章 2: The Beginning (II)
[Earth Year 21XX 6:30 am]
Brrrrrrringgg~
Brrrrrringggg~
Brrrrrrrringggg~
In the early morning the sound of an alarm clock rang through a small box-like apartment filled with mess.
Notes filled with writings containing information posted all over the walls as pieces of food spilled over with yellow stains. Boxes and metals strewn all over the tiny floor making the apartment have a suffocating feel.
The sharp blades, the guns, gas masks, protective suits, and all sorts of syringes with glowing chemicals inside didn't help the atmosphere.
It was truly a messy place, hard to believe someone would be willing to live in such a condition.
Rustle~
Rustle~
The sound of rustling rang from a tiny bed that looked as if maggots and bugs had torn it apart, a figure of a human who had woken up in a rude way was shown.
"Woah~ ahhh! How come there's so much sunlight today? Did they increase the light-level again?" The figure was that of Lord, he had woken up and yawned loudly while covering his eyes as the sun was simply too bright.
Lord lived in a dark alley, so it should have been very hard for sunlight to come in, that is if it was natural sunlight. As the [Ark] is in a sub-dimension, the [Ark] has to produce its own sunlight and moonlight, and luckily with the power of technology and Awakeners combined, humans were able to make an artificial sunlight that not only gave all the benefits the real sun had but took away all the negatives that came with the real sun, an example being the universally hated sunburn.
Lord was in a daze as he had just woken up, waking up in a relative peace like environment was something any scavenger would kill for, as sometimes a scavenger would have to camp out in the wilderness being constantly aware, even in sleep, about their surroundings.
Lord soon awoke from his daze as he tried to recall what he was going to do today.
"Ah! Oh shit! Today's my sixteenth birthday!" After a bit of time, Lord had recalled that today was his sixteenth birthday, the most important day in a person's life as this day, is the day where the life of many are changed forever.
Lord immediately got off his bed and tripped as he fell on metal.
"Ah! Shit! My leg!! Fuck! Ahhh!" Lord yelled in pain. Although he was a scavenger, had seen the cruelty of life and was more mature than anyone his age from sixty years ago, he was still in fact now a sixteen year old boy who still hadn't finished puberty. Meaning he was prone to being impulsive, overlooking details, becoming excited, and making mistakes, though he would only have these mistakes when he let his guard down.
On the apocalyptic wastelands, letting your guard down was no different from suicide.
"Hah! I seriously need to clean this place ugh, ah!" Lord said in between gasps of pain, hitting your leg on a door or bed frame may hurt, but hitting your foot on a metal alloy that was strong as diamond?
OUCH!
Normally it would be hard to make normal metals as strong as diamond without decades of research, a lot of money, and expensive materials with cutting edge technology, but the "New World" is no way near capable of that, so instead humanity used the most convenient all-purpose tool in human history, the Awakeners.
Awakeners have a special energy that has been commonly termed as 'Mana' or Awakener Energy, the common people call it Mana as it was a popular term from before the Chaotic Era.
Using this energy, some unique Awakeners were able to apply it to metal, and history went from there.
Lord, after stamping his pained foot with the other, spent several moments to let the pain spread and go away.
"Haah…What a terrible start to what is supposed to be the most important day of my life." Sighing in annoyance at himself, Lord looked towards the calendar that was attached to the right side wall with a combat knife.
[2112 A.D August 14th]
"Finally, the day I've been waiting for so long…..*sniff* Oh god I need to wash myself up!" Lord dazed in wonder but soon realized that he stunk, he couldn't go to the Awakeners Test smelling like this. Even if he became an Awakener, would he have any dignity left if he smelled worse than a skunk?
Lord quickly got his gas mask, 4 combat knives, 2 rusted pistols, one a Glock model 27 and another being a Colt model 1903. Lord then put on his homemade vest made from pieces of fabric, leather, silk, and some metals put together in a disorderly manner that was held by nothing but basic crude techniques. Lord was by no means good at making things.
Lord then tied some leather and fabric around his body parts, making sure to not put it in the way of his agility.
In the dangerous wasteland, Lord had learned the two most important things for a scavenger to have, agility and the ability to evade.
Scavengers were mostly normal humans who just had better physiques than other normal humans, so to them, fighting the beasts wasn't a priority but running and evading were.
After all, what were some normal humans with a better body compared to 8ft tall monstrosities of power, strength, and endurance?
As Lord finished wearing his protective gear, he opened the small door that was half his size, making Lord have to crawl out.
The [Ark] was concerned with housing and making a habitable home for humanity, not comfort, so inevitably, to increase the number of residents and get more humans inside, the [Ark]'s were cramped and living spaces were tight and uncomfortable, well that was so for the economy area, the Luxury Area as it's named suggested was more spacious and more luxurious than anything the economy area could ever offer.
Lord, after crawling out of his cramped apartment, Lord soon got up and dusted himself off.
Noticing that his clothes were also very dirty and smelly, Lord frowed.
"Ahh whatever, I need to get to the community washing center, the awakening test is at 12-3pm so I can't waste time or else the crowds are going to get ridiculously big" Lord told himself to hurry up, talking to yourself in the apocalypse wasn't so abnormal as everyone had a few screws loose somewhere.
Lord finished dusting himself, which was strange as his clothes were all dirty and dust didn't quite matter in any sense.
Lord walked out of his alleyway, which wasn't too large and soon began walking towards the washing center.
The washing center was towards the north of Lord's apartment which was understandable since it was pretty close to the Inner Area and was also property of one of the high-ranking officials.
Walking towards the Washing Centre, Lord inspected the building.
It was unlike other buildings where they looked worn out and broken, the washing center was clean and shiny, like a pearl in the middle of dull rocks. As Lord was walking in, he was stopped by two F-rank Awakeners who were guarding the centre.
"Halt! show us your validation card civilian!" One of the guards spoke in monotone with hints of command, threat, and disdain to his voice.
Only Awakeners were called military or armed forces, everyone else including scavengers were called civilians.
And how did they distinguish civilians from Awakeners? By using an Awakener's energy signature, every Awakener had one and there has yet to be an 'official' way to hide energy signatures.
So all awakeners could sense each other with the exceptions of some who have unique abilities.
"Yes, please give me a second" Lord replied calmly, not at all bothered by the two F-rank Awakeners.
Humans were inherently an neutral-evil species, there was always a counter to the virtues of humanity, chastity had lust, generosity and greed, humility and pride, and so forth.
These F-rank Awakener guards were unfortunately part of the other side of humanity. They had realized that they were F-rank and instead of being ambitious to improve they had chosen to laze and exploit the benefits of being an Awakener.
It wasn't like they had no capability to improve.
Actually, Awakeners were ranked with two criterias for their rank, Power of ability and Control of ability.
On paper, the ability to shoot a ball of fire would be out-classed by the power of making a dimensional barrier or teleportation, but that's why the control part is so important because a Awakener that can control their fireball to be fast as a machine gun or as strong as a missile would outrank an awakener that has Teleportation of instant movement but no control of where they go.
Lord held a deep disdain for people like these guards, they were god-blessed with powers no normal human can imagine wielding, and yet instead of trying to improve their powers, and help humanity get out of this apocalyptic hell, they had instead used it to exploit their rights.
Lord wasn't a naive little boy to believe that all awakeners were good, of course some humans were selfless and willing to use their power to help, but there were still many who wished to have selfish gains.
Lord understood this as he himself was a selfish person who wanted to live comfortably, and he wouldn't try to justify himself and say he wasn't powerful enough to be compared to awakeners, that was simply hypocrisy.
But still, Lord held anger towards those people who kept their power for their selfish gains, his parents had died because of monsters, even if he only knew them for 4 years of his life, they were still his parents.
He resented those awakeners by thinking 'it's because of them that my mom and dad were killed, it's because they didn't do anything!'. Lord was aware that his thoughts were misdirected but he couldn't help himself.
Because of his family's death which he blamed the selfish awakeners for, Lord had sworn to himself that he wouldn't be like those awakeners, that if he awakened, he would use his powers, contribute to humanity and prove to those who watched the death of uncountable souls with cold selfish eyes, that HE, Lord Wan, was not like those trash who spoke the words of angels but acted no worse than devils.
Author Note: some info about MC is revealed this chapter, give me your thoughts regarding this?
週次パワーステータス
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