Ryuji asks in a confused tone, his face dimly illuminated by the candle burning in the cave.

The blind woman who saved him is sitting in front of him, and the man who was with her is sitting beside. Only just now did he realise that he's missing an arm.

Ryuji's head is in great turmoil, his expressions exposing his emotions of surprise, wariness and anger.

The woman raises her head up, "Please calm down.... You were mumbling your name in your sleep, that's why we know it."

Ryuji feels it's a bit weird that he was mumbling his name in his sleep, he's never done that. Even if he was injured, it's understandable if he was mumbling other things, but he has never thought about himself enough to actually mumble his name while unconscious. But he knows he cannot say anything that could accuse them of something right now, because no matter what happened, he was still indebted to them. They saved his life.

Ryuji calms himself down and looks down, letting out a large sigh, and asks them, "Where am I? What is this place?"

The woman's face curls up in a weird style, as if surprised that he doesn't know something, "You really don't know? Didn't you read the runes when you came here? Do you really want to hear it from another's mouth?"

Ryuji tilts his head, "Runes? Oh! You mean those weird written things that were telling me all the things like Attributes, Stories and everything after my death?"

The Woman's face open up in surprise, "Yeah! Can you see them right now?"

Ryuji thinks about them in his mind, and the runes appear in front of him.

**

Name: Ryuji Sora

Soul Core: Ashened

Rank: --

Attributes: [Child of a God's Grace]

Stories: [The Savior of a thousand happy dinners]

Soul Mark: [Divinity's unwanted child]

Soul Bond: ---

Soul Path: ---

**

"Uh.... I can see it but.... My Soul Core was dormant a while back..but now it's Ashened. And I had a Rank before this.... I think it was.... Uh.... Ascending? But now it's empty. The attribute I have is crossed out. And i have a new addition in the Soul Mark category. The only thing unchanged is the stories section."

The Man and Woman both have their jaws down on the ground by the time Ryuji finishes.

"Uh.... I'm sorry, What?" The man says, As if he finally got a tongue in his mouth.

The woman is equally surprised herself, "uh.... What? Really? Y...You have a story?"

Ryuji tilts his head and looks down awkwardly, a bit flustered by their reaction. He didn't realise having a story was such a big deal.

"Um.... Yeah.... Is it really that great?" Ryuji says with a flustered yet curious tone.

The man starts explaining, "Having a story is like, Basically tripling your chances of getting stronger than the most elite warriors. But...."

Ryuji facepalms himself internally since there is a catch to this....

"But it's basically Useless since you have an Ashened core."

Knew it! Ryuji knew it was gonna be something like that. But well.... He wasn't someone who'd get sad over something he never really understood or never really had. He didn't need a.... Whatever that is, Soul Core, right?

But what even is this Soul Core?

The man turns his head in the woman's direction. She slowly walks over to a pile of clothes kept in the corner of the cave, and wears a large robe, made of some animal hide. It was grey in color and looked cleanly cut.

When the woman was in this cave, noone could say that she was blind, she knew every corner like the back of her hand, she never took one step too far, or one step too close. Then, In her soft and gentle voice, she starts explaining, "A Soul Core is like the powerhouse of our souls. That is, if you don't want to live like a human in this world."

The man with her wears clothes made of animal hide too.

Ryuji is curious about the Soul Core before when he realises they both are leaving to go somewhere, "B-But what does Ashened mean?! Why is it useless?!"

The woman speaks, "I'll explain it to you then.... The Soul Core is the thing in the center of our body above our Soul Heart that allows us to strengthen our souls.

There are Um... I think 7 levels to the Soul Core, but I've never seen anything above the Third rank.... So i don't know about the rest. But the ranks i know of are, Dormant, Embered and Burning. As far as your Ashened core is concerned.... It's the term used for a Core that has been destroyed."

"Destroyed?" Ryuji falls into deep thought, trying to remember where his core must've gotten destroyed. When he looks back, he realises that the man with the frilly black hair, or the "God" of whatever probably did this to him. He remembers him putting his fingers on his chest and immediately receiving a burning feeling deep within his chest.

That's where the god must've destroyed his Core. Oh! His name was Taijin....

The memories of what he said to him start flooding his mind.

He grits his teeth.

"Alright.... Go do whatever you want. I'll sit here for a while."

Both of them wear hoods made of the faces of the animal they made the robes with, and walk out, Hugging the wall and slipping by it.

Ryuji sits by a wall, Lost in thought. That God, Taijin, mocked him. But why did he do that to him?

Those thoughts went through his mind. He didn't even think about it properly since then.

It was Injustice.

He was someone who always fought for justice and peace, he deserved to go to Elysium. Yet, he was forced to be in this place.... Hell.

This situation wasn't ideal. But he needed to learn more about his current circumstances. Where he was, and what this place was. But before that.... He needed to know about himself. Picking himself out of the gloominess, he summoned the runes again.

**

Name: Ryuji Sora

Soul Core: Ashened

Rank: --

Attributes: [Child of a God's Grace]

Stories: [The Savior of a thousand happy dinners]

Soul Mark: [Divinity's unwanted child]

Soul Bond: ---

Soul Path: ---

**

He looks at his attribute.

**

[Child Of a God's Grace]

**

He's pretty sure that this attribute has more to itself than just a name. He thinks about opening it, and another window of these runes appear.

**

[Child of a God's grace] - You were saved by a god at the time of certain death. You can get out of dire situations and your timing is usually exceptional. There is a hint of divinity in your Soul, but it also reeks of sacrifice.

-1 message-

**

Huh? What are these runes? When was he saved by a God? If anything, a god tried to kill him! Even if they didn't do it directly, putting him in this place with an Ashened core was basically just a death sentence.

There were demons and stuff here. They must be much stronger than humans, right? Tsk, only if he had his sword.

But Ryuji wasn't the kind of person who'd get his spirits down because of this. He knew he would find a way. Oh, there was a message along with the Attribute description. He just thought of wanting to know it, and the message opened up.

**

Your Core is damaged! All the active abilities of the attribute that need a Soul Core are locked. But the Passive effects won't be affected.

**

Oh? Is that why the attribute is crossed out?

Attributes must be like weapons in this world. His attribute was already kind of a passive one. Getting out of dire situations and his timing being exceptional should be considered passive, right? Does that mean it'll be in effect even without his Soul Core?

Hmm. Interesting.

He glanced up again and looked at all the details.

All the runes below him about the [Child of a God's Grace] disappear.

He thinks of opening his story first but.... He thought of saving it for last. He looked at this new thing, Soul Mark. [Divinity's unwanted child]? Tsk....

He opens it without any interest-

**

[Divinity's unwanted child] - You were betrayed by a God you once knew. Whenever you stand in front of Divine power, you will find it hard to keep your composure. Divinity is your enemy. 

**

That's..... A Soul Mark?

He thought this was supposed to be good! But this is like a huge disadvantage.

Ryuji was a honed warrior. He was someone considered to be at the peak of the sword.

He knew losing his composure in the middle of a fight was a huge disadvantage.

The reason behind this is the same as why a human can survive against a beast. A human has a brain. A beast doesn't. A beast is a charging machine which will move forward even if it doesn't understand something.

If there was a human carrying a gun, and a beast became aggressive, It'd go for the human immediately. It'd not think twice, and the same goes for a human. A human would immediately shoot it, which would lead to the beast's demise.

At the same time, if a human was hungry, and there was a lion in front of him. He'd not jump on the lion without a plan or without proper thinking. The lion would tear him apart in no time and he'd become the prey, instead of becoming the predator.

If the human loses his composure because he's hungry, or if he went mad, he'd definitely be killed. Since most beasts of the Jungle could kill a human without much effort.

Even in war, The enemy that loses its cool and charges blindly is inevitably killed. There is no mercy in the human world. The only thing which could save a human in an intense fight is it's ability to remain cool, and here, his Soul Mark took away that thing itself, since this would make it difficult to go against the Gods.

That is, If he was ever able to reach that God Taijin.

But he probably didn't need to worry about that in this place, since Hell definitely wouldn't have any divine beings, and/or people afflicted with divinity.

Ryuji chuckles at his luck and dismisses the runes.

Then, at last, he glances at his story, and decides to look at it.

He wonders how he even received that thing. He wasn't even dead for that long for him to accidentally kill some grand villian and achieve something enough to give him a story. But maybe looking at it will help him understand. He opens the description of his story.

**

[The savior of a thousand happy dinners] - You have accomplished a heroic deed on your home planet. A thousand people are eating happily because of your sacrifice. As long as you are fearless, Hope and Happiness will follow wherever you go.

- 1 hidden attribute-

**

Ryuji reads the words. His heart fills with a deep warmth. Did he earn that story when he died for those people?

Ryuji lets out a loud sign and looks down, Tears almost welling in his eyes. If not gods, at least someone, or at least these weird runes knew what he did.

He imagines how so many people must be eating happily because of him. People he didn't even know. He just knew, if his life wasn't gone, maybe a hundred more would've. But he didn't need to worry about that now.

Since he was stuck in this damn place!

Tsk... Oh wait, there's something below the attri-

"Ah, Another young man here in hell. It's so sad to see a new soul here."

Ryuji isn't startled at all though. He was already aware of the old man in here, Even more so, He knew about the girl standing just outside the cave wall too.

She wasn't supposedly hiding, she was just standing behind the old man as there wasn't much space to stand behind him, or she'd fall down into that deep pit, filled with lava.

"Come in." Ryuji says softly.

The old man enters, slowly, the girl behind him enters too.

"I saw you came here just yesterday. But what was the reason you were so beat up? No soul ever really properly dies in this place, but you were so badly beat up that we thought it'll be impossible to save you"

"Well.... Nothing too serious.... I don't know that either to be honest. I just woke up, so i don't know anything about this place."

"Oh is that so?" The old man speaks weakly. The girl behind him is much younger than the old man, she is wearing white clothes as opposed to this old man's black robe. His spine is bent, making him look really short, and... He was short in reality too. So he actually looked like a midget.

The girl in contrast looked tall, probably only a few inches shorter than Ryuji.

She was fairly pretty too. But not as pretty as Sakura of course. No one was prettier than her.

Ryuji is a little creeped out by the Old man's appearance, but maybe he's wary because he knows nothing about him.