“Wake up sleepy head. Do you know what day it is today?”
“No…What day is it? Ahh, it’s the opening of my martial arts dojo! I hope I get a good turn out.”
“No silly, it’s your birthday. Happy birthday...Open your present, it’s from me and Ambrosia.”
“H…Happy Birth..day Lu…” Ambrosia was no longer afraid of Lucif, but she was still incredibly shy around him. After all, he was quite the good looking guy, especially with his finely toned muscles and good set of hair. His teeth were a bit rotten though, but that’s cause toothpaste was a luxury item here.
He didn’t mind it. Once she saw the world she would realize that good looking guys weren’t all that rare. But it was a bit hard to find attractive guys here where basic luxuries like showering, soap and clean water were far and few between.
He reached down and opened the small box that gifted him. His heart felt warm, this was the first present he had ever received in his entire life. Inside it was a box of toothpaste and a toothbrush.
“I sometimes hear you muttering about not being able to shower, soap your body, play in the rain and brush your teeth. I couldn’t solve any of your other problems but I thought you would appreciate this gift.”
As he looked down into the box and held the toothbrush his mind was shocked as memories flew at him from every direction. He saw himself opening presents and his excited expression and happiness. It was a scene full of nostalgia. Opening presents from his mum and sister until one night, the night before his birthday he heard his mum from the other room.
Eve was on her knees holding her roaring stomach and crying softly, he hadn’t noticed it before but she had been starving herself to save money. Just so she could give Lucifer a gift for his birthday.
His memories flashed forward to the next day when he celebrated his birthday and threw a tantrum. “I don’t want any presents mum, I saw you starving yourself and crying. How can I be happy when you are doing this to yourself?” He cried as he felt like a fool. His mother was going through all this pain just to give him a single present, he was only eight years old but he put his foot down. “I won’t let you buy me any more presents. If you do I’ll run away from home.”
His vision blurred and he found himself holding the toothbrush once again, a smirk on his face and a single tear ran down his eye. “I thought I said I’d run away if anyone got me presents.”
Aruna slapped his back, “Heh, don’t be silly. How much money did you make last month? We can afford this now. $3 is still expensive but it’s not beyond our means to buy this with all our food being provided by MYHO.”
“Heh, alright sis. Thank you very much and uh, thank you too Ambrosia.”
She blushed and quickly stood up before moving to the table for breakfast.
The fresh feeling of toothpaste in his mouth was great, the fluoride swished around annihilating the plaque that had plagued his teeth for so long. He was worried that his gums might be rotten by now but he was relieved to realize that wasn’t the case. He rinsed his mouth in the dirty water and spat it out.
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‘This toothpaste is less than desirable, it taste terrible but it still leaves me feeling refreshed. Ahh, luxury.’
Besides meat this was the first luxury he had, at the current moment in time they didn’t have a lot of money on them left. But he was sure that his next paycheck would be quite big with all the gold he has mined this month plus the 20K he got from the grand hall.
But even then, it still wasn’t enough money.
Once his hands healed he would be able to start robbing guards for their guns and money. He did find one thing strange though, he had killed 4 guards, hid their dead bodies and stole their belongings yet he hadn’t seen a single guard even searching for them or asking questions about their where abouts. Don’t they care about their own units? He had killed 4 guards and nothing happened yet his mother stole a single box of supplements, had a swat team raid their house with 5000 troops as back up and then sentenced to life in prison. Something didn’t add up here but he didn’t know what it was.
There was still so much he didn’t understand about this society.
He made his way to work and like usual, started to mine gold. The gold was running out as each load he brought in had less and less. It was 12 noon, he left his trailer there and made his way to the grand hall. His fingers were crossed and he desperately hoped that some people would turn up.
He caught a cart back up and made his way to the office, he then walked into the grand hall where he was greeted by over 600 people.
“Whh..what?” There was no way he could have expected such a turn out, martial arts were popular sure but were they popular enough to draw a large crowd of paying customers like this? No way…
The reason it had such a great turnout was thanks to their nature and the demonstration. He beat down a tyrannical general and he did it all in one move. Talk about a slap to the face. And the moves themselves were beautiful and elegant, not only that but they were fierce and powerful.
Super humans had a sort of longing to be great, so when they saw an opportunity like this they jumped at the chance to better themselves. Even Buck had turned up to learn, what a surprise.
“Alright, before we start I better collect the payment. Did you guys bring money?”
They all turned around and walked towards the door. ‘Tsk, damn cheapskates wanted a lesson for free. I knew something was fishy.’
But what he didn’t expect was that they weren’t walking towards the door but towards the machine that just happened to be in the direction of the door. They swiped their ID cards on the machine and a ‘ding’ sound was heard.
ID 415 transfers $10 to ID 666
ID 368 transfers $10 to ID 666
ID 142 transfers $10 to ID 666
His bank account was filled to the brim after the 650th person swiped their card.
‘Wait, 650 people? That means every single superhuman is here, wow.’ He really couldn’t believe it, just a little demonstration had net him $6500.
But Lucifer suddenly remembered a famous quote from his world. “When good fortune falls, disaster is sure to follow.”