Chapter 8: The Lion Cub organization

Ray

A large city, with technology even surpassing the one we had in my previous life. And with the usage of different abilities, the city looks even greater. That was what I expected to see after getting out of the portal. Instead, we found ourselves in jail. They let me and the young man get out, and they locked everybody else in.

They had a man with a dangerous ability, guarding the prisoners. He was able to put out the power of anyone he stares at. On a battlefield, anyone going against him will be at a large disadvantage. 'What a waste of potential. Locking such power with those prisoners, just to keep watching them, only shows how bad this organization is being managed.' 

Without looking at us, he said while his red and tired eyes kept watching all the prisoners: "What happened? you look so much wounded this time."

The young man responded: "They had some annoying abilities." And we left that building, to finally see how the city looked like.

It was a small city, probably all made using the power of an earth user. It had no sign of technological advancement. All the houses were the same except for a castle located in the middle of the city.

The young man made another portal to teleport right inside the castle this time. He said after we got into it: "You are acting weird." And he looked at me suspiciously.

"I don't feel alright. I got hit on my head."

"Then why didn't you ask to go to the medical department first as usual?"

'I'm I busted? How should I answer this? Or should I run away now? '

The voice of one of the guards on the castle broke the silence: "Hey, you two! What are you doing there? The king is waiting."

The young man said: "We will talk about it later, let's go now!".

We met the king, a fat young man named Marshall, surrounded by women feeding him while my companion was recapping what happened to us. His story wasn't completely true. He made it seem that everything was under their control the whole time, and he never mentioned any survivors.

On the way out, I noticed that, in the castle, there were a lot of slaves, and most of them were women and girls. They all had attractive and revealing clothes, and they all had a tattoo of a dog on one of their arms.

We left the castle, my companion said: "Don't you want to go home now?" 

"Yeah!" I said with a fake smile while trying to hold eye contact.

"I'll make you a portal."

When we got out of the portal, I started walking, and he stayed behind me waiting. I turned back to him and said: "Is this a joke?"

He was suspicious of me, I assumed that he would've tried to test me somehow. The way he offered me a portal to home was fishy, and the fact that he got in with me and waited for my reaction confirmed that this place wasn't what it is supposed to be. And on top of that, with my enhanced vision, I read far away that this place was abandoned.

He responded: "I'm sorry, I guess I'm tired too." And he made me another portal. This time he wasn't going to follow me in, and I told him before I leave: "Can you meet me before sunset, In front of my house. I want to try something new in our combo."

"Yeah, sure, just don't be late again." And I left

When I got out of the portal, I was in front of a house that seemed to be mine. I heard the sound of a little girl inside, I decided to not get in and avoid contact with anyone. I started walking, I was looking for a library, and I found it. I got in. The librarian greeted me. A black-haired teenage woman with round glasses. I simply said "Hi" with a smile on my face, and I avoided her after.

I took the biggest encyclopedia in there. After hours of reading, I knew a lot of things about this world and this organization and its king.

In geology and physics, this world is different from the one we came from before, the difference is that it is widely bigger and filled with what they called Black matter. The Black matter is a stronger type of mana, that only the earth and nature have and utilities to protect themselves. Roughly speaking, this world cannot be destroyed by a human being, nature will always protect or restore itself using the Black matter.

In biology, newborns do get to choose their powers as well, at the age of 16.

In history and politics, this world is governed by 4 pillars, and they are the strongest ever existed. And under those 4 pillars, there are 9 royal families. Marshall Elthias, son of King Albert Elthias, is one of them. And the one they are calling king here is only a prince. He deserted the kingdom years ago, built this organization, called The Lion Cub organization, and started calling himself king.

In the last pages of the book, I read about the winter season. Some of those pages weren't printed but written manually and weren't clear.

'The seasons? Two or four seasons, it doesn't matter that much in this world. And I have to go anyways' I looked through the window to see that the moment of our meeting was up. I closed the book and left.

On the way back, I met an old man selling fruits, he said: "Hey, soldier!"

'Do I look like a soldier? Or does he know me?' I looked at him, and he said: "Those are some good and new apples. They can refill a lot of mana."

"No, sorry!"

"Those are free, take them" And he gave me two apples.

He completed: "One for you and one for the little Lily." I took them, and I left

In front of the muscular's house, I saw the teenager talking with a little girl. When I got closer, they noticed me, and the little girl started running towards me. She jumped to hug me and said: "Where have you been, brother?" 

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to get some fresh air." It was awkward for me since I never knew how to interact with kids. I said: "Take those and get back inside. Big brother still has something important to do." 

"Are you fighting bad guys again?" She said with a sad-looking face.

"Don't worry about it, I'll be back soon." And then tears started raining out of my eyes. It wasn't me, and it wasn't my curse. The body is starting to reject me. 'My time is almost up; I need to hurry.' I put her down and said to my companion. "We need somewhere calm outside the city, but not far away."

"Yes, sir!"

We teleported to a hill outside the city where we could see the whole thing. I immediately said: "Give me HumanX."

"What's the hurry?"

"My sister is waiting."

"What are you trying to do?"

"You will see, you will be impressed. It's something new."

His curse was that while his ability is active, he has to keep his eyes closed. I noticed that when we were fighting before. He closed his eyes, and I got a hundred times bigger with the muscular's ability. When I got HumanX, I immediately swung with my hands to erase the whole city from the earth. Seconds before I deleted the city, I saw a lot of faces; faces of people I just killed. I saw Lily. Tears fell from my eyes, and I said to myself "Don't be sad It was a painless death!"

With his eyes still closed, the teenager said while he was tumbling: "You didn't do what I think you just did?"

I wiped the tears from my eyes, got back to the normal size, and said: "Why don't you open your eyes and see for yourself?"

He opened his eyes to see the face of his old friend, with a facial expression he had never seen before. He said: "Who the hell are you?"