"They said only kings wear crowns…
But I was never waiting for one."
—Enro Asanagi
The countryside was quiet. Dirt roads, creaky fences, broken-down homes… and not a single hunter in sight.
That's where we grew up.
Two nobodies in the poorest part of the country. Me and Kaito—my best friend since we were kids. Every day was the same: chop wood, carry water, and pretend monsters weren't crawling around the outskirts.
But that day? That day changed everything.
We were walking like usual when we saw it. A small, weak-looking creature limping near the treeline—grey skin, bone-thin arms, glowing yellow eyes.
"Ain't that one of the weak ones?" Kaito asked, cracking his knuckles.
"Yeah," I said. "Should be easy."
So we fought it.
And nearly died.
That "weak" monster was faster than we thought. Smarter too. Before I knew it, I was bleeding from the side, and Kaito had been slammed against a rock.
I couldn't breathe. My legs wouldn't move.
All I saw was the monster stalking forward — slow, hungry.
Was this it?
"Damn it…" he coughed. "We're gonna die to this thing?"
But just when I thought it was over… Kaito charged forward and grabbed it.
"Now, Enro! DO IT!"
I didn't think. I just moved. I roared, leapt up, and smashed my fist straight through the monster's chest.
It shrieked. Twitched. Dropped.
We stared at it, gasping for air, shaking with adrenaline. Our first kill… and it nearly killed us.
That night, we sat on the roof, staring at the stars. Kaito broke the silence first.
"We can't stay weak like this."
I nodded. "We almost died. And that was a low-level one…"
He looked at me with fire in his eyes.
"Let's leave this place. Let's go where the real fighters are—and come back strong enough that nothing like that scares us again."
⸻
So we left.
The next week, we packed what little we had and moved to the city.
But city life wasn't kind to nobodies either.
⸻
[The City - One Week Later]
"Yo, Enro. I'm heading to the store. You hold it down here, alright?" Kaito shouted.
"Yeah, yeah. Try not to get lost," I replied, sweeping the dust out of our new apartment.
Kaito shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled down the block, still sore from training. The city was loud, full of people who didn't look at you unless they were planning something.
And sure enough… they found him.
Three guys stepped out of an alley, grinning like wolves.
"Yooo," one said. "You new around here, huh? You already know the rule—40% every week. That's your tax."
Kaito blinked. "That supposed to scare me? You should try comedy instead—at least then you'd be funny."
One of them grinned wider. "I like your confidence, boy."
Then he punched Kaito across the face.
Bad move.
The fight broke out fast. Kaito ducked a swing, drove his fist into one guy's gut, then kicked the other in the chest. It wasn't clean—it was messy, sloppy, desperate—but he won. Barely.
And he limped home, bleeding and bruised.
⸻
When I opened the door and saw him, my eyes went wide.
"Bro—what happened?!"
He just grinned, wiping the blood from his lip. "Nothing I couldn't handle."
Then he told me everything.
"They were just some small fry," he said. "They probably won't come back."
But I wasn't so sure.
⸻
[Later That Night…]
I was pacing the living room, heart pounding. What if they come back? What if they're not done?
And then… I heard it.
A knock at the door.
I peeked through the crack in the curtain—and my stomach dropped.
It was them. But this time, they brought someone bigger.
A tall guy stood out front with a scar running down his face. He didn't smile. He didn't talk. He just cracked his knuckles while the three goons from earlier stood behind him, glaring.
"That's them," one of them said.
The scarred man stepped forward.
"Hope you boys didn't think it was over."