11 Family

This took a bit longer to write but I'm happy with the result.

#####

Michael was taking in all the air he could. Now that he was out of danger, he could think normally again. The exit of the dungeon brought him back to where he once entered it, the small hole where he tried to hide for the night. Now with a bit of leather armor on his body, he didn't feel as exposed as before. Still, he did not doubt that his appearance was quite out of the norm for the inhabitants of this city. Leather was an exotic resource for Trash Valley, but all Michael knew was that there wasn't a single person that he saw that had leather armor on themselves.

Sighing, he decided to take it all of and put it in his inventory. Once again nearly naked, Michael realized that while the sun wasn't up yet on the D-layer, it wasn't as cold as before. He didn't know how much time he spent in the dungeon therefore the possibility that he just didn't feel the cold as much was very present. His constitution after all made a huge jump after being hit, pierced, and bathed in extremely acid liquid. Maybe the stat also took into consideration resistance to extreme temperature.

Slowly adapting to the new environment, Michael realized that the city was not as quiet as he thought it would be. He could make out distant noise, but couldn't identify what was happening clearly. There were a lot of different sounds mixed, and due to the distance, the young boy couldn't separate them as he has always done. He wondered whether or not it was wise to head towards the source of the noise, as, on the one hand, he was sure to find people there.

On the other hand, meeting unknown people could easily mean danger for Michael. 'Nothing ventured nothing gained I guess,' thought Michael. He had no food, no items of clothing, nothing. His growling stomach made him very aware that he needed something to change in his situation. While being in the dungeon was seemingly sustainable, the real world was not. He probably had no identity on this island, not that he knew whether or not it mattered, but that meant that he essentially came out of nowhere, which was the case.

Considering his first experience with residents of this island was an attempted kidnapping and putting him in slavery, he was somehow reluctant to go out and meet other people. He didn't know where he came from, as his first memories of this island were being carried by the moon-faced man named Mitch.

At the thought of the crooked bastard, Michael's jaw clenched. He swore that he would have his revenge against him for attempting to put him in chains, 'Now I'm strong, I can take both of the bastards easily with my stats and my class.'

And Michael was right, he had multiplied his strength and made up for his deficiencies in a couple of hours thanks to the system. He was easily above the average strength of a human adult from his previous world. Even with his size, Mack shouldn't pose a problem for the young boy.

'I have no choice but to go,' decided Michael, walking toward the source of the noise.

Once he got close enough to what he realized was a strange rectangular building long ago, he was stopped by a metal bar put in his way. He, of course, had noticed the presence of a boy probably a bit older than him dozing off on one of the barrels that lingered on his path. The area he entered was a lot worse than what he saw around the meeting hall. the ground was dirty, the house was broken and not taken care of. The smell was not as masked as it was before and the few people he encountered on the way were gaunt in general.

"Halt!"

"What is it?" I asked, confused, hungry, and tired. "Is this, um, a private area or something?" The boy didn't answer and just fixed me with unusual eyes. He had yellow pupils, that resembled the eyes of a hawk.

"Oy, stop ignoring m-" I started to say before he interrupted me, "Where do you come from, Snake-Eye?"

His question stopped me completely, "...Snake-Eye?"

"Yeah, I saw a snake one day, and he had the same vertical slits as you do in his eyes," he answered. "Your eyes kinda look scary and cool at the same time, so I'll call you Snake-Eye!"

His words shook Michael as his mind immediately went back to the night before, where he observed this body, standing upon the corpse of the young girl he murmured. He couldn't hear the outside world anymore as he was stuck in these thoughts, his body feeling foreign.

"HELLO!" Screamed the boy with the weird eyes in his ear. That did the trick as Michael jumped in surprise and returned to the real world. "Are you ok? You seemed a bit out of it there Snake Eye."

"Ah yes..." Michael trailed off, "Was just thinking about something, um, any-anyway why did you stop me again?"

His interlocutor raised his eyebrow but decided to let it go. "Well, you still haven't told me where you come from," he paused, as if reminiscing something, "My name's Falke by the way. Grandma always told me to present myself when talking to someone new."

"Yeah! My brother, um, said the same thing to me," said Michael, still uncomfortable with talking to people. Falke simply laughed at Michael's awkwardness before continuing the conversation.

"Where's your brother then? What's his name? If he's or has been in the 3rd then Grandma should know about him. I can go and ask her if you want." That made Michael pause as he looked away. He felt like something struck him physically. The realization that he didn't know where his brother was, that he would probably never meet him again hurt him deeply. Tears started to come out of his eyes as he tried to stop himself from wailing in front of a stranger.

"W-wait why are you crying?" Panicked, Falke didn't know what to do with the seemingly younger yet taller kid breaking down in front of him.

"N-nothing!" The tears simply would not stop coming out of his eyes, and his trembling lips made for a rather pathetic sight, one expected from a 12-year-old that just realized he probably had no family left. Still, Michael was used to having very little and was made of sterner stuff. That stopped him from completely letting go of his emotions in a dirty street. Trying to concentrate on what was asked of him previously, he struggled to word out his response when the heavy absence of his brother was on his mind.

Used to keep his emotions under a lid, it took a bit of time and the fumbling of Falke trying to calm him down for Michael to answer the question, "I-I d-don't, um, know w-where I come, um, from!" Loudly accentuating each of his words, as if to counterbalance the fact that he was having a hard time speaking, Michael revealed that he was completely lost to Falke.

"You," trailed off Falke, "Did you just arrive on the island from the top?"

Michael nodded at Falke's question, wiped off the tears from his cheek. Every time he thought about his brother not being here for him ever again, he ended up sobbing again, making his efforts useless in the end.

Falke was feeling bad for the young boy in front of him. He inspected his near-naked state. He had red marks all around his body, had the sign of a relatively young wound on both his tight and his shoulder. Crimson trailing from both of these wounds showed that blood had come out of them and judging by the quantity of dry blood sticking to Michael's skin, he was heavily injured, to the point where Falke wondered how he was even alive and healthy in front of him.

'I'll take him back to the orphanage with me,' decided the hawk-eyed boy. Feeling pitiful for him, he decided to be like his Grandma told him he should be, and instead of hit other people, he should help them.

"Come with me Snake-Eye! I'll show you somewhere cool!" said Falke, acting as a big brother should in his head. He puffed up his chest and patted Michael's head.

Even with the fact that Michael was taller than him, he looked up to Falke in confusion at his action. Still, he didn't try to remove his hand, he even leaned a bit in the hand that was rubbing his scalp. It made him feel a bit warm inside.

"Let's go!" said Falke as he removed his hand and started to walk in front of Michael to guide him. After a while, the younger boy followed him.

#####

The walk to the orphanage wasn't that long. Humming his favorite song, the one that he always remembered his Grandma singing, Falke often checked on the crying boy behind him. He realized that he had calmed down, which lifted the weight off of his heart.

Still, Falke felt like he needed to apologize, "I'm sorry," he said in a small voice that Michael barely heard. "I kn- There's a lot of kids in the orphanage that lost their family and... I'm supposed to know better than ask those questions."

Michael didn't answer but kept his eyes on the back of the boy leading him.

Not being able to bear the silence, Falke continued to talk to the younger boy, "You know... the orphanage in the 3rd was created years ago because there was an increase in child slaves being tossed away by the nobles," trailed off Falke. "Nobody knew why back then, but before that, a child slave being tossed out by a noble was a pretty rare thing. After all, if they take a child as a slave it's to reap the benefits of it later on, except a few weirdos."

"But, even if we're separated from the world, the amount of people leaving this island each year is close to none, sometimes news from the outside come here. The reason why the nobles started to toss out those children was that a terrorist attacked their city. I don't remember exactly what was written in the newspaper since I was a kid, but apparently, he went after everyone that had a slave."

Michael took the information and didn't know what to do with it. He didn't dare to tell Falke that he wasn't a slave. Falke went so ahead with the little information he had that Michael felt left behind. Nonetheless, Falke continued with his explanation, hoping that it would lift Michael's mood that he wasn't the only one in his supposed position.

"So in the end, there's a lot of kids that needed help as nobody would take them in," at his words, Falke gained a proud smile and a happy face. " That's where Grandma comes in! You see, she had enough money to build a big house here, but when she saw those children that needed help, she put it all away and took care of them."

When they arrived at the orphanage, Michael was surprised. It was different than the usual spheric building he was used to in this city. It resembled more what was usual in his past world. It was made out of stone and wood. He wondered if wood as a material was rare on the island or if the inhabitants just decided that metal was better.

But when he noticed the purple taints on the building, his eyes widened as he saw a part of the purple wood simply disappear in front of his eyes. Take note of his gaze, Falke felt like it was his duty to instruct his younger friend on the specifics of this island, "Ah, you see, the purple liquid that goes into most pipes around the city is called Plom. I'm not a technician so I don't know exactly what it does, but if you remember being on other islands, you must have heard of energy right?"

Michael nodded, his eyes never leaving the disappearing wood. "Well, plom provides the energy for the entire island, I don't know how, I only know that the nobles down there figured out a way to make things work," Falke said, before narrowing his eyes at the state of the wooden building. "The only problem... is that it destroys certain materials like wood fairly easily. that's why in the richer areas of the city, everything is made out of metal."

Falke put himself next to Michael and grabbed his shoulder to guide his gaze, "You see the wood disappearing right," he pointed to exactly where Michael was watching already, "Well, it doesn't disappear, it just corrodes so fast that it seems like it does."

At his words, Michael swore he could feel his burning marks acting up again. He jerked back, surprising Falke. His mind went back to the fight he nearly died from. The image of him standing on the corpse of the boss, pools of green acid at his feet, parts of his flesh missing, made him sweat a bit. It was a bad memory to have for the young 12-year-old boy.

Falke just raised his eyebrows and coughed for Michael's attention, "Well, you're coming or not?" He said, walking towards the entrance of the orphanage.

"Yeah... I'm coming," answered Michael.

The old giant front door of the orphanage was closed, and Falke remarked to Michael about how they shouldn't take it so early in the morning as it will wake up a lot of people that are sleeping.

They went around in silence, trying to be as discreet as possible, and entered the building by one of the backdoors. "I'll show you where things are after I talk to Grandma," whispered Falke as he gently pressed on the door handle. "She wants to know who's coming in every time and if I don't make sure to tell her, she'll nag me for days."

Once Falke slowly opened the door, he turned to Michael and told him to wait there since it won't take too much time. He then disappeared into the building, leaving our hero wondering if he even accepted to come to this orphanage at some point.

The orphanage looked like one of those churches his brother described to him when he was younger. 'I think the name was cathedral?' thought Michael as he tried to remember what was the exact name fitting for what was before his eyes.

The place where the backdoor was placed was covered by a wooden plank, probably to stop the rain from pouring onto the area in front of the door. As he looked to his right he saw a stone wall that looked to be still in construction. If he believed in Falke's words, it would never be finished. He coughed, wondering how he was supposed to call out the person hiding behind the wall he was looking at. With his hearing, there was no way he hadn't noticed the person observing him.

He didn't know whether it was a girl or a boy, but he knew that they were smaller than him. They also weren't silent at all. He pretended to look away for a second, only to notice at the edge of his vision someone peek their head out of the wall to watch him.

The facial structure and the hair gave out the fact that it was a young girl. Michael thought she was about 10 to 12 years old considering her size. The truth is, Michael had 0 knowledge about how tall people are supposed to be and was basing this estimation on how tall he was.

He even would have thought that Falke was younger than himself, if it wasn't for his general demeanor and attitude. What Michael didn't realize was that he was much bigger than his age suggested. Standing at 5'9 in height and having a broader back than most kids his age, Michael seemed to be much older than he was.

The girl peeking was 14, she just was no as abnormal as Michael was. Michael's body had greatly changed in the last couple of hours thanks to his system. It wasn't something that he realized yet since he felt as if he was stuck in someone else's body ever since the incident inside the dungeon.

Michael, having enough of it, decided to call out the girl observing him, "Ahem. Y-you, um, know that I know that... that you're here?"

The girl squealed in surprise and pouted behind the wall that her hiding place didn't work. She decided to show herself to the stranger that she supposed was going to be joining the orphanage soon enough.

Or that's what she thought she was doing, barely showing her head, tilted and peeking on the side of the wall. She stared at him and looked at him up and down, before nodding. She then stared straight into his eyes, as if she was waiting for him to make the first move.

Michael was speechless at the girl's action. He thought that she would get reprimanded quite heavily if his brother was here. He hated people that didn't introduce themselves properly.

"I'm Mi-I'm Gilgamesh, what's, um, your name?" Michael decided to use the name displayed by his system, as he was not particularly attached to his old name except for the fact that it was the name his brother called him. Also, Gilgamesh was much cooler than Michael.

She continued to watch him silently before she hid again. Although Michael couldn't see her, he could hear her snickering behind the wall. Since it pissed him off, he simply walked towards her.

"What's so funny?" he asked once he was behind her as she had turned her back to him. The girl squealed for the second time as she fell headfirst in the muddy ground. Dirtied, the girl shot a dirty glare at the now amused Michael.

"Humph! I only thought that your name was cool, and this is how I get repaid!" the girl's sweet and mellifluous' voice tickled Michael's ear. He looked at her admittedly beautiful face as his cheeks reddened. Never having felt anything like this before, or never even having met a girl his age, Michael didn't know what to do, so he just stood there, fixed like a pole.

At the same time, the girl noticed from a close distance the boy in front of her. He was tall, easily towering over him, had a bit of muscle on his body, and had delicious slightly tanned skin. His face was really beautiful and the only thing he lacked was a deeper voice. It didn't help that he was nearly naked. While she was used to poverty and didn't have many clothes, it was still unusual for someone to only wear a long rag around one's waist. It went down to his knees, but it still didn't cover much.

"I-I'm Ellie!" She announced and grabbed his hands when she stood up as if he was about to leave her. The two of them stared at each other before taking a step back from each other, embarrassed.

Fortunately, the arrival of Falke broke the building tension between the two teenagers. As it was still relatively early, he walked silently towards the place where Michael was supposed to be. Not seeing him he went around the corner only to see him and Ellie watch each other in silence.

"Ellie, I present you Snake-Eye. Snake-Eye, I present you Ellie," he said, catching both teenagers' attention. That woke Michael up but he stayed silent, not knowing what to say.

"Snake-Eyes?" Ellie asked, "He just told me his name is Gilgamesh."

Falke glanced towards Michael as if asking for confirmation. When he nodded, he turned back towards Ellie and told her that it was a nickname he found because of his eyes.

"Are you sure that a snake's eyes are like a slit?" asked Ellie to Falke. "Yes they do, I've met one two years ago when the old workers brought me to a construction site on the upper layers."

Having never revealed that detail to the curious Ellie, Falke sighed as a barrage of questions came out of Ellie's mouth.

Ignoring the teenage girl, Falke talked to Michael to give him the details of what was going to happen to him as they entered the half-built cathedral from the backdoor.

"So I've talked to Grandma. She's still half asleep right now but she'll want to see you once she properly wakes up. In the meantime, you can take the room next to mine since it's currently not occupied. Als- Stop tugging my shirt Ellie!" He turned to glare at the girl annoying him ever since he ignored her questions.

"Humph! Stop ignoring me for the new boy then!" She pouted and continued to tug his shirt. Falke rolled his eyes and placated the young girl, "Yes, yes, yes... After I explain to Snake-Eyes what is going to happen to him I'll answer your question."

After a short ahem, Falke continued to explain things to Michael, "Anyways, after that, we'll have to get yourself an identity card since I supposed you don't have one..." Falke trailed off, looking at him for his answer, which Michael said no to, "Right. So that and after that, you're pretty much set!"

He completely turned around once they entered the main area of the cathedral, "So... Welcome to the family Gilgamesh!"

Michael felt a burst of emotions coming out of his heart.

#####

The trio went to what was called the registry building right in the middle of the 3rd. The neighborhood was in such a bad state that sometimes parkour was necessary to evade dangerous areas. An untreated ground meant that people walking on it were liable to catch a lot of disease and infections. The 3rd was the poor area of the D-layer, and even though it was still a bit better than the upper layers, like where Sho lived, the waste present there had spent years, even decades sitting.

The waste of the D-layer was that much more toxic and dangerous in general.

"So you need to be careful around that area. There are like animals that can easily kill people here," started Falke as he tried to hammer into Michael's head how dangerous the surroundings were at night and without protection. "Like for example there are the rats, they can get as big as a house sometimes. I even slew one at one point."

However, Falke's tendency to boast all the time kind of killed the serious atmosphere of the conversation. Ellie snickered at his words and questioned him once more, "You sure? One the size of a house?" Her eyes turned mocking when she watched how Falke reacted.

His cheeks became pink, embarrassed and angry that she wouldn't believe him, "Of course! What? You don't believe me?" Ellie shook her head from right to left and simply continued to laugh. "I'll show you then! We're going to hunt a rat the size of a house and then you'll see how easily I'll kill it!"

Meanwhile, Michael wondered if something was wrong with this world. 'Rats the size of a house? Does the person that sent me here have something against me?'

Ellie, being between the two boys, turned towards Michael as she had her fun with Falke, "Hey Snake-Eyes, why you're so white? Are you scared?" She teased.

Michael raised his eyebrows, "Um... you're calling m-me Snake-Eyes too?"

Surprised by his question, she looked at him, "Well yeah. I mean you have weird eyes and... and I think it's cute." she stated, her cheeks sporting a dusting of pink.

"Oy, oy! Stop flirting in front of me you brats!" Interrupted Falke, who was getting annoyed by the way the two younger children were talking to each other. Indignant, Ellie turned around, red from both embarrassment and anger, and then proceeded to deliver a particularly nasty blow to his tibia.

Michael, shocked by Ellie's violence, swore he could hear the sound of a bone being cracked.

Crying in pain, Falke was rolled on the ground holding his leg. Michael approached him to see if he was okay, but was stopped by Ellie, "Humph! He doesn't deserve any sympathy!"

"I mean... I'm pretty sure you somehow managed to splinter his bone..." Michael answered, pretty worried for Falke. "Whatever, it'll heal in no time anyway," Ellie said, waving off his concerns. "More importantly, we need to get to the registry quick! It opens up very early in the morning but it also closes quite early."

She grabbed his hand and ran towards their destination, "W-wait for me you stupid bitch!" forgetting Falke on the ground.

While getting guided by Ellie, Michael couldn't help but think that her habit of saying the word 'humph' was rather cute. Because of the distraction of their hands being linked together, Michael didn't even bother to turn around for Falke, who was already healed and was running behind them, resolute to take his revenge on Ellie.

The girl, however, when she heard Falke catching up and spewing insults after insults, turned around while running and stuck out her tongue. This only served to make Falke madder and faster.

In the end, they reached the registry in no time, Falke with a red leg and Ellie with a bruise on the head. Michael had to admit that she was rather durable since she took Falke's punch without grunting.

The both of them were doing a staring contest with each other. Unfortunately for Ellie, she was the one that blinked first, "Aha! I win again, you suck!" exclaimed Falke, happy that he got one over Ellie.

"Ahem. A-aren't we supposed to, um, to get me an identity card?" Michael asked, feeling a bit left out by the two friends' competition. Falke blinked and realized that they had been sitting there trying to one-up the other for quite a while now.

"You know Snake-Eyes you can tell us when we do our stuff like this," Falke said as he stood up and entered the building. The two other teenagers followed after him.

The interior of the registry was rather empty. There wasn't a lot of stuff, the building was small. Except for a couple of books on the bookcases displayed to whoever entered the registry, not much could occupy the visitors. A wooden and old counter was sitting in front of the entrance, with an old man reading his newspaper and drinking something that looked like tea to Michael.

The man was slumped from his old age and was wearing a rather clean brown if old-fashioned, suit. Michael blinked at seeing a well-dressed person for the first time since he arrived on this island. Both Ellie and Falke were wearing stitched-up items of clothing that had holes in them, and Michael was not better with his long rag over the waist.

It seemed to be the case of everyone except the gentleman in front of him since his near-naked state didn't draw the eye as much as he would have thought it would outside.

The living conditions of the D-layer were just that bad.

"Yo old man!" exclaimed Falke. The person in question laid his cup of liquid down and took his eyes off of his newspaper to meet Falke's. His gaze passed over the three teenagers and only barely stopped at Michael before continuing.

"I supposed you want an identification for this young man," said the old man in a smooth and baritone voice.

"You guessed right old man! How long would that take?" asked the older boy, making Michael wonder whether they knew each other or not.

"Not too long considering I have no other client right now... come, young man, you arrived at the perfect time," said the old man, addressing Michael.

Our hero stepped up and closed on the counter. On it was a form that needed to be filled. Things like name, date of his birth, profession, and so on... "Uhm.... I-if I can't fill so-some things this isn't a problem right?" asked Michael as he didn't have a profession and couldn't give his family name since he didn't know what it was.

The old man raised his eyebrow at Michael's stutter, which made him feel embarrassed. He couldn't exactly say that he learned how to talk not even a day ago and was stuck on complaining in his head about how unfair it was. After a short chuckle, the old man gave Michael a broad smile and answered his question, "Yes, there's a lot of people around here that don't know much about themselves or have barely arrived. You wouldn't be the first case."

The old man finished his cup of liquid while Michael completed the form, 'I can write as well with no problem apparently now...'

He added writing to the list that was forcibly changed in him during the transfer.

'I wonder, would Kevin be proud of me if he learned that I know how to speak, how to read, and how to write now?'

Michael stopped that train of thought since it brought up the more unpleasant emotions. Sniffling, he gave the completed form to the old man that was in charge of the registry, under the worried gaze of Falke.

Ellie however didn't know why Michael was suddenly feeling sad, and her blunt curiosity forced her to ask immediately, "Why are you sad Snake-eyes?" She put her hand on his shoulder trying to comfort him as he walked over. His eyes were red due to the influx of bad emotions that came with thinking about the distance between himself and his brother.

"It doesn't concern you, Ellie," said Falke before he could answer. Ellie felt a burst of annoyance at the fact that Falke told her to drop it, but when she saw how serious he was, she decided to leave Michael alone. Still, she was determined to learn what made her new friend unhappy like this.

With a knowing look after seeing the empty case where Michael should have written his family, the old man sighed, deciding to not involve himself with things that didn't concern him, just like Falke said. A loud machine could be heard printing something and Michael's attention was grabbed by the purple liquid that went through a tube to fuel something under the old man's desk.

"You want to be an engineer Snake-Eyes?" asked Falke, noting his pointed gaze on the tube of plom. Michael felt as if a bad joke was played in the background and answered, "No I've chosen to become a warrior."

Falke was confused, "A warrior? What are you supposed to fight?"

Feeling mischievous, Michael answered, "The whole world."