'In years to come, I hope you'll think back to this moment and wonder in your heart: How did all of it begin? Hope is a fragile thing; it can be crushed with one action and destroy the work of countless things. This story is of someone's hope, a selfish hope, and the fate it has written to an entire universe…'
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Those were dark times for the people of Kerd-kol; the sky was black most of the days, and storms wreaked havoc all over the small country. The cold weather stopped anything from growing on the now all-white fields, covered by a not-so-thin layer of ice.
To add to the dreadful state, starved and bloody beasts roamed the dead forests, hunting the men who roamed the woods to get firewood for their freezing families.
It wasn't always like this; once, this freezing hell used to be sunny and warm. Klint could still remember how it was when he was a kid: how the land was once green and bright, and how, after a storm, a rainbow followed. But that was 10 years ago, and reality was different now.
Today, Klint 'celebrated' his 16th birthday and official adulthood, but this was no real celebration to him. He lost his father when the disaster first came ten years ago, and his mother fell sick shortly after, leaving him orphaned at the age of 14.
He had no family or pet, no girlfriend or any other close person; all he had was one grandpa he met shortly after his mother died while seeking shelter from the raging storm. But even Ben was at his deathbed now, being over seventy with no proper nutrition.
Klint felt sorry for him, sure, but after losing his mother, he blocked out most emotions. So now, losing another person wasn't as much of a mental shock to him as it was initially.
But Klint never pitied himself, neither had he wandered for his dark fate; death was no stranger to anybody in Kerd-Kol, and he was at least strong enough to sustain himself, unlike the many who died nameless at the side of the road, leaving their frozen bodies as if they were litter on the streets of the dying towns. Even rats couldn't feed on them as they all perished under this freezing hell…
And yet, even while not celebrating, this was still a very important day for Klint; today he could finally become a lumberjack! Lumberjacks were like heroes in Kerd-Kol, with constant cold weather and hundreds of thousands of people needing constant heat. Firewood became the most highly demanded material on the market. But with monstrous beasts infesting the woods, getting firewood was no easy task, and so, only a year after the start of the disaster, a new battling profession was introduced: the lumberjacks!
The lumberjacks, much like mercenaries, formed a guild, and their main task was wood gathering. The members would take tasks and search for different types and amounts of wood and get paid according to the wood quality, type, and amount.
Most members were former mercenaries and knights who lived all over Kerd-Kol, and some were just citizens who wanted to try their luck. But the death rate was too high, standing at the start at over 50 percent among mercs and over 80 percent among civilians.
The new conditions of fighting in a frosty environment with little to no food were harsh even to the most skilled warriors. Klint knew all of this and still chose this route; he, after all, had already lost it all and didn't have any more to lose.
So, over the last year, he joined the Gem city branch of the guild and trained nonstop, readying himself for his coming of age. The guild, after all, was established namely for a humanitarian cause, and so, it prepared children, but only adults were allowed to fight.
His departure was set for this afternoon; he got a relatively rank 1 mission of collecting wood of the more "common" kind. A type of wood called 'Wilt'; a wood that, although burned pretty easily, would also burn out pretty fast, making it relatively cheap—the kind of wood most commoners buy to pass the winter in a normal country.
In Kerd-Kol though, this wood was only fit for cooking; it was too short-lasting and would even last the night, making it really expensive for having to use a lot. It was better to just buy the slightly more 'Jix' wood but in smaller quantities, as it would last almost twice as much for the same amount.
Jix wood also had a calming effect when burning, making it the most popular firewood among the lower and middle class. But although Jix was relatively common, it was accompanied by a risk, as the woods it grew in had many strange beasts that roamed around the treetops waiting for their next unlucky prey.
Klint walked out of his small shack he lived in for half a year now. Back then, while he walked in a nearby alley, he noticed no smoke was coming out of the small crib's chimney, a very unusual sight in Kerd-Kol nowadays. Deciding to check on the residents, he knocked on the door thrice, and with a creak, it opened, apparently being unlocked.
This piqued his curiosity.And so, after searching the house, Klint found the presumed past owner frozen solid in his bed. He probably died in his sleep after the fire he lit died…
In the current state, no one would care nor would anyone notice if a person suddenly disappeared, and as such, Klint chose to do a little act of evil and bury the man, taking over his house as his own.
In these times, caring for oneself comes first and foremost. And he, Klint, had no place to live but at broken taverns or renting the occasional room from a poor family. This house solved a lot of his immediate problems, allowing him to save the occasional penny.
It was nearly 4 pm, but the sky outside was as dark as if it was night; light rain dropped over his head. 'A very good weather today,' he thought as he walked north along the white empty streets.
Snow and ice covered all buildings, and only the roads were cleaned once a day by the Ice cleaners; this was one of the most common jobs in Kerd-Kol currently. The workers would each get a bottle filled with saltwater and a shovel; they would spend all the not 'very' stormy days cleaning the ever-piling ice and snow covering the streets.
Along the road, Kling saw little to no people at all, with only some man rushing from or to work in large heavy coats and boots. Unlike them, in his training, he had to get used to the cold and temperature. As such, this light rain was nothing to him as he was only wearing a black jacket, a long-sleeved black shirt, and a long pair of black leather pants, all fitting to his body almost perfectly to not restrict his movement.
The leather came from a special and rare beast named 'Black-lion-wolf." This nocturnal beast hunts in packs of up to five and was a known 'must escape' type of beast amongst the lumberjacks. Its fur, which was dark black and couldn't be seen at all at night, added to its supernatural speed. It was almost a sure death to meet one of them, let alone five. The Black-lion-wolf fur was actually something he got from Ben about a year ago, though the old man refused to share its origins, claiming it just fell into his yard…
It wasn't long before Klint reached the city gate of Gem City; here, unlike the rest of the city, the place was occupied most of the time by merchants, around-the-clock ice cleaners, guards, commoners who were buying the goods brought by the merchants, and of course, coming-and-going lumberjacks who left the city on missions, mostly returning while dragging several long logs tied to their backs or carrying a chest the size of a backpack.
This was something called a space-bag; it was a very rare, very expensive item that had the ability to contain any non-living material in a certain scale. This item would cost more the more space it contained, with the space capacity inside reaching up to even hundreds of meters. It was unknown to Klint how they came to be or how large the space inside could actually be, but he couldn't care less as he couldn't buy even the smallest one out there.
He would very much rather deal with the today rather than the future. He always believed that hope was but a heavy rock that weighs you down; only goals and actions were true to him. Walking through the city's metal gate, he could see a group of four lumberjacks approaching, their average age about 30 and all taller than him by a head or so, being around 2 meters tall.
They all wore leather armor and had weapons strapped to their backs; two were carrying heavy swords, one was carrying a crossbow, and the last just had two knives as well as a box attached to his back. Klint instantly recognized it as a space-bag, meaning those lumberjacks were quite successful, at least rank 4.
They just passed by him, not giving him a second glance, but even so, Klint was still left in awe. The guy with the two knives on his back who just passed by him made no sound at all; he was clearly the youngest of the bunch, looking only around twenty-five or six years old. But Klint couldn't help this feeling that he was the strongest amongst them or, at the very least, the most dangerous.
One had to know that during his training, Klint was taught and guided to develop super senses, making his hearing, sight, and scent several times more powerful than any normal human. Using special drugs that blocked all senses but one at the time, the Lumberjacks' trainees were taught how to fight even with only one sense still functioning.
And even with his strengthened senses, the knives-carrying man left no trace at all; this was a level Klint had never seen before and something only an extremely talented and skilled assassin could do.
Looking at the man's back, Klint felt a slight admiration, not for his ability, no. But for the work this man must have put into becoming so strong. Taking one last glance, Klint turned around and continued walking on the snow-white road, on his belt hung two knives and a large leather bag on his back, his eyes scanning the endless white forest that stretched into the distance, wondering what this journey held for him…