The next day, I was put in charge of painting again, but I had nothing against painting, so I was fine with it. Tomorrow I would have to move some furniture, so I actually preferred painting to other jobs I could have been doing here.

Yesterday had certainly been an unusual day, but at the end everything went fine, and the people here started being more friendly to me.

After the work of the day was over, we all headed together to the bar again, but this time I was with everybody, and the beer tasted less like piss and more like something a sane man would pay to drink.

The people at the bar were also more friendly, except for the bartender, who stared at me once in a while. I heard that Eddie had apologized and paid for the small damages and that everyone had agreed not to say a word about the fight to anyone to keep the agents out of the matter, but that didn't mean that the bartender would forgive me.

"I've got to say you ate that punch like a champ. I mean, looking at your face right now, one would think that a train hit ya," a man beside me with disheveled brown hair said with a laugh.

The man's name was Carl, and he was also one of Eddie's employees, so we had been acquainted with each other, but I still didn't know much about him. Though he seemed easygoing, he worked with focus and precision.

Then a burly man with blue eyes butted into the conversation while making all kinds of gestures with his hands. "Yeah, we all thought you died for a second, but then you, like bang, just punched him before I even noticed that you had stood up, and then you were like bang, bang, bang, and like he was like all bloody and dead, you know. It was crazy. You looked mad. I wouldn't have been surprised if he never got up."

The man was Kevin, and he was also an employee of Eddie's. He was a man who had trouble with shutting his mouth, but was efficient when it came to lifting heavy things.

"Heh, I didn't really feel the punch. My whole face just went numb, so I felt no real pain," I explained.

"Still, now you can proudly say you took a punch to the face from the mighty orc, Aaron," Eddie said with a smile and a relieved look in his eyes.

'Aaron, huh?' I thought.

This was the first time I had heard the man's name.

"What an optimistic way to look at things. I am curious, though. Who is this Aaron person?" I asked.

"You don't know?" Carl asked, leaning forward with an expression of disbelief.

"Didn't Eddie tell you that I'm not from here?" I asked in response.

"He did, but you must have heard about the Hunter bloodline," Carl said.

"I have heard it mentioned, but I don't know anything about them," I lied.

Carl raised his eyebrows. "Huh, well, the Hunter bloodline consists—as you could probably tell from the name—of a long line of hunters with admirable physical abilities. I heard that Aaron only ended up here because of a spine injury that prevents him from running."

'Oh, so that's why the punch hurt so much,' I thought.

"Oh, and that raises the question of how you were able to pummel him, even while injured. Are you an ex-agent or something?" Carl questioned my suspicious physical prowess.

"No, nothing like that. I'm just your average guy, but I managed to get the jump on him. Oh, and about those agents, how are they strong and fast?" I said.

"Nobody knows. They just are like that, you know," Kevin said with a mouthful of food that he had ordered at some point.

'Why even question anything at this point?' I thought, having figured that the ruins obeyed only their own rules.

"Huh, well, whatever," I said, drinking the last of my beer before slamming the cup on the table.

***

The next day, I woke up disheveled on the cold wooden floor of Eddie's apartment with a blanket on top of me.

I had seemingly fallen off the couch in my sleep and had continued sleeping, which was weird since I had always been a rather light sleeper.

'Maybe it was the alcohol,' I thought.

My advanced physical abilities didn't fully prevent me from getting drunk, and I hadn't gotten used to drinking yet, so the effects were a little dramatic.

I stood up, using the sofa as support, and felt my headache.

'Well, it seems I have my first hangover. What a pleasant experience,' I celebrated internally.

After putting the blanket on the sofa, I dressed myself, and headed into the kitchen, where Eddie was already sitting and eating breakfast.

"Hey, your face looks a lot better already," Eddie said, as he noticed me walk in.

"Oh, that's good to hear," I said.

"Oh, you're going to help Kevin with the new placements for the furniture today," Eddie informed me.

"Great, I can't wait," I said in a humorously monotonous manner as I started making myself a sandwich.

***

After breakfast, Eddie and I left for work, and after a long day of instructing one particular muscle head and lifting a couple not-so heavy things, I found myself at the bar again.

Then, after that day, the same exact day seemed to occur with minor differences. And before I knew it, the day after that one was already over, and the day after that too.

The brush strokes and the days seemed to align. Each one was the same but a little different. Each one had something small to offer, but it was all so boring as a whole that I barely noticed. It was like a loop. Every stroke was boring. Every day was boring. Everything was simply bland.

But even then, it wasn't so bad. The beer tasted like an actual beverage, our little group felt like a family, and I, for a slight moment, started to feel like this was it. Maybe this was what I'd been looking for. Maybe this was happiness.

But it couldn't be. This couldn't be it. Work wasn't fun, and every morning, I felt like garbage. This couldn't be it. This could not be the life I had been looking for. No, it was nothing like it. It was a filthy copy of the happy life I wanted. The life I had dreamed of couldn't be achieved by this many people. It was something special. Something much more genuine. It was real happiness that could only be achieved by those at the pinnacle of the human race. People like me. It couldn't be some kind of fake happiness that could only be achieved with the help of alcohol or drugs. It could never be something so vile.

This life was full of boredom. A life that just consisted of waiting to get your hands on beverages and women could never be regarded as a truly happy life.

"Hey, Akir, are you okay?" Eddie asked, as we were on our way home from the bar, a little intoxicated.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm fine," I answered after snapping back to reality.

"What were you thinking about just now?" Eddie asked curiously.

"Eh, nothi—" I was about to say, but changed my mind and stopped mid-sentence. "Actually, Eddie, tell me, are you happy?"

"Am I happy?" Eddie asked as if he were trying to confirm if he had heard me correctly. "Well, I'm not unhappy. Isn't that enough?"

"No, of course it's not good enough. You're only given one life, and you think it's enough to not be unhappy. Don't you think you should strive to be as happy as possible?" I asked, irritated by Eddie's uncaring answer.

"Wow, there's no reason to be mad. I think you've had too much to drink, buddy." Eddie said he tried to lay a hand on my shoulder but got surprised when I grabbed the hand.

"I asked you a question. I would appreciate a proper answer," I said, letting go of the hand.

"Jeez," Eddie said and shook the hand I had grabbed, seemingly in pain. "Okay, relax. I'll answer the question. No, I don't think one should strive to be as happy as possible. Happiness isn't something you can grab. Chasing it is pointless. Just like how a man who seeks the meaning of life will only further himself from the simple answer, which is to just live."

I went silent.

"Heheh, did I sound so cool you don't know what to say? My father did always say that I would make a fine philosopher," Eddie joked as I pondered his words.

"You're wrong," I said.

"Huh?" Eddie stopped joking and turned to me.

"I said that you're wrong. How could the meaning of life be just to live? Living, in and of itself, has no value. Any animal can live, so why would we humans, who can achieve so much more, just decide to live with no further goals than being alive? The whole idea is idiotic. Lives can be so much more than that, so why reduce it to such a small and pointless thing," I refuted Eddie's answer.

"You've got a point there. Maybe we're both philosophers," Eddie said with a laugh, in an attempt to turn everything into a comedy.

"So what is your answer? Are you happy or not?"

"Who knows. I need some time to think. What about you?" Eddie asked me.

Again, I had no immediate answer.

"Well, how about we ponder it together? Oh, I know. Let's go onto a rooftop," Eddie said, looking unusually enthusiastic all of a sudden.

It was currently 9 o'clock, and everybody was supposed to stay inside from 10 o'clock onwards, so we still had an hour, and talking with Eddie had been slightly enjoyable.

With this in mind, I nodded. "Okay, let's go."

***

The next morning, I was again walking to work with Eddie on the left side of the street, but this day was different.

Everything was normal, but it seemed brighter than usual, and my head was clear.

This was a start. Not everything had to be perfect right now, but I had hope that I would grow, and the clouds would clear up. Then I could be happy.

This place, even though it was much like a prison, could be the place for me. I had hope that this place could be the place where I could finally be happy.

Then a loud sound of a brick roof tile breaking and a body collapsing in the street 5 meters in front of me awoke me from my thoughts.

"Iiiiiiiiiiik!" a woman in the vicinity shrieked, and I looked around with my mind alert.

Apparently, a loose brick roof tile had dropped from the roof and hit a man walking on the side of the street. The brick roof tile was fairly large, so the weight was most likely around 10 kilograms. Something that heavy dropping from over 6 meters up and hitting someone on the head... The man laying in front of me... was undeniably a dead man.

Just when I had come to this conclusion, I heard something. It was the sound of my own voice from a foreign source intruding into my head.

[One target eliminated.]

[Targets left: 3941/3942.]

[Time left: 1 day, 6 hours, 23 minutes.]

"Hey, Akir what are you doing?! Hurry! We have to..." Eddie yelled, but I couldn't hear anything.

I felt like I could no longer move. I stopped feeling my own heartbeat, and my eyes turned dark and lifeless as I witnessed the man die, blood gushing from his head onto the cold street.