Wild manic laughter sent shivers down his spine. He couldn’t see anything but darkness, couldn’t hear anything but laughter and the beat of his own heart.

Cold dirt bit into his bare feet. He ran as fast as he could, hastily putting one foot in front of the other.

He wasn’t sure what he was running to, but he knew he needed to hurry. His tempo increased. The laughter grew closer. Cold sweat streamed down Liam’s back.

His thoughts were muddy, but adrenaline and fear churned him on.

He wanted to run even faster, but he crashed into a wall. There was no pain, only confusion. The laughter rang out again. It came from the other side of the darkness.

A soft whining followed. It was familiar. In the back of Liams mind a key turned, and a door was opened. Fury washed through him and he started banging his fist against the wall made out of darkness in front of him.

He punched it again and again, but all he earned was numbness in his hands. He heard a loud snap, and smelled a faint whiff of smoke.

His brain went mad and he charged the barrier with all he had. He needed to get to the other side, suddenly everything else became meaningless to Liam.

He threw himself against the wall one time, two times, the laughter grew louder, a third and fourth time, and after one loud thud, the wall finally gave.

The world exploded into color again as Liam stumbled through. He had to shield his eyes against the brightness and the wave of pain that suddenly came over him.

Liam realized he lay in the dirt of an alley, he couldn’t place the surroundings, but it was unmistakably his city. There was the faint smell of lavender and gunpowder in the air.

In front of him stood a tall man dressed in a bright blue robe with golden accents. His face was familiar. It smiled at him greedily. Liam suddenly felt small, very very small.

In front of the man was a girl, with long flowing brown hair. She was unnaturally pale, a stark contrast to the dark red blood pooling underneath her.

Liam scrambled over to her, but his body did not obey. He ended up dragging himself through the dirt, the man’s laughter continuously ringing out in the background.

Her eyes were lifeless. She was cold to the touch. And at the sight of all of this, Liam's chest felt like it would burst. He jumped towards the man, unnaturally fast. But the man simply disappeared into smoke. And so did the scenery around him.

Liam's eyes shot open and he surged up in his bed covered in sweat. Letters were sticking to his back, and softly flapped down. He took a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart.

“It has just been a dream,” Liam whispered to himself. As he always did. And as always, he knew that wasn’t true.

After a while, when his heart rate had slowed down somewhat, Liam got up from his bed and started getting dressed. He knew that trying to sleep was pointless. Instead, he opted for some distraction, something he knew the city at night would hold plenty.

The cool night air felt fresh in his lungs and the streets blurred under him as Liam was jumping from roof to roof. None of the jumps were particularly far, and he probably could’ve made them on his own, but he still used his skill for every one of them. The energy churning through him felt good, and the exercise kept his mind busy.

He started to get the hang of only using the skill for little boosts to move around. It was amazing how little less energy those jumps used up. The ones he had used to practice during the day had drained him after only clearing a few roofs. Instead of half a dozen big ones, Liam could easily manage three times that many smaller jumps.

Again, those jumps were nothing spectacular and he could’ve easily cleared the two or three meters between the buildings himself, but the velocity he reached thanks to his skill made him feel alive.

Especially now that he had figured out the trick of not being hit by the vertigo when his gravitational potential shifted back to normal. It was to keep moving.

He had increased his level to 3 already, and was just contemplating a break due to his sinking energy levels, when he heard a commotion to his right.

Curiously he stopped his run, and walked over to the other side of the building.

It was a small road, boasting three particularly shady drinking establishments. Some muffled sound was carrying over from them, but it didn’t take Liam long to realize that wasn’t the sound of commotion he had heard.

“I told you to not make a fuss,” hissed a voice to his side.

Liam slowly prowled towards the other side of the rooftop, and found a small alley. There was a single lantern illuminating a small patch of the dirty road underneath it. In the middle of its damp shine was a horse cart, a pretty shabby one, complete with animal and frightened looking driver.

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Next to him, stood a man with a big knife in his hand.

The loose phrases Liam heard were enough for him to figure out what was being played there.

An instinct urged Liam to help, and his eyes frantically scanned for a way to climb down the roof, but before he found something, he heard hurried footsteps echoing away. A small glance down confirmed that the robber had apparently gotten what he had set out to get, and was well on his way.

For a second Liam contemplated walking away again. This was, after all, not his business to deal with. He couldn’t claim to have never done a similar thing.

On the other hand, Liam knew carriage drivers. A few of his acquaintances were or had been ones. It was a hard job. A tough one. Pay usually wasn’t well and you were prone to lose your horse if some noble man decided to take fancy to it.

This man's horse looked rather thin, and his clothes were in tatters. He seemed to be a little down on his luck. Illuminated by the flickering light of the lantern he looked pale and frightened. He could see it on the man's face. He was about to scream for help.

Before Liam knew better he was down in the alley next to the man, having scrambled down the side of the house as fast as he could.

The man was startled to see Liam appearing out of the shadows, but Liam talked over his confusion.

“Don’t scream. We both know you would only attract more of them.” He walked over to the man. “Wait here. And don't be stupid.”

Then Liam was gone. Propelled upwards by his divine skill.

The man sprinted at breakneck speed, and Liam saw no chance to catch up with him in the streets. Luckily he didn’t have to.

He ran alongside the roofs, activating his skill and jumping when he needed to bridge a gap. The wind was rushing past him, and the adrenaline made him feel warm and giddy as his legs kicked into motion.

After a few meters, the man decided to finally turn into an alley. Directly at the house Liam stood upon.

Liam looked down. The alley was at least four meters below him. More than he would feel confident falling. But there was no other way. He took a deep breath, activated his skill, and decided to hope for the best.

He jumped down, and despite his skill helping out, his landing was rough. He flailed his arms for balance, and felt a stark pain in his knees.

He didn’t strike quite the imposing figure he had hoped for, but the landing did the intended job.

“Not so fast,” Liam said, as stopped the man in the middle of the alley.

The man recovered quickly from the shock of having someone, rather ungraciously, jump down the roof in front of him. “This is none of your business boy.”

“Well how about I make it my business.”

“Is this about the carriage driver?” The man sounded annoyed more than anything. He pushed forward, making to brush Liam away, but he sidestepped and suddenly was in front of the man again.

“Give me the purse.”

“Listen, what is this hero shit you’re trying to pull? Why risk your own life for a few coins from some asshole on the side of the road?”

That had Liam stumped. He couldn't quite explain it to himself either. It was just his inner instinct talking to him.

The man scoffed. His face said enough about what he thought about the notion. Before Liam could react, a fist had connected with his head, and he suddenly found himself on the floor with the taste of blood in his mouth.

The man looked down at him. He seemed to consider something, and then, for good measure, placed two more kicks onto Liams ribs. Then he turned to walk away.

Liam gripped his ankle, hindering the man from leaving.

He turned with a sneer, only to be welcomed by a small rock flying from a very unnatural angle straight into his face.

The warm flow of mana pushed Liam’s pain away, and he fought himself to his knees. He faced the other man, only now taking in the full size of him for the first time.

The man was over a head taller than Liam, and weighed easily as much as two Liams. Still, he had learned how to fight the hard way on the streets.

The man swung at Liam, but he weaved under, tackling the man to the ground. The world tumbled over and suddenly Liam was lying on the bottom. His punches felt weak and ineffective, the weight on his chest overbearing.

The man slammed a forehead down on Liam’s nose. The world exploded in pain and dancing stars. Despair, and cold hard struggle took hold of Liam.

The mana churned through him, and he used it to channel Gravity Jump. With the man on top of him, he couldn’t quite launch himself, but he buckled slightly. The force of it surprised the man, and allowed Liam to shake him off.

Before the man was able to do anything, Liams foot connected with his face and the man slumped down.

Liam picked up the small sack the man had taken from the carriage driver. He did his best to collect the coins he could find around the street and gathered them together.

Once again the man was startled when Liam stepped out of the shadows. This time, his surprise quickly turned into relief though. Even bigger relief when he saw that Liam had brought back his bag full of coin.

Two people stood on one of the towers on the wall of Charville. They were barely more than a silhouette in the drowning sun. Completely inconceivable from the people walking below on the streets. Both of them were covered head to toe in dark brown billowing cloaks concealing their forms.

“Did you feel that?” A female voice asked.

Her male companion replied. "His signature… it feels weird.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know, it's just… different. And surprisingly strong for an unguarded presence. They might have been right about him.”

They both stood in silence, letting that sink in. Then the woman spoke up. “This is really where he lives?”

“Is that concern I’m hearing in your voice?” The man chuckled. “Didn’t take you for the caring type.”

“I’m not, it’s just the smell is assaulting my senses,” her voice turned distant. “What a shithole.”

”Knock it off. It has a charm to it.”

The woman sniffed. “Since when is the smell of piss charming?”

“Well not all of us have grown up in the circles you did, Katarina.”

“Shut up Nils,” Katarina replied. “Let’s just get this over with and send a report.”

The man paused. “I think we might have to be a little more patient.”

“Why?”

“Because his signature just stopped. I think he doesn’t really use his mana constantly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess he doesn't know about cycling yet.”

“Splendid,” Katarina sighed. “As if this mission wasn’t already taking long enough.”