That day, everything began...
Returning from school, I would observe the less fortunate children, some orphans, others poor, maybe both.
I always compared them to myself, initially unconsciously, but it gradually turned into something worse. I began to despise them, refusing to talk to them, approach them, or even let them walk near me.
As someone who had awakened, bullying those around me was easy, and even my teachers did little to correct my arrogance. I don't know how I ended up with that mindset; I wasn't noble or rich, just exceedingly arrogant.
This arrogance slowly grew after everyone around me praised me for awakening before the age of ten.
I even had a legacy skill, but due to its humiliating nature, I kept it a secret, not even telling my family. My excessive arrogance destroyed my character and soon my wonderful life, without me even noticing.
It was unexpected when my father lost his job as a worker for the StarHold family, and since my mother was not working, our situation deteriorated rapidly.
He never told us why he lost his job, but it became clear he had unintentionally offended someone important, as all offices and fields rejected him. Despite his high-level university degree and being an awakened with decent power, no place would hire him.
As an arrogant boy, I couldn't accept that.
I hated becoming what I despised, I was extremely childish.
But being only 12 years old at the time, I didn't know right from wrong and fell victim to a devilish temptation. I started skipping school without my parents' knowledge and working at a grocery store far away to earn money.
I childishly thought I could help with our financial situation with the meager salary I earned as a minor.
Since that neighborhood wasn't known for its safety or high living standards, it wasn't difficult to find a job as a 12-year-old.
This went on for several weeks; I was responsible for arranging shelves, cold items, and continuously cleaning the place.
I often noticed strange things about the store owner while working. He was a middle-aged man with a well-groomed beard and clean clothes. He was very respectable and never seemed like someone who worked at a grocery store. What made me more suspicious was seeing him hand over mysterious bags to customers.
Curiosity got the better of me one day. The store owner went to the bathroom for a few minutes, and I took the opportunity to check where he was dealing with customers.
I noticed he was taking those strange bags from under the counter. I grabbed one of these bags and examined its contents.
It was a brown paper bag, and inside was a familiar shape; it was clearly a grenade.
In great fear, I returned the bomb to its place and decided that would be my last day at the grocery store. I was a child but not stupid; I knew the danger of getting involved in such matters.
Unfortunately for me, the store owner had been standing behind me the entire time and saw everything I did. He threatened me a lot that day and eventually forced me to do something I couldn't have imagined.
He was an awakened at rank C- already, much stronger than me. He said he would cause a massacre with my family if I didn't do what he said. He gave me the bomb I had just held and the address of a house not far away.
I don't know how he got that information, but he knew about me being a talented awakened, especially in stealth and precise strikes.
That night, a powerful bomb exploded in a secluded house, causing a fire that killed everyone inside.
What the police knew and reported in the news was that a fire broke out for an unknown reason, and the bomber was never found.
Since there was no surveillance in that area, no cameras caught me near the house just seconds before the explosion. Of course, the store owner had filmed me while I did it, and that was my first step into a world I didn't want to be part of but was forced into.
Due to city laws, I would have been acquitted even if the store owner published that footage since I was forced, and I was a child. But I didn't want my father to know about it, so I continued working for that man against my will.
To my shock, when I returned to the store the next day, I was given an amount of money equivalent to a month's worth of my usual earnings.
The store owner said, "This is the commission for the task you completed. You can tell me anytime if you want to do it again," and laughed disgustingly.
I had several sleepless nights and went back to ask for another task before I realized what I was doing.
He gave me an easy theft task. I broke into a house at midnight and stole several pounds of white powder I knew nothing about at the time. With a doubled amount of money, I felt addicted.
Then again... and again... and again...
A month had passed since I started taking tasks from the store owner. I began to call him the intermediary.
I didn't realize it at the time, but he was tricking me like a mouse.
He started with easy tasks, ones that didn't make me feel much guilt (excluding the first one). Gradually, he made them worse and worse morally, making me descend quickly and cleverly, giving me morally questionable tasks without making me feel like a criminal.
One day, my father visited my school after receiving a call from the principal about my continuous absenteeism. My parents were shocked because I had been an obedient boy just a month ago, and I suddenly started skipping school.
They thought I had started hanging out with bad friends to play around, and I went along with it. My father began driving me to and from school himself after a severe scolding, and my mother ensured I didn't go out for the rest of the day.
After taking a break for about a week and a half, I started to realize what I was doing and decided to stop immediately. I had already saved a considerable amount of money, enough for us to move back to our old home for a long time, and my father could manage by then.
That night, my father ordered food from outside after receiving a donation from an unknown association.
It was me; I left a package full of money with a letter at the door. My father was suspicious, of course, but he didn't refuse it. When the food arrived, the delivery man knocked on the door, and I went to open it myself.
I was shocked; the person who brought the food was the intermediary, and a small blood-covered dagger protruded from his pants.
He handed me the food without any problems and left, fortunately, but he delivered a bloody message at the same time.
Leaving the work or continuing it wasn't a decision of mine...