บท 2: Chapter 2 – The Sign

A young man walked through the streets of a lively but dirty city.

At this moment, it was 2:00 am, but the sun was still shining.

It was always shining.

There was not a single moment when it wasn't shining.

This was how it had been for thousands of years and how it would continue to be for thousands more years.

The sun was directly in the middle of the sky, seemingly perfectly above the walking young man.

Surprisingly, even though the sun was in the middle of the sky, its light wasn't very bright and overwhelming but subdued and more orange-yellowish in color.

For the citizens of Crimson Fungus City, it was currently nighttime. Although, when one talked about night, they were referring to the time between 10 pm and 6 am. This had nothing to do with the state or location of the sun since that was always static.

Most people slept during the night time. No one really knew why, but most people followed that social norm since their parents, grandparents, and everyone else had done the same.

Some crazy people said that people slept during the night because, somehow, the sun used to do something called setting in the past.

Naturally, that was idiotic.

How fast would the sun need to move to go around the Earth?

How would it even move?

It made no sense.

As the young man continued walking, he saw several dirty, grimy, and rusty pipes coming out of the ground, which then slithered up the damaged and dirty walls of buildings.

The floor of the city was uneven, with half of it made of craggy rock and the other half made of rusty grates that led deep underground.

The smell of gas and oil blanketed the "streets", but the people living here had already gotten used to it.

CRACK!

Suddenly, one of the grates below the young man's legs broke, and the young man began to fall.

However, the young man just reflexively spread his arms and grabbed the grates to his side, stopping his fall.

The young man took a deep breath and released it before he pulled himself up.

After pulling himself up, he looked around the street for something.

He saw a couple of thin people that were sitting at the side of the road, talking with each other. Since it was nighttime, not many people were here.

"Hey, do you know where I can get a big sheet of metal?" the young man, Nick, asked the group.

It had been two years since Nick had met the "scholar," and Nick was now 16 years old.

The scholar had told Nick about his power, and he even taught him a couple of things over the next couple of days.

Right now, Nick was about 180cm tall, which was enormous for someone living in the Dregs. The available food was horrible, which made it difficult for people to grow tall.

Nick's body was also still quite muscular, giving him quite an intimidating appearance.

The group collectively furrowed their brows as they looked at him. Nick's bulky figure intimidated them a bit. "What do you want?" an older lady among them said with a tone of threat in her voice.

"I just told you what I want," Nick said as he scratched the side of his head. "I just want a sheet of metal."

"Why?" the older lady asked with annoyance.

Nick just pointed at the hole in the grates with his thumb.

The group just threw a couple of glances at each other.

"You want to repair the hole?" the older lady asked with skepticism.

Nick nodded. "I'm strong enough to stop my fall and pull myself out. Others aren't," he answered.

The lady's expression became even more skeptical. "And you care about that?"

Nick just scratched the back of his head. "I mean, I broke it. I should also fix it," he said with a shrug.

The group looked at each other again.

Then, the older lady pointed at one of the houses at the edge of the street.

The house was basically a ruin. A third of it was already missing, and all the metal of the house had already rusted.

The city had an overabundance of metal, and all the metal that the wealthy parts of the city didn't need anymore ended up in the Dregs.

This was also why nearly all houses here were made of rusty metal.

"The occupant of it said it two days ago," the older lady said, her voice neutral.

Nick nodded. He knew what it meant to "say it".

It basically meant that the person had committed suicide via a specific method.

"Thanks," Nick said as he walked over to the derelict house.

After a bit of searching, Nick saw a two-meter wide and long plate of metal and began to pull.

Sadly, the builder of the house seemed to have had a phobia of his house collapsing, which was why he welded everything together.

Nick tried for a while, but the metal plate only shuddered and made creaking noises.

Nick just sighed and looked around.

Then, he walked into the house, away from all prying eyes.

BANG!

A dent appeared in the metal plate.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

After four hits, the metal plate broke away from the house and fell to the ground outside as Nick exited through the new hole.

The eyes of the earlier group widened in shock.

They knew that this young man was strong based on his stature, but wasn't this a bit too much?!

How much power would one need to dent such a big metal plate?!

Sure, it wasn't super thick, but this was still metal!

Nick pulled the metal plate across the street with quite some difficulties, confusing the group even more.

The guy had just dented the plate, but now he had issues carrying it?!

This made no sense!

A couple of seconds later, Nick put the plate over the hole in the grate that he had created earlier and rubbed the sweat off his forehead.

He walked on top of the plate and jumped a bit. The metal was creaking, but it didn't move.

If the metal could withstand Nick jumping on it, no one would have issues walking over it.

Nick nodded with satisfaction and continued walking through the streets.

He waved a bit at the group as he left.

"Oh! Now, I know who that is!" one of the younger people in the group shouted a couple of seconds later.

The others looked at him. "You know him?"

The younger guy nodded. "He's that weird guy at the marketplace."

"The weird guy?" another person from the group repeated with uncertainty. "Oh, you mean the one that just sits there with a sign all day?"

"Yes, that guy," the other guy said with a nod. "I didn't recognize him since he looks much smaller when he's sitting."

The other people raised their eyebrows in understanding.

Some of them looked at the derelict house again with newfound realization.

That explained how he was strong enough to break the metal.

"This means he has an attuned Zephyx Synchronizer, right?"

The others just nodded. "According to his sign, yes."

The older lady in the group looked at the sheet of metal in the middle of the street.

"You know, if others actually followed his example and fixed what they broke, the Dregs wouldn't be nearly as bad," she commented.

Nick continued walking down the street, and a couple of minutes later, he arrived at a big plaza.

In comparison to the streets, the plaza was mostly made of stone, and the walls weren't too dirty.

Nick could see a couple of merchants stationed around their wagons filled with wares.

Since it was night, only the poorest and the richest merchants sold their wares.

The poorest sold their wares at night since there was far less competition, and the richest did the same since they could just hire someone to keep their shop open all the time.

The other 80% of shops were only open between 6 am and 10 pm.

Nick walked across the plaza until he arrived at the widest road in the Dregs.

The road led to one of the exits of Crimson Fungus City.

At the spot where the road and the plaza met, Nick stopped and walked to the side.

After sitting down, Nick pulled out a roll of cardboard and unrolled it before putting it on a metal rod he had brought with him.

Lastly, Nick just lifted his new sign and waited.

"Zephyx Extractor looking for work!"

And then, he waited.