Sloth had lived his entire life in the arms of the dark side of the world. He was raised in crimes and learned how to become a true master, cold-hearted and ruthless with their gain as the only target he should focus on.
Many died at his hands and even more were tortured in front of his eyes. Yet, he never really cared. The human life for him was as worthless as that of an ant. Nobody would ever think it’s wrong to step on ants, especially if it was by mistake.
So, he didn’t care if people thought it was evil to do all of that. In the end, he was the winner who took it all and that was what this world was all about. Feelings and morals were simply an excuse for weak people to avoid pain. Those with true power ruled everything.
That was why, at that moment, he could only laugh at himself. The same position he never thought he would ever see himself in, he was now exactly there.
‘It’s… cold…’ He thought to himself.
Staring up, he felt all the energy seep out of his body very slowly and very painfully. He couldn’t talk or breathe anymore.
*DRIP*
Arthur slowly pulled his claws out of the man’s chest, dripping with his blood. The boy stared into his eyes, reading all his thoughts.
“I will chase you all down and destroy you. Your superior and everyone involved in doing this. I will make you all regret ever doing this. If I’m going to turn this capital upside down, I might as well uproot the scum in it.” Slowly standing up, Arthur swung his arm to the side, getting rid of the blood as he turned around.
Arthur knew that this man named Sloth was not the most important guy in this entire operation. He was perhaps one of the leaders, but the true mastermind wasn’t there. There was a shady business going on, one that involved killing and torturing people and he was going to get to the bottom of it.
‘Now that I destroyed this place, they won’t stop searching for us.’ He thought to himself as he started walking slowly. The ceiling above his head was cracking audibly in real-time.
“Goodbye. May you rot in the hell beneath.” Arthur muttered as he heard the ringing sound of a notification in his head, indicating that it was over. However, he didn’t bother opening it as he headed toward the door, trying to leave the building.
However, at that moment, when he tried to take a second step, Arthur felt his heart beat strong in his chest, with a loud ringing sound in his ears. He stopped, exhaled a breath, then looked down. He felt something weird in his body and before he could even react, he found himself falling to the ground.
“Ugh…” He groaned as he hit the cold floor. ‘My body… It’s refusing to move…’
Looking at the current state of his mana, health, and stamina, he realized the problem. All of them, without any exceptions, have reached an all-time low. In fact, Arthur’s health was barely 10 points away from completely depleting.
He realized that his body had finally reached its limit and the set back was naturally going to be extremely strong.
“I need… to drink… a potion…” With his face still hugging the ground, Arthur struggled to get the potion out of his inventory.
*BOOOOOM*
At the same time, all around him, the ceiling started collapsing quickly, with large chunks of rock falling near him.
“Dammit… This is… bad!” Arthur groaned. He knew that he barely had any time left to leave the building or the burning rocks would crush him slowly to death. But, his current condition left him no room to work with.
“I can’t… die… now…”
He knew that losing all of his items here would be a devastating hit as he would never be able to recover them from the rubble. But, what else could he do?
With shaky hands, Arthur tried to pour the stamina potion into his mouth. His shaky arm proved this simple task was ridiculously hard as the liquid poured into the ground. Arthur extended his tongue to lick it, but he couldn’t reach it.
‘Come on! Move, you stupid hand!’ He cursed. But, in the end, his arm fell to the ground, extremely exhausted.
“… Really…” He clenched his teeth. ‘What am I supposed to do now? I won’t be able to even get out!’
As he was cursing his bad luck, the ceiling above Arthur continued its eventual collapse, breaking apart as if it was made out of biscuits. Many rocks fell close enough to Arthur, bursting into pieces as sharp shards of stone shot toward his body, hitting him in several spots. The smoke filled his lungs and made him cough violently.
At this point, Arthur accepted his fate. There was truly nothing left he could do.
‘… I guess I’m asking for too much… The fact I killed that man is more than enough. Now that I think about it… I wonder why I didn’t level up after killing him… If I leveled up, my stats would’ve reset and I could’ve left this building…’
As he was contemplating that, Arthur suddenly heard a weird noise amongst the destruction. The noise grew closer and closer to him.
‘Is that the sound of footsteps?’
Then, the boy saw several people stop in front of him. They had no shoes on as they walked around barefoot. He could see blood and stains on their skin from all the scars.
“Huh?” Then, his eyes moved up and he saw a large group of people around him.
“You…”
“He’s… He’s the boy that freed us!”
“What is he doing here?!”
“Did he kill that monster?!”
The group talked around him as they realized what just happened.
“This place is about to collapse! We need to leave!”
“Help me get him up!”
Without hesitation, the group grabbed Arthur and lifted him up above their shoulders. “Be careful… He’s our hero!”
Then, the group ran out of the door before the entire place collapsed. Arthur was still in shock, unable to move as he was moved by several people.
“Why… are you here…? Didn’t you… escape?” He asked with great difficulty.
Before carrying Sora out of the prison, Arthur decided to stop and free all the cellmates. He felt really bad for them and their condition and he couldn’t imagine leaving them there to rot to death. So, he took a minute of his time to open all the gates and then left without even waiting for them.
He had completely forgotten about these people. Yet, here they are, carrying him out of the building before it collapses.
“We were leaving the place and we saw you here. We’re near the exit! Let’s hurry!”
“We will save you, young man! Thank you for freeing us!”
Hearing that, Arthur could only blink in silence. He could’ve never expected that the gesture of kindness he did would quickly repay him when he needed help the most.
A//N: Don’t forget to give the book some golden tickets for good luck! :3