"Get out of here, you thief! And don't come back!"
"I swear, I didn't take anything! Please believe me!"
Mallory had a hard life. Her father was a nobleman, but her mother was just a maid. She was abandoned and left to fend for herself. No one in the kingdom had it worse than her.
Her name suited her well—Unlucky. Misfortune. Bad luck.
At just five years old, she was thrown out onto the street. Her mother disappeared the day she was born, and now her father had tossed her aside too.
Surviving a year and a half on the dangerous streets of Lurris kingdom, Mallory had filled her stomach with leftovers thrown into the waste bin.
There were cases where she had to drag her food with the street dogs and also run away from the bad men.
Her clothes were tattered rags that could cover some part of her body. Her hair was so rough and unkempt. They covered her face and also, her crimson eyes.
No one knew what she looked like exactly; no one knew if she was a girl or a boy. All she did was find what to eat, steal from the street merchants and get beaten half to death in a dark alley.
'At least, they didn't take the bone from me' She would grin with blood trailing down her face.
Time passed, and Mallory no longer had to drag food with the dogs. She has trained them to act cute whenever those nobles were passing just to get a few things from them. They were lucky to get a few bread crumbs, spoilt cake and whatever had a bad smell but could fill the stomach. It wasn't pleasing to the eye, but it was enough for her. They succeeded, and from there, Mallory had a lot of things to eat. She was indeed lucky for the first time in her life.
But, would it last for long?
For someone unfortunate all of her life, there's no way she would be lucky in her miserable life.
Her life came to an end when she got the thing she wanted the most. Something that was able to change her life. Something she had trained her dogs to steal from those noblemen for so many months.
A gold coin.
A gold coin that's able to feed a commoner family of three for three months. It would be enough to feed her for a year and even more.
The cause of her misfortune that night was a single gold coin.
Mallory ran through the alley, trying to escape those dangerous men with tattoos and scars over their bodies. They were running after her to steal that gold coin from her. The dogs tried to help her but a few of them died. They got stabbed by those ugly-looking thieves.
Tears ran down her cheek as she ran deeper, heading towards where she didn't know. Her legs grew weaker and her heart started to pound.
She was in a kingdom where anyone could kill a person and no one would care about it. As she ran, calling for help, no one even hesitated to help her. They ignored her as she was pursued till she hit a dead end. There, it started raining hard. She looked at the tall walls and she gave up the thoughts of even trying to climb it.
Waves of laughter were coming from behind. Those men already caught up to her, and they brought out their weapons, just to get rid of her if she tried to resist.
"Hand over the money, lad!" The most dangerous-looking one stretched his rough palms at Mallory. She held the money to her body and took a few steps back.
"No!" Her voice trailed off.
They all started laughing.
"He said no! This little brat! How dare he make us run?"
"Hey!" One of them barked at her. She flinched and started panting harder. Her eyes were glued to them, but they couldn't see it properly because her hair covered them.
"Even if you swallow that coin. We'll rip your soft skin apart and take it out of you. Now that we're being nice, hand it over and we'll give you a painless death"
"Hahaha!"
They laughed again.
"No! It's mine!" She stubbornly refused to hand it over to them. She has lost everything because of this gold coin. Her friends, the dogs, and she was sure she was going to lose her life because of it also.
Even if they took it from her earlier without her trying to escape, they would still kill her.
"Damn it! The rain is getting harder. Kill him and take the coin" the dangerous-looking one complained
"Yes, boss!" They chorused and started to move closer to her. Mallory still hid the coin in her fist, and without mercy, they pulled her up with her rags. One of them used his dagger to pull her hair off her face and he grinned.
"What a good-looking lad. Bad thing you'll lose your life today..."
Those were the words Mallory heard before she felt something piercing her stomach.
'It hurts'
She coughed out blood and as she was trying to cover her mouth, the coin she tried so hard to protect slipped from her hand. It fell to the floor and she watched the shinning coin roll on the floor before stopping at the feet of those gangsters. They picked it up and looked at it.
"Haha! It's real!"
"Oho! More drinks for us tonight!"
"Cheers!"
Of course, they were going to use it on useless things. The one who stabbed Mallory dropped her on the floor as she continued to bleed. She curled around on the floor as her consciousness slowly left her.
'Is this how I die? I haven't even gotten the chance to create a grave for my mother yet. Only if I wasn't framed for theft that day, I wouldn't have been thrown out of the house. Ah! My stomach hurts'
They say when you're at death's door, you start seeing flashes of your life before you die. All Mallory could see were painful memories. Something that hurt even more than the stab wounds. Every moment of her life was filled with misfortune.
Her eyes were slowly closing as the sound of the rainfall got quieter.
{Host information.... loading}
'Huh? Who's that? I'm too tired to open my eyes'
{Number of unlucky points: Max}
{Congratulations! You've awakened an unlucky system}