((The Prologue of the novel are located in Auxiliary vol. If you want to read it, but don't if you avoid getting spoiled, though its only a minor key events.))
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A teenager finds himself standing in a catastrophe. He can't move nor close his eyes, and he feels his skin burning constantly. Everything around him looks all real. But the nightmare won't stop and it keeps happening again and again.
There were people getting murdered and burned alive, as well as beheading and tortuing to death by stabbing from hips up to their throat.
Not even kids are safe from the slaughter. They were seized and put in an animal cage.
Meanwhile the elderlies are annihilated because they have no use of them. They even disrespected the near graveyard by burning it too.
...Not even how much he begged to stop, the nightmare from this place will haunt him every dream.
While he's helpess, one of the knight can oddly see him unlike anyone. The knight slowly approaches him with murderous intent until the knight's in front of him.
The blade stabbed and slid its way through his throat with so much blood dripping.
The pain is imense and he can literally feel it but cannot die, but before his vision blurred, he saw a glimpse of a dark shadowy figure on the background.
Then he woke up and grabbed his own neck to clarify if his throat didn't turn into donut.
"Shit... that dream again.
...Tsk...
...Make it stop..!"
In reality, he was just laid down on a cheap bed inside a run-down abode that was nestled somewhere within a kingdom.
Here's a little fact, there was a kid who has a gold for his weekly allowance. There was a kid with loving parents and protected. There was a kid who serves the king. And there was Dusk, his name was Dusk, received silvers no more than five with every hard work that never paid off, and he'd still looked after anyone before himself. Good guy. But also a badmouthed person.
Still, he's not entirely alone, there were many, absolutely many people in this world that lives exactly as Dusk.
[[Dusk, grey-black hair, mostly black hair. Messy and almost covered his eyes]].
"Kid! Are you still there?...
...I'm sure you know the date right? Pay the rent!"
There goes the owner of the grand shelter. Because in every kingdom, you can rent a room for a month, but it'll cost you a fortune. And spending a night under the open sky isn't an option, not when monsters roam after dark
Hence live outside the kingdom itself, it's basically a suicide.
'Damn, I have nothing left in me... this old geezer is annoying as ever.'
"I'll pay tomorrow, just shut the hell up!"
As for Dusk, he might always be in trouble when it comes to earning money for "rent" which he hates the most.
Not to mention, most of the time, he fails to do a single job, be it handling paperwork or working for a blacksmith, can't even feed a frickin horse.
"You imbecile! Make sure you do before I'll kick your ass out!"
'Yeah yeah. Wish I can just lie on the bed all day without having to pay every single time.'
He napped for a little bit before deciding to go back and work for that another annoying commissioner old man, and he had to, just enough to cover the rent, maybe treat himself a small snack too.
As soon as he went out, the noise from outside got louder. It wasn't just his room. The place was a shared quarters, room by room. There were many people, and some of them smelled bad because there was only one bathroom.
That time, Dusk had to fight for it, just to pee and mock everyone.
Either way, it's always been pain in the ass when trying to leave from the apartment. The terrace were always piled up with people, and what's worse is his room was located on the second floor.
And some parts of the wooden floor are mostly broken, so one wrong step will result an easy injury and money loss.
"Come on, step out of the way goddamn it!"
"Mornin' kid."
Even with his attitude this bad, he made friends and "older" friends in his first week to be living in this abandoned-looking apartment with people.
"Yeah, yeah you too."
It may look like the apartment was infested with people, but they are kind-hearted at most of the time.
'Crap, I haven't paid her yet. Don't look at me, don't look at me...'
"Hey brat! You said you will pay for the food you took!"
Maybe not most of the time. Since Dusk is very mischievous already, even in his first day.
"Just give me some damn time, woman!"
As he descended to the crooked stairs, a familiar old drunk bumps on him then started a conversation unexpectedly.
"Hey'a Dusggk.. Whuat job... err, touday?"
"Meh."
Dusk quickly passes by him before the man could start another "good old days" story while grinning with three missing teeths.
Later on outside, while walking with his ripped coat, he saw the slaves again standing to be sold in a public auction. It's becoming normal in this world. Selling people and other foolish things to "support" the King's power.
'Another one?... give me abreak.'
There were also many vendors just across the polluted streets of the kingdom, and once again, it has tons of people, but that doesn't bug him anymore because he's used to it, but not onto that apartment.
This place may be loud and filled with lots of smoky air in the sky, it's still full of life. Sometimes a filthy one.
There can be seen a poorest living without a home and stays on a muddy pathway with vendors either pushing him away or avoiding him to "prevent bad luck", they thought.
But it's a good day, every day, for normal people with conversations like...
"Hey, remember when we used to work together as a guard?"
"Yeah.. when was that? I always forget things ya'know."
Some are normal conversation...
"Mom, Mom! Toy, Toy!"
"Okay sweetheart, pick one."
...Some are sweet moments...
"Hey how much did you throw at him?"
"About 7 to 8 rocks I think."
"Are you sure Ren will die from just that? What if he report us to teacher?"
...And maybe some cruelty...
Many people had prepared something like a flower crown, small wooden toys of the royalties, and tried to invent food because a celebration will happen next day. It's a good omen since it's rare to be happy for once in this kingdom.
"Hey old man, what's the job are you giving me now?"
"Cleaning houses this time. Then you'll look after their pets once you're finished."
"What? Can't I do something else than that?"
Pets are mostly farm animals. Like horse for example.
And he usually had to do "adult" jobs he couldn't even handle. Don't even get him started about the politics in this vicious world. But for now, he's going to clean houses which is he hated even more, because he once saw a slave taking care of the horse droppings.
"As long as you do well on your job, you earn decent amount of money, you get that?."
' "Clean house" my ass, don't blame me if I did it wrong.'
Dusk's job is to simply clean the corner of the walls and mop the floor from people's houses. Generally, he would clean a disgusting house that has a stinky smell inside. But hey, at least he's got a decent payment.
Cleaning houses looks hard for him already, but he's still pretty much of a failure at some times. That one time he broke someone else's pot and almost burned the whole hut after his leather got caught on fire from the chimney.
-- (past)
"The fuck did you do to my house, brat..!!?"
"At least I cleaned it! Stop yelling at me and give me my money!"
-- (back to present)
He'll also ran an errand on a bakery and it was not a commission, he's just tasked to do it by the baker itself but Dusk would mess the bread instead.
After some time, he hadn't mean to enter inside the training area on an academy because he was going to deliver some weapons, used for fighting against the Corrupts, and he was supposed to only place it down right in front of their doorway. But there was a lot of pathways and doors, they didn't even have a gate.
[[Corrupts were beings born from death, in short they are corrupted souls but it's not always guarantee a soul may be corrupted. What they learned is a soul that had committed sins repeatedly were tended to be corrupted]].
There were knights that guarded the place, but whenever he sees anyone as a knight, he gets the feeling of hatred towards them and he didn't know why. Yet his instincts told him to despise them.
Now that he's inside the training area, the trainers rudely snatched the wooden box he was holding. Dusk can tell there was no respect or even being thankful to their narrowed eyes, because he was seen nothing but a peasant.
"Took you so long to deliver those, now get out of here kid.
...You're getting on my nerves for no reason."
"I know, I know."
Dusk was only embarrassed by the rookies who watched him leave and he can already hear brief laughter, but he wasn't sure whether it was him they're laughing about or not.
'What a bunch of idiots... fighting the "corrupts" or whatever... they'll die anyway.'
_ _ _ _ _
His next job was taking care of animals again. Since, he burned half of that house and was in debt of 5 golds. It was easy, but more often than not, Dusk will end up be covered in horse droppings every time he slipped on the wet clay and he had to use a nearby hose to clean himself.
"If I had the permission to chop you, I'd have done it already you damn animal-"
"What the hell are you doing?! The royalties are going to have to use him in two hours!...
...Ah make sure to clean him too! You're lucky enough to clean a horse that belongs to a noble at least..."
The horse will be used in the parade that would run down every street tomorrow, and afterwards if the horse were cleaned, it would be adorned with jewelry to celebrate an event occurring tomorrow.
"You're lucky to be used by royalty."
As usual, peasants were not invited. And people who can afford the entry does. It's all about money when it comes to a big banquet.
Day after day his life went on like this. He was poor and invisible to everyone.
But there were still a lot of poor people that died without being remembered, or did anyone really cared.
'When will be the time I get to eat at least a meat or sleep in a luxurious bed..?'
Fortunately he encountered the commissioner while mumbling.
"Hey kid.. here. Work better, next time."
"Five Silvers. Are you serious?"
One thing about this world was that they didn't use currencies like "dollars" or "yen" their coins were only coppers, silvers, and golds.
Shards are possible but it was only used to provide support to magics during a particular battle, and in the other way was absorbing its magical essence for boost or creating a potion out of it.
Obviously, only experts could do any of that.
"Didn't you say you had to pay rent?"
"Yes, but what about my food?"
"Just go and steal something, then. Now get out of my sight already."
He looked up at the orange sky while he walks away, and disappointedly accepted the five silver coins. But he wondered on a different thought....: if the gods really existed. And if they did... shouldn't they be the ones to handle our grief?
'I don't know why but sometimes I just feel like... wanting to slaughter all of them. But I'm powerless anyway.'
Just across of him, the apartment is visible. It was a good thing there were few people so it wouldn't be much of a hassle when getting back to his room.
And inside, the owner was waiting for Dusk to come home just to charge him.
"Where's th-"
Dusk wouldn't care anymore, just rudely tossed the pouch to the owner's face before he dropped himself on the straw bed.
"I'll be leaving. You're still in debt, don't you forget that."
"I know, just shut up and leave."
Only now he realized everything just gotten worse this day. His debts is piling up, and because the world is cruel, undoubtedly he will be killed sooner or later but he's confident enough it wouldn't happen.
But that was the whole day for him. For now.
.
>> Proceed to the next Chapter <<