Sean woke up far too early for his liking, gasping. He did not know what he dreamed of, but his body was covered with cold sweat and he was shivering. With groggy, but wide-open eyes, he looked around before finally settling on the window. It was just past dawn and the reddish-yellow light from the sun basked the entire world in its glory —the ghosts were gone.
He was parched and his throat felt like its back and its front was glued together. Only then did he realize that his hygiene was horrible.
It was weird how such mundane worries were easily forgotten when you were in another world, fighting with your life on the line.
Sean climbed up to a sitting position and slowly got up. He’d fallen asleep with everything he was wearing, including the cloak, pendant, and ring. There was a blanket put over him while he was asleep. Mr. Ishida was sleeping on the ground on a thin mattress.
He quietly made his way back to his backpack. He had a full water bottle if what the System told was true. His laptop should be back in action as well, hopefully, but that was the least of his worries now. Without electricity and monsters prowling through the streets during the night, Sean doubted Programming on a laptop would be of any use.
After he pulled open the zips, Sean found the snacks he’d given to Ashley in Veidrheim back in his backpack. The water bottle was also there and so was his laptop. He didn’t bother to check if it was working. There was no need for it.
“Leaving?” asked Mr. Ishida, eyes still closed.
“Yeah. I am,” said Sean and put a wry smile on his face while looking at him, and slightly nodded his head. It was a reflex more than anything. It was his way of saying thank you. He didn’t know when he picked it up, but at some point, he’d started doing it, “Thanks.”
“Not eating anything?” asked Mr. Ishida again.
“I have… no appetite,” said Sean after chugging down half the bottle. It was a metal one that he’d filled a day before the System came so the water inside tasted fishy, but he did not care.
“We’re moving to the haven after those two wake up,” said Mr. Ishida, “If no one is home… you can come with us. Or ask for your family to go there as well. That is where everyone is moving to or so I have heard. It’s far livelier outdoors nowadays during the day. Those darned computers and cellphones are gone.”
Sean did not think much of it. After all, there was no electricity and that meant no internet. It also meant that no one could call each other as the antennae or whatever made them work would be gone. He didn’t use phones all that much anyway. The internet and a mobile laptop made it obsolete, especially considering his parents didn’t even bother to call him most of the time.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Sean. He did not plan to move to a safe haven. He wanted answers, and if it meant visiting every single relative of his in the city until he found someone that was home even if his family wasn’t. And something told him that his family wouldn’t be in a haven, “Where is it?”
“St. Lucas’ Academy,” said Mr. Ishida. Sean knew the place. It had an entrance exam. He’d taken it and failed miserably. The real charm of a boarding school would only be felt if he was from outside the city and he wasn’t, so it didn’t hit him as badly, “It is on the other side of the city, so we have to move early.”
“I see,” said Sean. He pulled his backpack up. As if remembering something, he slid his hand into the head hole of his shirt and touched where he was stabbed by the needles of the mosquitos. There was no mark, but whether it was due to the injury healing or their delicate stingers, Sean did not know. He also managed to notice that his shirt was dirty now, especially the sides. He was lying on the ground when he came back to Earth.
The door was the kind that locked itself when it closed, so there was no need for Mr. Ishida to get up.
Sean shut it behind himself and looked at the corridor. It was dark. He hadn’t noticed it yesterday, but the lack of windows made it far darker. Usually, lights with motion sensors would light up whenever he walked under them. But again, no electricity.
He wasn’t afraid of it but lighting up the area with a Mana Ball seemed like a good idea.
So he… wouldn’t trip, yeah… That was why he created light.
It wasn’t like he was scared…
The Mana Ball came naturally, Computation making it as easy as him thinking about creating a Mana Ball. The circle wasn’t even properly imagined and it wasn’t tapped before it activated. It was almost automatic and a Mana Ball popped out. It hovered in the air without a Push component, imitating a sort of lantern. It’d go out soon in around a minute or so. Sean did not know the exact time, but he felt like it would be a minute.
He lived on the fourth floor so it wasn’t all that far away. Climbing the stairs felt tiring before, but after he’d sprinted up a mountain for hours on end without even feeling a tinge of exhaustion, it was comfortable. There were windows near the stairs so he didn’t need a Mana Ball to light up the path.
Did awakening the Heart Factor make him feel its effect more actively?
What had caused it to awaken in the first place?
Him struggling? His first kill? His despair? There were far too many maybes but nothing concrete, making him look forward to getting back home even further. He wanted the answers to all these questions floating around his head and the true identity of his parents as well as what they did.
His father was a Morris and his mother apparently had a Heart Factor, meaning she’d eaten four hearts —that wasn’t something every mother did.
At least Sean thought they didn’t.
Did they?
So with a heavy heart, Sean knocked on the door quite loudly.
There was no answer.
He banged again, but this time for almost ten seconds.
Again, there was no response.
Sean pulled off his backpack and opened the compartment at the front. There was his key, dangling from a keychain. Dangling right next to the key was a small, silver-colored bullet accessory with the word ‘Year’ etched onto it. It was something Sean’s father had given him on his 16th birthday. In the eyes of someone who actually knew a thing about guns, they’d notice the size was just about that of a 9mm round.
The door popped open after he turned the key and finally, he was home. The key was put into the left pocket of his jeans, right where his wallet was. Right… it was there. But he didn’t even care about it in Veidrheim. It had gotten lost somewhere. The laptop was far more important then.
It smelled like home.
It was like coming back from the most hellish vacation in the world and the first thing that he wanted to do was collapse on the bed in his room, but he did not have such a luxury.
Sean’s eyes widened as he looked at his home, or rather, what remained of it.
The large window of the living room was broken, the shards lying everywhere on the ground and on the sofa. There were muddy footprints on the carpet —they always took their shoes off before coming in. The TV and the various paintings that hung from the wall were lying on the ground, some of them torn apart in several pieces.
Walking further into the house proved that nothing was the same. All the drawers were pulled out and broken —the very wood and metal were broken as if they did not even matter. The table in his father’s office was thrown aside and the back of the office chair looked to have been cut in half cleanly.
The fridge was open, all the contents sprawled on the ground and the glass tables were all cracked and broken in several places. The house was definitely not a place you’d want to go barefoot in, so Sean did not even bother to take them off.
All the bedsheets were thrown off the bed, the mattresses were also torn open. It looked like they were searching for something.
Monsters?
So they were… real?
Sean knew from the fact that his mother had eaten the hearts of what he assumed to be werewolves that there were indeed monsters and that had been proven yesterday, but he did not know whether the ghosts were due to the System or not. But this? This proved that there were monsters and that they had a very good reason to turn his house upside down.
He didn’t even know if any sword known to man could tear the office chair in two as cleanly as that. It had plastic support and that did not seem to have hindered whoever, or rather, whatever had done that.
“What the hell happened here?” Sean mumbled underneath his breath as he walked through the house. It felt surreal, seeing his home be reduced to such a state. Sure enough, his bed was also destroyed. So far for lying down on his own bed after a long journey. His table was also broken apart, yet it remained standing. Upon it, he spotted a piece of paper with scribbled handwriting on it. Next to it was a sheathed knife.
He picked it up and stared at it.
“Uncle Jeremy’s,” he read out loud and let it go, not even bothering to pick it up. Was it a trap by whoever had come here? Or was it his parents? He did not know and that was the worst part of it all. He had to decide without any cues or proof.
Sean grit his teeth as he stared at the ground.
There was no choice. It was obvious. He’d go to Uncle Jeremy’s, whether it was a trap or not. If it was, then he’d just turn the whole place into rubble!
It wasn’t as if he couldn’t do it.
Sean then regarded the knife. It looked impractical, with a circular cross-guard and all. He unsheathed it and looked at it —Damascus Steel. Both colors were lighter shades of gray.
He slid the knife back into its sheath. The sound it made as it slid back made him feel as if he was back in Veidrheim and seemed to be the same size as the one that Fillmore had given him. He hadn’t used it for combat, but it was reassuring to have a dagger on his person. Like he was protected. For a moment, he thought about whether all of it was real or not, though the System hinted that it was.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have become a Legend.
But Sean pushed his stray thoughts away. He needed answers now, and thinking about the past wouldn’t help him one bit.
For that, he had to get to Uncle Jeremy’s. When his house was on the other side of the city, it didn’t sound all that pleasant without a car or buses. Maybe, just maybe, he could peek at Clara’s house to check whether she was home?
Yeah, that sounded like an excellent idea.
Then he heard something.
It sounded like a wet squelch very much like the sound of boots stepping into the mud. Was it a bird that had managed to come into the house through the window? Despite everything pointing at it being some animal, Sean cautiously unsheathed the dagger and walked out, ready to slash whatever came out. His right hand held the dagger and the sheath was lightly placed on the table. The left arm was ready to cast a spell if need be as he walked out the room.
Sean looked around, trying to pinpoint the location. It sounded like water was splashing around. There were two bathrooms. One was near the entrance and the second one in his parents’ bedroom — this sound came from the bedroom.
His breathing slightly increased its pace as Sean walked into the bedroom. The door was blown off its hinges and stepping on it made a loud noise, making him cringe.
He turned the corner and pointed his dagger at whatever was in there as if it would help —the door was closed.
It was unmistakable. The source of the sound was the bathroom.
Sean steeled his resolve. After seeing giant mosquitos flying around in the sky and having the ghost push him through a door, he wasn’t taking any chances.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Mana Ball,” said Sean quietly, more to himself than anything. The circles appeared from his fingertips and shot forward with a Push component. It wasn’t a condensed version so it didn’t shoot through it like a bullet. Instead, it was more like a push that forced it off its hinges. Yet it remained standing after the strike, even if barely.
The sound stopped.
Sean’s eyes narrowed as he waited for whatever was inside to come out, slowly making his way forward.
Then the door snapped open with immense force, enough to force the almost-broken door to snap off its hinges and fall aside. Steam came from inside and the hot air assailed his face and nostrils. It wasn’t enough to burn, but it was hot. Then words started to be written across the steamy mirror. It was a crude sentence if it could be called that.
It said ‘HUNTER KILL’ in capital letters, the handwriting barely eligible —the ‘KILL’ was underlined.
Before he even finished reading it, with a crack, the mirror shattered and the fragments were scattered across the ground. Black smoke knocked him aside and darted right past him. It was fast, very much like a baseball zipping past him and out the window. He could see it, but he couldn’t react —he was frozen.
His body did not move, but that did not mean his mind did not think. Appraisal activated itself, the System reading his intention expertly.
Skill ‘Appraisal’ has been activated!
Name: ???
Class: Haunter Lvl 3
Title(s): Apparition, Sorcerer of the Elements
Mana: 210/340