Chapter 5: The Little Act of Defiance?
Arthur, having decided to take good care of the kid's body supposedly died after falling down and hitting his head on the blue stone, which is called Mana Stones according to what he has found out from the boy's memories.
'I should be turning 18 in a few days, according to the day he celebrated his birthday in his memory, as today is 16 March 2034.'
'I have also seen many amazing high-tech games in his memories which I really want to try out, especially the one with virtual reality.'
As a passionate gamer himself, Arthur is thrilled to know how much the gaming industry has increased in this world, and knowing he can do whatever he wants in his free time, Arthur is not worried about not being able to play games.
'And more importantly, I even get money for working as a slave. I think elves are too nice.'
He couldn't even imagine what humans would have done to the elves if they were the ones who had enslaved them. Still, he won't shoot his own good luck and decides to enjoy his time being a slave of the elves, which is much better than his tiring life on the previous Earth.
But what Arthur does not realize without seeing the world, as the morality of this world is reversed, is that the women of his world who have become slaves are living the life of how a proper slave would be living, in the cruel way of working tirelessly every day without the freedom they are getting.
However, he has realized one thing which is that elves are much nicer than humans as even women's lives are better than it was supposed to be.
Now Arthur decides he should get back as he is starting to feel dizzy due to the blood loss, so he looks down to find his magically enhanced pickaxe, which is used to harvest mana stones even while this boy is so weak.
Just as he picked up the pickaxe, which had a weird symbol engraved on it and a mana stone connected to the end of its handle.
He felt the pickaxe in his hand was as light as a feather, and he could also tell the force it would generate wouldn't be weak, either. So, being excited before going outside, Arthur decided to hit the blue stone using the magical axe.
'But which one should I hit? There are huge chunks clustered together. There are also some on the wall and the ones on the ground.'
'But these mana stones are a beautiful sight to look at.'
'Oh! I get it! Shouldn't I punish the mana stone that is responsible for young Arthur's death?'
Getting a new life inside the body of such a young and handsome boy, Arthur is not the one who is going to forgive the stone responsible for this poor boy's death.
"Arthur!! I am going to avenge you today!! So I hope your soul would feel happy knowing someone is looking out for you."
Arthur, having experienced what it's like to be short and fat at the same time, got all worked up by getting a new life in the body of a tall and handsome boy. With anger on his handsome face, he looked around to find the stone which caused his death.
After a few seconds, Arthur easily noticed a particularly small piece of mana stone, about the size of a fist, sharply protruding out of the ground.
"Motherfucker!! I found you now!! I am going to turn you into pieces."
'I also thank you a little for bringing me inside such a handsome kid's body, but I am not going to disrespect the Arthur who just passed away by saying this aloud.'
"You piece of shit. You are done for today."
'I thank you from the bottom of my soul for giving me such a tall and handsome kid's body.'
"DIE!!!!"
With fury etched on his handsome face, Arthur brought the axe to the top of his head and used all the force inside his body to give a mighty blow to the blue stone covered in blood.
"AHHHH!!"
If it hadn't been for the axe being magically enhanced, this would have been quite a pitiful sight. However, even with the little amount of force Arthur's thin body could display, the axe came with great momentum, balancing itself.
Luckily, it didn't miss the target, which couldn't be credited to his luck, as the previous Arthur's body had developed muscle memory after working inside the mines for years.
Bam
With great momentum, the axe hit the blue stone covered in Arthur's blood. However, it didn't break like it was supposed to, as only the loud sound of hitting the stone echoed in the room.
Arthur stopped and looked at the stone, only to see it was still intact. He felt angry and even started to use the anger he felt toward John to break the stone, as this was the first time he had done something like this.
It felt refreshing to him.
For the past five minutes, only the sound of the axe hitting the stone echoed inside the lonely mine, where Arthur was the only one working right now.
Bam Bam Bam
Finally, on his 69th hit, the stubborn yet abnormal little stone broke into small pieces, which resulted in a loud laugh from Arthur, who had taken out all his frustration for years from everything he had endured in his past life in breaking the little stone.
"HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
After laughing like a maniac for about 30 whole seconds, his state of adrenaline started to calm down as he began to breathe heavily, by all the things he had done using the weak body of Arthur, and his mind began to feel heavy.
"Hah! Haah! I–It looks L–Like I–I am going to f–faint."
He could feel that he could keep himself conscious for about a minute, so he decided to stay conscious until he reached the guard at the gate of the mine. But he was stupid enough not to realize there was something weird about what he had broken earlier.
So, with his stumbling and weak body letting go of the pickaxe in his hands, he started to frantically search for whatever must have come out of the stone on four like a dog, hoping to find some treasure.
After 30 seconds of stumbling back and forth on the ground, Arthur finally found a strange green gemstone the size of a marble, which looked like the stone that Thanos had collected.
But he knew it was something else, as there were weird symbols inscribed on it, which even for a person who couldn't feel mana like Arthur, could tell this was a precious treasure.
'But what should I do? They are going to take this away from me if they find out about this.'
'I won't give this precious stone to them, which I earned by sacrificing my life.'
His eyes started to feel heavy as he realized there wasn't much time for him to decide. He frantically began to think of what he could do to keep the stone for himself.
But the only conclusion he got was that he couldn't keep the precious gemstone for himself, even if he wanted to. He felt enraged knowing he couldn't keep this thing, which could probably change his life.
'If I couldn't get it, you guys will only get it when it comes out of my shit.'
With denial written on the silver-haired, handsome young man's face, he swallowed the gemstone and gulped it down his throat with some difficulty, without knowing this little act of defiance would change his average life forever.
Right after swallowing the stone, his weak body still on the ground fell unconscious due to everything he had endured until now.