"Pfft, I bet that hurt."
A guy pointed at the student sprawled on the floor and laughed.
Damien groaned as he raised his head.
He was a young man with chestnut brown hair, pale skin, and dark circles under his eyes.
His nose was throbbing with a sharp, blinding pain that made his eyes water, and he could feel something warm flowing out of his nostrils.
He touched it with a shaky hand and discovered it was his blood.
'Did the fall break my nose?'
Lunch break was about to come to an end.
He was going through a noisy and crowded hallway to reach the school gym as it was where the next class would take place when it happened.
Someone tripped him for no good reason. As he was not expecting it, he fell flat on his face. His face impacting against the floor seemed to have broken his nose.
He stood up and wiped the blood off his mouth, but it was no use as more and more blood kept pouring out of his broken nose.
Some droplets fell on the ground. Others dirtied his shirt.
He grimaced, then turned toward the guy who had tripped him with an angry look on his face.
"Apologize!" He demanded.
The guy was short and slender, and he had androgynous features. His curly blonde hair reached his shoulders, and his eyes were a striking blue.
He looked pretty enough to pass off as a woman. If it wasn't for his flat chest, manly voice, and the Adam's apple at his neck, Damien would have probably mistaken him for one.
He was wearing the same uniform as Damien, but while Damien's clothes were made of cheap, coarse materials, his were made of the finest silk.
A scarf circled his neck, black leather gloves covered his hands, and a thin wool headband covered his ears. He was dressed heavily because it was a cold winter day and he hated feeling cold.
Even the biting chills creeping in from the nearby windows were kept at bay by his attire, saving him from feeling cold. The same couldn't be said for Damien. He was dressed thinly with not even a jacket on, but he was too angry to care.
Lucien, the androgynous guy, looked at him funny and smiled mockingly.
"Lowly commoner, you are asking for the impossible. Scram before I use my ability to blast you away."
'Only snobbish skill users talk like that,' Damien immediately understood who he was dealing with.
The world had changed.
Twenty years ago, meteorites rained down from the sky, introducing a strange new radiation into the atmosphere.
Scientists named it Aether.
When harnessed according to the methods described in skill development books, it could be used to develop superpowers.
Each skill book granted a different type of superpower.
However, skill books were rare and outrageously expensive.
Even the cheapest one cost a fortune.
A normal person could work a nine-to-five job their entire life and still fail to afford one.
Damien's financial situation wasn't strong. He couldn't afford the luxury of purchasing a skill book even though it was the hottest trend in this day and age, with some people even taking loans from shady people and putting their lives at extreme risk to get one.
Lucien, on the other hand, came from a wealthy family. His father had gifted him a skill book the moment he turned sixteen, and he was intelligent enough to comprehend it before he became an adult. He was a bonafide skill user.
'I bet he'll feel threatened and back off now that I've exposed my identity,' Lucien thought. He was quite certain of it. An average person would let skill users like him walk all over them any day. Fighting back only meant more pain, after all.
As expected, Damien turned to leave after a few tense moments. Getting tripped by a complete stranger and having his nose broken had angered him, but it hadn't burned away his rationality. The chances of a normal person winning against a skill user without a proper strategy were next to none.
However, as he was leaving, Lucien's provoking comment reached his ears.
"You really backed off because of a threat? I bet you make your father disappointed every day you live. I know I would be disappointed if my son turned out to be a loser bitch." Lucien didn't like the look Damien had given him when he asked for an apology, so he was being disgustingly mean to him.
Damien stopped in his tracks and trembled. Lucien's words were like pouring salt over a freshly cut wound, making his heart ache in pain. His back still faced Lucien as he spoke. His words were so heavy with rage they were barely audible.
"My father is dead."
His father had gone to California on a business trip when an S-grade disaster zone opened there.
He got caught up in it and was pronounced dead.
Neither Damien nor his other family members doubted the authenticity of this heartbreaking news. There was simply no way an average person could survive such a horrifying event.
When the meteorites rained down, the world changed for the worse. Disaster zones began opening all over the globe, vomiting monsters into reality. The sudden emergence of a common enemy forced nations to put aside their differences and unite, but even their combined might was not enough to overcome this unprecedented disaster.
While weaker monsters could be dealt with using conventional weapons, the stronger ones were immune to firepower. They overwhelmed the combined might of humanity and plunged the world into chaos. Humans suddenly found themselves no longer at the top of the food chain, forced into a world where every moment was a struggle for survival.
The situation kept worsening day by day, and it felt like the end of time had come. But then, they appeared.
No one knew who they were or where they had come from, but they were terrifyingly strong, capable of killing monsters even tactical weapons couldn't harm. And they possessed incredibly profound knowledge that changed the fate of humanity.
They called themselves the Nobles. The skill development books came from them. They had come to Earth to help humanity survive the distasteful change their world had undergone.
Nobles were few in number and could not be everywhere at once, so they shared skill development books with humans. With the rise of superhumans, more and more cities were purged of monsters and disaster zones, making them livable again.
The cooperation between the Nobles and humans resulted in the reclamation of 70–80% of the lost human territory and the partial restoration of the peace and stability humans used to enjoy in the past.
Indeed, nowadays, nowhere was truly safe.
Disaster zones opened at random, and monster attacks could happen anywhere, claiming numerous lives each year across the globe.
However, his father had tried to go about his day, ignoring all that, so he could make a living for his family. But his luck ran out when he was far away from home, and he got swept into an S-grade disaster zone in California, never to return.
"What did you say? I didn't quite catch that," Lucien said as he unceremoniously invaded Damien's space.
"Even the weak and the poor have pride," Damien said. "They can only endure so much. And you… you have crossed the line."
"So what?" Lucien laughed in his face. "What are you going to do about it? Fight me? Do you even dare?"
He had been in a foul mood since the day started. Early in the morning, he had worked up the courage to confess to his crush, only to be turned down with the excuse that she liked mature, muscular men, not pretty boys. It had bruised his self-esteem. Since then, he had been looking to blow off steam. Even tripping Damien hadn't satisfied him. He wanted things to escalate.
Pah!
A crisp noise cut through the chatter in the hallway like a knife, drawing all eyes. Curious gazes turned toward the source, falling on Lucien and Damien.
Lucien's smile had long vanished like smoke in the wind. He stood frozen, clutching his stinging cheek where a glaring red handprint had appeared. His expression was the textbook definition of shock.
Damien stood in front of him, looking fearless like a war god.
"What's going on?" A student asked. She was a girl with curly brown hair and overall average features.
"Lucien got slapped!" Her friend replied.
"Didn't know a slap could make a noise like that."
"You must have never seen a bitchy Karen get slapped after messing with the wrong guy."
Whispers and snickers filled the crowded space, adding fuel to the fire. Lucien felt like he was being mocked by everyone present. He glared at Damien.
"You actually dared?" Lucien laugh conveyed only one emotion. Unbridled anger. "You are dead."
An invisible force burst out of him and slammed into Damien. Damien felt like like he had been hit by a truck. The wind was knocked out of him and he was lifted off his feet and flung into the wall like a ragdoll. He smashed into it and fell down on the ground patheticall, coughing blood.
Lucien rushed over and began kicking and stomping all over his body.
The onlookers had no intention of intervening. No one wanted to butt into someone else's problem and get hurt. They continued recording the fight with their phones. Later, they would publish it on the net and gain some views. Perhaps even some followers. Attention was one hell of a drug!
Damien felt like he was going to die as Lucien was attacking blindly, stomping on his neck and kicking his face and groin.
The intense fear made him go feral.
He tripped Lucien with his leg.
As soon as Lucien fell down, he pinned him beneath him and started raining punches down on his pretty face.
"Who is dead? Who is dead, you f*ucker!"
The intense fear made him go feral. He hugged the leg Lucien was using to attack him and bit it. Lucien felt like he had been bitten like a dog and screamed. Damien took the opportunity to trip Lucien with a kick to his other leg that was keeping him standing.
Lucien fell on his back and groaned. As soon as he fell down, Damien pinned him beneath him and started raining punches down on his pr
etty face while screaming at him.
"Who is dead? Who is dead, you f*ucker!"