Daichi POV

It had been around twenty minutes since Daichi was supposed to meet with Ibuki and he still hadn’t found the vending machine.

“Oooooh, she’s going to kill me.”

He suddenly bumped into a little girl who was crying.

“Oh, uh… sorry?”

The little girl continued sniffing.

“W-where’s your mom? I’m sure she’ll…”

As he looked around, he noticed something weird. He looked around he could see people running around screaming, fires all around and green creatures running all around.

“Weird… when were there so many goblins? Goblins!?”

He tensed up and all his hairs stood on end at the sudden realization of what was happening, then he looked at the girl again. She didn’t look much older than five. Her dress was covered in blood and they both stood next to a dead body that had a certain green monster feeding on it.

“Eugh!”

Daichi grabbed the girl by the arm and pulled her behind him. The goblin noticed the new comer who had just stolen his food, then grinned. Its new food had just danced into his palms, but to prevent any incidents like what just happened, he needed to kill it. He left the arm he was eating and jumped at the half-elf.

“Just like in training. Just like in training. Let them come… then…”

He waited for the monster to be in range, then he injected nether energy into his body, making his movements faster, then he spun around, delivering a kick that was five times stronger than a bullet to the goblins cheek. The sound of a skull splitting in half entered Daichi’s ears as the goblin smashed into the wall.

“Woah! Just like in training! Training with Ibuki really paid off. Wait… where is Ibuki!?”

The young elf meant to look for his little sister, but he looked at the girl who was still crying, then looked around.

“Tch… I don’t have time for this. I need a safe place… Mom.”

The image of the safest place came to mind. Like… where else was safer other than with his mother who was currently in labor and might not be able to move around?

He carried the little girl on his back and rushed towards the room his mother was supposed to be in, he wasn’t allowed to see her. Apparently, she said she didn’t care if there was a goblin attack. He remembered her cold heartless words ring in his head.

“Daichi, mommy doesn’t care. If there is a goblin attack, go and play with your sister. Stop the attack even. Anything, but mommy is very busy right now! Oooooohhh!”

“Dad… I miss you!”

He screamed at the top of his voice as he zoomed down the hallway.

 

***

‘Damn it! I still can’t go past level 5. This is going to be hard. Why am I having this trouble? My growth rate has been quick this entire time. I need to be at peak strength or else…’

BEEP! BEEP!

My watch’s alarm went off. I stared at the device, wondering why I even set up an alarm. Then a name came to mind, accompanied by a stupid face with snot coming out of his nose.

“Daichi. He’s not back with my drink!”

I jumped off my chair after waiting for Daichi for nearly an hour.

‘Honestly, that guy… and mom will say he’s a genius. It’s just a vending machine. How difficult is it to find? Ah! Imma have to kick him a new!’

I stomped down the hallway, passing by faces of people who were either sick, here to visit a friend, or weirdos pretending to be nurses just to steal a bunch of drugs. The documentaries I had been watching me showed me a lot of that.

I got to the vending machine and Daichi wasn’t there. I looked at the watch and it was well about five minutes pass the time he was supposed to get me my drink.

“Daichi, looks like you really want an extra hour of traini-”

Just as I was mumbling to myself, I felt something odd. A dark, unnatural energy that wreaked of death. I unconsciously grinned at the sudden realization that one of them had happened here. A Nether break.

“AAAAGGGGGHHHH!!”

I heard a woman scream in the distance. With my sharp vision, I zoomed in on where she was, and she was being burnt alive.

Several people begun to run away, screaming like mad people. Then I saw them. Green skins, well over four feet tall, with their frog like eyes and bone armor. Goblins. However the fact that they wore armor made me doubt that they were normal goblins. Goblin warriors maybe? But those were a rare breed.

I instinctively charged at them, the force breaking the tiles beneath me. There were about three of them, each easily bigger than me, but definitely not stronger. With flame covered and mana reinforced fists, I punched a hole right through one of the goblins chest before the others even noticed me.

“Ow! That fucking hurt!”

I flailed my tiny hands in pain. My little hand was bulging red and covered in disgusting goblin blood.

‘Ah, what’s wrong? W-why am I hurt? It’s almost as if my body is refusing to accept the energy. Is it because I’m still only a four year old?’

As I was thinking, a shadow loomed over me, causing me to jump back.

“Tch, forgot about you two.”

I glared at the other hob-goblin who wore a cloak and held a staff with a black crystal on it.

‘A shaman? W-wait. Then that means….’

A dust storm kicked up as I avoided the bone weapon of the goblin who attacked me. I shot a blast of fire at him, instantly burning him up.

“Huh, so it would seem my body won’t overreact when I use mana the way it’s supposed to be, huh? But then, I wanted to punch them so bad!”

“Kekeke!”

The goblin shaman was preparing a spell and I stretched out my hand to cast my own, but then, a knife coated in a black energy zoomed past me, stabbing the shaman in the fore head.

“Did you miss me so much that you’re crying?”

I heard Daichi’s annoying voice say. I turned around and noticed him coming to me with a drink in hand.

“I… uh, I got you your drink.”

“You stupid brat! Some nerve you’ve got! It’s past the time you were supposed to come!”

“Hehe, I know. I got a bit… busy.”

Daichi lowered his voice and his eyes glowed for a moment, making him look a bit…

‘Is Daichi actually… cool? No! Never! I won’t accept that!’

“Woah… Daichi.”

“What?”

“That was so cringe. Never say it again.”

“Cringe?”

“Yea, totally. Everyone is doing it now. You’ve been watching too much anime.”

“But-”

“Ssshhh. They’re here.”

I noticed them approaching. Well over a hundred goblins were coming in a swarm. The two of us could only stare at the sheer number.

“Hehe, Daichi. Want to see your big sis take down a bunch of monsters?”

“Super cringe! And I’m your big brother! I also forgot to say this, but mom said we should stop the goblin attack.”

Daichi said something Ibuki didn’t ever expect to hear.

“Wow, labor is really rough, isn’t it?”

Her stupid brother could only nod in complete acceptance. If Alexis were here with them, he would have definitely argued over her decision, but since he wasn’t they would have to obey.

‘Good thing you’re not here, Alexis.’

Ibuki silently thought, before grinning.

“Ok, Daichi. Let’s fight.”

She got ready to fire off some spells that would make quick work of the goblins, but Daichi stopped her.

“Wait.”

“What? Why?”

“I want to show off what I’ve learnt.”

“What you’ve learnt?”

He nodded confidently, then took a few steps forward.

“Yeah. I’ve been practicing ever since I started using fire and then something cool happened. Look at this.”

He took a step forward, then slipped and fell on his butt. Ibuki looked at her brother, holding back her urge to laugh. Their eyes met again, then he stood up, and faced the horde.

The air around him begun to distort as he generated nether energy. His body begun to release a black aura, then it turned into flames, then quickly progressed into lightning. Powerful lightning crackled and danced all over his body and his hair stood on ends.

“Daichi… you’ve already unlocked an advanced element?”

She asked in complete utter disbelief.

“Hehe, that’s not all.”

He disappeared and the ground beneath him broke, the force causing Ibuki to defend her frail body. She struggled to see, but when she did, she was stunned. Daichi was punching through the goblins like they were clay. With his dagger, he easily managed to cut the demons at their necks, abdomen and arms.

Thanks to the lightning, almost all his abilities had been increased four times, making everything seem a bit slower to him. He cut a goblin’s throat, then jumped to another. He still wasn’t able to move perfectly since he lacked any real combat experience, but the lightning that his body generated ended up killing the goblins he couldn’t hit.

“Impressive… but it’s still nowhere near perfect.”

Although he could use the element, Ibuki noticed that he was running out of energy quickly. And the lightning was too crude. It had no elegance to it whatsoever. It ran wild, hitting anything and everything without any sort of control,

A goblin warrior threw its arm in an attempt to hit Daichi from the back. The young boy wouldn’t have been able to avoid it, but Ibuki turned the goblin into an icicle.

“Ok Daichi, that’s enough. Come back.”

He returned quickly, breathing heavily.

“When did you learn lightning?”

“Hehehe, a few weeks ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“….”

“Well? Go on.”

“You would have given me even more training.”

“What was that?”

“You would have trained me even more!”

“You stupid brat! What kind of stupid reason is that?”

‘You only say that because you aren’t the one on the receiving end.’

Daichi thought to himself.

“Stay here while I finish of the goblins.”

Ibuki stepped forward and her eyes glowed. The room’s temperature suddenly dropped and mist could be seen in the air. The goblins hadn’t noticed it, until they couldn’t move their legs. The shamans tried to melt the ice, but Ibuki made sure to turn them into ice sculptures first.

It took approximately five minutes for her to kill off half of the goblins in the area with her wide range spell. The drawback was that it took out a large amount of mana from her. She soon found herself in a state similar to Daichi’s.

‘D-damn it… I haven’t been this weak since I was a meagre apprentice. Ah well, luckily this time I have more sources of energy.’

“Are you alright?”

Daichi asked and Ibuki responded with a nod. She had learned something over her period of just moving around as an infant. She had been performing some experiments with her cores and found that she could convert the different energies within her body into whichever one she required at the moment.

She converted her chakra into mana, since she had an unusually vast amount of it.

“Daichi, listen up. I can freeze a ton of these guys, but my control and range are kind of weak, so you’ll have to kill the goblins that try to run away.”

The boy nodded without any sort of resistance and executed her orders to the letter.

***

A man who was sleeping woke up at the tone of his phone ringing. The previous night he had stayed up late to watch an important game he couldn’t afford to miss. He could feel an annoying red light hit his face. He strained his eyes to see the source of the light then stood up straight, yelling after the sudden realization that it was the buzzer for a Nether Break.

He took his phone and it was the guild’s vice master calling him.

“H-hel-”

“What the hell are you doing!?”

“S-sor-”

“Damn it! Where you sleeping on the job again!? Alert all chevaliers and leave the fucking building! Never come back!”

He cut the call then collapsed on his chair.

“Sweet…”

He punched the red button, sending an alert throughout the city and to every chevalier within range.