Sprawled over the forest, Loren numbly stared into the sky, his red eyes now without their lustre, his soulless face not too dissimilar to how it was in his previous life as a living corpse. A bore hesitantly approached and nudged his side to check if he had died, still slightly frightened at his previous outburst. He grabbed the bore's head and pushed it away.
"Stop, stop, I'm not dead yet you can't eat me yet."
His voice was robotic, he was still wondering why he had to have the abysmal luck of getting the possibly the worst part of the now divided system.
"Ha ha... A system guide... For a system I don't have... Ha... Ha..."
Swaying left to right, Loren's aura utterly radiated depression and insanity. His creepy laughing made the bore slowly back away with a mixture of fear and repulsion.
"Is this a joke? It must be, It's pretty funny, that stupid Goddess has a good sense of humour. Yeah, let's give the guy who was useless in his last life the part of the system that is just as useless... Hahaha, I'm starting to find how fitting it is, hehe... FITTING MY ASS!!!"
Loren couldn't even think at the moment, his brain was failing to function as he stared at the still screen that displayed the words succinctly describing how screwed he was [The Host Has Received The System Guide]. A calamity would inevitably fall upon the world and he was sent here with a tool that could only describe to him how 4 other people were set for life while he was given nothing, absolutely zilch.
"Why are you still here taunting me? System f**king CLOSE!"
The blue window of suffering finally closed. Loren covered his face with his hands, wanting to scream his lungs out. He looked around and noticed he'd been drowning in his sorrow for a good while now and that the sun had begun to set.
"Whatever, at least 90% of my body isn't paralyzed anymore, right? I should head home now."
Trying, and failing, to console himself, Loren began to stand up and wipe the dirt off his clothes. On his trek back to Rito, he looked like an undead, step after step he felt worse and worse. His sword was dragging on the ground, leaving a small trail behind him.
'What am I going to do? The idiot didn't even tell me what the calamity is or even when it's happening, sigh...'
He tried to formulate a few ideas on how to prepare for the inevitable, he'd always been active since he was little so at the very least he was fit for his age, the town guards also taught him a little swordsmanship so he knew the bare, bare basics. None of that let him ignore reality though, he was a commoner with no opportunities to learn mana techniques, and being the strongest kid in a small town on the outskirts of Belmond meant jack.
***
Arriving at the town, he shuffled over to his home, every person he passed wondered why the boy who was always filled with energy looked like his entire life was over. Some even tried to ask Loren what was wrong, but he didn't notice them, too caught up in his thoughts. He didn't directly go home but instead made a stop at the town's church to spit on the Goddess statue, his sorry state did not stop him from taking some petty revenge.
"Oi! Loren you brat! What do you think you're doing!" He ignored the town priest, James, as he scolded him, earning himself a good beating.
'Ugh... Worth it...'
Now with a fresh swollen cheek, Loren made his way home. His home was a simple one, with one large room containing a kitchen and dining table, as well as 2 small rooms for his parent and himself. Annexed to the house was a tiny building that served as their bathroom and connected to it was a pen that had one cow for milk and 2 chickens for eggs. It didn't seem like much but those additions to the home meant that Loren's family was fairly well off for commoners. Hell, even that fact he had a room to himself was something most kids in the town didn't have. Knowing that made Loren feel better about his situation, albeit slightly.
Opening the door, the smell of his mother's beef stew wafted into his nose making his stomach growl, only then did he realize that he'd eaten none of his precious biscuits, making them probably stale at this point. Reana, his mother, immediately noticed his swollen cheek and dejected demeanour, her ruby eyes widened in surprise.
"My lord! Loren, what happened dear?!"
She immediately went over and pulled Loren close to check his bruise in worry.
"I may have angered Priest James slightly, it was his fault though..."
'For believing in such a dumb, dumb goddess.'
"Now what did you do now Loren? Sigh... I can't eyes off you for a second can I?"
Loren's father, Riot, scratched his head, he was used to Loren's antics by now. An incident like this was starting to become common, too common if you asked him, Loren's hyperactive actions usually ended with him on the end of beatings by the adults in the town, so a swollen cheek was almost a bi-weekly event in their household. Though, Riot still took notice of Loren's soulless eyes, making the stern father worried.
By the way, yes, his parents were named Reana Rito and Riot Rito, Loren suspected his grandparents had hated their children. Maybe their names were even the reason they got together.
"Your cheek aside though Loren... Are you ok? You seem pretty down."
Loren lifted his and stared into his father's eyes while his mother began to apply some herbs to his cheek.
"Nothing Dad, it's just I've realized that to live is to suffer, and trying to escape said suffering is a pointless endeavor."
Riot's mouth twitched, not sure what to say.
"Well, I don't know what happened, but it's nothing your mother's beef stew won't fix. Come on, it's your favourite."
"Sigh... I am really hungry, ok."
Pushing away his depressive state, Loren walked to the table and sat down. 4 bowls of stew were on the table, one each for Reana and Riot and 2 bowls for Loren, the child was pretty voracious. Only now did Loren realize his large appetite probably came from his past life, while he didn't have his memories for the first part of his childhood, he still had his instincts and personality, once he finally had food that wasn't from a tube in the first time in years he simply couldn't stop. This was a big factor in why Loren was as fit as he was, he made sure to devour every nutrient that came his way.
After Loren wolfed down his food he waited for his parents to finish and the family started to pray to the Goddess. This made Loren flinch, after all, they were praying to Loren's new arch-enemy. He made sure to prefix every mention of the Goddess in his head with the words 'dumbass', 'stupid', and 'idiot'. Was he being petty? Yes, Loren knew that, it didn't make him less angry though.
Going to his room, after telling his worried parent he was fine saying he was just tired from sword practice, Loren fell onto his bed, still utterly pissed about his situation.
'5-star draw my ass'
Shaking his head, Loren decided it was time to summon the system guide, it had to have something of use to him after all, he couldn't sit dejected without knowing the full scope of what the idiot Goddess had given.
"System open." He said the same word as he did earlier that day but with much less enthusiasm.
As the system opened Loren saw 5 tabs on the screen, 4 of which were grayed out, giving him another psychic attack to his chest. He pressed on the smallest tab, the most insignificant, that read out [System Guide].
With a bright light, a small blue summoning circle appeared, slowly rotating as from it a small woman materialized out of thin air. She was gorgeous, her long blonde hair flowed loosely behind her back and her clear blue eyes were like stars plucked from the sky. She had a mature serene bearing to her, smiling as 2 pure white wings spread behind her back. Normally Loren would find her quite attractive, but she looked almost identical to Salferia, which gave her -1 million points in his book.
Despite her calm demeanour, the system guide was very excited, she had been chosen by the Goddess herself to be the one to guide the hero on their journey. She was an angel from heaven who had spent most of her existence doing only mundane desk work so when she discovered the Goddess of light had picked her to be the system guide she was ecstatic, even studying every nook and cranny of the system to assist the hero as much as possible. She was sure she would do just as well, if not better than her predecessors, after all, she was moulded in the image of Salferia herself, so it was impossible for her not to appease the hero.
Readying herself with a deep breath, she prepared to give the speech she'd written and memorized word by word.
"Thank you for summoning me hero, my name is Salrie and I have been chosen by benevolent Goddess Salferia to aid you in your que-"
When Salrie looked at the hero she would be aiding, she did not find the pleasant expression of a gallant hero she had expected, instead, she found a young child staring at her in disgust, as though he found a bug crawling into his soup.
"Salrie huh? You guys sure do love 'Sal' don't you? Salferia, Saltera and now Salrie huh? Ever thought of being original?"
"...W-What?"