A few weeks passed since I discovered how to feel my mana draining, and…

“Nothing!”

Every day, I had tried to manipulate my mana when I had some, and when I was draining it. But nothing new happened.

Even my sense of the mana while it was draining hadn’t really changed.

The only difference was that I had gotten used to that small goosebump feeling, but I couldn’t start it on my own, and the sense of it hadn’t gotten bigger or smaller.

One thing had changed though.

“Fucking bastard!“

My left tinnitus hadn’t gone down to its usual loudness since that short ugly guy did something to me. It was ruining my sleep even more making it harder to get 6-7 hours of sleep.

“To sleep for 8 hours one night, I’d give a million mana batteries.”

And a new problem had come up.

“I’m out of money!“

Weeks of loafing around and eating junk food and doing nothing had drained my personal mana battery even though I was filling it three times a day with a lot of mana.

“I wish mana was more expensive…”

The thing with mana was that when you stored it in things like the small handheld personal mana batteries (one personal mana battery can store a few lifetimes of mana) there was never any mana loss during the transfer and during the storing. Mana was only ever ‘lost’ when it was converted into a physical phenomenon. Traditionally the only way to use mana was with blueprints or formulas. And a newer method, which only 5% of my generation could do, was through personal magic, which no one had any idea how worked.

Another reason why mana was very cheap, is that everyone was supplying it (mana is also the currency used) but also that the most essential things like water, earth, fire, and wind magic blueprints needed very little mana to output.

So even though I had more mana than the average man, and a higher rate of mana regeneration, and even though it was only humans who could generate mana, I was still broke.

I heard a knock on my door and then saw a piece of paper jammed into the bottom of the door.

“Fuck off. As if I’m paying,” I said when I read the eviction notice. At the bottom it said:

We will be forced to ask for police assistance if you do not willingly vacate the premises.

Yeah right. As if the police were going to do anything. If the inn begged, then maybe the police station would send over an officer in about half a year.

I was even excited for a fight if the owner or manager showed up and tried to kick me out.

“Wish I could throw a fireball like that guy on the train right into his ugly face.“

And no, I’m not a psychopath. But add enough stress and sleep deprivation and no job, and any guy starts to sound a little weird and aggressive.

I rushed out of the room and caught sight of the man who had slit the eviction notice into my room.

I walked up to him and started yelling.

“Hey! If you try to touch my stuff while I’m out!”

Not that I have ‘stuff’. I have a small mana-locked suitcase of clothes.

“I’ll fucking kill you! I’m part of generation 5% I can use mana!”

The man just ignored me and walked away while mumbling curse words to himself.

I actually didn’t have to worry about the manager breaking into my room since I had bought a cheap mana lock blueprint. So unless someone had my exact body mana signature, they couldn’t enter my room unless they paid a lot of mana to break it, which wasn’t worth it.

It was pretty funny how when I first moved into my room half a year ago, I saw a guy doing exactly what I was doing now. And back then I said, “So disgraceful, I’ll make sure to always pay my rent”. And now look at me. Of course, back then I was naive as well.

When I went back to my room and got dressed after taking a shower, I remembered I was broke.

“What should I do! No way I’m going back to a kitchen!“

I could fill up my personal mana battery about three times a day, which was enough to buy one burger. If I knew I was going to starve to death I would probably have gone back to the kitchen and begged for my job back.

But what should I do…

When I discovered that I could sense my mana draining when filling up the battery, I thought for sure I would learn how to do personal magic and find some way to make money from that. But I still hadn’t learned anything.

Learn…

“That’s it! I’ll find some bastard, like those guys on the train, to teach me how to use my skill! If I can sense the mana drain, that for sure means I can use magic.“

***

I had no idea where to go, so I went to take the train to the central station in Tyoto, where almost the entire population would pass through like streams of ants every day with coming and going every minute full of passengers.

When I paid my mana to ride I saw that my personal mana battery was decimals from being zero.

When I got out at the central station, it was chaos.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

People were running everywhere in a panic.

And some people were bleeding as well. I saw five police officers running away while carrying an unconscious officer who was bleeding from the head.

The speakers in the station were repeating:

“Emergency. Fire. Exit in an orderly manner. Emergency. Fire. Exit in an orderly manner…”

It doesn’t look like there’s a fire? And why are some of the people injured and bleeding? The hell is going on?

Rather than be scared like a sane person, my morbid curiosity took over me.

“What are you doing?! Don’t run into the battle! There’s a gang war! They’re throwing magic everywhere!“

One older man screamed in my face when he saw me head into the main area. Then he kept running away.

I clung my body with my back to the hallway wall as I walked farther and farther into the station while crowds of people were running in the opposite direction to get away. I was hit a couple of times by passerbys but managed to stay up by pushing back.

Soon, I managed to make it to the main area of the station.

In the square, two groups of many young men were having a magical gang war.

I spent three minutes from the sidelines observing the two gangs. Even though the battle had been going on for a while now, there were still crowds of people arriving every minute from the trains and trying to escape. This was the biggest train station in the country, after all.

The first gang was dressed in normal street clothes, and all of them carried weapons like knives and bats. There was yelling and screaming everywhere and the sound of projectiles flying and still, a large crowd escaping.

Everyone in the first group used magic, but there seemed to be two types of magic users. Projectiles-based magicians and strengthening-based magicians.

Though there was no clear line or formation between the two user types in the first group, I could see that the projectile users, though they still carried weapons, mainly attacked from a little behind with fire-, water-, and earthballs, but would still sometimes clash with their weapons. Then I saw the strengthening type users used no projectiles but were just jumping and smashing and clashing everywhere on the battlefield. The best way to describe the first gang would be disorganized.

And then there was the leader of the first gang.

“Holy shit!”

I saw a head fly off and land near me.

The long-haired blond levitating guy I saw on the train was flying around with a katana attacking everywhere.

I heard a shrill voice say, “Focus… Fire!”

Then I saw a barrage of ordered magical projectiles of water and earth and fireballs hit the levitating guy.

The barrage impacted him and moved him. But it didn’t injure him.

“What the hell!“ I heard the shrill voice scream.

When I looked closely, I saw that the projectiles were impacting upon this invisible shield surrounding the levitating guy.

This brings me to the other gang.

The man with the shrill voice screaming commands was the short ugly guy who gave me the headache.

He was clearly the leader of the other gang. And his gang was way different than the other gang.

Firstly, everyone was dressed in biker gang black leather jackets and boots. And I saw some of the people in his gang, including himself, also had on vests and helmets.

And their formation. They were divided into two clear groups. The strengthening magicians and the projectile magicians. The strengthening magicians all had the same shields and swords equipment and stood in a three-row line in front of the projectile magicians. And the three rows would routinely switch lines to keep the front fresh.

And behind the projectile magicians would ready barrages of projectiles and fire them at the same time upon the command of the short ugly guy. Also, unlike the first gang, these projectile users carried no weapons and focused solely on shooting.

“Keep fighting! We’re winning!”

I heard a shrill voice scream.

Just then, reacting to getting hit by the barrage, the levitating guy flew directly towards the short ugly guy, and when a barrage was about to hit him, he sped up and missed it.

“Protect Pyscho! Protect the leader!”

The short ugly guy was way behind in the back lines and surrounded by a bunch of strengthening magicians.

I saw the levitating guy just smash into the protectors, heading straight for the ugly short guy.

Then he cut his head off.

“No! Leader!” everyone in the second gang screamed all at once, which was weird.

The levitating guy was smiling and flying around the battlefield showing off their leader’s decapitated head.

“Psycho’s dead now. Give up! We won!” the levitating guy yelled. "Surrender now and we won't hurt you!"

I expected the second gang to all flee. But instead, they were all enraged and everything turned even more chaotic.

Projectiles were flying around now at an even faster rate. I could see the first gang was shocked by their reaction.

I turned my face and saw a black ball flying at high speeds towards me. Because of my slow reaction time, it smashed into my face.

I dropped to the ground, where all the crowds proceeded to trample me.

I kept getting stepped on and kicked in the face and stomach and balls and I couldn’t breathe.

I tried to crawl to the wall, but I couldn’t move my body.

I closed my eyes and mumbled.

“God I’m stupid! I don’t wanna die!“

Then everything turned dark.