Lucas POV
I stood outside the awakening center and observed my surroundings.
The cool evening autumn wind billowed on my face. The sky was enveloped with a starless , moonless sky...
As usual, the environs were brimming with people even at this time of the day. It was currently 12 midnight, yet it looked as if the day had just begun.
Romeos and Juliets held hands and chuckled as they scurried about without any care for any other party. Various cliques had gathered, engaged in conversations of different kinds. Other individuals maneuvered their way towards the awakening center of the academy for their own personal reasons.
In a world where awakened thrived, it was pretty much normal that quite a number of people would be awake, even at midnight. This was because the stronger an awakened was, the less sleep one would need, since the body could handle various stresses very well. That did not exclude the fact that quite a number of highly ranked awakened still preferred to sleep for the sake of leisure.
Of course, a meager E rank awakened like myself needed all the sleep I could get, so without a moment's notice, I had decided to head to my apart, but before that, I had one more unfinished business to tackle.
You see, when I held up Carl's chin during my encounter with him a few moments ago, I placed a tracking patch on him. Although a tracking patch was quite expensive, with a single one costing a 1 million student credits, for someone with over slightly 10 million student credits in my student credit account, purchasing something like that from one of the online shops of the academy was not a problem.... This tracking patch was transparent and upon contact with the target's skin, no sensation of contact would be felt by the targeted individual...
Oh and I forgot to mention one feature of my upgraded ID slot that I discovered, I no longer had to visit shops to make purchases of of skills and artefacts. They would quickly be delivered into my WHA account inbox on the dot.
For artefacts, all I needed to do was simply select them from the inbox and the selected item would physically appear before. However, if I wanted to unequip the artifact into the inbox of the WHA account again, it was not possible. In simple terms, the WHA inbox was just serving as a delivery system, not a storage item for artefacts. Pretty cool right?... The technology behind this was simply logic defying...
Yeah, I used to be an engineering student, but I was yet to learn about the technology behind such an occurrence so do not ask me to explain. I thought you are not a fan of info dumps and all... anyway... sorry I got carried away again ... what was I saying again...
Aha... ahem... as I was saying, I placed the tracking device on Carl because I was certain he was a sociopath, and there was a greater possibility of him getting worse rather than turn on a new leaf... I decided to track him for a few hours to see what he would be up to... If he tried to harm anyone innocent, I would put an end to him for good.
Yawning for a few seconds, with my hoodie hiding my face, I opened the city map, and headed to his current location.
'''''''
Amanda lay on the ground sobbing continually.
The crowd gathered in front of the virtual reality tower chattered amongst themselves.
''Hey is that not Amanda Cane?''
''Is it not obvious ?... of course it's her''
''Oh then that explains why she is crying... she is definitely feeling extremely terrible after everything that has ensued between her and the Sword Blade's disciple''
''What do you mean...oh... yeah... It's really a big slap in her face after she dumped him a few days ago only for him to turn into a big shot... hehehe... I really feel bad for her''
''Why would you feel bad for her?... A few days ago , she poured a cup of noodles on Lucas at the cafeteria of the third years , then dumped him right after that, saying that he was a wastrel who was not befitting of her''
''Yeah, I heard about that ... there was even a video of that event circulating on the campus forums... What a gold digger... Now that he is a big shot, she wants to have him back?... It serves her right...''
'' I really like the way he ignored her, to the point of feigning ignorance about her identity...''
Chatter... chatter... chatter...
Amanda heard everything they were saying about her, but what could she do?... It was too late for her... She stared blankly at the ground, then muttered agonizingly to herself.... ''Lucas, I do not blame you for how you treated me, after all, I am the one who made the biggest mistake of my life... the question is, how am I supposed to live with myself, knowing that until a few days ago, you were willing to do anything for me... but now, you will forever be out of my reach, out of my league, and to you, I am probably a dead person''...
Little did Lucas or Amanda know, that the encounter between them was recorded by someone and posted on the student forums.
'''''
In the cold billowing wind of the autumn dawn around 2 am, a buffed up young man with blonde hair sat on a bench at an empty, eerily silent park in Oslon City. His gaze seemed to be directed at nothing in particular, except that it looked as though he was glaring endlessly into the void.
Carl felt humiliated. The fact that he was shaking a few hours prior, was subjected to humiliation and weeping at the mere presence of Lucas Grimstone sickened him.
The worst part of the situation was that he had actually waned concerning the acts he performed in the past prior to the encounter with Lucas a few hours ago.
Carl growled in anger.
''To think that I was actually considering turning over a new leaf, to become what.. a saint?... some loser... I guess my fear of the fact that maybe he had it in him to end my life made me think that eliminating all those weaklings who reminded me of my pathetic past was the wrong decision to make . How pathetic of me to have thought that. The feeling of getting rid of those scum of weaklings, the way they begged for mercy, made me feel like a god... there is no way I can get used to it, I want to enjoy that feeling more... How dare he try to teach me a lesson!''
Crack!!
Before Carl knew it, a part of the bench had snapped under the weight of the exertion of his physical strength.
''You alright there mate?'' An unfamiliar young male voice reached Carl's ears.
Carl glared angrily at the young man who was approaching him.
''Fisk, I don't think it's safe to approach him... Some of these awakened people are dangerous'' Fisk's female counterpart berated him with a tone of nervousness as she hid behind him.
''It's alright, just trying to be a good Samaritan here...Although we are both non awakened, I don't think he will harm us...''
Before Fisk finished speaking, a blow landed on his abdomen, causing him to spit out large amounts of blood.
'' You weaklings must die... You weaklings must die... You weaklings must die...'' Carl muttered to himself incessantly, as he glared at the young woman, who shrieked in terror and took a few steps back.
Carl grinned, about to launch another assault on Fisk, when...
swoosh!!!.... a blue bullet of flame landed on his eyes , causing him to shriek in pain t
'''''
Lucas' POV.
I launched consecutive flame bullets into Carl's eyes before he even had the chance to react. In case he could protect himself against my flame skills with his skin hardening skill, his eyes would be his only weak spot
I saw him lying on the ground squirming and wriggling like a worm... as his eye sockets were now empty.
''They must die... they must die... they must die'' He muttered to himself crazily even his pain. At this point, the flames had probably spread to the inward parts of his head, as his yells increased.
I watched him squirm for a few seconds, then his head shriveled and reduced to a husk, his body, lifeless.
I glanced at the lady who in shock, shivered in fear, and the gentleman who lay on the ground breathing heavily and exonerating large amounts of blood.
'' Be careful when outside and mind your own business... , don't be naïve, trying to play goody two shoes all the time might land you into serious trouble and even cost your life. Take him to the nearest healing center before he reaches the final stages of hemorrhagic shock.''. She nodded quickly, then with me helping the injured gentleman up, she ordered a commercial hover vehicle.
In a few seconds, the hover car appeared. The lady thanked me and sped off in the hover vehicle with her counterpart.
It was after they left that I glanced at the corpse laying at my feet, and then it occurred to me... Taking the life of someone, even if they were scum who were not needed in the world anymore, because they posed greater harm to others if left alive, felt seriously bad...
However I calmed myself down quickly...I did what had to be done...
I knew how this world worked... If Carl had managed to kill these two non awakened individuals, their deaths would only be investigated if they had some big shot backing or were from some prominent family... If they were nobodies, well, the issue would have just been brushed under the carpet.. And the perpetrator would have gotten away with it... This was how this world worked... The strong made the rules...the weak struggled.....
And then it happened...if I had a diary, I would have definitely written it down... the worst vomit of my life ... that's right... I vomited... although I knew that in the world of an awakened, eliminating someone for the greater good was something that was bound to happen, it still felt nauseating...
''Crap...that was a long vomit.. at least the world is better off without him... I should obtain his skills and affinity, then burn his corpse'' I sighed...as I proceeded to touch his head with my right hand.