Jacob slowed his gait and smiled at Joseph.

“What’s up?”

The other guy looked up and gave him a crooked smile.

“Do you know something about Rome yet? No one seems to know what’s happening, but you looked quite sure that something was wrong when you got out with Francis.”

Jacob nodded and gave him a shrug.

“I don’t know much. I think I saw something on the net before everything went down. I was looking at this live feed, and some man had multiple Dragons flying above Rome’s sky.”

Jacob looked at Joseph’s hands and noticed the mangled nails. The kid had bitten one off completely. Never in his life had Jacob seen something like that.

“I’m sorry, Joe.”

The usually arrogant kid nodded and then twisted his expression in an effort not to cry.

“I just wish they were ok,” he said, almost whispering.

They are most likely dead. The Dragons razed the city to the ground without hesitating one bit in my past life. So if Joseph’s parents were there during the change, they are dead. If they were not…

“They could very well be alive, man. Don’t lose hope. And you need to get a bandaid for that nail too.”

Joseph was in a comatose state and did not answer. Even though he had always been an arrogant child, he was not fundamentally evil. Luis Albert and Frederick were a couple of sociopaths, instead. But Joseph was just spoiled and young.

Right now, Joseph was faced with the possibility of having lost his parent, and he did not show anger nor resentment.

“Listen, man, get back to your place. Someone died. It’s better to be careful in the open. The killer’s still on the loose.”

Joseph barely registered what Jacob just told him.

He’s in shock…

He didn’t remember anything about Joseph’s first day during the change.

He must have gone in hiding pretty soon. What happened to him after that?

Jacob tried hard to think, but the details were somewhat fuzzy. His memory was nearly perfect, but he had lived way too long. To be completely honest, he had not expected so many situations to come up in such a short period.

Luis Albert and his son suspected him because of Francis. His aunt needed guidance for her cultivation, lest she makes some big mistake and hurt herself. There was now a raper and murderer on the loos. He still had too much internal damage to heal before he could fight again or resume his cultivation. Joseph was having a crisis, and Jacob felt too bad leaving a kid in such a state alone.

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This is a bit too much.

Give him some Demonic Beast to fight, a pill to concoct, or an ancient ruin to explore, and he would be on top of it in a blink. Give him social situations, instead, and he would start having problems.

He brought a hand to his side, not finding his dear sword.

God, I miss it so much.

When he had been alone inside the Plate and fighting the end of the world, his sword had become an irreplaceable part of himself, an extension of his own body.

“Come with me, Joe,” Jacob took the arrogant brat by his hand and urged him to come to his place.

Thankfully, Joseph did not oppose any resistance. Instead, he just sorts of went with him while crying in silence.

People are already losing it. It must have been what I did. They did not get scared enough, just mad; really, really mad. In my past life, the presence of three Demonic Beasts must have acted as a deterrent for the shameful crimes committed today.

Jacob kept circling the energy from the Three-Colored Stalk.

If only I had a pill furnace with me, he gritted his teeth.

“Jacob, did you kill the wolves?” Joseph suddenly asked, with his voice broken.

“Joe, you need rest,” Jacob said, ignoring the question.

He did not trust Joseph. He had barely trusted Francis, and that had come back to bite his ass. He needed to be careful. This little fox could have been acting innocent and laying a trap—

What am I even thinking? Am I already this disgusted by humanity?

Jacob shook his head and went home with the kid in tow.

…

“Auntie, I’m home! There is Joseph Di Livio with me! He has a problem with his fingers; I’ll treat him! You keep resting in bed!”

“My aunt felt sick after seeing the body,” Jacob said to the now surprisingly shy guy.

“I’m-I’m sorry,” he stumbled.

Jacob nodded and got down to work. They had multiple first-aid kits, plus some very specialized wound treating tools. But, of course, when you live in the middle of nowhere, you have to be ready to take care of this stuff yourself. Jacob had learned how to sew a wound shut a couple of years ago; another resident had had a problem slicing bread. It had not been a pleasant experience at the time; however, it had made him more independent compared to some big city folks.

“Someone died?” Joseph asked with a pale face.

Someone got raped, and their body was torn apart as if a beast had done the deed.

“Yeah,” Jacob chose to omit some of the details for the moment.

“Have they caught him yet?”

It was a genuinely stupid question. Jacob had already specified that no, the killer was still on the loose. However, he chose not to blame the guy. He was what, fifteen? Sixteen?

Jacob had shat himself more than once before getting his hands on the Plate. Therefore, he had no place in making fun of a stuttering kid.

“Nope. But they probably will. This is a small place, not many ways to hide.”

There is a million way I could kill someone and have no one know. But let’s keep that knowledge far from you, huh?

“Ouch. Ouch. Ouch-Ouch-Ouch-Ouch”, Joseph started whining while Jacob disinfected the wound.

“Dude, come on,” he told his improvised patient while trying to put a small gauze over his ripped nail.

“It hurts!”

“Come on, Joe. You are taller and stronger than me. So I don’t complain like a little b**ch when I get a colonoscopy every six months. And I can assure you, taking a massive probe up your ass is not fun at all.”

Joseph finally got distracted long enough by his words to let him secure the gauze with some medical tape.

They started making some more chit-chat and throwing in a couple of jokes. Jacob was hoping to cheer up the man a bit before they got another reality check.

However, fate, once again, was not on his side.

He felt a very subtle but powerful Qi and Mana explosion. Right after, he saw a shadow close to his kitchen window.

Here we go again.