章 20: Volunteer
After school got done, Red spent his time practicing drawing in the Arts club. His improvement was shocking to the other students.
"Red, your improvement is staggering!" The president of the Arts Club, Eri, said.
"Thank you president, but I'm still mostly imitating. Once I get the hang of drawing, I want to go beyond that and find my own artistic conception." Red replied.
After club time was over, Red returned home with more groceries. He found that Lupa, the injured thief, was sitting on the couch watching the news about herself on the tv.
"You seem better now. Is the city still in lockdown?" Red asked.
"Yes. My identity has also been revealed and all my assets were frozen. I was betrayed by some people." Lupa finally spoke up about her predicament with a bitter smile.
"Once you escape the city, do you have any safe place to go to?" Red asked.
"Yes, but without money and being abandoned by contacts, it is impossible to leave the country." Lupa replied.
"Stay here then. Once the blockade is lifted, you could think of potential options." Red replied.
"Why are you helping me?" Lupa asked.
"I'm just indulging my chivalrous nature." Red laughed. "Tell me what you want for dinner, I've bought some supplies."
Lupa looked at the stuff and asked him to cook Gnocchi. Red nodded. "By the way, can you cook? I am at school during the day." He suddenly asked, remembering that prepping lunch almost got him late.
"...I can make an omelette." Lupa said, flushing with embarrassment.
"...." Red was speechless. "Well, I'll wake up a little earlier and cook lunch for you before leaving."
Lupa didn't know how to reply so she changed the topic. "How did you stitch my wounds so perfectly? You aren't a novice."
"I interned as a Paramedic with doctors without borders in the Congo Basin." Red replied nonchalantly.
"You... at your age volunteered in a perennial warzone? Who are you trying to fool?" Lupa couldn't believe what Red said.
Red took out his smartphone and opened an album on the cloud. It contained pictures of himself as a fifteen year old in the doctors without borders camp that was clearly in Africa. He handed the phone to Lupa. "Satisfy your curiosity."
"How is this possible? Why would a volunteer group bring a child into such a dangerous place?" Lupa was dumbfounded.
"Well, I wasn't formally an intern. I was visiting the place with an acquaintance who was a volunteer, and then I began helping out as well." Red said as he pointed at one particular man who seemed to be in his thirties and he looked extremely heroic.
"Wait... isn't he Doctor Miles? The famous underworld medical professional?" Lupa exclaimed in shock.
"Oh, you know him. Yeah, I was volunteering with him. Good guy at heart, but he is very greedy when he sees rich customers. I often saw him tricking a lot of the mercenary warlords who monopolized the supply of cobalt and scared them with lithium toxicity fears." Red replied before shaking his head.
Lupa was dumbfounded. "You are too abnormal."
"I just seek out unique experiences to expand my horizons. It is a matter of drive." Red replied.
After dinner, Red sat down to practice and realized that his proficiency in the second layer had marginally increased and more energy was entering his body than before.
"So this is the result of confirming the Path of the Thief. Stealing Rin's heart in front of Aito and causing him heartbreak actually improved my proficiency of the Divine Thief's Manuscript second layer." Red thought to himself as he observed his body.
However, he was confused, because he didn't feel any changes within his body. The energy was simply entering his body and disappearing into his cells. He realized that the energy was not enough.
Red looked at the MI7 information portal. It was an encrypted service that only members like him could use. His clearance was the lowest level - 0. Through that he found that areas with high urban agglomeration were usually poor places with very little of the metaphysical energy. The energy could be found in places which are closer to nature, isolated from technology and away from humans as much as possible.
A few spots near Tokyo were listed as possible spots with a higher concentration of background mystical energy. They were mostly a few hilly shinto temples which were rarely visited by people anymore.
"Pollution seems to destroy this metaphysical energy... It's no wonder the amount of energy I can draw here is so weak." Red thought.
Lupa was sleeping in the bedroom, but at four in the morning, she felt thirsty and went to the kitchen to grab some cold water. However, in the process she saw Red was sitting in a lotus pose, seemingly meditating like a monk. What shocked her was that she felt like Red looked extremely ethereal at this moment, and his body was even glowing.
Next day Red went by his new routine, cooking breakfast and lunch in the morning. He cooked extra and made a bento for himself for lunch time.
In class, as soon as all the students arrived, Nina, who happened to be the Class Rep made an announcement.
"Today, we have a special person coming to the school to give a lecture. It is the legendary Professor Crubbs, who has made various leaps in improving human life span in the last couple of years and is a nobel prize winner. Classes until lunch will be suspended so that students can attend her lecture." She explained calmly before returning to her seat.
Red nodded as he commented. "Humanity seems to have progressed incredibly rapidly in the past decade. I've been hearing about how human biogenetics is the new integrated circuit of the 2030s."
Yui nodded. "Indeed. It's hard to think how different yet similar the world has become in just a decade. Diseases like cancers and alzheimers have been completely cured and CRISPR technology was perfected to the point that humans could not genetically modify adults to cure any underlying genetic ailments, drastically increasing our lifespans."
Red agreed. Even he felt that the growth of the human race has been too explosive in the last decade. In the 2020s it seemed like globalization was fraying and countries were drifting towards a multipolar fragmented world, yet with the sudden change in this decade, the various countries were now planning to form a singular Earth Federation. A global government.
In historical perspectives, this was especially hard to understand and there were many conflicts within countries about this project, but the public sentiment seemed to largely be in favor of unification of the world's countries into a singular super government.
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