The city of Black Iron was a town where people from all over the country staked their dreams upon. Once a city known for smithing, it had become a city for adventurers to gather to stake their dreams of becoming legends.

After all, it was the nearest city where the Moon Tear had fallen. Animals that had once been peaceful, mutated and evolved into monsters. They were dangerous, but the prize for killing them were worth the risk.

While dreams were one side of the of city, the darkness of the city covered the fallen ones. Children from adventurers were regularly abandoned in the slums of the city. The fragments of the crushed dreams were abandoned here.

Twenty years ago, a couple had abandoned a boy in these slums. The boy did not know how old he was, but he was old enough to stand up and walk. Though his parents were terrible people, they did hand him one last kindness, they gave him a parcel of food. Enough for three days.

Just like a babe separated from its herd, the older children circled around him like hounds.

“What do you have there?” The oldest and ugliest had asked him.

“Food. Piss off,” the boy said.

The oldest blinked. Then his face turned a deep scarlet. “You have some mouth for someone tiny. Your new here, so I’ll let it go. But there is a toll in these parts.”

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He looked back at his boys, and they snickered.

“Piss off. Looking at your face is like looking at my grandma naked,” he said those words in an innocent tone. The boys looked at each other, unsure if he knew what he was talking about.

The oldest though grew even more furious. He made a grab for the package.

“Give me that!” He yelled. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

The boy caught his wrist. Then he squeezed as hard as he could. The older boy kneeled and opened his mouth, a shrill scream left it.

Then, the little boy threw him behind him, and the older boy flew like a ragdoll, hitting the wall of a building. There was a splat of blood where the older boy had hit. The two others looked at each other and then to the little boy.

“Piss off, fuck faces.” He flipped them off.

They still attacked him. The boy beat them bloody and very excessively. He pulled from their still breathing bodies all of their possessions, leaving the three of them naked on the streets.

What his parents had left was not a broken dream, but a monster wearing the skin of a boy. He would terrorize the slum, becoming its king in one year.

Five years later, the boy at the age of ten had beaten up a group of C-Rank Adventurers, standing in the middle of the onslaught.

By coincidence, his master had been passing through, met him.

#

“Gods.” The big man pushed through some bushes. Dragging along a giant bird by the neck. “I thought I was going to die.”

In the midst of his fall down to the earth, he had spotted this giant bird. He forgot the name of it, but he recalled it being a C-rank monster. He tackled it on its back, and they fought in the air for a while. When they were near the ground, Remy snapped its neck.

It had taken a while. The sun was already setting. He had promised a bear hotpot, but only had chicken.

His master might spare him.