Chapter 1

Soum:

My eyes snapped open to the sunlight filtering into my room via the window to the left of me, on the opposite side of the room. I overslept. Probably. There's no way the light should be this bright out had I woken up on time. Well, not much I could do about that now. It's not like my aunt was here to wake me up. I'd arrived at Gloria City via train by myself the day before, after having received an acceptance letter from the MGGC, the Merchant's Guild of Gloria City, for my application to join it. Being from the Jin family, we had quite a few powerful connections, so finding work was never an issue. Even today, all I had to do was show up and destroy the exam with the team that my family had set out for me. Then I'd have a stable job at the MGGC, and live a nice, easy life. The end. All I had to do was pass the exam today.

Today! My eyes widened at the thought. 'Oh crap I overslept', I thought. But there was still time. I sat up on the bed and took a glance at the door on the opposite side of the room, my willpower completely draining from myself. 'Maybe five more minutes.' The thought crossed my mind. I was late anyways. My eyes drooped. Without realizing it, I'd laid back down and closed my eyes..

A house on fire. Streets covered in blood, soot and limbs. Shouts, screams, moans, grunts. Crackling of flames, thunderous crashing of structures, explosions in the distance. A home of burning memories. A slight sob to my right. It was close. I reached out---!

My eyes snapped open to a cool feeling on my face. A nek, a black shadow cat, was licking my salty face. How long was I out for? I shooed the nek away, and it faded. I slid off my bed, and walked over to the window to check outside. A clock tower could just be seen in the distance. It was almost noon.

"Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!" I stammered as I threw on some clothes and my tools - that I'm glad I set out last night - and rushed out of the room. Fifteen minutes left. The test center was about a half hour's walk away.

'If I sprint, I might be able to make it on time,' I thought as I rushed down the stairs. 'Actually, scratch that - if I use magic, I could make it in five minutes. It may be borderline illegal, but if I miss this I'm screwed.'

I could already imagine the look on my aunt's face if she found out I missed the opportunity to join a top merchant's guild just because I overslept. Wait. The nek. My aunt can use summoning magic. How could I not see this? That woman decided to attach a summoning to me to make sure I didn't oversleep! She even set it to fifteen minutes before the exam to teach me a lesson!

'That boy,' she would always say while brandishing her ladle, 'one day I'll fix up his attitude by letting him do what he wants!'

I grit my teeth as I slammed open the door of the inn, and blinked hard as sunlight came flooding through. I suddenly remembered something mildly important and turned around.

"I'll be back for my stuff later today!" I told the lady who was tending the front, "Thanks for having me!"

"Have a nice day!" she replied with a smile.

Not looking back, I made a dash for it. The stone streets flew under me, and the variously colored brick houses blended together in my vision. I was using basic enchantment magic to raise the overall strength of my body. It was weak, as enchantment is definitely not my specialty, but it did the job just fine.

I dodged between a group of ladies, and dashed almost straight into the cart between two men haggling the price of some fruit. I leaped over the cart with a flip, and landed neatly on my feet. I heard some bypassers muttering that I was showing off, but I paid it no mind, as I was used to being late like this back at home.

There were about twelve minutes left. I was already almost there. I made a detour right, into a dark alleyway, then made a left turn, into a small, almost deserted street. I made a dash for it, as there was a right turn at the end of this street, then the test center was on the left. It was a straight shot, I sped up to my top speed. It should take me about two minutes to reach the end, and I should be there with ten minutes left to spare. Enough time to get set up...

That was, of course, until a donkey suddenly brayed at me to the left. I took my eyes off the road to look at it for a single second, and the moment I looked back, all I had time to see was the terrified face of some person who was turning in from an alleyway perpendicular to the street before I crashed right into them.

The next moment, all my vision could process were the blurred colors and the flashes of images of my surroundings as we both became a mass of limbs rolling several meters before friction helped us stop. I ended up on my back, while the other person landed next to me.

"Ugh, are you okay?" I groaned, sitting up.

The first feature I noticed from her was her wispy white hair.

'Crap!' I thought, 'I crashed into an old lady!'

However, as the figure lifted her head off the ground, I noticed from the features of her face that she lacked wrinkles, and other subtle signs of aging. Most likely, her hair was just white naturally. She had light brown skin and black eyes. She wore a large white blouse with - strangely enough - trousers, which were both matted with sweat and now dirt. She also had a wand holstered at her hip, inside a black pouch, with a black hilt sticking out of it. She also wasn't carrying anything on her. She was breathing heavy - to the extent that she was wheezing. She had a cut on her left cheek and forehead from where she landed on her face. She looked strangely familiar..

The girl glared at me.

"What were you doing? I almost died!" she snapped.