The tinted windows covering the lengths of the church creaked. Their ominous sound was only amplified by the unceasing beatings of the rain. The church was dyed the color of the storm outside, lit up now and then by the bright flashes of lightning.

No faithful soul was present in the church that day. The ebony benches faced the statue of the goddess on their lonesome. The most devastating storm in a decade had hit, scaring away the birds and the game lurking near the forests that surrounded the church. All seemed to hide away from the wrath of nature.

In the midst of the storm, the screams of one man spread through the air. It fell weak against the wonders of nature, but the voice held god’s name and tore through to the heavens.

“Oh, Goddess! Hear the cries of this child! Bless him! Bless him with your gift! Awaken the system within!“

The raging sounds of the storms continued!

“… Awaken the system within!“

Storm!

“Awaken! System! Within!!“

“System within!“

“System!“

“Systemmmmmm!“

The gods remained silent that day.

 

---

 

It had already been sixteen years since that nightmare had become Lydia’s reality. As she pushed off the sheets and stepped down the bed, she could envision the sullen face of the head priest. The poor preacher had locked himself in for days on end, worried that it was his fault until he rushed out to them one morning and claimed he had received divine providence.

Hide the child, he had said, and hide they did.

Lydia poured herself a glass of water and looked outside the window of her room. The ashen blue of the early morning sky filled her heart with calm. She sipped on the water while looking outside, adjusting the position of the petunias resting on the sill of the window.

“Appraisal,” she said.

{Skill: Appraisal <Floriculture Buff>}

An arrow formed around the pot, connecting to a board-like window right next to it in midair.

{Appraisal - -

Name: Petunia Pot C

Health: 97/100

Growth: 90/100

Expected Lifespan: 3 Years}

A satisfied smile appeared on Lydia’s face as she turned away from the window. It didn’t take long for her to tidy up her room and change into a cotton gown.

“Oh?” she said as she reached into the pocket of her gown and found a coin. The satisfied smile on her face brightened as she left the room.

Her feet were forced to a stop when an unexpected sight greeted her a good morning, though.

Standing in front of a mirror, Vincent was pulling back the strands of his hair one after the other. One. One after the other. One and only one.

“Good morning, Vincent,” Lydia said, her eyes as flat as the village was 8 years ago when a dragon had leveled it down personally.

“Morning, mother,” Vincent answered back without looking away from the mirror.

“What are you dolling up for?“

“When do I not?“

Lydia thought that he was dolling more than he usually did, but shrugged it off. As she passed by the narrow stairs leading a floor up and the rows of crayon drawings framed on the walls, she entered the kitchen. “You’ve also made breakfast,” she said.

“When have I not?“

Lydia pulled her son’s cheeks, stretching them out like a band of rubber. “Brat! Didn’t I say sleep more? Why do you wake at dawn?“

“L-let go! It’s just graceful to rise with the sun!“

“Hmhmhmhm!” Lydia stretched his cheek out thin and only let go when it seemed the elastic cheek would snap. Vincent held his cheek with glistening eyes and glared at his mother, who was donning a satisfied smirk. She turned away from the boy and went back into the kitchen. She stirred the soup with the ladle and poured it into the ceramic bowl and carried it to the table, leaving the toast alone.

The soup and the toast were wolfed down in a few minutes while Vincent had gone back up to his room. Lydia left the bowl in the sink and stretched her arms.

She took out a few coins from a pouch and placed them on the table. Lydia put on her boots and opened the door of the house. The sun’s bright light filled the modest living room with a tint of white as she stepped outside. The door creaked and swung shut after her, along with the bright shade reflecting off the old wooden walls and the rotting couch covered with a thin sheet.

Vincent stepped down the stairs just as his mother had left the house. Her work days started early. Her leaving without a word wasn’t an unusual event for him. He went toward the kitchen to grab a bite when his gaze fell on the glimmering coins placed on the dining table.

The boy sighed and shook his head. She always left some money in two piles before leaving for work for them to buy some bread for lunch. Vincent quietly pushed half the coins from one pile to the other and picked up the remaining coins. He took them to his mother’s room. Right below the bed was a small safe in which he placed the rest of the coins. Vincent put them all in except one, which he then tossed into her closet.

With that handled, the boy stifled a yawn and left the room, ready to stuff his stomach.

“Morn…aahm…ing.“

Before he could step into the kitchen, though, a high-pitched, almost cutesy voice rang out from behind, along with the soft creaking of the wooden stairs. Vincent turned to see a little girl with similar silver hair flowing down her head in a mess. The girl held a stuffed teddy bear in one hand and rubbed her emerald green eyes with the other as she yawned down the stairs.

“How disgraceful,” Vincent said. “At least fix your hair.“

“What will you do then?” the girl quipped. She passed by Vincent and pulled back a chair at the dining table. She had to use both her hands to push herself on but did so with ease. Her eyes were still half closed as she struggled to keep her head up straight.

Vincent sighed and ignored her. He went into the kitchen and came out with two plates of toast and a bowl of soup in them. He placed the plates on the table and leaned next to his sister’s ears, who had already succumbed to the magnetic force of the table and was resting her head against it.

“KATARINE!!“

“Waa!!“

Katarine clanged her head against the table and shot upright with her hands spread above her head. Vincent smirked half a smirk and scoffed. Katarine turned to her brother and puffed her cheeks. She lightly punched him on his chest and pulled her plate toward herself.

Vincent chuckled at the sight. He watched his sister take a spoonful of the soup and blow on it before drinking it up. Her lips curved up and her eyes widened as she scooped up more of the soup.

Katarine continued to munch down the food while Vincent brought a hairbrush from the other room. He stepped behind her chair and gathered her hair in his hand.

“You better start doing this on your own. I won’t be around to do it forever.“

“Eh.“

“Your half of the money is on the table. Get something to eat after school.“

“Yup, yup. Where’s yours?“

“In my pockets, of course. Take care at school, alright?“

“I will, I will. You too, dumbo.“

Vincent nodded as he styled Katarine’s hair into a ponytail. “It’s a big day, so I will,” he said, almost in a whisper.

“Oh, right!” Katarine suddenly turned back with a wide, excited grin on her face. “Don’t you graduate today?“

Vincent laughed at his sister’s flamboyant reaction. “Do I?“

 

---

 

“Vincent, you will join the technical academy, right?“

Sitting in front of his master, Vincent crossed his arms. The small dusty room with yellow wooden walls had pictures of old fogeys framed right above the rusted window. The successor of the fogeys had continued the tradition of using the tiny room in the word down building as the headmaster’s office. A table separated the headmaster on his uncomfortable chair with no armrests from the student on a stool.

Right next to the table, a showcase even dustier than the room took up half of the office space. It had been 17 years since the top compartment of the showcase was last opened, only to place the trophy their school had won in the first and only annual Magicket competition between the three schools in the two towns over. The number of students was too few in each of their villages to continue the competition.

“Your technical skills are extraordinary, son,” the headmaster said as he picked up a few of the papers on his desk. Despite the thin glasses that were barely held up by his nose, the headmaster still had to squint his eyes to read the papers in front of him. “It’s a shame we can’t nurture you well here—”

A faint rustling of clothes resounded as Vincent crossed his legs one over the other. Despite the lack of sitting space, armrests, and backrests, the boy’s flowing black tunic and trousers with the simple leather mantle cascaded down his toned body in such a way that it seemed as if he had taken a seat on the most elegant of chairs known to man.

The headmaster gulped and placed the papers in his hands back down on the table. No matter how often he faced the child, he couldn’t help but be on edge. The old fogey in the line of old fogeys only had chances to meet with hot-blooded youth and cold-blooded geriatrics who both could speak after downing a moonshine or two, a person with as much calm and regality as Vincent was not only unusual but also unsettling. So, he did what he could do best and averted his gaze.

The headmaster was truly learning a lot.

When the student only stared at him and said nothing, the headmaster continued. “We can’t nurture your talents here. You may not use many skills, but that comes with the [Academic] Class. You should join the technical academy. If luck is on your side, the lordship of Pipra might just employ you! And if not, you can always work as an engineer in a big city!“

Vincent sighed, making the headmaster slightly reel back. “I refuse.“

“Listen, child. We have already spoken with your mother.“

Vincent’s eyes widened and his teeth clenched down. Not noticing the boy’s subtle reactions, the headmaster continued.

“She has been working hard to prepare two hundred silver Perles. We will cover some of the money too, and with your scores, getting a scholarship grant is a cinch.” The headmaster shook his head from side to side and turned to face Vincent again. “Don’t worry about other things and don’t let her do…”

The headmaster’s voice trailed off, his eyes finally looking at the boy in front of him. He took in a deep breath and stayed shut. Even if he wanted to look away, he couldn’t. He could see it. The calm yet thunderous rage in his eyes was unmistakable.

“Today is a very special day, headmaster,” Vincent said. “Let us talk about this later.“

“A-ah… right. Y-you helped Jimmy with the graduation speech, yes? You should go smooth it out with him. The ceremony will begin in a few hours. Go, go, we will talk later.“

 

---

 

The sun was gone and its distant relatives were trying their best to keep the sky bright by the time Lydia came back home. Her hair was a mess and so were her clothes, working as a hand on the farms during the mornings and then as a hand in a potter’s during the day and then as a hand at a smithy during the evening did that to a person.

Lydia was just ready to embrace her cute little daughter and listen to her stories of school, while her cute and quiet little son spoiled her with a tired gaze. It was her therapy time, a therapy that made all the day’s work worth it. In fact, even if there was no need to work anymore, she would continue to just to get the therapy time.

She hid her smile and wore an exaggeratedly tired face to see her son’s usual reaction. Her hands trembled in anticipation as she twisted the knob on the door and pushed it open.

“I’m home!—”

“Mooooooommmmm!!!“

Her son’s flat face wasn’t around!

Lydia’s heart almost jumped out of her mouth when she saw her daughter sitting with her knees against the ground. Tears streamed down the child’s beautiful face as her white skin turned red with bits of snot smudged all over her cheeks. The girl’s hair was in a mess and her lips were swollen as she barely kept her eyes open and see things through her tears.

“Kat?! What happened?!” Lydia rushed to her child’s side. She reached down and clasped her hands, ignoring the sheet of paper in the child’s hands.

“Buh… buhder…”

“Vincent? Vincent?! Did that brat hit you? Vincent, you rat! Get down here!“

Katarine shook her head from side to side as her mother scrambled to find the reason. Lydia patted Katarine’s hair and then held her hand again.

“What is it? What happened, Kat?“

“Uwhah agagbah hahgaba…” Unable to say a word through her cries, Katarine mumbled a garble sauce and pushed the sheet of paper to her mother. Confused, Lydia tilted her head to the side before taking the sheet and opening it up in a fluster.

[Dear Mother,]

Lydia’s eyes widened. A letter? From Vincent? Thoughts of something horrible entered her mind as she continued reading on.

[Are you having a fine day? I am good. The weather here is nice. Recently, I have gotten into making tea. How about you? I hope you and Katarine have been well in the twelve hours we haven’t seen each other.]

“What bullcrap is he on about?“

[Mother, I have come of age. Sixteen years have passed, and I have already graduated from the local school. The education was… subpar. I have written three guides on how the headmaster can make the education system in his school better. Please do hand it over to him.

Mother. It has been ten years since our father passed away, and since Katarine was born. I do not have many memories of the man, but I hope he was graceful. It only makes sense. One of you has to be.

In these years, you have gone through many hardships to raise me and Katarine, only to find outstanding success! Just look, have you seen a being as amazing as me? I doubt it. If you did, get your eyes checked. Katarine will probably get there too… I hope.

The time has come that I take some duties of life on my shoulders, mother. So, I have left home and go earn money in the big towns. Dearest mother, the empty safe below your bed has enough money to get you and Katarine through two months of a lavish life. You never noticed it being filled up, very careless of you.

Coming back, mother. Please quit your jobs, all of them, and just relax now.

Wake up late in the morning. Eat the toast with your soup, or in fact, please buy bacon and eggs every day. Don’t break into a smile by just finding a single coin, but take it for granted. Do not think about collecting money, do not stress late in the night about a lack of savings for emergencies, do not skip out on tailoring new clothes in favor of getting that for us instead, do not be sad about Katarine’s teddy bear, she likes the old one a lot for you to think of changing it, do not worry about anything anymore mother, and do not cry whilst reading this letter.]

Lydia chuckled at the last sentence. She sniffed and ran her hand over the letter to push away the droplets.

[No seriously, stop crying. It’s going to smudge my handwriting. Stop.

Mother. I will send money back home every month. It should be more than enough to make you live rich and happy. If you ever need more, just say so in a letter addressed to the post office. I will refrain from sharing my location to stop you from following me.

Have Katarine spoil you, a lot. And, actually, just fix her hair every morning since she can’t do that yet.

Not many more words are needed. We will speak again soon, anyway.

Goodbye for now, mother.

Give my love to Katarine, along with some slaps if she acts out.

Your dearest,
Vincent]