MTLNOVEL Chapter 3: Chapter 3
"To use a power is to understand it yourself. Literarily."
ERA Calendar: 2nd Month of the Year 3115.
Southern Hemisphere.
1:55 PM.
Ren was as unlucky as he should be.
No beautiful wives to save him. No system to guide him. No family to rely on. No bloodline, and certainly no world that would grant him mercy.
When you're cursed to the point that death itself acknowledges you as its scion, it doesn't matter how much good karma you try to accumulate.
In the end, it's useless.
For him to become the living embodiment of such misfortune, even as a child, was nothing short of a calamity.
"Ugh."
Waking up to a familiar ceiling—yes, the cliché—but this time, it wasn't his classroom, nor was it the comfort ceiling of his own room.
Well, to be honest, he had more or less taken up the master's bedroom and renovated it, since anyways, regardless of how you look at it, her was now the owner of that house.
More than that, it was probably because of the comfort of that room, but anyways, going back to the situation at hand.
When Ren had woken up, he had woken up to the ceiling of the sick-bay, or for better words, nurse's office.
A place he had special permission to frequent due to his "condition."
Most times, he was taken care of by the mysterious school nurse who perhaps have way too much time on her hands as she stays in her office most of the time doing only who-knows-what.
"Seems like you're up. Then hurry up; lunch is almost over."
Standing half upright, looking over to the nurse's desk, was the eccentric, or rather, mysterious nurse.
A stunningly attractive, voluptuous woman with sexy, hip-length black hair that has bangs hanging on the right side and dull grey eyes.
She drank a cup of coffee on her table casually before eyeing him.
"Hn. Alright, thanks for letting me rest here again."
He said, earning a shake of her head, as she set down her coffee, before she continued her work.
"Don't be; it's my job to take care of students. Well, less troublesome students like you."
Saying that, Ren nodded his head.
Even he knew after all, that most guys only came here for one sole reason—and it sure as hell wasn't because they were sick, certainly far from that.
He had seen it countless times. The way they faked symptoms, hoping to get a moment alone with the school nurse.
It was a good attempts if anything. Perhaps, it was because of… well, them.
No matter how Ren tries to think of it, perhaps, if it were someone like Leon, then perhaps she might accept his advances.
Well, though that's up for the debate whether or not she'd accept.
No, if anything, it's rude to think about it.
"It's rough on you."
Ren had said curtly, with his unchanging tired gaze, slipping on his footwear, dragging his feet out the door.
The nurse's office is no doubt one of the safe havens in school.
Considering the classes were always noisy during lunch breaks, especially with the girls squealing over Leon and the boys…
Well, doing boy things.
Other parts of the school weren't also ideal.
Though it was called Yosen High, it was practically a college campus.
Upon entering the school grounds, one would be greeted by a road lined with cherry blossoms, leading to the main administrative building.
From there, countless other buildings sprawled across the entire grounds. Including class buildings.
Yosen high uses an unconventional college curriculum where classes ran from 10 AM to 4 PM.
Seven hours total, with an hour-long break in between.
And most times, during break, Ren was always there, in the nurse's office, for genuine reasons, obviously.
However, no matter how beautiful she was, she too—the beautiful nurse too—had her mortality still intact.
Even beauty wasn't exempt from mortality.
[21,050:15:23:07]
According to calculations, she had about fifty years to live, considering she was currently in her early twenties.
In total, she would live up to about seventy years, which was shorter than most he had seen over the years.
'Now that I think about it, do I grow old, or do I remain young?'
It was a question he considered now, and never thought of before, other than the obvious stuff that, well, he knew he was immortal.
Besides, other than being immortal—in which his, is of the immortality of the undying variety—he didn't seem to have an ability like regeneration.
Multiple experiments on himself—though, they were actual attempts at this very own life—had led up to this conclusions.
The trigger for regeneration was death, whereby his status reverted to whatever it had been.
In other words, partial regeneration due to death, in which even sustained wounds healed up.
And while on the note of abilities, another one would certainly be: 'Nightmare.'
As he already knew, most of his abilities were erratic and uncontrollable.
It was like he hadn't been acknowledged—or rather, the other way around.
Both his abilities and the man himself hadn't acknowledged each other.
Yet, amongst them, the one he dreaded the most was [Nightmare].
While he called it that, his damn dreams at night had shown him nothing but situations he couldn't escape.
Most times, his fate would have already been decided.
And throughout the span of five years, Ren had only ever had one 'Nightmare' on repeat.
Strapped to a guillotine device, people surrounding him chanting for blood and sacrifice to a certain blood god, a man starting up the device.
And yes… it ends with his head lopping off his body.
Over time, the dream had happened over and over again to the point that, if anything, he was now beginning to secretly relish the numb feeling of his neck being severed.
Lately, no matter how much he tried to suppress it, the strain and stress of it had been getting to him, and he couldn't help but enjoy the dreamlike pleasure of dying over and over again.
'I have to do something about this; I can't let my dreams be controlling me every time.'
He thought, running his hand over his forehead.
The nurse's office was on the ground floor, and his homeroom was exactly on the second floor of the building.
By the time he got to class, the bell had already rung, and like that, classes had continued like that till 4 PM.
Though school ended by this time, there was still an hour for leisure activities for students who were in various clubs.
People like Leon were in various clubs, and it was natural really.
Ren, however, is one of the first to head out the gate over home, and this was not the first time he'd do so.
Like every other day, he had packed his bags and headed home immediately. After checking out the gate.
Descending past the elevated road that led down from Yosen, Ren pulled out his phone, scrolling through the news feed.
He was never one to pay much attention to the news, but recent events made it hard to ignore.
[Breaking News: Two office workers returning home from work were found dead. Authorities suspect the involvement of the Order. Investigations are ongoing—]
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly, the news downing on him completely.
The murder cases had been going on for a while now. Before this, however, their operations weren't this frequent.
Back then, it had just been around one or two in the span of two or three months; however, since the start of this year, they had significantly increased their criminal activity.
They called themselves Genesis Cult, or as most knew them, The Order.
Here and there, there have been various rumours surrounding them, especially about how they hadn't been caught yet.
Some claimed they had government connections, while others argued it was simply a failure of law enforcement.
Whichever way you look at it at, it was either ways if you thought about how they've avoided the authorities for this long.
"I'm telling you, there's no way they haven't been caught unless they have connections up top."
"No, I kind of disagree. In the first place, if you think about it, there's actually a good reason as to why they haven't been caught. Besides, with the increased crime rate, do you think the police have enough personnel to patrol the entire city?"
"Well… that…"
People had different opinions concerning the cult; while the argument concerning security was indeed valid, the government, however, had no reason as to why they shouldn't have caught them until now.
'So, it's either the cult is colluding with… Forget it.'
It didn't concern him, anyway. Everybody had their own battles, and for him, he hadn't even conquered his own battles in the first place; he wasn't one to be worried about another.