"Hey, kid! Keep it down!"

"It's 11 PM! Why do you have to be so loud? Some of us are trying to get to sleep! We have to go to work tomorrow morning!"

"Are you even listening!?"

Gentle shouts could be heard from an apartment building, and with each passing second, the shouts grew louder. However, compared to the loudspeakers blasting from apartment number [2], they were like a cool breeze on a hot day—refreshing.

Du! Turu! Du!

The door of apartment number [2] danced to the beat of the loud music, much worse than the ecologically friendly environment inside the room.

Beneath the lovely pile of tin cans, soft drink bottles, and bags of plastic junk scattered all over the room, rodents, ants, and roaches had found a nice home that would only be cleared when a girl came over, but it had been months since then.

Termites had found themselves useful by propping up the fourth leg of the bed in the far corner of the room. They didn't dare venture on top because the possibility of encountering their dear old friend, Scorpion, was high among the blankets that hadn't been arranged for a very, very long time.

"I have come a long way since that day!" A voice shouted in the middle of the room where electric cables connected to various speakers lay scattered.

The voice was a mixture of joy and anger. "I will never work for that family again!"

A pair of eyes glared at the bank balance reflected on the laptop screen. The amount topped eight digits and was only two dollars away from reaching a ten-digit figure.

Mickey felt happy; for a total of six years, he had been doing a rich man's dirty work to raise that amount. It was just a matter of killing a few people who wanted to revolt, along with some political figures, and hacking into some bank accounts—nothing difficult.

'As if!' Mickey sneered in his mind. He was too young to be engaged in such dangerous business. If it weren't for his ability to run away, he would already be six feet under.

He started working for Bruce Sixpence when he was only 17. He could have gone to a computer engineering college, but his grades fell short by two subjects from getting into the department he wanted to enroll in.

He took supplementary lessons to improve his grades and sat for a scholarship exam to get into the college of his dreams, but he ended up in second place and missed the chance to enter since only one person was accepted.

Asking his parents for help was useless; they had monopolized him ever since he was in his second year of kindergarten when he placed second in the national spelling bee.

At that time, his mother was pregnant with his younger sister and took away all the money he had won, but to save face, she refused the books and puzzles gifted to Mickey, claiming they had plenty at home, which was a lie.

"Boy! If you make me lose face in front of my church friends, I will make sure to beat the life out of you!"

Putting aside her pregnancy mood swings, Mickey's mother was a typical traditional woman who believed in using leather belts to instill manners in her children. She had used them a couple of times to take the money Mickey made from his after-school jobs to pay for her other three children's fees.

However, when Mickey asked for money to attend college, even his father had to step up to give him a barrage of excuses: "Your brother is already in his last year at college; we need to pay his exam fees. And the same goes for your younger sister. Don't get me started on your little brother; he is starting school, and a lot of requirements are needed. Sigh. We also need to donate money to the church; you know we can't lose face. We worked hard for that reputation."

'Church, my ass!' Mickey grunted in his mind and turned off the music.

His expression soured slightly. He didn't go to college, but after paying some people to gain experience in the art of computer engineering, he had enough foundation to match someone who had been in the field for ten years.

He sighed as he thought of his current situation. 'I need to get out of the country before the Sixpences find out about my plan to ditch them.'

'I need to change my identity and get a visa.'

Knock…

Before he could even start operating his laptop on top of the piano keyboard, someone knocked on his door. He ignored it, but the knock came again, this time more violently.

Bam-!

The wooden door to the apartment was kicked open.

Mickey's body trembled at the violent act, and when he turned around, his eyes widened at the sight of the two figures that walked in. What shocked him the most was the weapons they were holding—guns.

The first was an old man in his late sixties, using a walking stick, and the other was a fine-looking old woman with a hunched back that made her resemble an evil witch. The two smiled, causing Mickey to feel a chill down his spine.

'Did someone tell them about my plan?' Mickey instantly dismissed that thought. The only person who knew his plans and goals was the guy in the broken mirror—him.

His expression turned ashen. 'They are here to finish me off!'

Mickey had worked for this couple for a long time, and they had even risen to the position of Prime Minister thanks to his efforts in eliminating their political rivals. He knew this couple like the back of his hand.

He forced a smile and was very cautious with his next words. "Mr. and Mrs. Sixpence, what do I owe this humble visit to my devil lair? I would have come to you if you had called. You know how 'devoted' I am."

The couple cringed at his words. Although Mickey did their dirty work, he made sure to leave tiny loopholes that he could exploit in the future. He was a snake they needed to get rid of before he took advantage of them.

When it comes to devotion, he was the worst!

"Mickey, you are a smart person, and we really admire you," the wife said, pointing her gun at the young man.

The husband followed suit. "Now, please die, for our sakes."

Pew… Pew…

Mickey was shot on both sides of his chest and lifelessly fell onto his piano keyboard. Seeing this, the Sixpence couple smiled, but the wife soon frowned in suspicion.

"Why don't I see any blood?"

Bulletproof vest!

When the couple realized it was too late, Mickey had taken the pistols he hid in his keyboard and shot the two in the head, killing them on the spot.

Thud…

The couple fell onto the junk strewn around, and the uneasiness in Mickey's heart deepened as he watched the corpses of the two. Their bodies started to transform, and instead of flesh, they turned into phlegm that attracted the other inhabitants of apartment [2].

'Isn't this similar to the formula I made for creating human clones? But how did they find a soul?' Mickey felt puzzled. He had asked many scientists to assist him in theorizing human cloning, but in the end, they lacked funds and dropped the project.

By now, he had realized that his chances of escaping were down to zero. This was a well-thought-out plan that had been in the making for years.

When he turned back to look at the open window, a red light was indeed shining on his forehead.

Bang-!

Mickey fell atop the rubbish in his apartment. He wasn't happy or sad about the fact that he was dying. This kind of dying was better than what he had envisioned in the past.

'It's such a pity that I can't celebrate my sixth birthday.'

As someone born on the 29th of February, Mickey cherished his birthday more people did.

His thoughts and consciousness faded as he stared at the various collection of maple leaves he had stuck on his ceiling.

…

Ah! Someone! Please help me!

Where are the Book Lords?!

People screamed in horror as they rushed toward the end of a dark alley. Behind them was a group of vicious hyenas that were devouring all the flesh of the humans who had collapsed to the ground.

Once they were done, they followed the scent of the humans struggling to climb the staircase to reach the roof. Luckily, some of these people managed to escape their struggle as the eyeless hyenas made them their breakfast.

Beneath the pile of bones left by the hyenas, a tall 17-year-old boy pushed the human skulls away with the meager strength of his arms and was greeted by a brightly lit alley soaked in blood.

"Huh?" Mickey raised an eyebrow as he looked at the people screaming in a foreign language, dressed in modern clothes.

He had many unanswered questions about how he obtained this new body, but he just pushed them aside.

A cold light flashed in his red eyes as he looked at the people possibly screaming for help in the distance. "Let me get out of here."