It was almost dark by the time Jake returned home.
"I am home", he shouted as he opened the doors and entered the hall but there was no one to greet him. It was the same for the past two years.
Jake never knew much about his parents. He only remembers tidbits about his mother. He remembers even less of his father. There wasn't much to remember for as they died when he was not even four.
His parents were quite the hunters and did a good job. They earned a good amount of money with which they bought a house, in which Jake currently resides.
After their death, the only person who stood by Jake and took care of him was an old servant of the house. He too succumbed to death due to old age two years ago.
Since then, he has been living alone in the house. There were relatives from his father's and mother's sides who used to mingle with his family. He remembered that there were kids of his age from his uncle and aunts.
Once his parents died they didn't even visit him once. From what the old servant told him, his parents were both S-Class adventurers and the sole reason why his relatives gave a bother. They visited to get favors.
Even though his parents knew about the intentions, they helped them whenever possible. The reason is simple. When the adults visited them at the house, so did the young. His parents wanted him to have good friends in the young generation and wanted it to be genuine.
It seemed to be working at first but when they died it all went down the drain.
Those vultures can't gain anything from a child. Even when they tried to use "adoption" as a ruse to take over the house and the wealth accumulated by Jake's dead parents, the old caretaker intervened.
The officials also sided with the old caretaker as Jake's parents had already prepared a will and named Joseph, the old caretaker as Jake's guardian and manager of the assets left behind until Jake reached sixteen.
When the old caretaker felt that he was reaching his limit, he transferred all assets to Jake's custody, so that those vultures couldn't try to take advantage of his death.
It came true. When Joseph's life ended, those vultures came to prey on the dead but it ended in vain. He already made sure that no one could touch the remaining assets, which had already decreased as there was no income earner for a decade by that time.
When Joseph died, Jake got hold of a few things from his parents. It was then he learned that his parents actually died because they were stabbed in the back, not accidental deaths or anything like that.
Jake's parents before they had him, got hold of a treasure. Something they never shared details about with another soul except for Joseph.
This treasure is a book, they named it 'Memory Book' as it stores the memories of the one it binds to. It has two hundred pages, each page dedicated to a certain user who used it before. It is a treasure, not some normal book. Each page can save the memories of the person and the person can control what memories are to be saved and who can see them.
The previous owners didn't put restrictions as the book stayed in their family for generations, until Jake's parents. The book was meant to be a guide for the young.
The ancient family, stored memories of various achievers who are important. These acted as a guide for the next generations. The family died when their civilization came to an end and the treasure ended up in ruins.
Using the memories, Jake's parents found another treasure. They could have found many but didn't as time changed, so did their surroundings. Not all ruins belonging to that civilization ended up in the same place, they had to visit a lot of ruins to get their hands on it.
Though there was mention of this particular treasure, there were no memories of how to use it. So they could only store it but there came a problem. One of their close friends came along on this adventure as they needed an extra set of hands.
However, it was decided that they would get the main treasure and he could have dibs on anything else. On top of that, he was paid handsomely.
It changed when he got his eyes on the treasure. At first, he asked if they knew about it but they didn't as they only knew about its existence from the book. So they said they found some writings in a ruin describing this location but nothing about it.
When he heard that he became a bit ecstatic and asked about the ruins, they told him about the ruins. They were not afraid that he would find anything about the ruins. From the memories they read, the book was kept a secret even in the family. They never wrote anything down about it.
After learning that he collected what he wanted and so did his parents. As they were about to exit, their friend stabbed them in the back, without giving them time to retaliate. As they fell with energy drained, they regretted bringing this backstabbing bastard with them and how they couldn't be with their son any longer.
Their friend took the space ring and pulled out the treasure they found. It looked like a dodecahedron with a runic symbol inscribed on each side. A total of twelve symbols, with eleven in pale white and one in pale gold.
His smile widened when he saw it and he started to laugh maniacally. He dragged them deep into the ruins, so the monsters would clean them, leaving no evidence behind. He even boasted that he would become so powerful.
As he started to divulge in his own vanity, he slipped that he had something like this one but a different rune in pale gold and the other eleven in pale white. When he found that he didn't know how to use it but now he had an idea.
He theorized that there are twelve such objects, each with one rune in pale gold which differed from the others. He understood that he had to collect all twelve to solve the mystery and now thanks to them he could.
Any treasure that came as a set would be mighty. With twelve pieces, whatever the set is, it will be one hell of a powerful item.
He spoke about his grandeur without knowing that it was being recorded by the 'Memory Book' which was safely located back at the house. It doesn't need to be carried along. Once bonded it would record whenever the user wanted to.
Jake's parents wanted to record their adventures, just in case they failed to return. They wanted Jake to have memories to remember them.
The 'friend' dragged the almost dead bodies away, who were yet to die but he didn't care. They are at their death beds but he wanted to brag but didn't want the secrets to leak out. So he did brag to the dying 'friends'.
He took out the object once again but the object suddenly glowed. The golden light lit up blinding him. When he could see again, it was nowhere to be seen.
He wanted to know what happened but there was not a living soul there to answer anymore. Jake's parents passed away when he got blinded and he has no one to get the answers from.
At first, he believed that they transported it to a safe place, their home in the city. So he acted his part as the one who lost his friends. He attended the funeral and acted kindly to the orphaned boy.
When the relatives tried to take over, he helped Joseph a bit. When it was done, he made sure to check if the object appeared but couldn't find anything.
He even checked the unofficial storage of the family. Joseph who believed that he was a true friend, actually helped him. The ruse the friend used is the relatives might know about them and could steal, so they are all transferred to a banking storage and this is when he got to see the entire inventory.
He got bupkiss. He acted as a friend for some time, to see if the old man was hiding. After some time he lost interest in the family.
He came to a new realization. The treasures that are found in the ruins come with certain weird restrictions.
The restriction might have been activated because of the bloodshed. Yes, there are ruins that had rules that blood can't be spilled or some which required spilling a lot of blood.
It may be the reason why it disappeared. He needs to look for it. Though he lost some time, he now knew that he shouldn't act before knowing everything. The hunt for the remaining eleven started.
The object disappeared and the only one who knew about it was Jake.
It disappeared and entered Jake's body, where it remained dormant until he learned about his parent's death.
That was the day it began. The Journey of the famous hunter the world had yet to see, the Hunter of Artemis.