Arthur awoke early to a ray of light streaming through the windows of his room, accompanied by the pleasant chirping of birds.
He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds before pulling back his blankets, revealing his naked body and well-built muscles.
The room was small and the bed was barely big enough for him to fit in alone, but still, this night was extremely comfortable and filled with fatigue, he slept without even paying attention to what little comfort the hard, aged mattress offered him.
Getting up and sitting on the bed, Arthur looked down at his hands as a flood of memories that had been suppressed by exhaustion returned to his mind.
Arthur placed his left thumb on the palm of his right hand before pressing down. The sound of breaking bones echoed through the room as his finger sank into the flesh of his hand, tearing through his flesh and ripping through his bones and tendons until it broke through the other side of his hand.
Blood splattered on the floor and on his face as Arthur withdrew his finger, leaving a bloody hole in his hand.
But still the young man did not react, not because he did not feel the pain, but simply because the pain did not affect him anymore. It was deep and excruciating, but not enough.
It wasn't as much as he felt when his flesh was torn apart for months and all he could do was fight to regenerate and stay alive.
And it wasn't as much as he felt when Gabriel's light melted his skin and burned his flesh.
In the face of all that, the pain of the bleeding hole in his hand was insignificant.
The truth was that his soul was intact and so was his body, but the memory was still there, the pain still haunted his mind and somehow numbed his senses.
Clenching his fists, all the spilled blood floated towards him and the hole closed, the tendons, bones, skin and flesh rebuilt in an instant to the point where not a single scar remained.
Rising from his bed, Arthur waved in the air and a change of old, simple clothes appeared in his hands.
It was a brown leather pantsuit that fit his skin perfectly, and a greenish shirt with short sleeves.
After dressing, he walked to the half-open window of his room and closed it before expanding his mana senses, scanning everything and feeling every inch of every living thing around his house.
Finally sure he was alone, Arthur sat on his bed, his mind sinking into his space ring as he searched for the mysterious metal box.
Waving it in the air, a faint glow illuminated the room and soon the metal box appeared in his hands.
It was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, it was engraved with runes that Arthur could not recognize, and had a small deformation at the top that looked like a lever.
Placing his hand on the small deformity, Arthur pulled, and a small crack rang through the room as the four corners of the box separated, releasing an icy white mist from inside.
Arthur watched with interest as the box opened completely in his hand, revealing a small object as the metal walls dissolved into thin air.
It was a necklace with a thin silver chain and a single reddish transparent pendant that seemed to imitate some kind of bottle with a small opening at the top.
"Hm..." Arthur grabbed the necklace by its chains and studied it carefully, hoping that the system would send him a warning and explain what this accessory was.
[Item: Blood Moon Necklace
Description: A legendary necklace coveted by countless hemomancers, its legends have been lost to time and its existence is even questioned by many adepts of the art of hemomancy.
Type: Accessory
Passive effect: Allows the blood of its victims to be stored in a magical power that scales with the power and bloodline of the victim.
Active effect: Allows both the release of all stored power in a deadly explosion of blood and the gradual release of that power according to the user's needs.
Rarity: Legendary
Storage Capacity: 0/50]
Arthur's eyes lit up when he saw these statistics. The need for fresh blood to regenerate had always bothered him. It only took one enemy to kill him before he could react for him to be a dead man.
He could even use his own blood to regenerate, but it was extremely limited and only helped with minor injuries.
With this accessory, that problem would no longer exist as long as he could store blood, or so Arthur thought, the truth was that he still couldn't be sure if what was stored in this necklace could be used for such purposes or not.
After fitting the necklace and making sure the pendant was under his shirt, Arthur washed his face before leaving the house.
The moment he opened the door, he was greeted by cloudy and slightly stormy weather, but that didn't stop a group of children from happily playing in the muddy streets.
Arthur smiled at the sight of the children running around, getting dirty and shouting happily as they seemed to form a circle and throw a yellowish ball at each other while a child in the center of the circle tried to catch the ball.
It brought back many sweet memories of his childhood; when his mother wasn't looking, he used to play in the mud with his siblings, getting completely dirty and getting beaten up by his mother when they came home.
They always got beaten up, but they never stopped playing in the mud, they never stopped being stupid and stubborn...
Ah... I wonder how they are... Arthur closed his eyes and concentrated on the cries of the playing children, the birds singing in the sky, and the soft, icy breeze caressing his skin.
Then his heart was filled with melancholy, longing and the pure smile that once adorned his face... He resented his family, he didn't deny it. But not his brothers and sisters, not even his mother. After all, it was his fault and they were not to blame.
"Sir, are you all right?" Suddenly, the noise of children playing stopped and Arthur heard a child's voice.
Opening his eyes, Arthur found the eyes of all the children on him, and a little boy with short hair just in front of the group.
"It's nothing, I'm fine." Arthur smiled, trying to put as much kindness as possible on his bitter face.
"Ah..." The little boy hesitated for a few seconds and shivered before speaking, "I heard you were in the old warrior's mercenary group..."
"Conrad?"
"Yes." The boy nodded in confirmation. "Is it true what the men who came before you said? That a fearsome masked man killed most of the group... What did he look like?" The little boy loosened his tongue a little as he noticed the gentle, slightly friendly smile on Arthur's face.
"Nico!!! What did I tell you about talking to strangers!" A shrill scream sounded before Arthur could answer. It was a woman in her late thirties, she had a simple appearance, wearing reddish plebeian clothes and a simple looking veil covering her hair.
"But Mom..." Nico tried to protest, but was cut off by his mother as all the other children scattered and ran away from the angry woman.
"But Mom, nothing! Go home now and don't bother the young man!" The woman shouted again as she grabbed the boy by the shoulder and forced him toward her house.
Without resisting any longer, the boy just walked with his head down, taking one last look at Arthur before heading to his house, which was right in front of Arthur's.
"I'm sorry about him, sir, he still doesn't know how to respect his seniors," the woman apologized politely.
"It's all right, they weren't being disrespectful," Arthur said, and at that moment his eyes fell on a basket full of pieces of pies that the woman was carrying in her arms, and his stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten dinner before going to bed, and hadn't even eaten breakfast.
"Where can I buy some?" Arthur asked, pointing to the basket.
"Oh... I sell them myself, they're five bronze coins each." The woman smiled and brought the basket closer to Arthur so he could have a closer look.
"Right... I'll take four." Arthur said as he reached into his pockets and pulled out a handful of bronze coins.
"One second!" The woman used one hand to hold the basket and the other to take out a small bag that seemed to be made of leaves from some kind of tree.
"Thank you very much!" Arthur thanked her before taking the cakes and turning away, preparing to walk around and explore the town a bit more, looking for the barracks.