001: Pilot

10 years ago on my birthday, was the final normal day this world had.

But when midnight struck, and the year was the next, the world faced what we now call:

'The Catastrophe'

While people were celebrating the coming of a new year, all around the globe changes were happening. The sky tore apart, and vicious monsters poured out of the holes they made.

What happened next was predictable to say the least.

Cities were razed, governments were in chaos, people died. Thousands. Millions. The total death count on that fateful day reached an estimated 38 million.

My parents were unfortunate enough to be contributors to that number.

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"But the past is the past, and now I can only look towards the future"

"Sol what are you mumbling to yourself? Our session will be starting soon so please focus." Chimed my therapist, Madi.

"Oh, sorry I didn't realize I was speaking out loud." I replied back, slightly embarrassed.

"No worries, Sol. Anyways it has been a while since we've had a meeting, we have a lot to work on." Madi responded.

Madi has been my therapist for nearly 4 years at this point, due to some complications in my final years of school, the counselors at school recommended I see a therapist. Due to my parents passing away during the Catastrophe, the government support my sister, Luna, and I along with the thousands of other children that were orphaned because of monsters. That's why I'm able to go to a professional therapist.

Anyways my therapist isn't the main focus right now, you probably want to know more about what happened to this world.

After the Catastrophe the world was in chaos for over a year, until hundreds of thousands of people became acclimated to the mana that was awoken within the planet. Those people then gained the ability to do things that were only thought possible in fairy tales and myths.

The original name given to them were the 'Einherjar', but no one knew how to pronounce that so it was changed to 'Awakened'.

But with the help of the Awakened, the monsters that had killed nearly a billion people were defeated. Well that's what people thought at least.

Remember when I mentioned that the monsters tore holes into the sky and came out of them? Well that phenomenon began to happen again, in a smaller scale, but way more frequently. They're called 'Portals', there has been nothing found out about the frequency of when these appear, but a week after appearing, monsters will pour out of them unless someone goes into it and destroys the core that is inside it.

This is where the use of Awakened come in! Awakened get ranked by complex machines, and their abilities are analyzed. After all the tests and fees, hunters are granted an identification card with their rank and class. Awakened people go into these Portals based on the color of them, which are ranked from low to high: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. Not a very complex system but it gets the job done. Red is for F class, Orange for E, Yellow for D, Green for C, Blue for B, Indigo for A, and of course Violet is an S class Portal.

Now one might ask, "Where do you come into play here, Sol?"

Answer...

I don't!

Yep, I am just a normal civilian, well sorta. I work as a laborer for A Corp. which is the largest Awakened company in the world, and my position? Well, I butcher the monsters that are killed.

It's not as easy as it sounds! You need to be very precise when you are cutting up these monsters, because their materials are often about a months worth of my salary, not to mention the monster cores which are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I know I said the government supports my sister and I, but that's just schooling and insurance, I still need to pay for my own housing and things like electronics, they give a monthly thousand or so dollars but that is not enough to live off of.

Anyways enough of this long explanation, time to resume to my actual life.

"I will see you next week, Sol. Make sure you're taking care of yourself." said my therapist flatly.

"Yeah I know, thank you." I chirped back.

*sigh* Off to work I guess.

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"Hey Sol! You're just in time, we got a dozen B ranked Magma Raptors in around 10 minutes ago." yelled my boss, Larson. "I know how much you love cutting up fire related monsters."

I do like fire monsters to be fair.

"Alright alright I got it, at least let me get my apron on first." I cheerfully said back.

"Look who it is, it's Sol!"

"We'll get through this in 3 hours with him here!"

"Maybe I can go home early tonight!!"

The chorus of my coworkers voices calling out to me is encouraging and all but man this is a lot of pressure.

I started working right after I graduated high school, and just happened to land the job here at A Corp. I was always good at physical labor, and precision related tasks, so this was a pretty good job for me. Although you'd imagine a big corporation would screw over its employees, everyone here is actually given decent work conditions and pay. The worse part is the workload they give me because of my skills.

"Hey Larson, why is the one at my station different looking?" I asked.

"Oh, I forgot to mention that didn't I. There was a mutated Magma Raptor that the Awakened brought back this time. It's quite a bit tougher than the normal ones but its organs and core should all be in the same spot."

"Oh, alright."

I began by using the magic tools to skin the monster, which was fairly simple. All I'm really doing is carefully disassembling monsters, and storing their parts.

"Alright there goes the heart, time to grab the core." I mumbled to myself.

Cores of monsters are hard to differentiate unless you're an Awakened Engineer, or an Awakened with an appraisal skill. The color of the core is the same as the portal they're found in, but the size changes vastly based on the size of the monster. For a B rank Magma Raptor, I expected a blue core. Which is why I was so confused when I saw a black one with moving golden marks.

I went to take out the core, as it was still my job.

As soon as my hand grasped the core, it changed shape and went into my body.

"ARGH! FUCK!" I screamed out.

Then my vision turned black.