4 Ability (1)

"Sin...?" Katy blinked two times. "Sin you shouldn't be out here. Why aren't you in bed and why do you look so fine?" Katy was flabbergasted that Sin, who was at death's door the last time she saw him, sat happily smiling next to her.

"I mean aren't you hurt anymore?" Her eyes went wide. "Or am I dreaming? After that injury Sin couldn't be here right now. It has to be a dream." She said to herself sighing and shaking her head. Suddenly without a warning Sin pinched the back of her hand.

"Ahhh, why the hell would you do that?" Katy shouted, jumped up and pointed her index finger at Sin. Then she blinked finally understanding what it suggested.

"W-Wait it is really you, I am not dreaming?", Katy cried. "H-How can that be, I saw someone stabbing a knife right inside your head." Saying the last words she started crying. Sin stood up and took her into his arms.

"Please, calm down Katy. I am fine can't you see that?", Sin pushed Katy a little away, looked in her eyes and smiled warmly trying to appease her. There was simply no way she could believe that her best friend was right next to her.

Katy answered doubtingly, "I am not sure Sin. You don't seem to be wounded but your right eye looks strange. What exactly happened?" Sin wanted to tell her that he was completely fine but her words made him stop.

"W-Wait..., what do you mean? What's wrong with my eye? I mean..., I know, I can't see anything but there is no wound so I thought it was good...?!?" Now Sin was the one confused and panic started to spread through him.

If his eye looked different after it got stabbed, he was sure, his mother would have informed him about it but she didn't.

Begging Katy Sin said, "Please Katy tell me, what does it look like?"

Katy looked deeply into his eye and answered slowly, "If I had to describe it, I would say there is some kind of green mist inside your eyeball. It looks a little like the crystal ball of a fortune teller." Katy shrugged her shoulders not knowing how to describe it better.

Sin was perplexed hearing this. He had no way available to watch how his eye looked like, sitting next to the oak tree. He touched it with shaking hands trying to find out if it felt different.

"What exactly happened...? W-Wait, it can't be that it is related to that strange phenomenon? The lightthreads?!?" That was the only thing Sin could think off.

He tried to overact the situation to not scare Katy again, who just stopped crying. "Aaaaahhh, you are talking about that!" He waved his hand trying to appear reassuring. "That is just a side effect of the healing, nothing serious at all."

He tried to laugh as he wanted to appear relaxed but his laugh wasn't relaxed at all, instead, it was a little creepy.

Katy squinted her eyes and looked at him trying to figure out if she got played with.

"Shit, she noticed," thought Sin. "I have to leave as fast as possible before she manages to find out the truth."

Just as Katy opened her mouth to confront Sin concerning it, he said as fast as he could, "I am so sorry Katy but I have to go." He had an apologetic look on his face. "I have a meeting with Bounty. She is the woman, who healed my injury. She told me I have to come over for a checkup today, so please forgive me but I have to leave already."

He winked hurriedly with his hand and ran in the direction of the village. Sin didn't know exactly, where Bounty stayed, but he knew that she didn't live here and that she was rich. So obviously she would stay in the best tavern the village had to offer, the Golden Lion.

It was the very same place, where Sin's mom worked at. The Golden Lion had some V.I.P. rooms since the village got frequent visits from strong and high standing people. Sin estimated that it was the only place suitable for someone of Bounty's caliber.

Running down the street he tried to calm his mind. "Bounty is strong. She should know what happened to my eye." After he arrived at the outskirts of the village, he moved over to the tavern.

To his own surprise, he found Bounty in the beverage room sitting at a table with the rank 5 adventurer, who he saw the other day. They were having lunch together.

The table was filled with several luxuriously looking dishes, ranging from rare seafood to extremely expensive vegetables. Most of the dishes, Sin never had the chance to taste before.

Since his mother worked here, he was often allowed to test the food that was sold, so he knew nearly every dish from the menu but nevertheless, he never tried those dishes, the both of them were eating. Sin tried to calm down and moved over to their table trying to appear as respectful as possible.

"Hello Bounty, Mister adventurer. I am sorry to interrupt your meal but I have an urgent problem." He greeted both of them with lots of respect. They were people with strong abilities and Sin always dreamed about becoming strong one day as well. He didn't want to necessarily be strong just to have strength but to have the power necessary to travel the world and find his father.

He himself didn't care much about him. He didn't know anything about that man and he never met him. Of course, sometimes he thought about, who his father was, but that question in itself was never an essential part of his life. Even though Sin didn't feel any kind of affection for him, he knew that his mother must miss him quite a lot.

So he decided that one day, he would go and bring his father back to his mother's side to make her happy again.

"I am sorry for yesterday Bounty! I wasn't myself there... I wanted to thank you. You saved my life and I will pay you back someday, I promise." He apologized to her with utmost sincerity. After all, he was really sorry. She went out of her way and helped him even though she had no obligation to.

Bounty and the adventurer stopped eating and turned in Sin's direction.

"Boy, you think you can pay Master back?" The adventurer said in a mocking tone to Sin, "You don't have the power or ability to do that, not in a hundred years!"

Sin was shocked. The adventurer called Bounty 'Master'. What did this imply? That man was a rank 5 adventurer and if she was his Master she had to be one of the strongest persons on the whole continent, maybe even the planet! It was possible that she already transcended the fifth rank and stepped into the sixth!

Not that Sin would know anything about that as a normal person without any background. Information about high-level adventurers was nothing a commoner like him had access to.

Bounty didn't wear any emblem that showed her rank, so Sin simply had no way to tell, what her rank exactly was or if she even was an adventurer. Not every strong person necessarily had to be one after all and not every adventurer had to wear an emblem.

Sin looked at the adventurer and answered him trying to remain calm, "I WILL repay her! I WILL become stronger and repay her!!! I promise!" His gaze was steady, his back straight and his voice firm.

The adventurer was flabbergasted. This boy was only seven years old and managed to respond to him, a rank 5 adventurer, in a calm and straight manner. Even grown men had problems to accomplish that without lowering their gazes.

"Your growth rate is immense, boy." The man said truly impressed. "I remember last time I saw you, you tried to hide behind glassware just to take a look at me and now you even dare to talk back." The adventurer said laughingly. He knew that something about this boy changed through the incident.

In general the stronger the adventurer, the harder it was for normal people to stay relaxed around them. That had something to do with the powers adventurers trained themselves in. Only people, who gained themselves those special powers were able to deflect some of the intimidation effects.

So if Sin stopped showing a reaction, it had to mean that somehow he awakened a special power but that was hard to believe. He was only a seven years old child after all. Most people started their training to acquire an ability with ten and gained one with fourteen! The adventurer himself gained his ability pretty late with nearly fifteen years old. Sin's situation was completely out of the ordinary and was contradictory to common sense.

Sin, who didn't know anything about that, thought the man tried to mock him for the other day. His face started burning and turned red.

During his talk with the adventurer, Bounty took a closer look at Sin. The green mist inside his eyeball piqued her interest.

Sin just wanted to respond to the adventurers mocking, when Bounty raised her hand and stopped him.

"Did you notice something out of the ordinary boy? I guess you already know about the strange appearance of your eye..."

Sin, who got a little sidetracked from the adventurer's words before, remembered suddenly, why he came here.

"I don't know Bounty. My friend Katy only told me about it a few minutes ago. I directly came over to you hoping you could tell me more about it."

"Actually, I could tell you more about this. It is a pretty simple matter to tell you the truth," Bounty said slowly, pondering what she could tell a seven-year-old boy. She made a decision and continued, "The truth is..., that as the aftereffect of the recent incident, you awakened an ability!"