It was the same normal day, he went to the bar and stayed in touch with his old friends.

Or...

It was a day when his mental state would be shaken by a boy who came out of nowhere, slapping him upside the head with reality. It wasn't the first time he had experienced it, but it was annoying.

Hazel knew what he was doing anyway.

'No', he thought. He knew he was doing something wrong... but where was it?

He's the only one who knows it, or he knows nothing at all.

He had always been chasing a dream that everyone dreamed of, peace. If you want peace, then you have to take it from others and Hazel had always had that idea in his head until now. Along with that dream, he also had an obsession with the concept of true power, but he always kept everything pace. Killing is unnecessary when there is no reason behind it. Weaknesses are unavoidable and it's your job to try to avoid them as long as you can.

But...

'did I fail? I have turned into the most despised, humiliated, and extremely lowly thing... I have become weak' Those musings seemed to be the starting point of his awakening, all those memories played out in the blink of an eye. It was the tragedy, the genocide, and all the heinous things he did, all for just one peaceful day for him and his... family.

'What a gloomy memory…'

He glanced at the boy, he had the same energy as the old him.

Ignorant and shrimp-brained.

But little did he know, all the things he did back then indirectly had a great impact on his family. It took a long time for him to realize that and perhaps the head of the person he cared about, hit him very hard.

This boy had just disturbed his peace, but it had to be the right thing.

"I'm... tired."

'Can't do this shit anymore… I'm going to retire from this bullshit'

Hazel looked at the youth once more, his stiff face no longer able to show his sadness.

"You're pathetic, remember what you always said back then? That weakness is a sin? You have become one of the sinners yourself."

"I'm tired… "

'Every living being, simply can not avoid sins. But being a sinner is completely your fault.'

"...."

Something was missing from him, it was the thing that underpinned his very existence. He was always thinking of the best future for himself and his family, but he realized that he was just being selfish.

"You spend too much time with those rats. You're not even doing your duty as the leader of your family properly."

"...."

"No matter how many good things you do, all the crimes you've committed in the past will always overshadow them."

'I know....'

"Now it depends on you, how are you going to make up for all those sins?" Ezigio pointed his sword at Hazel's face, he expected a reply. If this didn't work, then all his efforts would be in vain.

'So please, shut the fuck up….'

On the one hand, Ezigio knew how dilapidated Hazel's mental state was. He had dropped his fighting intentions and decided just to have a short conversation with him, but one thing showed his intentions. After identifying the corpse he had found a few days earlier, Ezigio had changed his plans just like that. Seeing how a legendary Hunter was down and out, being used as a weapon by that damn rat made him furious.

Hazel was being controlled by the group of people who killed his mother, he could stand by and watch the foolishness as if it was a funny thing. Did he ever hold a grudge? Of course, determination? He desperately wanted to prove himself to Polvkrat that he was worthy, he just wanted to be recognized.

Polvkrat had spoken of his mother, whom he had never met. She was a Hunter who worked with Hazel back in the day, you could say that his mother was one of the most respected Hunters of her time.

But now she was gone, dead from the betrayal.

Ezigio already does his retribution, that's for sure and now he's pinning all his remaining hopes on the man in front of him. How could he realize all his dreams, if the person who was a factor in that success was now reduced to something pathetic?

Also, he was the only key to finding Polvkrat.

He knew it was risky, but he had no other choice. If it came down to setting off a bomb just to get the attention of the people around him, he would do it and that was that.

Therefore...

"Why, are you tired?"

"...."

"Why?"

Ezigio waited, he expected at least a simple reason. While Hazel was just looking at him with a blank expression, but it changed into the face of someone who was fed up quickly. He immediately stood up and started cleaning his body from the dust, he also placed his late niece's head on the table with a clean rag.

"Honestly guys, I don't feel comfortable spewing all my pent-up grievances to a stranger. But after all those Reed beers, my mind is a little messed up."

Hazel sobered up a bit from his bad habit, the atmosphere became very awkward afterward.

"Huh, what?"

"Oh, you finally gave the beer a name?"

The barista named Budi interrupted their conversation without hesitation. The moment he heard the name of the liquor whose recipe had yet to be patented by Hazel made his mask go off.

"Well, it can't be helped."

"So, you're interested in selling me the recipe?"

"No, never."

"Too bad. ...."

There he stood silently, pensive about the behavior of the two people in front of him. Ezigio felt that if the world felt so twisted, he originally thought that Hazel would be a little depressed after all his efforts, but the facts said otherwise.

'He... doesn't care?' he asked himself, something was wrong here and he was pretty sure it wasn't him.

"Hey, kid. You're daydreaming."

"Huh?"

Hazel snapped her fingers right in front of his face, the man now just looking at her with an ignorant grin on his face.

"That performance earlier was very good you know. But unfortunately, words aren't enough."

"You know my intentions?" asked Ezigio who was confused to death.

"Yes, I do. Why are you asking me that?" he replied lazily, he was just trying to make the kid stop. Every single word that came from his mouth can cause a serious problem, for him of course

"You and your wild imagination are dangerous. I'm sorry about your mother though, pretty sure that she will be embarrassed because of what you did."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"A-a... ah."

Ezigio could feel that his face was starting to heat up, he had never felt so embarrassed since the last time Polvkrat humiliated him in public. Somehow Hazel had turned all his questions back on him, he had pointed a sword at him earlier and now he was pointing a rifle at him again in confusion.

"So... that was a lie?"

"Hmmm, not really."

"Eh?"

Hazel gazed at the steak he had just partially eaten with solemnity. He cut the steak with a spoon and put it into his mouth with feeling. He slowly chewed the piece of steak and a single tear began to form in his eyes.

"What kind of person am I... this poor boy even had to lose his life." Hazel stroked his late family's head with his left hand.

"I don't understand what's going on," explained Ezigio who remained pensive with a thousand questions in his head.

"I knew this from the start, all those displays of sadness and despair... were just a small fire. But something like a cup of beer containing some narcotics made that fire even bigger. In short, I'm high." he replied, continuing to eat leaving the atmosphere quiet again.

"You... you knew that, why didn't you do anything?"

"He was already missing a long time ago. He's dead if he leaves the safe zone that I make for my family. This is neither good nor bad news." He explained carefully, after all, talking to a stranger about his family was a little uncomfortable.

"You should know the answer to that question, that black scroll you have right now is created with my permission."

Ezigio took a few steps back from him, immediately reaching for his weapon. Ezigio had originally drawn up all sorts of scenarios on how he was going to do it, but everything went awry and now he had to improvise.

"You've signed up as a main member of my hunter group, right? I guess now is as good a time as any," said Hazel as he cleared his plate.

"How can you just act like that after one of your family members... died."

There was no reply, only a warm smile plastered on his brown face. While they exchanged glances, Budi the bartender cleared away all his glasses and plates and left for the kitchen just like that.

"Do that outside, I don't want any trouble here," Budi said in a lazy tone.

Were they listening? Of course, they were listening.

"I did that, so they would stop."

"Stop? Stop what! They're going to kill every member of your family if you keep ignoring them!!!" Shouted Ezigio who no longer understood anything.

They were not listening.

"This one is different."

"Different?"

"Unlike whatever you call honor or whatever, my purpose in life is absolute. I cannot allow my family to be a distraction in my noble cause, and those vermin will not use my family as bait."

"You mean...." Ezigio swallowed, he recalled the most striking event about him.

"Red Wall, I should never have done that in the first place," he explained in a slightly morose tone.

"At that time, I was just like you are now. I was young, naive, and full of passion, even with all the trash piled up in my heart back then, I tried to protect my family with all my might. But what I didn't know back then was the fact that all my efforts were in vain."

"That makes them even more so." interrupted Ezigio who was beginning to realize the meaning of Hazel's behavior.

"The only way you can protect your most precious is to reduce them into nothing but mere dust." Answer him with a deeper tone, there is a slight hint of anger lay beneath it.

"Therefore, the only way was to ignore them. By cutting ties with my family completely, I managed to save them in part."

Ezigio drew all his swords, all of them floating around him as shields. Hazel looked at him solemnly, his red eyes peeking out from the gap in his hair shining brightly.

"We should end this now, but how about we settle on a deal?"

Then he smiled again, there was no trace of anger or sadness left on his face... there was only a warm, gripping smile.

"If I win, I want you to be my loyal subordinate," replied Ezigio who understood where this was going.

"Then if I win, I'll take everything from you... everything!"

Ezigio felt the energy fluctuations Hazel emitted from his body, the black gauntlet in his hand also began to draw energy from his body.

"Oh, you can see energy waves?"

"?!!"

Ezigio was a little careless there, he forgot if his opponent was a professional or something. His current facial expression made him a little bit easy to read for a second, he had to admit that his combat experience was far from Hazel's.

"So how about it, do you accept the terms?" Hazel extended his hand, it was a warm and sincere handshake that could also be guaranteed that there was no animosity behind it.

"I... I agree" Ezigio did not wait any longer, he immediately shook his hand and the deal was made.

It was like shaking hands with death.

There was an old tradition made by Hunters in their daily lives. It was called the Devil's Shake. It was a tradition where two hunters would settle on a deal each and they would shake hands for the agreement between the two parties, then they would fight each other until one of them was completely paralyzed and could no longer continue. It was a simple tradition, the winner would get his prize based on the agreement and neither of them could violate the agreement.

Shortly after they shook hands, a blinding light came from the direction of the kitchen. The light finally disappeared after a few seconds, and now Hazel and Ezigio were in a different place. Instead of a dim and quiet bar, they were now in a field filled with containers scattered everywhere.

"Teleportation?!!!"Ezigio panicked and immediately put up a defensive position, on the other hand, Hazel was just assessing his surroundings like an art critic... which sucked of course.

"These containers are so well organized, must be the work of some travelers."

Ezigio was feeling very nervous now, even though he wanted to fight with him and now he was putting on an embarrassing show. Now he was sure that Hazel had never taken anything from him, he just needed some attention from a psychologist. All the decisions were always rushing around in his head, they were adding up all the time and replacing everything else. He honestly felt very troubled by it, because after all, he was still a kid.

"So how is it, boy? Do you want to take the first opportunity to attack?" offered Hazel, he spread his arms as if he was willing to be hit for what it was.

"Serve yourself, I don't want to attack someone who can't even maintain a relationship with his own family." Ezigio dismissed Hazel's offer sarcastically, no matter what his thoughts about Hazel were still swirling around in his head.

"Huh... hey, Ezigio. Have you ever learned not to interfere with other people's family affairs? Oh right, you don't even have a family at all." he quipped while fiddling with his gauntlet.

"Damn bastard."

"Hey, I'm just spilling facts on top of facts you know? That won't change, no matter what you do."

"Shut up! I have a family and I'll see him again... someday." Ezigio slipped a little once again, but he did not regret it. He only wanted to meet Polvkrat again at this time, he had avenged his mother's death long ago and now he had nowhere to go. Putting Polvkrat's brashness aside, he was a gentleman and always kept his word. He is the one person he trusts the most, he is like family to him.

"How about you start shutting that damn little mouth of yours. All this talk is starting to make me sick." He admitted with resignation, it was his fault for bringing up other people's problems while he was also experiencing the same problems.

"Fair enough," said Hazel who was behaving a bit calmly.

Ezigio picked up one of his swords, his sword had the same shape as a typical broadsword. It was long, thick, and heavy, however, he had a blade that was a smooth white color and also shiny like polished ivory. It also had some sort of black engraving that had a scale-like pattern on the blade and the one Ezigio took possession of was the only one that had an arrow engraving pointing at the tip of the blade. He pressed a button that was on his neck bracelet that was covered by his cloak, it immediately transformed into a sort of helmet that covered his head securely. The helmet had a dull yellow visor shaped like the letter V, it also had some yellow three-line symbols on its temples.

Hazel on the other hand charged his gauntlet to the maximum level, the mechanism inside began to contract brutally. The gauntlet now began to cover his upper arms and his hands began to turn more violent. Hazel lifted the gauntlet while maintaining his focus. After a pause of a few seconds, he snapped his fingers with a hassle as if it was draining his energy.

The gauntlet exploded and released its blood-red energy everywhere, but it didn't stop there. The scattered red energy began to return to its owner, it began to cover Hazel's body and hardened into black armor. Rather than the typical medieval armor, he had a very futuristic design that was also gripping. The most striking thing about his current appearance was the two black horns on his head as well as the veins that flashed in a bright red color. It crawled all over his body, it also ticked at all times which made Hazel's appearance even more terrifying.

He cast his gaze at the boy from behind his black helmet, it had a red X-shaped visor.

"How is it, cool right?" taunted Hazel at Ezigio who was still in a defensive pose. Despite being old by human standards, Hazel still had a childlike nature. Something like this was romance for a man and he always liked things like this.

"I don't know, I guess it depends on how the armor can protect you from my sword," replied Ezigio arrogantly, he decided to go with the flow as he wanted to finish this as soon as possible.

That was if he could hit him much harder this time, much harder than what Hazel had given him.

"Don't act like you're the victim of this confusion buddy. I just had a big mug of narcotic beer and woke up in the middle of nowhere yesterday afternoon. So forgive all the bad behavior I've done." Hazel bowed and died apologizing to him with all his heart. His heart, which was hardened and solid like a fortress that no one could find, still had a glimmer of kindness in it.

Also a lot of fear.

"I will hit you so hard, it is the first and last time you will feel what weakness is."

"Do as you please, let's see how your tiny hands can wake up a stoned person."

With that, Ezigio's figure disappeared in a golden yellow light. Hazel who saw that was slightly dumbfounded but not surprised, he was used to things like this. His eyes swept the surrounding area, searching for his whereabouts until he finally heard a faint chanting sound from behind him.

"Screw you all, "Ezigio whispered, then a lightning slash cut him right in his waist.

Both of them would soon realize that this fight was going to last a little longer than expected.

"I'm gonna hate this… for real"