, how can he say such embarrassing things without feeling icky?
For some reason, my face feels hot and my heart flutters a bit. "Don't say cringe shit like that out of nowhere, idiot." I say and cover my face.
"Oh come on, put your hand down, I wanna see you blushing! You look hilarious when you're flustered." He says.
Again with the cringe dialogue.
"*ahem* it's getting dark, go to your own home already." I tell him.
"Yes mom." He replies.
That reminds me. He told me that his parents didn't want me coming into their house.
"Does your family still not like me?" I ask.
He nods sadly. "Yeah. That rib piece meant the world to my mom. Something about her life goal to get into the Ciudad."
"Okay."
"Okay, see you tomorrow then."
"Yeah. Bye."
I squashed his mom's dreams. I know that it was either that or me being a sex slave, but it still feels kind of shit.
I watch Onna walk away.
End of Junior's POV
Watch this. She always falls for this trick. I act like I'm walking away, then I turn back and say the cheesiest lines ever. Watch this.
I turn back and yell, "Hey Junior!"
She turns back. "What?"
"You're one of the best things that has ever happened in my life."
Watch this, she's going to blush, cover her face and call me an idiot.
She blushes and covers her mouth with one hand and mutters, "idiot."
Fucking told you.
I'm not lying, though. It's so much fun to have her as my friend.
I'm a bit sad that I'll have to go home. My mom will be combat-training me. Like she's done for the past three years. Turns out I'm absolutely shit at combat.
I can't use darkness magic yet.
My efficiency is so low that even at my full power output at 245, I still can't beat my mom (who's at 105) using only reinforcement magic, and I don't have the natural talent that Junior, Pinku and the general's son- Kami have in terms of being efficient with Magic usage.
And Earth Magic feels really slow and awkward to use, unlike it's fast responding and explosive siblings- fire and ice magic.
I feel very hopeless. I should be more efficient at using magic after practicing for this long. I'll ask my dad for advice, he understands how it feels like to be in a bad place.
Uuuuuggghhh. I wish life could be easier.