Meow...
It was faint. Weak. Almost swallowed by the wind.
Fin paused mid-step, one foot still in the air, the other half-sunk in dry dust. The sound had come from the narrow and half-shaded alley up ahead where the sun barely reached between the cracked walls. He squinted toward it, schoolbag heavy on one shoulder, collar damp with sweat.
Another meow. Shorter this time. Then a sharp laugh. A different sound entirely. Human. Mean.
Fin moved closer.
The alley turned sharply to the right, just past an old stack of bricks that hadn't been touched in years. As he neared the bend, another noise rang out. A hard crack, like a stone bouncing off concrete. Then silence. Then laughter again.
He stopped at the corner, heart thumping, back pressed to the warm brick.
He knew that laugh. Not the voice, not the people, but the kind of laugh. The kind that didn't come from fun... the kind that came from power. He had already seen numerous examples of these at his new school.
Slowly, he peeked around the edge.
There were four of them. Older. Bigger. They stood in a half-circle facing the wall, where a small gray kitten crouched low in the dirt. One boy held a slingshot. Another dug through a plastic bag filled with stones. A third boy leaned against the wall, arms crossed, grinning. The fourth had just thrown something. A rock clattered off the bricks and skipped into the dust beside the kitten's paw.
The kitten flinched but did not run. It had nowhere to go.
None of them had seen Fin yet.
He stayed quiet. Just watched.
Part of him wanted to walk away. Turn around. Pretend he had not seen anything...
Another stone flew. It hit the kitten on its side. The sound it made was small and helpless.
Fin stepped forward.
He did not say anything. Just walked until he was standing a few steps away.
One of the boys looked up. The one with the slingshot.
"You want something?"
Fin said nothing.
The tallest boy stepped forward. His smile was too wide.
"Is it yours or something?"
Fin glanced at the kitten, then at the boy.
"No."
"Then why are you still standing here?"
Another boy picked up a rock and tossed it lightly in the air.
Fin pushed his left hand inside his bag. His other hand stayed at his side.
"You throw that," he said, voice low and even, "and I swear I will make you regret that."
The boy froze with the rock in hand. The others stared.
The air felt heavier now.
Fin did not blink.
His fingers were wrapped around nothing inside his bag. But he let his wrist shift, just enough to suggest weight. Just enough to make them wonder.
"You think you're tough, huh?" said the one with the crossed arms. His tone was louder now, trying to cover the unease. "Some little hero gonna play grown-up?"
Fin didn't move. He didn't need to. His hand stayed in the bag, steady. The other slowly hovered near his belt.
The boy with the rock narrowed his eyes. "What's in the bag?"
Fin said nothing.
His silence did more than a hundred words. It left space for fear. For doubt. He watched them flinch under it.
The boy with the slingshot laughed, but it was dry and thin. "He's bluffing. What's he gonna do? Stab all of us?"
Fin stepped forward once. Just one step.
The motion was calm. Measured. Not rushed, not loud. But it landed hard.
That one step said more than his silence.
The tallest boy shifted. His mouth opened to say something.
"Try it," a voice said.
Not loud. Not sharp. But every head turned toward it.
At the mouth of the alley stood a girl.
She did not posture. She did not raise her hands. She simply stood, arms at her sides, expression unreadable, eyes locked on the group like she was looking through them.
Yasmin.
Her presence hit like cold air after fire. The kind of quiet that made people rethink their next move.
No one spoke.
She took a single step forward.
The boy with the slingshot lowered his arm. The one with the rock let it fall to his side.
The tallest boy hesitated. But then he looked at her. Really looked. His weight shifted back.
"Forget it," he muttered.
No one argued. They turned and left, one by one, disappearing into the wider street without another word.
Yasmin walked toward Fin. Her pace was slow, calm, steady. The kitten still lay in the dirt, curled up tightly, shivering.
She crouched beside it. Reached out without hesitation. Lifted it with both hands, wrapping it carefully in the ends of her sleeves.
Fin stared at her.
From looking at his expression, one would likely assume that he was unimpressed, but in reality, he was just frozen in place, his heart thudding in his ears.
"You okay?" she asked.
He nodded, swallowing hard.
She stood.
"You didn't even do anything," Fin said. His voice came out rough. "You just looked at them. Why did that work?"
Yasmin adjusted her grip on the kitten.
"Because they don't know what I would have done."
Fin blinked.
"You didn't even raise your voice."
"I didn't have to."
"Still," he said, "I could have handled it."
"Not really," she said. "The one on the left was about to hit you. He had a stone in his other hand. You didn't see it."
Fin blinked. He had not seen anything. Just the one rock. Just the words in his throat, too big for his mouth.
"Once they figured out you were bluffing," she said, "it would have been over. The only thing keeping them back was the fear of not knowing what you might do. Who knows... they could've gone as far as to kill you. People like that can't handle fear very well..." she added, not as an insult, but as a fact before starting to walk.
Fin walked in silence beside her, the weight of the words settling heavier than his schoolbag.
A year ago, he might have laughed at the idea. Thought it was ridiculous that they would actually kill him. But not now.
The country had changed. Fast. Violently. Ever since the fighting near the border started, everything began unraveling. Some towns just vanished. Government offices started emptying. Gangs grew overnight. Soldiers patrolled places they had never been before, and the rules shifted depending on who was holding a gun that day.
People whispered more. Doors closed earlier. Teachers left mid-semester and never came back. Anyone could be arrested. Anyone could be attacked. And almost no one answered for it.
Someone killing a boy in an alley?
It would not have made the front page. It would not have even turned heads.
Things like that used to feel impossible.
Now they just felt... likely.
He looked down at the sidewalk, at the loose gravel under his shoes, at the cracked seams where weeds pushed through like they were trying to escape.
"I thought it was working," he said quietly.
"It was. For a moment."
They stepped out of the alley and into the edge of the main road. The buildings around them looked exhausted. Concrete walls patched with grime, windows clouded over with plastic sheeting, doorframes swollen from years of damp. The pavement was a mess of cracks and loose gravel, and every passing car left behind a trail of dust that clung to the skin.
Their new neighborhood.
Six months ago, none of this would have made sense. Six months ago, they had lived in a different world.
The government seized their house under emergency authority rulings. Something about legal irregularities. Something about national interest. None of it explained anything, and none of it mattered.
One day, Fin was solving math problems in their luxury garden on a polished table. The next, silent men in gray uniforms stood by while movers wrapped up their life and shoved it into a truck.
Now they lived in a crumbling block of flats on the edge of the city. Two rooms, peeling walls, a balcony that looked like it might fall off. The place smelled like boiled cabbage and moldy curtains. Just the two of them and their father...well what was left of him anyway.
As one would expect, their father didn't take the whole thing very well. He spent most nights in the dark with a drink in his hand, muttering to the floor or shouting at shadows. Sometimes he disappeared for entire days. When he was home, Fin tried not to be.
Situation had taken a turn for the worse. His father started blaming Fin for everything that went wrong with his life. It always started with yelling. Accusations with no context. Words that hit harder than fists.
But sometimes fists came too.
Once, it was a slap across the face for answering too quietly. Another time, a shove into the wall for walking in at the wrong moment. The worst was when Fin asked a question and got dragged by the shirt collar into the hallway and thrown hard enough that the frame cracked.
He learned. Not quickly, but thoroughly. He learned to walk softly, speak little, and stay out of the way. He memorized which floorboards creaked and how to open doors without making noise. He learned the shape of silence that came before something bad.
He never told anyone. Not even Yasmin. He didn't have to. She already knew. The place was too small for her to not know.
She never said anything to their father. She never tried to stop it. But she always noticed.
The day he came home limping, she did not ask questions. She just opened the fridge, grabbed the last cold bottle, and handed it to him without looking. Her hand was slightly trembling.
It was the only time he had ever seen her that side of hers.
But she still held it together. She always did. Yasmin had become the spine of the household. Quiet. Precise. Efficient. She managed the bills. Filed the paperwork. She knew who to call, what to say, and when to stay silent.
Their father never touched her. He never yelled at her either. Not because he loved her more, but because he needed her.
To him, Yasmin was the solution. The heir to everything he lost. The sharp blade he wanted to throw at the world that had taken his power.
"Fix it," he would say.
"They stole it. Take it back."
"Use my name. That's what it's for."
And Yasmin would nod. Just once. Not out of agreement, but because it was faster than arguing.
The one positive thing that came out of everything was that he was closer to her now. That shift had started when the envy finally left him. For years he had resented how perfect she seemed, how effortlessly she moved through things he struggled with. But now he saw it differently. He saw the pressure, the silence, the way she never flinched not only because she was strong, but because she couldn't afford to be anything else. And somewhere in that understanding, the distance between them began to shrink.
He used to think she was cold but now he wondered if she was just tired of fighting battles no one saw.
Yasmin still carried the kitten. It had gone quiet now, blinking up at her like it had no idea what had just happened. Maybe it didn't. Maybe it had already forgotten. Fin wanted to pet it, but he held back.
"You think it'll be alright?" he asked.
She looked down at it briefly. "Depends on what kind of people it runs into next."
Fin gave a small nod. He wanted to say more. Something meaningful. Something grateful. But everything that came to mind sounded stupid.
She glanced sideways at him. "Next time, don't bluff. Either walk away or mean it."
He said nothing. He has seen Yasmin scare off kids much bigger than her. She was good at fighting too. He still remembers what happened to their neighbor's kid when he tried to make advances toward her. Over time, he picked up some subtle cues from her actions and sometimes tried to imitate them. Results were...not very consistent.
By the time they reached their street, the sun had dropped behind the buildings. Long shadows stretched across the road. Yasmin bent down and let the kitten go. It wobbled a few steps, then darted beneath a stairwell.
He looked at her now, her expression unreadable, her steps steady as always. The kitten was gone. But he could still recall its appearance.
The street was quiet. All that was left was to head back but Fin always dreaded this moment. Unfortunately, he couldn't stay out during night due to the curfew and had to face his father. Also, he was really hungry.
Yasmin glanced at him without breaking stride. "I'll go in first," she said. "You wait outside for a bit. He'll calm down once he sees me."
Fin didn't answer, but his grip on his bag loosened slightly. She always seemed to know when he needed her to say something like that.
"…Thanks," he muttered, barely above a whisper. It came out rough, almost uncertain, like he wasn't sure he deserved to say it.
***
===
Status
Name: Fin ???
Age: 19
Race: Human
Class: None
Rank: F
Affiliation : ???
Characteristics: Insane, Narcissistic and attention-seeker
Tendency: Evil
Vigor: 120/120
Mana: 10/10
[Strength: 5]
[Agility: 7]
[Stamina: 6]
[Intelligence: 5]
[Defense: 5]
Active Skills:
Shit Decoy (Proficiency 3.2%) {Allows host to create shit quality decoys of himself. Duration: 1 hour ; Max Decoys: 2 ; Cooldown: 1 hour, Mana Cost: 0.5 per decoy}
Passive Skills:
Evil Tendency (Proficiency 3.48%) {Your mana takes on an evil form. All mana related attacks will be amplified. Attack power will continue to increase as your karma leans towards evil even more.}
Basic Mana Control (Proficiency 35%) {Allows you to manifest mana to a certain part of your body. Manifested mana will be infused with Evil Tendency.}
Traits: Insanity (Proficiency 7.14%) {If your actions are driven by insanity, all mana related attacks will be amplified. While the skill is active, you can decide to either augment your mana attacks or physical abilities or even both}
Type: Seed Inheritance. Inheritors remaining: 599}
Ability:
Basic Mana User {You can utilize mana and convert it into elemental forms such as fire, water and wind. Your control over your mana is extremely low.}
Condition: Healthy
===
'Interesting. None of my base stats went up since the last time. How do I actually increase them? Training? Taking potions or herbs? Using mana? Fuck all I remember was Jack eating some fancy grass or some shi...'
'On the positive side, my proficiency in Evil Tendency and Insanity went up...Did I activate them in the last few days? Hmm...'
"But most of this stuff is still incomprehensible to me…" Kez said with a sigh, dragging a hand through his hair.
He stood outside the front gates of TROP with his hands in his pockets and the morning sun burning into his eyeballs like it had a grudge.
He hadn't slept much. Maybe two hours, max. The driver, whose name he had already forgotten, barged into his room and told him to get ready. His head still throbbed, and the taste of last night clung stubbornly to the back of his throat. The stone beneath his shoes hummed faintly, the energy running through the plaza almost imperceptible unless you knew what to feel for.
He was surrounded by other cadets, all waiting for the gates to open. Some stood in polished boots and pressed uniforms, postures sharp and precise. Others loitered in small circles, laughing too loudly, nerves leaking out through fake confidence. Mana flickered in subtle waves around a few of them with thin veils of flame dancing on fingertips, illusions playing across open palms, threads of elemental affinity made visible just for show.
TROP loomed before them.
A sprawling fortress of arcane precision and imperial wealth. The front gate itself was a masterpiece which was twelve meters tall, forged from silvery-black alloy that pulsed with embedded runes, guarded by twin statues of winged sentinels carved from mana-saturated stone. Behind it rose towers lined with levitation rings, rotating slowly as if orbiting some unseen center. Spell-barriers shimmered faintly in the morning light, shifting between transparency and mirrored sheen.
Beyond that, the Academy Hall stood like a spear driven into the sky. Its walls were wrapped with a lattice of mana channels, glowing faintly blue, pulsing in sync with the leyline buried deep beneath the city. Above it all, a translucent dome crackled every few seconds with containment flashes, likely housing something big, dangerous, or both.
And here Kez was. Worn jacket. Sleeves wrinkled. Collar uneven.
He scratched the back of his neck and glanced around. A few cadets had already started whispering. He caught a few eyes before they looked away.
"Hey, that's him. The guy from the party."
"No way. The one who tried to fight Jack?"
"More like tried to get flattened by Jack."
"Why's he even here?"
Kez rolled his jaw and looked straight ahead. He could feel the stares like gnats, buzzing and persistent. He said nothing. Didn't flinch.
'Sigh...I guess there is no way to avoid this. My perfect reputation already got ruined thanks to Jack. Why does bad things always happen to good people like me? Well...I guess it's not all bad. Starting TROP with a bad reputation does have its unique perks. But some of my plans will have to change to fit this route...'
He sighed again.
"I didn't really want to take this route. This is still somewhat of an unfamiliar route for me. Whatever. Day one, here we go..." he muttered under his breath without much enthusiasm.