Oberon City, Rachan Country, Coalition of Nations Bordering and Defending the Periotic Ocean (CNBDPO).
Oberon City was lauded as one of the major metropolitans in Rachan's economic landscape, with a reputation for emerging companies and top-tier weapon manufacturers. The city boasted high skyscrapers, busy streets filled with neon lights, convenient machinery enveloping every iota of available space, and booming businesses. The city represented the ambition for the new and improved, with innovative technology running in its veins and machinery working as its organs.
Rachan was one of the seven countries that shared its borders with the Periotic Ocean, hailed as one of the eight mighty oceans and one of the thirteen calamitous zones. The Periotic water was home to a myriad of savage aquatic species that had vied for human land for tens of thousands of years.
Humanity had lost a considerable amount of coastal land to these aquatic monstrosities, suppressed and pushed back despite their best efforts and strongest weapons. What these invaders lacked in ingenuity and intelligence, they made up for in numbers and ferocity, as such the humans continued to lose in battles, so much so that the seven nations facing these attacks had no choice but to put away their differences and enter into a coalition to drive away the invaders and reclaim their land.
It was a bloody war that lasted decades and resulted in hundreds of millions of casualties. Still, it was a war worth fighting, for humanity had not just reclaimed its land and glory, but had expelled all of its enemies to make a statement. Humanity had also taken a mighty step in establishing multiple coastal fortresses to prevent and repel all future attempts at invasion. The seven nations furthered their cooperation and decided to work together to man these fortresses and invest equal and ample resources to ensure that the stain on their hegemony didn't rear its head again.
The land that humanity had recovered from the beasts had been ravaged and decimated, stripped of its previous essence and beauty, and the damage left no way to restore them completely. However, it also gave the innovators a chance to leave behind the ancient architecture that had stood and remained unchanged for tens of thousands of years and build cities and towns that symbolized the ambitions for the future.
Oberon City was constructed about two thousand years ago on the land where the enemy leader had fallen. Rachan country had invested a pretty penny in the construction of this particular city to herald it as the city that represented the hope and resilience of humans.
However, even with all of its futuristic glimmering glory, Oberon City was far from immune to the gnawing problem that had the entire human race trapped within its vicious clutches- overpopulation, and diminishing resources.
Humanity has experienced a time of peace and comfort ever since the Council for Prosperity and Development of the Human Race (CPDHR) was established tens of thousands of years ago. The land of humans had been fortified and wars for supremacy had ended. Only minor skirmishes with beasts such as the one seven nations had gone through occurred once in a while, and while an era of serenity was not something that screamed problematic, it had allowed for rampant unchecked reproduction.
The human population has experienced various phases throughout history. It had seen the government urging and rewarding reproduction when the race faced extinction, to an overabundance to the extent that human leaders had to resort to genocide to curb the population. However, the situation had never been as dire as it was now, for the population across the five continents and ninety-two nations had reached a record-demolishing 3.12 trillion and continued to grow despite the number of policies in place to restrain childbirth.
According to statisticians and researchers, the planet known as Terraia could only realistically sustain a trillion or so people without a major strain on natural resources and without damaging the foundation for future generations. However, now that over 3.1 trillion humans inhabited the blue and green glob floating amongst the stars, the planet was on a single-lane road to extinction, with researchers predicting that without some kind of intervention, the entire human race would face damnation under three hundred years.
However, that didn't stop the population from trying to survive another day in the hellscape that was human civilization in hopes that one day they would achieve something that would represent something bigger than themselves, and that was the same for the Tamaniels.
x—X—x
Lacoma Valley Apartments was an apartment complex consisting of over twenty thousand units, each a small one-bedroom unit that barely one person could comfortably live in, but the apartment complex was filled to the brim with families of up to eight people. It was a construct perfectly demonstrating the severe problem affecting the entirety of the human race.
Inside one of these very cramped one-bedroom apartments.
A masculine figure stepped into the living room, slung a worn-out bag over his shoulders, and held a pair of tattered socks.
"Mom, I have to leave!"
The man raised his head towards the only room in the apartment and exclaimed in a somewhat rushed voice.
The figure stood about 170 centimeters tall and sported brown hair that wasn't exactly the pinnacle of silkiness. He had a lean frame, slim arms, a narrow waist, and weak legs. The man's physique screamed of malnutrition and neglect, but his face was relatively handsome, though held back vehemently by the non-existent care and grooming.
He had beautiful reddish-brown eyes that glimmered under sunlight, a perfectly sculpted face with a sharp nose and jawline, and a smile that could light up the world. His eyelashes were long, his eyebrows sleek, and his tanned skin was unblemished and spotless, faintly glowing under the light, giving him an overall ethereal look. If only his body was fuller and his visage was more groomed, he carried the potential to stand out amongst thousands, but with his circumstances, even eating two square meals a day would be considered a blessing.
"Just give me a second, Hunter! Eat something before you leave!"
"No, it's—"
Roar~
Hunter had wished to decline his mother's offer, but the immense roar of starvation originating from his stomach took over his words. Hunter still took a second to caress his abdomen and contemplated forgoing the meal. However, he was aware that a long day of academics and manual labor awaited him, so he reluctantly decided to indulge in his mother's kindness.
"Alright!"
Hunter replied with a small smile and settled on one of the four chairs scattered across the living room. The Tamaniel residence was a simple construct with one bedroom, a kitchen attached to the living room, a bathroom with a toilet, and a small living room, covering an area barely breaching three hundred square feet. There were only two windows in the apartment, one in the bedroom and one in the living room, and no balconies.
The house reeked of a dystopian human trap, but tens of millions of families at the bottom of human society resided in such apartments and struggled to see another day.
Hunter donned his shoes and was ready for his day. He was a student at the Oberon Shitioc Academy, the Oberon City branch of one of the foremost schools across the Clamine continent, boasting astronomical tuition and elite facilities. Hunter had joined the academy under a scholarship program funded by a certain construction company, and the only reason he was even eligible for the program was because his father had died at one of the sites managed by this construction company.
It wasn't as if Hunter was undeserving of the program or of Oberon Shitioc Academy itself, on the contrary, he was one of the best the OSA had to offer in terms of academic competency. He had represented OSA in multiple olympiads and competitions, and even with the many jobs he had to juggle just to put food on his family's table, his academic prowess was phenomenal and regarded quite highly amongst the prestigious faculty of the academy. These competitions had earned him small bonuses here and there that helped him and his family out, fueling his desire for further academic pursuits.
"You go sit as well, Anaya."
Hunter observed his mother, an aging woman with wrinkles and a kind smile, walking over from the bedroom with a younger woman in tow. Hunter's little sister, Anaya, was two years younger than him and was a student at a local government school that offered free education to families with a single mother.
Hunter had initially insisted on sending Anaya to Oberon Shitioc Academy under the scholarship program, for he had vowed to quit school and enter the workforce. However, his pleas were strongly rejected by both the women in his life. He was forced to attend the prestigious academy, where he had to manage his time between work and academics, a prospect which again gained the ire of the two demonesses. However, that was the condition he had set for attending the OSA, for there was no way he would allow his mother and sister to toil away tirelessly and stay at home himself.
As Hunter smiled and reminisced over the past couple of years following his father's untimely demise, Anaya walked over and sat beside him.
Anaya was a beautiful young woman with long beautiful brown hair and pretty blue eyes inherited from their mother. She had a modest lean figure with long charming legs and a perfectly symmetrical face. She carried a certain gait that was fundamentally attractive and carried it proudly.
"Brother, can I get your phone?"
"Oh? Yeah, of course." Hunter retrieved a tattered and damaged device from his pants and placed it in Anaya's outstretched palm. "I leave in a bit, so hurry it up."
Hunter smiled and ruffled Anaya's hair, making her squint in satisfaction. However, she soon pulled away, huffed, and made a face at Hunter. Anaya didn't like to express affection, and with the life she had lived, she preferred to keep herself isolated and closed, but it couldn't be helped when her loving brother showered her with affection.
"Here, you two."
Their mother arrived from the kitchen holding two plates. The plate was decorated with two pieces of bread and a dab of condiment. Along with it was a glass of herbal tea their mother had received from her work.
"Thanks, Mom."
Hunter placed his hands together and smiled at his mother.
"Thanks for the breakfast."
Anaya had one of her eyes locked on the phone screen as she nodded, received her plate, and placed it on her lap, allowing her brother to peruse the small plastic table sitting in the center of the four cheap chairs.