Adam didn’t have many choices concerning his next course of actions. He may not know what he was invited for, but he sure knew that he couldn’t show up in stained rags at a noble family’s gathering. At any other time, he would have been in trouble. Penniless and with no known association between his name and his noble family, no clothier would have sold him anything or accepted to give him a credit.

However, he now possessed a small treasure. With the little gold coins in the box he just found, he could buy high quality clothes and still have many glittering pieces left. He needed to stay wary though and not spend everything too fast, an emergency could always occur when you least expected it.

The light in his room started to disappear, the sun slowly hiding behind the horizon, making room for its beloved, the moon. The night life was waking up while the humans fell asleep, finding their salvation in their deepest dreams, only to leave it behind by getting up in the morning, their fantasy fast forgotten.

Adam hid the key to his deliverance under his bed, the small box poking at his back when he laid on the mattress. Closing his eyes, the young man fell asleep by practicing mental training, his imaginary body dancing with a sword under the moonlight, cutting the wind and stopping time itself.

***

The young man’s eyelashes fluttered open, revealing dazed eyes. The pale blue irises looked like a calm pond on a sunny day, before suddenly being destroyed by a storm and turning into a cold and turbulent sea when Adam fully stepped out of reach of Morpheus’ arms.

The squire got up in a hurry, flipping the bed upside down to find the box intact and then passing like a tsunami through his pile of clothes, only calming down when his fingers found the cold touch of the pendant. Crouching down with his back to the wall, Adam took the necklace to his mouth, his lips briefly touching the silver in a silent prayer to whoever wanted to hear it.

Tragedies had happened too many times in the past. He would close his eyes only to open them in the morning and find his properties stolen. The last straw had been when one of his brothers had taken his precious teddy bear, which he cherished like a friend, and ripped it open before his eyes, telling him that boys shouldn’t like plushies. Adam had bitten two of his fingers off.

The boy wiped the cold sweat from his face before standing back up. After hesitating for a few seconds, Adam decided to wear the precious pendant at his neck. If someone wanted to steal it, they would need to behead him. He would fight nails and claws to protect his new treasure.

He then proceeded to pick a few gold coins and stuff them in his pocket, making sure that their contours didn’t show through the old fabric. After replacing everything in its place, Adam ran out of his room and let his bare feet lead him to his backyard. The weed was way overgrown and dried up plants could be seen all around the garden, their corpses making the scene even more horrifying.

Not caring the slightest about the state of his yard, Adam passed by the victims of negligence, the pitiful petals of the small flowers stretching out after him due to the wind, as if they were begging him for a drop of water or a little bit of empathy. Adam, though, had no time nor feelings to spar. 

When living isolated and hated by the world, you couldn’t afford to think about something or someone that didn’t concern you or you would soon face a wall. Which was the reason why, after jumping over the wall surrounding the mansion, Adam didn’t stop by to give his newly found coins to the homeless laying in the streets.

The streets in appearance full of life with vendors at their stand shooting out their slogan, children running around while laughing and couples sweetly feeding each other, was in fact, hiding atrocities. In the dark alleys, people of all ages, children, man, woman and old persons, could be seen laying curled up, protecting their meager belongings. Their stained skin, not washed for days, gave off a putrid smell, their nails were broken by scraping against the ground to crawl around, their rotten teeth created a ghoul-like breath, their shaggy oily hair covered their face, hiding their sunken eyes, wild with fear and paranoia. 

The homeless were not treated as humans.

The royal family, which gave its last name to the country, did nothing to help them, only raising the taxes to amass money to be able to buy more elixirs or artifacts, never giving back to its people. The nobles, far too engrossed in their own person to think of others, passed in a hurried fashion on the rocky roads with their luxurious carriages, not caring if their horses collided with a child or if the wheels rolled on someone. Adam had seen plenty of crushed children, who were only trying to cross the road and didn’t see the carriage incoming, being picked up piece by piece by their wailing parents to know that only power ruled their world.

The middle class, even though they possessed good jobs, could barely make ends meet, the distance between the upper class and them far too astronomical. Lastly, the lower class, made of farmers, homeless and sadly, slaves. The homeless could still try to avoid their fate by stealing or joining the black market, the slaves, however, were marked by a seal created with dark mana and linked to a contract. They were controlled by their master and they had no free-will. 

Long ago, the royal family had made an oath to annihilate slavery, but after seeing how much money it made them lose, they had chosen to support it instead. Slaves were normally children sold by their family or wars’ prisoners, but some slave traders picked their slaves among the homeless, making them hide in the shadows to avoid this cruel fate.

Adam had never been a fan of this world’s hierarchy, but he couldn’t sustain his own needs. Even though his heart was breaking into pieces as he walked past little dirty children with their hands cupped above their heads, their voice cracking from the lack of water as they begged for help that they knew would never come, his pace stayed firm. If his will wavered now, it would always do so and he didn’t have the power to help all those in need, not yet.

Only by getting stronger would he be able to save those whose fate was doomed.

Hey dear readers, we get a little insight on Adam’s reason to get stronger and also on this world’s dynamic.

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(1 131 words)