Taking a deep breath, Nick locked the heavy door of the library. For some reason, that gate reminded him of the day he got the opportunity to work at the library, and he couldn’t help but break out in a smile.
“I sure am lucky,” said Nick as he made his way towards his home.
Ever since his childhood, he had no one he could call family.
Even the earliest memory in his mind had nothing about his parents: he was an orphan.
From the day he could walk, he had walked on the streets with other orphans and unwanted kids.
He fought for his life every day; he stole food for survival every day; each new day was a struggle—a new battle.
One day, while he was fighting for a single loaf of bread, he got stabbed in his abdomen.
He was sent to the public hospital, where the police found that Nick was underage, so he was entrusted to an orphanage.
He knew that stealing wasn’t an honorable act, but for survival, he had to do everything.
Soon, it was time for him to leave the orphanage and make something out of himself. What came out of the orphanage wasn’t a street rat but a young man with a steady moral character.
While lost in his thoughts, he walked towards his house and gazed at the starry sky.
“Why would my family leave me in the first place? Am I worthless in their eyes?”
Nick wondered with a sad countenance, feeling wronged.
Despite the sadness, he still smiled and kept walking as he was suddenly reminded of Uncle William.
Uncle William was the owner of the local library, and he was also the one who gave Nick the job at the library.
The first chance he got to work an honest job, Nick gave it his all and worked hard. From that day, four years had passed.
The reason he smiled was simple. He felt lucky that he could work like normal people.
He was 23 that year and had a head full of dreams. When he was a kid, he dreamt of becoming either a mechanic or a scientist.
He loved reading science books and novels. This was one of the reasons he loved working in the library.
If he did his job well, he would have a stable payment and time to read books.
When he was living on the streets, he saw life for what it was.
He saw many things, one of them was the true face of humans.
He wanted to have friends and confess to the girls he liked… But because of his past on the streets, he became an alien in this society of humans.
Nick was a handsome man with a fit body. His height was around 175 cm or 5 feet 9 inches, and his weight was at 70 kilograms. He was popular among many girls who visited the library. His mesmerizing green eyes seemed to contain a world of wisdom and knowledge.
By the time Nick was done locking the library, the outside had already become dark.
Nick lived in a one-bedroom apartment which wasn’t too far away from the library, about a 15 to 20 minutes walk.
Nick kept walking towards home giving no attention to people who were coming back from their homes.
He was just thinking about a fantasy fiction book he read before he left the library.
Paying no heed to the other passersby who were on their way home like him, Nick kept walking and thinking about the fantasy fiction book he had just read in the library.
As he was walking, he felt something was amiss.
This feeling stemmed from a peculiar bright blue light spot in the sky.
Nick started looking at the blue light, which gave him a weird feeling.
When he looked at the light, his head started getting heavy, and then before he could comprehend what was happening, he entered a deep sleep.
……
Nick opened his eyes and took a deep breath. The first thing that came to his mind was that he should be in the hospital.
He started looking around and shook his head as he whispered,
“This place isn’t a hospital.”
Nick was lying on a rudimentary bed made up of wood without not much comfort.
He started looking around and noticed that there is not much furniture other than a table and a wooden chair.
The room had no traditional windows, just small holes for air circulation.
‘I don’t understand what is happening. What is this place?’ Nick thought.
Nick tried to get out of the bed, but he was surprised to find that he couldn’t.
His body was heavy, and when he tried to stand up, he felt an abrupt sharp pain in his abdomen.
“What’s happening to me? Why am I in pain?”
Nick gulped and began thinking about the possibility that he might have gotten into an accident. Yet, he just couldn’t understand what this place was.
The pain he felt was piercing and burned like hellfire.
The door to his room was pushed open, and a 16 something years old girl entered the room and began walking towards him.
Nick felt an ominous feeling crawl up his spine when he looked at the girl walking towards him.
The girl was beautiful, but Nick couldn’t care less about her beauty right now.
After all, he wasn’t someone easily deceived by the looks of a person.
Nick kept his gaze trained on the girl as his instincts were screaming at him.
He could feel a deep-rooted hatred and animosity from the girl, and then there were those eyes—they were dangerous.
Those eyes… Even those kids with crimson shaded knives he used to fight back then had kinder eyes than them.
“This woman is dangerous. Just what kind of human can have eyes like those?”
Deeming a man holding a knife as dangerous was common human nature.
Nick understood this basic human psychology.
Anybody confronted by a knife-wielding human would feel threatened.
Yet, even when he was in the presence of a beautiful girl, he couldn’t help but feel afraid. She didn’t seem strong, but he had this nagging feeling that she was dangerous.
The girl looked at him, and Nick could see the utter disregard she had for him.
To her, he was no different from a piece of trash.
Soon, she began talking; even though her voice was sweet, anyone could feel the venom those words carried.
“You have three hours to rest. After that, clean your room, your courtyard, and then go to the school courtyard to help the other slaves. Fail to do a single one of them, and I’ll kill you.”
After saying her piece, she started leaving without sparing him an extra glance.
“Did she just call me slave?” Nick whispered to himself.
Nick didn’t fear this woman, at least not for now.
As someone who had lived on the streets, he was the holder of numerous odd and beneficial experiences.
After everything he had experienced on the street, a scary girl was literally not enough to scare him.
“I might not fear her, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t kill me if I don’t follow her orders. From the looks of it, I am a slave, and this is a situation quite similar to the books I just read.”
Nick still could not make heads or tails of the fact that he had transmigrated.
He did dream about stuff like that; in every fantasy, there was a system supporting him every step of the way.
“Where is my golden finger?”
Nick whispered to himself, like asking a question to someone.
He started smiling and shook his head.
“For the time being, I have to live in this place, which means I need to survive. If there is no system, then I should start thinking what to do for a living and escape from this life of slavery.”
After pondering for a while, Nick decided to sleep. He had to get up in three hours, and he was in no mood of getting killed because of oversleeping.
