Answer

Thud!

"Ugh!"

A fourteen year old boy was trying to get his body up slowly after falling onto the cold pavement.

Meanwhile, a short, brown-haired man before him lowered himself, reaching out to him.

"You don't have to face everything by yourself."

The teenage boy stared at him in annoyance, precisely due to his embarrassment that he was pretending not to be weak although the injuries on his face and body were evident.

In the end, he complied when the man took him to the hospital and asked him to stay in an editorial office.

His obedience couldn't be separated from the fact that he was stranded in the middle of nowhere, losing his goal of looking for someone due to his lack of insight and experience.

One fine afternoon, when the man's height was equal to the majority of people driving on the road, a co-worker opened the main door of the editorial office with a little excitement.

"They wish to meet you in person, Harris!"

The hazel-eyed young man, who was helping a little girl put her letter in a waist-high mailbox, turned around in surprise. Quickly, he walked out of the office and said, "Thanks for telling me, Lucy!"

His co-worker was stunned in the doorway with the corners of her eyes twitching.

"It's Lucia, you maverick!"

Gabriel only smiled briefly while shaking his head as he watched the interaction between the two of them grab the attention of all visitors to the editorial office.

At a restaurant, Harris approached a woman wearing a formal gray suit. She then beckoned Harris to follow her into a room hidden behind a door marked 'Staff Only'.

A gray-eyed man looked around the room, which appeared to be a library, and noticed the presence of two people. He then sat down on the sofa, followed by the woman who had brought Harris there, and lastly Harris sat on a separate chair.

"How did you know about our existence?" asked the woman.

Harris gulped. "From… Gabriel."

"Gabriel?" asked the gray-eyed man with a frown. However, the frown on his forehead soon disappeared as if he remembered something. "Ah, him."

"Do you know him?" Harris asked with raised eyebrows. "He advised me to enlist in the SURVIVE intelligence agency in order to locate my missing family members."

"And what makes you sure we will help you find them, young man?"

Harris extended his palm forward, drawing the attention of the two people in front of him. Their eyes widened as his palm emitted a neon-blue light that hovered low above him until it formed a small ball of light.

In the past, an incident claimed so many lives, including SURVIVE agents. That led the higher-ups, two of whom were sitting across from Harris, to experiment with ancient magic and technology to create powers that could be used as a form of self-defense and salvation for others.

"Never before have we seen anyone born with that power, Harris," said the gray-eyed man, looking seriously at him.

"I know both of you need it, based on Gabriel's story," Harris said, "in return, help me find my family members."

The gray-eyed man nodded slightly, though he didn't seem to finish thinking.

"Very well. We hope to see you at the exam with you pow—"

"I don't want it."

The two people in front of Harris fell silent. They stared at each other for a moment, but Harris seemed to know what they were thinking so he decided to speak up.

"I'm not saying that this is a curse. It's just… my power is too strong that it consistently weaken my body."

As if knowing the cause, the two people in front of him didn't ask and nodded at each other.

"Alright, I'll take it if you promise to be stronger," said the woman while taking out an emblem the size of her palm, which was made of metal and engraved with a crow with a light blue predominance.

Harris closed his eyes as soon as he saw the emblem directed at him. The crow's carving glowed bright blue as particles of light blue light were drawn from Harris's chest into the emblem. After all the particles of light were absorbed until nothing remained, the light on the engraved emblem went out.

"If there is someone else who can use it better, please give it to them," Harris said before leaving.

As soon as the door to the room was closed, the two SURVIVE higher-ups looked back at their neon-blue crow's engraved emblems. Its shining light seemed to reaffirm the value of the power stored in that object. However, the atmosphere suddenly turned blue.

"How do we tell him that his family members are unsearchable?"

The gray-eyed man stared at the faint light emitting from the emblem.

"We'll find a way. But first of all, we can't let someone this powerful wander alone on the street."

Year after year passed. Harris aced every annual test and it didn't take long for him to become SURVIVE's golden son.

One day, he walked in his dark blue uniform among other pedestrians on the sidewalk.

The wind blew his dark blue cloak as he walked down the street by the River of Flowers. A thin smile etched on his lips when he saw a tourist boat with passengers sailing peacefully on the surface of the crystal blue water.

For him who had not returned to the Algor District in a long time, even the sight of a cat passing by was so mesmerizing. The condition of the district was much better than when he first came, and so was he. Though he had to endure the annual SURVIVE test, he felt certain that he would eventually be able to find the very thing that was keeping him alive: his lost family members.

However, suddenly…

Thud!

"Ouch!"

Harris was shocked to see a shoulder-length haired girl fall in front of him after bumping into him.

"Sorry! Are you alright?" asked Harris, lowering himself, and holding out his hand.

The girl looked up, stared at him with slight surprise for a few minutes. However, those golden brown beads was giving Harris a mysterious heartache. It was as if he felt he had hurt her at some point, without knowing exactly what he had done. Even when the girl got up and turned away from him, he felt uneasy.

"Dammit! Why had it to be him?"

As the girl's curses were swallowed by the distance, he continued to observe her. Something familiar struck him despite the girl's eccentric appearance and gait.

"Right... why should it have been me…"

His reverie was shattered when a pedestrian passed by, erasing her presence from the crowd and everywhere else. It brought him back to land after the look in the girl's eyes had levitated him. Then he walked to the editorial office to meet his savior, Gabriel.

"Isn't your last name Reister, Harris?" he asked.

Once Harris had dragged Gabriel out, the two of them had a casual conversation in front of the river's concrete railing.

"I thought about it many times: not only is there someone with the last name R who is similar in nature to you, but also why everything related to him and Miss Savior is so absurd," he continued.

"So?" asked Harris in surprise.

"So don't even try to meet Miss Savior face to face, Boy."

"I'm twenty-one years old, Old Man," Harris emphasized, "I've grown up!"

Harris glared at Gabriel who turned away from him with a crisp laugh. However, something clicked in his mind, making him stop Gabriel.

"Wait! The person named last R just now… is he a member of the Reister family as well?"

Gabriel's steps stopped.

Harris continued, "My father once said that his brother went missing while they were on a cruise."

Gabriel stared complicated at his reflection in the dark glass window. His image seemed to fade and be replaced by the figure of another man whose information he was digging up in his head.

"Unfortunately," Gabriel said while staring blankly at the red tinge in the sky, "I don't have that name in my memory."

Harris fell silent with dissatisfaction filling his heart. After saying goodbye to him to return to the base, his curiosity was growing.

His mind continued to struggle with Gabriel's riddle tucked into his words. His feet were about to run tens of miles away for some answer, but he knew he had an important mission that afternoon.

Harris clicked his tongue slowly. SURVIVE promised to help him, but all he had gotten so far was memory extension.

What if death found his lost family member first? Or what if he lost his memories before he could find them?

Those worries slowly disappeared as he met Brissia, a girl whose origins were unclear, but who could definitely help him. He spent days with her searching, escaping, and approaching to get information about Miss Savior.

"You found what you were looking for?"

Harris turned to Hansen, who was sitting beside him sipping a can of drink.

"No. I don't even know where to look anymore," Harris replied quietly, making Hansen spit out his drink.

"Too bad. You lost your power, and now your goal?"

Fayrl who said so arrived and sat down next to Hansen, took the half-remaining canned drink and gulped it down without a second thought.

"It hasn't gone. It's flowing in you."

"That's your fault for not wanting to practice controlling it."

The triumphant smile that graced Fayrl's lips made Hansen look at her in pain, while Harris looked undeterred. He just stared ahead with a faint smile.

"My goal is only Brissia, as she made me her goal."

Fayrl choked, causing Hansen to pat her on the back and push the canned drink away from her.

"As for where to look for what I haven't found, I believe that something will come to us once it is ready to be found."

Hansen and Fayrl stared at Harris unblinkingly.

Even though the man didn't get what he wanted, the girl's existence seemed to have transformed into something more meaningful than fulfilling a wish in his life.