3 The Beginning

Chapter: 3

"The Beginning"

Zen opened his eyes from the nightmare and jolted upwards, only to bonk his head on a metal ceiling. After looking around, the place he was in felt too enclosed to be a room. However, there was a foul smell that struck his nose.

Because of this rotten egg smell, Zen assumed he was in a dumpster, large enough to fit his body. He was also confused as to how the girl would get away with murder since she had dumped him here. Before shoving his hands upward, he tried to remember how he got here in the first place. Apparently, he was killed by a gun and made a deal with the devil.

With that in mind, he decided to leave. After a few attempts of jamming the metal ceiling up, Zen managed to bust the dumpster's lid open causing moonlight to leak in. "Since coming out of that dark place, this bright white light sure is refreshing." He muttered.

After the vivid moonlight revealed where he was, Zen immediately spotted a nasty green liquid flowing from his arms down to his shoulders. Other than that, he also noticed a dead rodent chilling next to his face like a whore, startling him.

He bolted out of the greasy mess in anger.

Despite being extremely furious about the girl, he was also concerned about his appearance. Without knowing what time it was, Zen needed to find a way back to his apartment. "If anyone were to see me like this, who knows what they would do?" He thought.

Before leaving, Zen noticed the legs of a person sitting beside the dumpster. He glanced over and saw a frail kid wearing a ripped-up white gown with specks of dirt splattered all over. She was shriveled and pale with bruises and open wounds on her limbs. Her snow-white hair contrasted well with her yellow dilated pupils and her lips were as dry as sandstone.

After Zen came up to her, the girl used every last ounce of her strength to look up. Suddenly, her lifeless expression turned into fear causing our protagonist to assume something traumatic had happened.

"Are you here to beat me again, father?" She spoke in a sheepish manner.

After he took in those words, Zen remained speechless. With a reasonable thought in mind, he knew it wasn't his place to meddle in someone else's business. But then again, our protagonist couldn't just leave her here to rot or worse, beaten black and blue.

All of this was unbelievable to him as this was his first time seeing a kid so bruised and abused by not strangers but her own family member. Zen didn't know if she was telling the truth or not but decided to lift the girl up anyways. Even if he might regret this choice later, it was still better than leaving a child alone. "If they stare, then so be it." He thought before walking through the alleyway between two condos.

Luckily, Zen knew where he was so navigating to a local hospital wasn't a problem. However, as he was approaching the end of the alleyway, a muscular man came out of nowhere and had obstructed him. He was wearing a uniform unknown to Zen and had a flashlight in hand.

"What? Who are you?" The man said in a surprised tone after covering Zen's path.

"Sir, she's bleeding out, I'm just taking her to the hospital." Zen calmly replied

"Dressed like that? Don't lie." The man's tone suddenly changed.

Zen felt a nerve in his head popped before frowning. "Who are you to judge? You're dressed in a tuxedo that I've never seen before and had a flashlight on your hand. Don't play me for a fool, you've been searching for her, aren't you?" He accused.

"Woah Woah, I didn't mean to offend you by that. By your appearances, I thought you were some kind of pervert trying to kidnap her." The man then cleared his throat before continuing. "Ahem! Let me start over. As you can tell, I don't belong here with the clothing I'm wearing. nevertheless, I can assure you I am caretaker. Recently, she had gotten herself lost in the outskirts while playing hide and seek with me, poor girl. Her worried parents asked me to look for her since they were busy most of the time. Now that you found her, I could take her back. We have a specialist who has a healing ability so there's no need for you to bring her to a hospital. "

"Stop with your crappy excuses, I'm not buying any of that shit." Zen said in a menacing tone. "Telling me you're here to take her back is already enough for me to refuse, you scumbag."

The large man appeared to hesitate for a brief moment before dropping his flashlight on the ground. "So that's why you acted like this. You already knew from the start." The guy then cracked his fingers and neck, readying for a fight.

Subsequently, Zen laid the girl down before cracking his fist also. He hadn't been in a fight since his high school delinquent days so he might've been a little rusty. "I've been feeling very pissed since a few hours ago so I apologized if you were to end up as a patient." Zen taunted

"I'm afraid I could say the same." The man replied.

Eventhough Zen was acting tough, he actually didn't have a plan to defeat his opponent. In a fight, he had only relied on two things, his ability to get excited and his two knuckle sandwiches. "My fist will do all the planning for me."

As soon as they reached each other's punching distance, they immediately threw out their jabs, aiming for each other's faces. Since Zen was rusty, he was clocked hard while his punch missed completely.

"Now you've done it asshole!" He spat out some blood as the impact struck through his chin, causing him to bit his tongue. After taking the first hit, Zen was already feeling dizzy which wasn't a good sign. However, the other guy was greedy and went in for another strike leaving his chest area unguarded.

"You're wide open." Zen thought as he threw out a right-hook, aiming for the guy's ribcage.

"This bastard is strong." The caretaker took the blunt force of Zen's punch causing a swirl of pain to form around his body. Zen saw this opportunity and tried to go for a neck lock. He dashed to the side of his opponent before using his arms to do a swing.

Suddenly, a force struck into his left cheeks causing his vision to become disoriented. Zen's initial thoughts were that this was the guy's attribute, but no. He was too hard stuck on the guy's neck that he didn't realize the guy had already twisted his shoulders and elbowed his face.

Zen fell off to his knees before being kicked down even further, forcing him to lick the dirty floor. "Fuck, I was careless." He thought before trying to get up.

Subsequently, the caretaker kicked his face again before sitting on top of his chest. The guy then sent a slam in Zen's way with a transparent knuckle all around his fist. To our protagonist, it looked like ice and death. "You're dead meat." The man uttered.

"Get off me!" With all his might, Zen yelled as he swung his fist to bash the guy's cheeks in. Eventhough he was pinned to the ground, Zen had spotted an advantage over his enemy like an imaginary arrow pointing at what he needed to do. Subsequently, he twisted his head causing the caretaker's punch to miss and his to land.

*crack!*

Even after hearing such a loud crack, Zen never stopped to question it. Right then and there, all he wanted to do was to continue the fight until one of them was beaten senseless. However, before he could put his hands together for a slam on his downed opponent, he was abruptly jabbed in the stomach by a kick.

The caretaker was a skilled fighter but he was also 'careless' (see what I did there). After the large man got up, he spread his fingers out and gestured towards Zen. Instantly, icicles began to form all around his palms like magic. "Die!" He said.

However, before being able to fire. Zen was already in the motion of doing a sweeping kick. You see, after getting kicked in the stomach, our protagonist didn't even flinch one bit. He was too excited to let go of his momentum and his boiling blood, you could say he's having a blood rush.

*crack!*

The sound of multiple bones being broken could be heard all across the alley, followed by the sight of a man falling down. There was the smell of blood coming out of Zen's mouth before he wiped it off with his thumb in a mocking manner.

"I win motherfucker!" Feeling like a champion, Zen yelled loudly, echoing on the two condos' walls back and forth, repeating his victorious chant. After this fight, he could feel a gasping relief in his chest, like all the rage he had been building up until now had just temporarily vanished through each of his punches.

*ding!*

Suddenly, a text box appeared in front of him. It had the same color as the one in the dark place and the same bloodied font. Around its edges were some strange symbols with a red outline and inside of it had a black fill.

〚※〛 〚※〛

<Your opponent is unconscious!>

<Consume his Soul to gain +1 to all stats?>

< yes / no >

<Note that consuming the souls of the living won't kill them, but will turn them into emotionless dolls that are incapable of doing anything except for following orders.>

〚※〛 〚※〛

After reading through the text, Zen couldn't help but grin. It seemed like after knocking an opponent out, he had a choice to consume their souls to become stronger. The {+1} to all stats were tempting and there weren't really any consequences in his eyes.

"Is this what that devil meant by giving me powers?" Zen was hovering his hand between both options. Just the thought of turning someone into his slave, caused Zen's whole body to shiver in excitement.

"How could I say no after what I've been through?" He then reached and pressed onto the 'yes' button while having the assumption of it working like a smartphone. Afterwards, he also decided to use his new emotionless doll.

*beep!*

*ding!*

〚※〛 〚※〛

<Congratulations on consuming this soul!>

<+1 stats have been granted!>

〚※〛 〚※〛

Subsequently, there was a black mist that came out of the caretaker's head. It was then vacuumed into Zen's body making him feel a tad bit stronger. It wasn't a steroid boost but enough for him to notice.

As he was giggling maniacally, Zen turned to the little girl who was lying there unresponsive. "Hmm... Will I be able to consume her soul too?" This malevolent thought suddenly popped into his mind. No matter how much his old self would sway his head in disappointment, he couldn't help theorized.

Zen then gently pressed on the girl's wrist to check if another text box would appear. Subsequently, a guilty but pleasurable feeling had struck him when it did. He was ecstatic to know that even if a person was sleeping (aka unconscious), the 'system' would still allow him to consume his/her's soul.

*ding!*

〚※〛 〚※〛

<This soul is unconscious!>

<Consume her soul to gain +1 to all stats?>

< yes / no >

<Note that consuming the souls of a living being won't kill them, but will turn them into emotionless dolls that are incapable of doing anything except for following orders.>

〚※〛 〚※〛

The only strangest thing that the newly written text had displayed was "consume 'her' soul..." while the guy he fought with was considered a 'his'. All Zen could think of was that this system had a sentient mind of its own, considering he had just made a deal with the devil, it might be plausible.

Zen slapped himself on the cheeks as he was feeling a little too giddy, like a saying goes: a person who's drunk on power will always drown in their own powers. Other than this saying, he also didn't want to waste any more time. His mission right now was to bring the girl to a hospital and himself to his apartment.

With that in mind, He picked the girl up and walked towards the caretaker. The guy was on his feet while oscillating his face like a person trying to not fall asleep. Before Zen could issue a command, he noticed a textbox at the top-left of his field of view, plus a blue bar at the bottom center.

〚※〛 〚※〛

[ZenMarcus Lvl: 1]

[Health: 10/10 {+1}]

[Strength: 5 {+1}]

[Agility: 6 {+1}]

[Intelligent: 16 {+1}]

[Exp: 0/100]

<New Quest: Bring all your basic stats up to 10>

<Reward: 10 EXP>

〚※〛 〚※〛