Eik eyed Bart silently, the man squaring up like a temperamental third-grader. Everybody was staring, sensing the tension between the two men.

“What… is going on here, exactly?” Sonja asked with furrowed brows.

“It’s, uuh… It’s nothing, really—” Eik began, holding up his hands.

“This man had the gall to disrespect me, Rock Fist Bart, when I visited his establishment!” he announced to the crowd with another accusatory finger, putting on an air of nobility despite his demeanor proving otherwise. Heath looked at Eik with something akin to horror. Are you insane? he seemed to be mouthing.

Eik just shrugged and shook his head. “I never disrespected you. I just asked you to let me concentrate and then you broke my perfectly nice countertop.”

“That is not true!” Bart protested, reflexively raising his fist, but stopping himself from smashing another wooden surface. “You pushed me beyond any reasonable limit. I had to retaliate.”

“I was an unawakened store owner, and you were an E-ranker with two friends to back you up,” Eik said matter-of-factly, noticing sympathetic looks from several of the onlookers. However, nobody spoke up on his behalf. It would seem that everybody was well aware of Sock Fist Bart’s connections.

“I’m D-rank!” the man protested.

Eik kept silent, but Sonja stepped in. “You’re Rock Fist Bart, you said?”

“Of the Rock Fists, yes,” he said, gesturing to his jaded subordinates.

“I apologize for anything my teammate might have done to make you feel insulted, but I know he meant no harm—”

“No harm?” Bart repeated with exaggerated lip movements. “If the B-ranker Olivia Valkiri hadn’t showed up to threaten me directly, then this shopkeeper would have carried this matter to an irredeemable point.”

Eik felt his cheeks flush in irritation, fingers brushing against the hectona fang. If he didn’t manage this situation well, he might actually end up dead at some point. Someone who grew up under the wing of one of the most powerful men would be used to getting his way. And this spectacle was public now…

“But…” Bart continued with a crooked smile, his eyes scanning the crowd for the reaction. “Now that his guardian, B-ranker Olivia Valkiri is… under the weather because of a lack of foresight, there’s no longer anything he would dare say to me.”

Eik’s eyelid twitched as his jaw clenched tight, boldness borne by anger fueling his words. “I’m guessing ‘foresight’, in your book, is synonymous with trembling in the bottom of your family’s bunker while everybody else is trying to be useful, then?” he spat.

That must have hit on at least a couple of true notes, because the man visibly jerked in place as his face reddened, snickers running through the onlookers. “That is a preposterous accusation!” he shouted. “Do you have any proof to support such a claim?”

“I don’t,” Eik answered with a casual shrug that belied the fury crushing his chest. “But if you look around you, I think you’ll be able to figure out whether I not I need to prove it for people to believe it.”

Bart’s two subordinates fidgeted as the large man spun comically on his feet, seeing the faces staring back. Regardless of the truth of Eik’s claim, to a man as riled up as Sock Fist Bart, any expression, whether compassionate or indifferent, would have been swiftly morphed into scorn or ridicule by his mind.

“What are you all looking at?” he bellowed childishly. “I will have your head for this!” Veins popped out on his neck.

“I don’t doubt that,” Eik said with faux nonchalance. “Do you want to start now? In front of everyone here.” He exposed his neck with a grin.

Eik hoped that the two brain cells inside Bart’s head would allow him to see the wisdom in keeping this conflict verbal until an occasion with fewer witnesses. If not for the lack of tusks protruding from his lower jaw, Sock Fist Bart could have believably been cosplaying as an orc as he stood there mulling over his options.

Eik had to consciously hold back a sigh of relief when the man finally spoke, all ears sharpened for the conclusion.

“This is not the last time we will see each other, store clerk,” he warned, voice menacingly steady. His gaze passed over the crowd as he directed part of his speech to them. “Although I would never even dream of harming you, you should remember that the world isn’t as safe a place as you seem to believe it to be. Watch your back.”

If his heart hadn’t been in his throat, Eik might have rolled his eyes at the ridiculous villain monologue. The fact that Bart could likely follow through on his threats soured the amusement.

Eik remained silent as Bart turned to leave. “Olivia Valkiri won’t be able to help you anymore.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Only Heath’s arm around his shoulder stopped Eik from running his mouth even further. “Mate…” his friend drawled, looking at Eik with wide eyes. “That might have been the dumbest thing I have ever seen anyone do. Do you know who that guy is?”

“I realized, yes…” Eik said and plopped onto a stool with a sigh, burying his face in hands.

“Why did you act like that?” Michael asked.

“I’m not good at keeping my mouth shut, but when he started blabbing about Olivia, I just couldn’t take it.”

“That was stupid,” Sonja stated, arms crossed over her chest.

“I know.”

“That big jerk is going to come after you again,” she continued.

“I know.”

“And he’s going to do more than blab next time.”

“I know…” Eik was sinking into the ground word by word.

“What the hell are you going to do?” Heath asked.

“I don’t know… Avoid him?”

Sonja gave him a raised eyebrow. “Really?”

“Look, can we talk about this another time?” Eik said with exasperation. “I just want to get paid and get something to drink.”

“Agreed!” Heath said and led the way to the counter for processing of their finding.

Not only raw materials, but also new discoveries like the bison and the lake in the forest were eligible for rewards. Since the discovery of the new great lake still hadn’t been confirmed by another party, the reward was withheld for now, but the proof of the Awakened bison qualified for immediate payment.

They ordered drinks and food at Mission Central and brought it outside to walk around as they ate. The whole experience of the day, both their foray into the new forest and the encounter with Sock Fist Bart, had put a sense of restlessness in them, so they didn’t feel like just sitting around.

They strolled through the streets, eating rolled flatbread stuffed with meat, vegetables, and a creamy dressing. Mission Central made better food than Eik would have expected. A lot of residences that people had spent years making into new homes—safe places for their loved ones to enjoy some semblance of a normal life—had been left in ruins with precious, personal possessions still scattered among the wood and brick.

It was a sad sight, and it made Eik wonder about his own family back in Copenhagen. Were they well? Were they even alive? There was no longer a way to contact them, and no way to go home. Many people had died nine years ago, and many still died all the time to this day. Parents with long buried children finally losing the will to continue. Orphans with little to no guidance from proper adults ending up involved with people who only seek to use them for their own gain.

Eik stopped on a corner, staring at a ruin a couple of buildings down.

“What are you looking at?” Michael asked.

The broken half of a hand painted sign was visible among the rubble. The green letters with the red outline had become synonymous with a purpose. ‘—ent Elixirs’ was the only legible part of the sign.

“That,” Eik said, his gaze firmly on the destruction. “is my life. That is Eik’s Excellent Elixirs.”

“It’s in ruins,” Michael muttered, staring. Eik gave him a look.

“Are you going to rebuild?” Heath asked.

Eik stared at his broken store for a moment, the thoughts swirling around in his head. “I’d like to rebuild one day, but it’s just not easy to figure out how,” he said and pulled out his wooden plaque. “Plus, I’m an Awakened now. My life’s not going to be the same. I’m not going to have as much time to devote to it anymore.”

“Get some employees,” Heath smiled.

Eik laughed. “Ha! Good point.”

He knelt down and rummaged through the upper layer of rubble, uncovering a few shelves along with some broken bottles and crushed pills. Nothing seemed recoverable.

“Are you coming?” Michael asked him, kicking a roof tile across the street.

Eik shook his head. “I think I’m going to stay for a bit longer, you guys. I just need a little time to think.”

“Alright.”

Eik spent the next couple of hours just digging around his property, reminiscing. The world was going to shit once again. Eventually he headed home, picking up some fish to fry on the way home. His cat would love that.

***

Eik awoke to the sound of commotion outside. His bedroom was a wooden platform raised above the main room on thick wooden pillars. Being close to the ceiling was comfortable. The hole in his wall allowed most sound from the street to flow inside, but whatever was happening outside right now was chaos beyond the usual.

He sat up in bed, rubbing the gunk out of his eyes. Forced to move from her comfortable spot on his covers, Mis complained loudly as she strolled off towards the kitchen.

Eik climbed down the ladder and went outside to take a look. It almost seemed like the whole neighborhood was visiting at each other’s doors. Eik approached his neighbor who was speaking to two other at her door.

“What’s going on, Mrs. Clain?” he asked from his side of the fence.

“Eik,” she said, waving him closer. “There’s a fracture!”

“Where?”

“In the middle of Central Square!” she whispered as if she was sharing a secret. “It’s right there in the middle of everything, but nothing’s coming out.”

“I have to go,” Eik said, patting the nervous woman on the arm before running back to his house to get his things. On the way to Central Square the direction of the main flow was away from the apparent fracture, only a few people going the same way as him. The closer he got, the more the surrounding tension mounted.

A fracture with no monsters? That didn’t happen.

When Eik got there, the fracture was surrounded completely by Awakened, weapons and magic at the ready. A situation like this had even high-rankers on alert. He even spotted the C-ranker Andrew Brooks barking orders on the opposite side of the square. The first monster out of that fracture would surely be vaporized in seconds with this kind of attack power.

At first it was tense, Awakened whispering among one another, trying to anticipate what manner of horror might emerge from that alien portal. But as time passed, the unease faded and people began to sheathe their weapons and lower their guard, going so far as to even turn around to talk to the people behind them. Eik, however, never looked away. If the first monster to emerge was B-rank, or even just C-rank, he would need all the time he could get to escape.

As he watched, a ripple ran through the surface of the fracture, the silent disturbance going unnoticed by many. When the second ripple, this time deeper, appeared, most people had drawn their weapons again. The third had enough force to bounce off the rim of the fracture and return toward the center of the glowing crack in space.

A deep, ominous hum sounded as the fracture began to vibrate violently, the surface looking ready to tear open.

The first thing that emerged was a foot. When the rest of the body followed, the scene was strange enough to freeze the onlookers in place. Nobody moved.

What had come out of the fracture was not a monster, or even an Awakened beast.

It was a woman clad in a long, intricately decorated robe.