Cæ would be returning to the place that he had called home for much of his life.

He gritted his teeth at the thought, clenching his fists. “Damn it, I swore I would never return there.”

And yet, he had no choice but to head back to the Colohen Slums.

On foot.

His eyes flared with hatred and rage as he took one last look at the police station behind him, before he set out walking in the direction of the outer districts of the city. He would not have been able to make the journey in less than a day if not for the fact that he was closer to the Colohen Slums than he was to the central districts of Colohen City.

And even then, walking dozens of kilometers after being discharged from the hospital was truly testing.

Even if muscle atrophy had been prevented with healing magic, his body hadn’t seen any activity in half a year. He wheezed and stumbled through town unsteadily as passersby steered clear of him, entirely unwilling to be near what appeared to be a drunkard.

The cityscape changed as he got closer and closer to the Colohen Slums on the outskirts of the city. The buildings grew shorter and smaller as their infrastructure lost their extravagance and ostentatious splendor.

Most notedly, they lost their magic.

The enchanted structures lost their magic the further he went away from the center and to the outskirts as the magical runes that could be spotted across their surfaces appeared less and less prominent.

The residential areas became increasingly more common and frequent as he traveled past districts on his journey to the outskirts.

Simultaneously, the residential communities rapidly grew less lavish and luxurious the closer and closer he got home. Homes and streets alike quickly grew smaller and smaller and magimobiles followed suit. The sidewalks were dirty and littered with piles of garbage bags.

The further and further he went towards the slums of the city, the state of the civilization grew ever bleaker and more desolate at a grim rate.

As did the people who lived there.

One could almost measure the growing gloom in the eyes of the people in districts further away from the city center.

Elendir was not kind to those who didn’t have money and power, which was most people in the nation. A large proportion of its people were living paycheck to paycheck, barely able to sustain a living.

Cæ was even worse off than them.

He wheezed and stumbled about as he struggled to make his way to the outskirts of the city. Barely having gotten his hands on some water and some cheap food at a restaurant to sustain his needs, he finally reached his destination after many hours of walking.

“Huff… Huff…” he panted as he fell to his knees, drenched in sweat. “Finally…”

He had arrived.

The Colohen Slums.

A fetid and putrid odor lingered in the air, courtesy of the open sewer that hadn’t been maintained in many years. The narrowing road might as well not exist, having been eroded over the span of many years.

The infrastructure was decrepit and rotten. The congested array of crumbling homes and makeshift huts and torn tents amidst the ill-maintained and overgrown flora was suffocating. Plumes of smoke could be seen rising from many different parts of the district.

That was the telltale sign of the Collohen Slums.

These districts were disconnected from the magigrid, the network of mana that flowed through the overwhelming majority of districts, supplying mana to homes and other infrastructure that was part of the public sector.

The Colohen Slums were entirely barren of the magigrid. They couldn’t even turn a light bulb on due to the absence of the magigrid that supplied the needed energy. Hence, the only source of light and warmth were fires that polluted the air with smoke.

The very air was unhealthy and toxic.

And yet, all of it was all too familiar to Cæ.

He had spent most of his life in this place, after all.

He had spent most of his life trying to get out of this place.

Only for the world to rob him of everything he had ever cultivated, sending him back to the slums.

“Damn it all.” He gritted his teeth as he walked right into the slums.

The familiar sights, orders, and general vibes of the Colohen Slums resurfaced old instincts and habits that he had begun to shed in his time away from the slums.

The slums were a dangerous place. These districts were almost entirely abandoned by the city’s police department as a result of the absence of a magigrid, taxpayer funds, and any merits in policing an area that the mayor perceived as too much of a liability to spend any magicapita on.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

One was generally not protected by the law in these regions as a result.

Cæ kept his head low and his pace quick, tucking his hands in his pockets, and keeping his gaze fixed on the path ahead of him.

He walked with purpose, as though he had somewhere to be and was running late. It was to ensure he didn’t project uncertainty. There were people who were constantly on the lookout for licks—easy targets to rob.

He also averted eye contact with many individuals he saw in his peripheral vision. Staring at people could be regarded as a sign of aggression that could easily get him in a lot of trouble. There was no point in potentially antagonizing an entire gang.

Living in the slums meant living in a state of constant alertness. Being able to study people from the corner of one’s eyes without directly looking at them. Being able to project deterrence in the way one carried oneself. Being able to navigate not just the district but also the people living there.

This was where he was going to live for the foreseeable future, where he would be living until he had enough money to afford a flat with some roommates in some of the posher districts of the city.

He navigated the familiar and desolate landscape of the slums, keeping to himself entirely as he looked for places of shelter that weren’t already occupied.

CLACK…

He found an old deserted hut with no signs of recent utility amid a sea of other homes and huts. A simple inspection revealed almost nothing of value aside from pieces of junk, half a broken cot, and a window or two.

“Good enough, for now.”

Cæ quickly found some abandoned scraps of cloth, making makeshift curtains to give himself some privacy. He tried binding the door to its frame with some crumbling fabric and rope.

It was hardly secure, but anyone forcing their way through would most likely wake him up.

Or so he hoped.

Even though he had lived his entire life in the slums, it didn’t mean he was perfectly safe and fine in this environment.

The slums could be especially dangerous to those who were perceived to be outsiders. Thankfully, he took that into account with the sweat-drenched and dirty clothes he had on after a long journey on foot to the Colohen Slums.

“None of this would be a problem if I still had my mana,” he muttered. “None of this would be a problem if I knew how to cast magic.”

With the power of magic, the slums would be entirely benign. Almost none of the people in the slums knew how to cast magic and wield mana. Hell, even if they did know, it wouldn’t have even mattered for they had no mana in the first place.

Not even he did, and he had spent a few years of his life as a part of the very lowest echelon of low middle class.

Magic was an extraordinarily precious and powerful field that gave one immense power. Naturally, it was not something that would be disseminated far and wide. As far as he knew, only a minority of human civilization had gained mastery of magic.

It was mostly the upper middle class and the rich. They possessed the wealth needed to purchase the magic that they needed or wanted, which made them among the majority of people who cast magic

It was possible to get one’s hands on magic by virtue of state authorization. Joining the government, via any branch, department, or organization, opened up an actual possibility of learning magic. Law enforcement, and the military in particular, was able to get its hands on magic far easier than others.

The private sector also offered opportunities to learn magic of course. There were institutions, academies, and even colleges that offered courses that imparted magic knowledge and skill to its students, producing a stable influx of witches and wizards into the economy. The magic they learned was labor magic, which was hyper-specialized for their particular occupations.

This included applications in medicine, information magitechnology, magitronics, and other important fields.

And yet, these young mages still accounted for a small portion of the populace.

Up until very recently, Cæ had very little interest in magic.

For most of his life, his only goal was to live simply.

It was a goal that didn’t require magic.

All he had once wanted was to live in peace, sleep comfortably, eat decent healthy food, and breathe clean air. He wanted to live without having to spend every second of every day alert for dangers and risks.

Now, however, his maddening ambitions had subsumed the entire world.

“I need magic.”

A fierce light appeared in his eyes.

“I need the power of magic if I want to destroy this world and build a new one in its place.”

It wasn’t just enough to become rich and thus have a lot of mana.

It wasn’t enough to blindly accrue vast swathes of money.

No.

He needed to master how to deploy it in combat.

Otherwise, there was no point in becoming the richest and most powerful man in the world.

“My path to the top of the world starts tomorrow.” He closed his eyes that had already grown heavy with drowsiness.

And thus, he simply fell asleep.

Despite having slept for six months in a row, he fell asleep like a baby. His body was so exhausted from the sheer emotional and physical exertion that he fell asleep the moment his eyes closed.

Unfortunately, he had underestimated how much he stood out despite his familiarity with the Colohen Slums.

That was a mistake.

STEP… STEP… STEP…

His eyes slowly opened as he was woken up by noise.

The noise of someone rustling around in his new makeshift home.

His eyes widened as he shot to his feet.

SPLAT

“Ah!” Cæ grimaced as a blade slashed his skin, leaving a light cut behind as the boy who wielded it darted out of the hut as fast as he could with a handful of the cash that Cæ had gotten from Mrs. Selvig.

“Dammit, fucking thief!” Cæ cursed, rushing after the boy.

By the time he got out, however, the boy had long gone.

He gritted his teeth with frustration.

Yet, he wasn’t surprised.

Theft was the most common crime in the slums and also the easiest to get away with. One needed to be a very light sleeper to make it in the slums, and that was a habit that Cæ had unlearned after moving away from the slums.

He had also been extremely exhausted last night, causing him to fall asleep much earlier than he normally would, and sleep much heavier than he used to during his time living in the slums.

“Dammit.” He spat on the cut, before tying it up with a cloth. “Brilliant way to start the day.”

He glanced at the dark sky that had begun lighting in the horizon.

Dawn had arrived.

His second day since waking up from his coma.

The first day in his journey to fulfilling his dream of becoming the most powerful man in all of Elendir.

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