"Shit! He is actually hurt this time! What do we do?!"
Lying in a pool of my own blood, with three other kids standing around me, it was hard for my immature head to realize what was happening. No, it wasn't hard to realize what was happening, it was hard to understand why it was happening.
Even if this world had made it so my life had been a never-ending struggle, I had always tried my best to walk forward, even to the point where I started to believe I would get to live a normal life.
Yet, here I was, in an abandoned factory from the old times, a time before the world got to know the miracle of awakening, and the mysteries of mana.
It wasn't the first time I had been subjugated to the torture that was my classmates wanting to punish me for existing, while at the same time getting the chance to use their powers on a living being.
But the violence they had subjected me to had only escalated after every time, and now the violence had reached its breaking point. Or at least it had reached the point of my body breaking, unable to endure the small ball of fire that one of them had launched at me.
And sadly, yes, it had been a small ball of fire, but that had still been enough to put my physical vessel in the state it was currently in.
Turning my eyes to my own body, it was quite bizarre that I didn't have a problem gazing at the ribs that had escaped my chest, or the scorched meat that carried the smell of death.
"Aarick?! What the fuck are you doing?!"
For some reason, two more kids showed up, and with their appearance began the dispersion of the kids who had used me as a training dummy.
"Shit! Let's run!"
"It wasn't our fault!"
A blue-haired girl and a red-haired young man quickly arrived at my side, with the girl unable to hold back her tears after seeing the state of my small body. In contrast, the boy's face only paled, and though I could sense that he was scared, he held on strong.
If this world had a hero, there was no doubt it would be this boy, Will Steiner, and in the case of the female lead, it would have to be the girl, Levi Ayim.
Unfortunately, I knew that the girl wasn't interested in him. No, there was another person she was interested in, and although we were just kids, it wasn't as if affection was a foreign concept. Or at least I knew what the word meant, even if I hadn't ever truly experienced it.
It was just a shame that the person she was interested in was currently dying in front of her. So, knowing that I had to somehow cheer her up, I forced myself to open my mouth.
"Sorry a-about the mess... I-I would have cleaned up if I knew I would get visitors..."
"..."
Alas, neither of them found my joke to be especially funny. A shame really, that my last words weren't even met with a single snicker. Because after those words, everything became dark, and I fell into the endless void that was the afterlife, hearing only the desperate voice of a truly sad girl ring in my ears.
"Aarick?!"
Almost as if to taunt me, however, I wasn't allowed to leave this life without remembering how this all came to be, seeing the images of my misfortune play in front of me in a repeating loop of misery.
From getting abandoned by my mother as a child, to getting abused in the orphanage to finally getting to attend a school like a normal youth, where kids already had opinions about me before even getting to know me.
Despite all of this, I had struggled with all of my might, moving forward with a smile. And then the day of awakening came, the day when all fourteen-year-olds were going to get to see what god had given them their blessing, as well as to see their inherent potential.
Naturally, it turns out that both Will and Levi had both gotten an [S]-rank potential and had been blessed by the fire god and water god respectively. In fact, all of my classmates had their potential and blessing revealed without any problems at all.
All except for me, the failure that was Aarick Laupier, the boy without a blessing, and as a result, the boy without potential.
Although everyone had the same starting point, no matter what potential, just being awakened would automatically make one's body into that of an F-rank, and although everyone's statuses were different, it turns out that it was still akin to the body of a god when comparing to an unawakened.
Which was an interesting fact for the professors to find out, as I was the only one in two hundred years to have not been blessed by one of the gods of the elements. So, for them, it was fortunate that in this day and age, I hadn't just gotten disposed of on the spot like the one before me.
Now, it was not enough for them to actually care about me, as it had only taken them about a week of research to find out that there was nothing special about my body. It was, in fact, just a body devoid of the blessings of the gods.
Yet, I continued to smile and laughed, something that I could now see had been the reason for my downfall. Because that smile and those laughs had been what made Levi want to be around me, with Leo being a plus one.
'Jealousy...'
Yes, I had lost my life due to pitiful jealousy from my classmates who hadn't been able to accept the fact that Levi didn't care about me being powerless and still wanted to be with me.
'-Don't you want to know the real reason as to why you had to die?'
'Hmm, not really. I'm assuming that it would be something like Leo was behind it all along anyway. It's not like it would be a surprise when thinking about the fact that he is infatuated with Levi. Still... Wait... Who are you?!'
It was impossible not to be surprised when hearing a voice talk to me when I should be dead, and even more surprising to hear it merely go on without caring about my response.
'-Hmm, you are quite smart for a kid, aren't you? I guess all those years of having to survive on your own weren't just a curse. Still, it's quite unfortunate that I only noticed you now. It was pure luck that I managed to latch on to your vessel before you perished.'
'...huh?'
'-Worry not, young man, I will not allow you to die like this! I have already started to inject my power into your vessel, and although it might take some time to reconstruct it, I will make sure that you survive this ordeal!'
Having no idea why the voice inside my head was so energetic and motivated all of a sudden, I felt myself growing more exhausted by the second.
'So, you are some kind of God who is about to bless me?'
It was the only explanation that I could come up with, as it was the only explanation that made any sense as long as one didn't think about the possibility of me having gone insane already. With that being said, while my non-existing head was weary, I also felt strangely excited about this whole thing.
Because I would finally get my own blessing from one of the elemental gods! Or so it should have been...
'-Umm... I guess you could say that? Sort of?'
For some reason, I could sense that he had noticed my excitement, and for an even stranger reason, this had somehow made him tip-toe around the subject, almost as if he didn't want to upset me.
'So... you are not a god?'
'-Well, yes and no. It depends, really. At some point, I was a god, but then some things happened and the old man wasn't too happy so he kind of... threw me down to hell?'
'...what?'
'Ah, but don't worry about it! My powers are still just as potent as they were when I held the official status of a god! And with me now manually injecting my powers into you, there is no doubt that your vessel shall carry great potential!'
From the books that I had read, and the religion classes in school, my head somehow started making sense of everything that was happening. And I didn't like it.
'So... are you...?'
Out of nowhere, the voice of the one I was speaking to changed into that of a woman's, almost as if she had given up hiding her identity.
'-Ah, yes. I'm Lucifer!'
'Fuck...'
'-What did you say?'
'Don't mind it. So, Lucifer, you are saying that you are going to not only save me but bless me as well? How is that going to work?'
'-I'm not sure if I'm allowed to call it a blessing after all that happened... but sure, let's go with that! About the saving you part, I'm already on it! So it should only take a couple of years before you are on your feet again!'
'Say what?'