The sun shone brightly, illuminating everything beneath. It was a clear, and beautiful day. Star city was bustling with activity, the majority of its inhabitants busy with different kinds of work.

“Take all these boxes and bring them outside. Someone will come to pick them up in half an hour,” commanded a short man.

“Right away sir!”

In the next moment, a group of men started to transport boxes of various sizes outside the hall. Among these men was Biff as well. He was tall, but rather skinny, making him appear weak. Everything seemed normal at a first glance, but if one was to look closer, he could tell that something was wrong with his right leg.

The majority of his colleagues thought that it was something minor, due to the heavy loads they had to carry from time to time, and put it all on his relatively weak looking body.

“Do you not like food or something?”

Biff made a strange expression, and looked to the side. “What kind of question is that, Arnold?”

“What do you mean? You look so skinny, it’s obvious you don’t eat enough,” said Arnold, looking a little troubled.

“It’s just genetics, stop bothering me with this.”

Arnold raised one of his eyebrows. He didn’t believe even one bit what he was hearing. “Genetics my ass!” he was one of those guys who was genetically frail, despite that, with a good diet, and plenty of exercises, he managed to build a fair amount of muscle.

“Leave the chit-chat and carry those fucking crates outside!” howled Bart, the same short man from earlier. The veins on his neck bulged instantly, threatening to explode at any moment.

“Yes sir!” answered Biff and Arnold in unison, feeling a little embarrassed by the situation.

While having a bad temperament, Bart wasn’t a bad boss overall. There were plenty of times when the men worked very slowly, or took a longer break, without any serious consequences. Nevertheless, there were situations when shit had to be done fairly quickly, and lazing around at that time made Bart wanting to strangle the culprits with his bare hands.

The boys were pretty skilled, and delivered when the circumstances demanded. In spite of this, some of their bad habits of lazing around, or not taking things too seriously kicked in even at those times, thus, Bart made sure to remind them the situation they were in.

Box after box was carried outside the big hall swiftly. Sweat was gathering on all the men’s foreheads, indicating that the stuff they were transporting was pretty heavy.

“The fuck is inside these crates?” complained a dude that looked like a silver back gorilla in terms of his body constitution. He was the strongest among the lot, being able to carry stuff that usually required multiple adult males to lift. With a body weight way over one hundred and fifty kilograms, and a height of almost two meters, the man looked like an absolute unit.

“More work and fewer questions, Willy,” answered Vincent, who was a few meters away. He was just as tall as William, but looked like a twig when close to him. He was very skinny, but strangely, strong, and fast.

“Vincent! If you call me like that again, I will grind your bones to dust!” threatened William while trying to catch Vincent. While he had immense power, his stamina was rather lacking. After a short time, William abandoned his pursuit, face red, and breathing heavily. He almost looked like he was breathing his last.

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Biff looked at his colleagues bickering, and forced himself to smile. The duo were very good friends, and spent a lot of time together, thus no one was worried that the situation could escalate into something dangerous. After all, this same scene happened quite often.

“What are you doing after work? Want to go out, maybe seduce some very good-looking ladies?” asked Arnold, face full of expectations.

“Maybe some other time, I’m quite tired after today’s work.”

Arnold was very disappointed after hearing such an answer. “Fine… If you need my help with something, feel free to tell me.”

It was obvious to him that Biff had some problems that needed serious attention. However, Biff refused to talk about these things no matter what. Prying to deep into someone’s secrets was not nice at all, and could lead to the opposite effect that one wanted.

“Thank you!” Biff appreciated Arnold for trying to help him, and even more for respecting his privacy, and giving him some space. The truth was that, he didn’t dislike the idea of receiving help, yet, Arnold was just a normal guy, with barely enough money for his own needs. Taking money from a person like that would only make him feel worse, with little to no benefit at all.

Right at this time, a loud noise could be heard from outside. The people responsible for the wooden boxes finally came.

“Would you look at that?” Arnold, as well as everyone else, froze for a moment, while observing carefully the new events unfolding. Biff was also lost in his thoughts whilst looking in front of him.

What everyone saw was a special type of artifact, particularly designed for moving large amounts of cargo from city to city, or more precisely, over large expanses of land.

It was gigantic and overall had a rectangular shape. The resources for building such an artifact were numerous and expensive. The most important factor was, however, that it required monster cores and other materials that could be found only inside the Great Wilderness. Qualified personnel was also rare, and very sought after.

While the speed of the huge artifact was not that great, it compensated with its ability to fly, and its great storage space. If used to the best of its capability, the device was well worth the investment. A mechanical arm extended from the artifact and swiftly grabbed box after box and stored it on the main deck. The range wasn’t so big, so the boxed had to be manually transported at a satisfactory distance.

A woman accompanied by two bodyguards got down, entered the hall, and approached Bart. “Lara! I haven’t seen you in quite some time, how are you?” Bart was in high spirits while welcoming the unexpected guest.

“Thankfully, everything is fine. I had some business in the area, thus decided to personally come, and take a look around.” Her voice was soft, and very pleasant to the ears.

All the men stared blankly, and silently, at her. It was quite unusual for such a bunch of mischiefs. The answer to that was pretty simple, Lara was quite the sight for the lot of them.

She was tall, and her body was very attractive. That, coupled with a peerless beauty, could grab anyone’s attention. Biff also froze for a moment. Eventually, his eyes drifted to Lara’s shoulders. There was something there that picked his interest.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ thought Biff. On her shoulders, and part of her back, was what seemed to be a top quality artifact. As far as he knew, the device could allow the user to fly for a certain limit, and could also be used as a direct weapon.

‘Even if I work all my life, I would still be unable to afford such a thing…’ There were various types of wondrous man-made objects that could help identify and solve his leg problem, unfortunately, he could not afford any of those.

 ‘Fuck!’ To make things worse, sharp pain started to spread in all directions from his right leg. From time to time, he would experience such bouts of intense pain that seemed like torture.

‘What the hell is wrong with my leg?!’

He had no idea what exactly was wrong, and could only speculate. Taking advantage of the situation, Biff limped away from the group. It was anyway almost the end of the day.

‘So close, but at the same time so far away…’ Many things that he desired were right in front of his face, nevertheless, the current him had zero chances to actually seize them. Feeling dejected, and full of pain, Biff limped away in silence. It was incredibly hard, but his desire for something more, something greater, was still burning brightly deep inside his heart.