As the carriage began passing through a bumpy part of the road, Athen sighed as he was thrown up and down every second against the hard metal pipe he was lying on.
His entire body was already aching from his sprint to catch up and climb up onto the carriage, but that wasn't even the worst part.
The first and only time he had managed to activate his time-stopping ability twice in a day had resulted in a world of pain for Athen.
Nothing happened physically... but mentally, it was a nightmare.
After activating his time-stop ability twice to search through more pieces of trash, Athen had been ecstatic.
He had just shortened the cooldown of his time-stop ability from two days to less than one day!
For the first few hours after activating the ability, Athen was completely fine, even happy, as his second use of the ability had allowed him to gather two copper coins.
However, the real pain came at night.
Unable to find a place to sleep, Athen had been wandering in the empty and dark streets of the town, trying to keep himself busy.
As he walked through the streets, he was pleasantly surprised to see that the streets weren't empty.
In fact, there were plenty of merchants and other people walking through the streets despite the late hour.
At least Athen wasn't alone in his struggle to find housing!
To know people were suffering with him brought Athen some solace.
However, when Athen found a nearby alleyway to rest in for the night, he immediately noticed something was off.
Everyone was looking at him...
Then, before Athen could react, the merchants rushed into the alleyway, blocking his way out and running towards him.
"WAIT! WAIT! WAIT A MINUTE!"
Hearing Athen's pleas, the crowd of merchants and other people stopped right in front of him, simply staring at him.
Then, in unison, the figures all spoke at the same time.
"We're your friends, Athen. Don't be afraid."
"We're your friends, Athen. Don't be afraid."
"We're your friends, Athen. Don't be afraid."
Athen, standing there scared and trembling, could only watch as the people slowly walked closer to him, cornering him.
Waving his hands up and down, Athen pleaded for them to stop, but they ignored him and continued walking forward.
With his back to the wall, Athen, thinking he was about to be jumped for something he had done in the past, pulled out his trusty stick.
Pointing his wooden stick, which kind of resembled a sword if you looked closely, at the crowd, Athen said.
"DON'T MAKE ME HURT YOU GUYS."
"..."
Realizing there was no way out, Athen stood up straight before raising his stick.
If he was going down, then he was going to bring at least one of them down to hell with him.
The figure at the front, resembling a merchant that Athen had stolen a banana from, continued walking forward.
Running toward the crowd, Athen screamed while plunging his stock forward at the merchant.
But...the stick just phased right through the merchant.
Seeing his stick simply pass through the merchant as if he were a hologram, Athen confusedly muttered.
"wait... am in that wo-"
Before Athen could even finish his sentence, the crowd of people suddenly charged forward at Athen.
But instead of attacking Athen, they simply phased right through his stick...before going into his body.
Being the closest, the merchant immediately phased right through Athen's body and stayed there as if he were becoming one with Athen.
Then, as more figures phased through Athen and merged with him, Athen dropped to the floor.
Trembling, Athen went into a seizure-like state as his body began shaking uncontrollably.
Not caring, more and more figures rushed forward, merging and combing with Athen's shaking body.
Unable to control his body, Athen began to lose all sense of reason as pain enveloped his brain, making it seem as if his entire body was being cut open and dissected.
"AAAAARRGGHHHH!"
As the last human in the crowd fused with Athen's body, his vision suddenly went dark as pure coldness enveloped his body.
Still spazzing out, Athen's consciousness began to drift, and his thoughts began to slow as the pain forced him into a state of unconsciousness.
Then, as the sun rose and the next day started, Athen's eyes immediately flicked open while he desperately covered his body.
Despite the fact that the sun was shining right down on him, Athen felt cold... colder than possible.
Touching his stomach, Athen didn't feel skin... but ice.
"i-is my body frozen?"
For the entire day, Athen was in a comatose-like state as he was unable to move, and his entire body felt frozen, not listening to any of his brain's commands.
Opening his mouth or moving around was simply impossible for him, so Athen simply laid on the ground in the alleyway the entire day.
However, even though he was hungry, exhausted, and paranoid, Athen forced himself to stay awake.
Staring at the sun to keep himself from blacking out due to pain or sleeping, Athen ignored the pain in his eyes and stayed awake.
For some reason, Athen felt like if he blacked out or slept right now... he would never wake up.
Thus, for the entire day, Athen endured the pain surging through his body and the coldness that enveloped him, clinging to his last bit of consciousness.
Finally, as the sun descended and the moon emerged, the coldness and ice around Athen's body disappeared, and he was able to open his mouth.
However, he didn't.
Exhausted, Athen took one last glance at the moon before finally closing his eyes, allowing himself to drift off to sleep.
And after that single day of pain and pure suffering, everything went back to normal.
After that, Athen didn't see any figures watching him and trying to merge with him...everybody was simply minding their business as usual.
Even the merchant that Athen had stolen the fruit from waved at him like nothing had happened that night.
It took some time for him to stop being paranoid and scared every time he saw someone, but eventually, Athen recovered.
That day of suffering couldn't have been a nightmare as time had actually passed while he was on the floor in pain... and he was sure that the pain he felt was real.
So, Athen concluded that it was the result of him using his abilities without a long enough cooldown.
From then on, Athen vowed to wait at least two days in between using his ability.
Even if he could get away with using it at a faster rate, Athen never wanted to be put through that experience again.
Well...that was until now.
Trying to push his inevitable day of pain away, Athen sighed before taking a glance at the carriage he was on.
Taking a carriage from his distant town to the capital would take at least four days, with break stops included, so surely, something would have to change soon.
Yet, as Athen looked around, all he saw was fields of dry and golden grass alongside a couple of grey trees.
"CHECK THERE!"