"Sir Glenn, a large earthquake has erupted near Rampart Street. The first-arrival services are tied up with that Corrupted on the other side of the district, and there are suspicions of it being a high-ranked monster," A skinny man with thick glasses, messy blond hair, and a remarkable unibrow explained as he struggled to keep up with his boss.
The latter was a young man wearing a classy, sleeveless black vest over a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves. His left arm was completely purple, affected by some untold evil, the skin of his hands hidden under two black leather gloves. A hand-axe was hanging off his belt, ready to hack and cleave at any moment. The young man had black hair with a white strand lost amidst it, and his eyes were as purple as his left arm.
"Alright, I'll try and see if there are survivors. Check for witnesses so I have some information on what I'm fighting," Glenn ordered, particles of blue Mana swirling around his right hand as he readied his favorite spell, Gravity Manipulation.
"Of course, Sir. Should I prepare to run off to the Church of Onnea?" Kevin asked between two breaths. Glenn sneered and didn't even bother replying, for the answer was evident. It didn't take long for the two to arrive at the scene. Right next to the massive wall that separated the Fringe from the Bourgeoisie was Rampart Street, the zone that was suffering the most from Rifts and monster breakouts these last few weeks. Glenn was almost sure the chaos was due to that bastard Blorg, the Cleaner in charge of the district, but that maggot became way more careful hiding the traces of his laziness since their last encounter.
A dozen houses on Rampart Street had crumbled down, collapsing over their inhabitants. Earthquakes weren't common in King's Rise; unless they weren't natural. And Glenn could bet his left hand that it wasn't a natural disaster.
'Hey!' Diamanes complained. The entity living in his left hand felt less than agreeable at being cut off from the main body. Not that Glenn cared much, heh.
'Why are you always acting like you don't care about me, you bastard?' Diamanes grumbled, returning to be silent when Glenn used his powers to lift the debris in the air. Blue particles held the chunks of stones, broken wooden beams, and rows of roof tiles. The young man grimaced as he found a disfigured corpse. He hurriedly took it out, while staying on his toes in case the thing that caused that devastation showed up. He cleared almost every house this way, finding more victims. Thankfully, only the first house's inhabitants suffered the worst fate; most of the victims were lightly hurt, and their lives weren't in danger.
"Remind me, Kevin—who's in charge of this district again?" Glenn asked as he dusted his hands off, feeling anger and annoyance. Even though he was asking this question, he already knew the damned answer, for this wasn't the first time this sort of event happened. Kevin pushed his glasses up.
"C...Cleaner Blorg, Sir!" He stuttered, feeling the wave of shit that was inevitably coming. Glenn stopped and looked at Kevin.
"Fucking hell, this guy again? How many times did I clean up after this piece of shit, already?" The young man spat angrily as he stood and moved to another destroyed house. He said that, but he already knew. He just needed to complain, to be honest.
"Uhm...This would be the fifth time, Sir." Kevin replied warily. Glenn sighed heavily as the assistant rushed to find a suitable thing to say.
"I...I apologize, Sir. I'll be sure to report his inadequacy."
Glenn sneered, "Sure, do that. Any conscious witnesses?"
Kevin glanced behind him at a group of survivors.
"Yes, Sir. It's a single golem with gravitational powers."
The young man smirked. "Gravitation powers, huh? How fun."
Kevin smiled as well, before asking more out of obligation than need: "Should I call for backup, Sir?"
Glenn shook his head.
"Don't bother. And I already told you to stop calling me Sir. Makes me feel like those nobles, which isn't great."
"I'm sorry, S...Fixer."
A small voice suddenly desperately cried out, a small noise barely noticeable. But Glenn heard it.
"Did you hear that?" He asked Kevin, waiting for confirmation. The assistant frowned and shook his head, puzzled. "Hear what?"
Glenn looked at the many victims and rubbed his forehead, taking it all in once more.
"Didn't you say the inhabitants had been warned?"
Kevin looked to the side, ashamed, and muttered: "That's what Sir Blorg told me he did..."
Glenn clenched his fist and cursed, "For fuck's sake..."
The young man sighed, standing in front of the last collapsed house. He used Gravity Manipulation once more with a grunt, lifting a huge pile of rubble and revealing a pale, bloody hand sticking out of the stones. A kid's hand.
Glenn paled and dashed forward while shouting, "Shit, there's a child there!"
Kevin, his assistant who was standing by nearby paled at these words and ran away to seek help. Glenn pressed his lips together and carefully controlled Gravity Manipulation to pull one stone after the other.
'Oh my...' Diamanes' voice echoed with a sad tone in Glenn's head, angering him even further. That was the last straw. After getting rid of enough stones, Glenn jumped in and took a knee beside a little girl, cursing when he saw her right leg crushed messily. A large shard of wood was skewering her knee to the ground, shattering it completely, almost all of her leg's flesh ripped off. She was bleeding profusely, explaining how pale she looked. She blinked weakly when noticing Glenn, but closed her eyes in exhaustion.
How old was she? Nine, ten? Glenn bit down on his lower lip and grabbed the girl's shoulder, shaking her awake.
"Hey, kid, don't close your eyes!" He yelled desperately. The girl blinked but her eyes were empty, and more blood kept pouring out of her leg.
'C.P.R? No, it's not enough for such a wound. Shit, she's going to die if I don't do anything!' Glenn's thoughts raced as he looked around for a solution. He paused for a single second, noticing an older boy lying dead, completely crushed under the rubble. He didn't spare him another glance; the dead shall wait, for the living couldn't. And yet, he could imagine the boy dying in horrible agony as the rubble pulverized every bone in his body. Glenn gritted his teeth and looked at the wood shard piercing the girl's knee. Without a second of hesitation, he pulled it out and freed the kid.
It was too much pain for the girl, and she lost consciousness. Glenn grimaced and gave the wound a closer look.
"Holy f...Mundare." A soft light came out of his hand and washed over the wrangled mass of flesh that was her thigh, cleaning away the blood and filth. The more Glenn looked at the wound bleeding out, the more he knew what the solution was. His left hand sunk into his dimensional pouch while he summoned a hand-axe with his right. From the pouch, he took out a large vial filled with red, luscious liquid. He steeled himself and cleaved out the leg cleanly. The kid was unconscious; better now than never. His heart ached, for he had just taken away this kid's future, but he couldn't afford guilt in this situation. It was either that or her death, and he'd rather choose the path where the girl survived.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Glenn uncapped the vial and poured the red liquid down the wound, watching earnestly as he did so.
"Come on, come on..." he muttered, his eyes glued to the wound. The hemorrhage stopped as flesh tendrils grew from the sides of the wound, intertwining each other into a stump. This wasn't going to regrow the leg, but it would be enough to stop the bleeding and save her life. After a few stressful minutes, the wound finally closed down. The girl's breathing stabilized, as did her heart rate. Glenn sighed in relief, his lips curving upward slightly as he rejoiced at his success.
'Good job,' Diamanes complimented without his usual jeer or sarcasm.
Glenn stood up and used an Aqua Mundare to clean his clothes, getting rid of both blood and filth in one fell swoop, before carefully picking the girl up. He glanced at the other, older kid for a few seconds, before shaking his head, his heart wrenched in sadness. It was already too late for the boy. He couldn't do anything to save him anymore...
What he could do, though, was avenge him. The ground shook beneath Glenn's feet, but he didn't mind in the least, be it for carrying the girl or for his Gravity Manipulation control. The rubble still floated above them, held by his magic. Glenn brought the girl out of the ruined house, the debris falling behind him in clouds of dust and pebbles. Glenn gently set the child near a tree, ignoring the tremors coming from behind him. He made sure to put her in a recovery position, before turning around with a dark expression. He flicked his fingers together and Mana swirled around the girl, protecting her with the best defense he knew. The Saturn Rings should be enough for whatever that thing was.
The ground trembled once more, and a massive rock rose amidst the rubble. Debris rained down its body, creating large clouds of dust as the creature stood up, towering over the young man. Glenn's Imoogi suit flapped in the wind the creature had created, the black fabric gleaming under the bright sun. Standing on two, pillar-like legs, the house-sized monster stared down at the ant who dared cross his path. A single, amethyst eye was embedded in its head, at the perfect center of the stone mass.
And yet, even though Glenn was barely a tenth of the creature's size, he still managed to look down on it, as if the monster was nothing. The golem's big purple gem that allowed him to see the world gleamed in bewilderment, an emotion it never felt before. It never felt anything, but today was different. It was seeing in that small human's eyes a mix of rage, hate, and coldness that seemed too much to be contained in such a tiny body. And in addition to that, it realized it didn't want to fight that small human.
Oh, was that the fear that humans often felt when seeing his kind?
Was it...scared?
The creature roared to the sky, shaking off the warning his senses desperately transmitted to it. It smashed down with both its hands, aiming to crush that ant. Nothing could scare it! It was the mightiest of its kind, the strongest, the most powerful—
Glenn aimed his left, purple hand at the golem, and discharged a dozen Carbon Blades at it, aiming for the amethyst core. Large, invisible blades flew out and hacked the golem into pieces, leaving behind nothing but dust and the broken jewel. The golem collapsed into a pit of rubble and a large cloud of dust, which Glenn dispersed with light use of Gravity Manipulation.
'Well, you didn't waste a second with this one,' Diamanes whistled with impressed amusement.
'It wasn't worth wasting my time on it. Honestly, it wasn't even worth the Mana I used to kill it, but it did anger me a bit.' Glenn replied, looking at the golem's remains. 'And I was a little wary of these gravitational powers. It destroyed more than enough already.' The young man went back to the ruins, to get the corpse of that other kid back. The rubble in its way was pushed away by an invisible force; another clever use of Gravity Manipulation. He finally arrived in front of the body, his eyebrows creased when he found it. His Mana Sight activated, letting him know of a trace of Mana coming off the corpse and surrounding the place where the girl was.
"A spell? Looks like a shield...Seems like he got crushed to save that girl's life..." Glenn muttered in realization. He carefully picked up the mangled mess of flesh and bones and carried it out of the ruins, laying it nearby. He pulled a blanket out of his dimensional pouch and used it to cover the corpse to hide it from any morbidly inquisitive sight.
After doing so, he turned back to the golem's remains and picked all of the amethyst shards up, one by one. He could have gathered them all with Gravity Manipulation, but he could feel some comfort in this simple, repetitive action. Each of the shards went into his dimensional pouch to be sold away another day. His labor done, Glenn stretched his body, a tired expression across his face. He looked in the distance, his eyes pulling him far away from the Northern Town and the pile of rubble he was standing on. The sun was still high in the sky, shining with its ignorant and uncaring light.
Help finally arrived, in the form of Astrid DI Forte, the priestess from Onnea's Church, and his assistant from the Cleaner's Workshop, Kevin. Glenn scowled at the sight of the skinny man, annoyed at his cowardice. He was pretty sure that Kevin was much more than he looked like, mostly due to that unknown god he summoned back when they wrestled with that ghost. When she noticed the wounded girl, the priestess hurriedly dashed to her side and began applying her hands on her. A soft golden light washed over the kid, improving her condition.
Kevin adjusted the position of his glasses.
"Good job taking care of the creature, S...Fixer Glenn," Kevin quickly fixed his wording after receiving Glenn's disapproving gaze. He took a look at his checklist, pushing his glasses up once again.
"What do you have for me, Kevin?" The young man asked with a heavy sigh.
The assistant didn't lose a second and rapidly answered.
"You still have the rift on the Butcher's Street, as well as a Corrupted hiding nearby. There is also a rumor of a ghost on Central Square, so HQ would like it if you could check up on that. There aren't many people with your..." He stared at Glenn's purple arm, his pupils trembling slightly, "...Special skills, Sir."
The young man shook his head, giving up once again on forcing his assistant to call him something else than Sir. The more he waited to go to the Bourgeoisie, the more annoyed he felt at the nobles hiding in that upper Circle of King's Rise. If only Nelg could wake up already... He'll just have to get used to that moniker like he got used to the rest during this year.
"Oh." Glenn blurted out as he realized.
It had been a year already. Or it was going to be soon, anyway. He didn't really keep up with a calendar or something like that these days. Glenn wondered if Sahro was finally done with his "secret mission" for the Eastern Town's Workshop. Onnea only knew how long it had been since the last time he saw the Black Heir.
Whatever, that guy was strong enough to take care of himself. The young man turned toward Kevin while taking a flask out of his dimensional pouch. The cider of the Eastern Town's orphans seemed to soothe his heart more than most things these days.
"Are all of those bounties particularly urgent, or I can take a break?" Glenn sipped on the cider, quenching his thirst.
"Well, besides the matter with the Corrupted, all of those can wait for at least a day. And, from what I heard, that thing only manifests during the night, so you technically are clear until the sunset," Kevin quickly explained, his glasses slipping down on his nose slowly. Glenn thought for a second, before frowning.
"...It's not someone I know, is it?"
Kevin froze, before shaking his head.
"...N...Not this time, Sir."
Glenn smirked and nodded, putting away the flask of cider.
"You're free until tonight. Rest up, I'll need you to take care of the aftermath after I'm done with that Corrupted." Glenn dismissed his assistant, whose eyes suddenly shone with appreciation. Kevin bowed slightly, catching awkwardly his falling glasses, before disappearing in the meanders of the Northern Town's streets.
Glenn went and stood next to Astrid Di Forte, looking at the unconscious child she was treating.
"How is she doing?" He asked in a low voice, careful not to wake up the victim. Astrid shook her head, still concentrating on her patient.
"She'll survive. Her leg is another issue though." She answered with a dry voice. She sighed loudly, before stroking gently the girl's hair. She then finally cast a look at him with barely worried eyes.
"And you?"
Glenn shrugged with a sad smirk, "It didn't even touch me."
'Is it me or success is getting to your head?' Diamanes asked mockingly, his tone barely inquisitive. The young man ignored him, instead focusing on Astrid. She sighed in relief and stood up, heading for the shade of another tree, a bit further away from the sleeping kid. She leaned against it, lost in her thoughts. Glenn chose to leave her alone, since he knew she was particularly overworked these few days, and instead jumped on top of the nearest tree. He made himself comfortable, his legs on a thick branch and his back against the trunk.
This had been a long year, and so many things happened to Glenn. He probably couldn't be called a human anymore, could he? At least by Earth's standards.
And despite all that, Glenn knew that his adventure was only beginning. The Bourgeoisie was waiting, with nobles to be killed and secret organizations to be revealed. Exan was also one goal he had to reach.
Indeed, this was only the start.