"I think that they're necessary, this is a new world after all. If we aren't willing to explore it then we can't make the most of it." August almost spat out, as much as he likes to trek the truth, this one stung a bit.
Alia just nodded slowly and focused her attention back on her food and the training guards.
"Is there a reason you asked?" He proceeded.
"No."
Her response was short, but August got much more out of it than face value would lead one to assume. Before he could comment on it, he was interrupted by a sudden call from the ramparts.
"The aspirants of Hydra are returning! The gates are opening!"
Suddenly, the cacophony of noises came to a halt, guards sheathed and stored their weapons and headed for the fortress gates. Alia and August followed far behind, going to see what the fuss was all about.
'Just when I thought I'd had a bad enough day.'
They of course knew who the aspirants of Hydra were, they were the six aspirants of Adamas, famous throughout the free cities.
The city had many relatively powerful people, but only these six were capable of venturing the far reaches of the continent alone – as close as one could safely get to them of course. Each of them was relatively famous in their own right, holding immense prestige.
In fact, August had heard quite a few people remark on how much less safe the city was without them. If the rumors were to be believed that these individuals were more akin to small disasters than human beings, though, August wasn't one to believe in rumors.
Being cautious though, that one was something he could get used to.
He and Alia emerged from the fortress, walking side by side down the steep roads, conversing as they walked.
"What do you think they're like?" Alia asked, her eyes still occasionally staring to the sky far above the outer walls.
"Really charismatic apparently." He gestured to the swathes of people that followed and led them.
The redhead sighed whilst shaking her head, then handed him the empty lunchbox he had given her, which he quickly stored away.
As they traversed the cobblestone roads, avoiding clusters of people who did not wish to move. August thought about the aspirants, specifically what they had done.
According to word of mouth, they were quite accomplished and powerful, saving multiple of the outer districts from beast hordes along with other groups of aspirants.
In one particular instance, they had seemingly defeated their namesake in a battle, though faking to kill the creature. It had been in the wilderness though, so the name 'Aspirants of Hydra' seemed to refer more to their will to find and kill the beast than to any profound victory.
They also functioned as one of the only means of news the city had, bringing news of far off districts or countries when they arrived.
Long distance communication was completely out of the question currently, as any attempts to set up any sort of radio infrastructure failed horribly, for varying reasons.
Of course, the city was able to acquire large newspapers during the shipments from the king of progress' territory, but those were horribly outdated by the time of arrival.
The aspirants were not much better, but they were able to bring information from places that the shipments could, or would not – not to Kenyon what they had to say being much more recent as they did not take nearly as much time to return. That alone was enough to make their presence and returns quite valuable.
Soon, the crowd got much too dense for August to proceed any further, while Alia and others continued to press forward.
He grit his teeth and cursed silently, scowling at the unfairness in front of him. His body was much weaker than most people's, and he suspected the cause was the skill [Master of None].
The skill seemingly limited August's physical capacity greatly, and it was something that he was most resentful about. He was yet to find an equivalent boon to justify not calling the thing a curse, but he suspected that there might be one, for no other reason than his refusal to believe he would be blindly cursed by God.
'Sure, I may be a bad person, but I'm not horrible enough to warrant that, tch.'
But for the moment, he turned away and we've between passing members of the moving procession. From there, he could scale one of the buildings nearby and watch from there, this would also allow him to be noticed easier by Alia when it was time to return.
But, he was caught off guard by the fact he was sandwiched between the people of the moving crowd. Suddenly, August was flung to the ground, and was being trampled by the ignorant drones of people.
'Tch, why are you all so damn strong!'
August was not weak enough to be fully trampled or broken, but he was also not strong enough to get up, or resourceful enough to gain access to sufficient amounts of oxygen.
So he laid there, alone and suffocating.
He hated every second, the feeling of literally being walked over. August found himself becoming more and more angry at the people above him, who paid him no heed.
'I get that you want to see them, but I'm right here! Just let me get up!'
He was literally under people's feet, and not a single soul would spare him a glance.
'Why am I even surprised? Since when has anyone cared?'
After more than a few minutes, he gasped desperately, and when there was still nothing, he began to gasp involuntarily. He could no longer force himself to hold his breath.
Still nobody cared.
He felt his chest start to burn and tighten, his vision began to darken and his heart pounded so hard it hurt.
Nobody was willing to spare him a helping hand, or even a few passing words to slow others down. Even Alia, who he had slowly began to consider a close friend, had abandoned him.
Then a familiar feeling flooded his body, rage, as the light of the sky was drowned out by a bright yellow.
People stopped and looked up, and various things began to happen all at once.
"What's going on?" One person asked.
"The hell?" A gruff voice shouted.
People were shooting and mumbling, and August felt himself begin to get trampled much faster and frequently, and his vision began to darken.
Suddenly he heard a familiar voice.
"August! What the hell are you doing?" Alia shouted.
Then his vision went dark.