<[CHAPTER 2]>
[The Mistake That Shouldn't Exist!]
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Kingdom of Isenai.
A region of fertile plains; imposing mountains; enormous rivers; cities and settlements, large and small. On its coast, a beautiful archipelago is formed by a variety of habitable islands. A temperate climate, which facilitates agriculture in the region, a kingdom that always celebrates its enormous cultural diversity with great enthusiasm.
Bay City was one of these cities on the kingdom's coast, the sea lapping against the rocks. On the lawn atop a verdant hill, the wind blew softly, and lying on the ground in the yard of his noble wooden house was a one-year-old boy, gazing at the blue and infinite sky.
–"The sky is beautiful today!"
He blinked slowly, thoughtful and sleepy. The small and seemingly weak boy awoke when he heard his name being called.
–"Haudo… come on, don't stay there alone!"
The voice came from the balcony of his house. He turned his head slowly; it was his mother calling as she walked towards him to get him.
–"You have to be more careful, what were you doing alone? Never mind, come on, lunch is ready, you can play later!"
She said smiling, even though her eyes showed her tiredness. She took his hand and led him inside the house. He looked at his mother's warm hand and smiled slightly, staring intently at her, and something inside him reacted.
–"She's important, I need to protect her!"
He thought calmly as they walked hand in hand, not knowing what that feeling meant or the risk it could cause.
–"Hey, let's eat quickly, the food will get cold!"
–"My son is strange, but he's a good boy…")
She said and thought, laughing softly as she sat him down at the table and fed him.
Three years have passed, and that moment has become a memory.
In a small forest, near that same house as they descended the hill, the sound of breaking wood echoed through the area.
CRACK!
A silence fell over the place after the loud bang.
"...Haudo!?"
A tall, robust man shouted, running towards the spot where he heard the noise. He stood motionless, observing his father, who was worried. On the ground, he noticed a tree trunk broken in half, and in front of him... his small child, calm but breathless, looked at him as he approached.
"Little one, did you do this?"
He looked at his own bare hands, and then at the broken axe on the ground. He looked at his father and remained silent for a few moments.
"It was me, Dad, it was easy... the axe broke, but I managed to break it with my fists. Just like you said, you just have to find the breaking point and it breaks easily."
His father didn't answer. He remained incredulous; he had only talked about that subject to boast to his son and spark some interest in his current profession as a lumberjack. That attack, which even he hadn't managed more than a dozen times with an axe in all his years of work, was something his son had practically destroyed with a single punch, while he needed several good blows to accomplish the same feat.
"Did I do something wrong, Dad?"
He asked, questioning. He didn't find it strange to accomplish this feat, but his father did. However, he remained calm and tried to show more pride than surprise.
"On the contrary, son, you did well. It's strange to accomplish such a feat at your age, it's not normal, but you are special. Keep going like this and you will be the strongest in the world, a legendary lumberjack like your old father here. But don't get cocky, you have to train a lot!"
Hearing these words from his father, he became even more motivated and continued going to the forest to train whenever he had time. After two years, that forest no longer existed. He had felled over a thousand trees during that time with the same practice. Now they had a flat, ready-to-cultivate plot of land. He was helping his father with this, but his help was merely with the felling of the trees; the transportation was left to the adults.
He was now five years old and sat on the snow-covered ground of his yard, his hand intensely warm, though it wasn't the season nor summer. A small flame burned in the air in the palm of his hand; it was unstable, weak, but comforting. He observed it like a toy, sitting on the ground, trying to imitate the fire in his home's fireplace to warm himself.
Without a teacher, without training, without explanation, it was all instinct. He just did it… an elderly woman watched from afar; it was his grandmother, a magic user, a sorceress.
–"How…? He's not channeling, he's creating the flame? He saw me light the fireplace with magic. Did I do wrong to do it in front of him?"
She thought, her eyes wide, unable to believe what she was seeing. The flame intensified, and when he tried to warn her, it was too late… and the loss of control occurred.
BOOM!
There was an explosion, strong enough to throw him unconscious against one of the trees in the yard. The ground shook and collapsed, creating a crater at the site of the explosion. The silence and smoke worried her, and she disappeared, reappearing in a flash in front of her unconscious grandson using her teleportation ability.
"Grandson!!! You better survive, otherwise your mother will make me go too! Insane, hahaha..."
She said desperately, using a healing ability, and the boy's wounds were healed. He woke up, but fell asleep again soon after. But, for her, the important thing was that he was alright, without a single scratch to prove that anything had happened, so her skin was free from her daughter's torture should she find out something had happened to her son.
Before falling unconscious again.
"I... was wrong!"
He said, looking at the sky. Smiling, he fell asleep.
"Interesting, so it wasn't an accident! I admit, the boy has talent, but I can't train him directly. I'll leave him with an instruction manual and then continue when I return from the next mission."
Several years passed. And that event hadn't been discovered; his grandmother covered everything up very well. Now he was 7 years old, his training involved the physical aspect as well as magic. He trained on his own; his grandmother and father gave him advice less and less frequently, they had nothing more to teach him, so he honed the basics he had been taught, training his body and the skills he had learned to the fullest.
He had few friends, almost none. The other children found him too strange to play with; there was a time when laughter and competition were constant until the day he had none left.
"Come on, try to hit me, Haudo!"
He stood still, and the boy advanced, frustrated by impatience in the game. The boy who had challenged him was confident; he thought he was being underestimated. On the contrary, his opponent was taking the game seriously, and apparently very seriously indeed.
He stood watching his opponent advance.
"Too slow..."
He thought. The blow came swiftly, a punch aimed at his face. The opponent thought he hit him, but hit an afterimage, he hit the air.
He was no longer there.
"What?!"
The boy said, perplexed. This moment was interrupted, with him appearing behind him and pushing him. The blow was simple, but humiliating. The boy fell to the ground without understanding what had happened.
"Again... get up!"
He said without any emotion, very calm for a child. The other children retreated; he is strange, very strange, they thought. That boy was the only one who remained, his only friend and self-proclaimed rival, without challenging him. They began to evolve together. The series of defeats, one after another, became a stalemate, victory after defeat, one defeating the other time and time again, endlessly facing each other in every kind of challenge.
Now they were 10 years old. Haudo was in his room, awake at midnight with insomnia. In the middle of the night he was awake, sitting on his bed, simply breathing. The world seemed strange to him, a little different, slower and clearer; his mind expanded and then…
⊰᯽⊱┈──╌❊╌──┈⊰᯽⊱
[URGENT MISSION]
⊰᯽⊱┈──╌❊╌──┈⊰᯽⊱
• Eliminate invaders before it's too late.
⊰᯽⊱┈──╌❊╌──┈⊰᯽⊱
The rain seemed to worsen, thunder echoed in the air, and that holographic message in front of him raised doubts. Strangely, he recognized that interface and decided not to doubt it.
–"This… where have I seen it before? Anyway… I have other priorities now!"
He left his room with light steps, not wanting to wake his parents and his little sister sleeping in the next room. No sooner had he stepped outside than he heard a loud crash, not the thunder from the heavy rain; he heard laughter inside the house, the voices strange and mocking.
He ran out and reached the scene. In the living room, there was a group of seven hooded men. His little sister lay on the floor, her arms and legs bound, motionless, her eyes filled with tears. Upon seeing her brother, she screamed:
BROTHER!!!
The man holding her delivered a sharp blow to her head, strong enough to knock her unconscious.
"Dead men don't talk, stop making a scene! And you, boy, I advise you to get out of here if you want to survive, or you'll end up like these idiots..."
He pointed to three bodies piled up: his father, mother, and grandmother. He was alone now; he was the only one who could protect his little sister.
The boy was overcome with fury and sadness. He rushed towards them, appearing and disappearing in a flash before his opponents, striking them with a powerful punch. Holes opened in their bodies, and they fell to the ground. In this way, he managed to defeat five of them by catching them off guard.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. He failed on his sixth attempt; the impact was weak. A smoke enveloped him in darkness, and silence followed. He fainted from a blow to the head. With so much blood gushing from the wound, the invaders preferred to leave him to die in agony; if he survived, it would be much worse to live with that feeling.
He, stubborn, refused to die so easily. He awoke after some time, looked around, and saw only blood and the bodies of his dead family members, except for his sister's.
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[WARNING]
⊰᯽⊱┈──╌❊╌──┈⊰᯽⊱
• Urgent Mission: Failed!
- Penalty: Progression Reduced to 90%!
- Rewards: Processing!
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The dry silence was painful, interrupted by an even drier laugh; he chuckled softly, as if he had gone mad.
–"So that's how it is..."
He felt his chest tighten, he stood up unsteadily, looked at his trembling hand, felt his energy unstable, yet he felt powerful; that's how he wanted to make himself believe it, to overcome this adversity with as much sanity as possible.
–"However difficult it may be, it won't stop me from achieving my revenge, you damned system!"
His words were assertive, without a doubt.
He clenched his fist tightly, stared intently at the bodies on the ground, and forced a smile.
–"You want fun, then let's play!"
The world he knew had completely changed. He ran swiftly out of the house as fast as he could in his weakened state, trying to find he didn't even know what, when he realized it he was in the center of the city and collapsed right there on the cold, wet ground of the square.
Elsewhere… in a tavern, Players!
–"Does this avatar really exist? This challenge has made sense for years, more than a decade has passed since it was launched... and still no one has found anything!"
He murmured, taking a sip of his beer.
–"I know, he doesn't show up in any system! Even cheats can't find him... but he exists."
Said his companion.
–"I know who he is, one day he looked at me and I got goosebumps all over. And it wasn't that conventional fear you feel, it was something more..."
Said another player, adding fuel to the fire of the fire that was this conversation.
A silence echoed through the cave.
–"This is all ridiculous rumors, to this day the global event about this avatar hasn't progressed at all!" You can check..."
[WORLD EVENT]
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[THE DAIMYO'S TREASURE]
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• Progression 0%... 0.1%!
- There was contact with the anomaly.
- The anomaly was disturbed by the players.
- Players, pay attention, the game is becoming more unpredictable.
• Objective: Destroy the Error!
⊰᯽⊱┈────╌❊╌────┈⊰᯽⊱
He observed the screen, looked again and again. The information was the same, everyone could see it on their interfaces; it was world news. All because of a boy, who was at the center of it all… without memories, without a past, but with a destiny that not even the system itself could control.
Everyone knew about the Hunt that existed in his head, except himself. Returning to the unfortunate man, he lay on the damp, cold ground in the throes of unconsciousness, murmuring.
–"I will go to the end, even if it kills me… I will achieve my revenge!"
And something inside him answered.
–"To the end, no more, no less!"
The silence was muffled by the sound of the falling rain; he frowned slightly in distrust. But this time he simply ignored it.
"For now, I'll use you as you've used me, system!"
He fell unconscious to the ground.