Past 1

Allen was always carrying his little sister. After they lost their parents. And after they lost their home. He stubbornly kept walking, carrying his crying sister.

They were strays. Powerless, mewling kittens. The scene around them as they walked was always one filled with ruins.

Later on, he would learn that that place where hollowed out husks and debris spread as far as the eye could see was called the Scrap Heap. That it was the remnants of what had once been the largest country on the continent, which had been destroyed in a single night. That it was not a place where people could live. That it had become inhabited by ferocious monsters.

It was just the other day that they had been living in peace, together with their parents whose faces he could not remember anymore, and yet before he knew it, their home had transformed into ruins. He remembered something shining. And their parents disappearing. And then they were all alone.

"Lost little stray kittens, where is your home?" a headless bronze statue of an animal person asked.

I don't know. I don't even know if a home for us exists. The birds flying in the sky won't tell me anything.

He just continued wandering through the never-ending world of ruins, protecting his little sister, searching for a peace that might not even exist.

The powerless kitten Allen had no choice but to become strong for the sake of his idiot sister. If he did not, he would just get tripped up by her and end up dying himself. Fearsome magic beasts ran rampant in their world. There were those with grotesque figures and fangs and claws as well as

hideous humanoid figures. Countless times, Allen fought them. Countless times, Allen killed them. And countless times, Allen grabbed his sister's hand and ran away from them.

They were constantly pelted by rain. There was never a day where the ashen gray clouds covering the sky cleared up. There was never a day that they were not faced with the sight of blood. And there was never a day that his little sister stopped crying.

His sister, who was starved for familial love, got on Allen's nerves countless times. He was always getting annoyed by her feeble fingers clinging to his clothes. He had lost count of how many times he had considered just casting her aside. He did not know how many times he had thought of swinging his fist down to knock her hands away. And he could not remember the number of times he had started to leave her behind only to have his heart give in.

But still, despite all that, Allen continued to carry his little sister, coughing up blood as she slept in exhaustion from all her crying.

The turning point came two years after their home had been turned to a mountain of rubble, when Allen was six years old.

The wind blew. It was the breeze of a capricious goddess. "Come with me."

The goddess looking down at the two kittens simply held out her hand.

Her body was hidden behind a robe, but even then, she was beautiful.

His little sister was captivated by the goddess, but also scared of her. The kitten's instincts were crying out that she might lose something precious.

And Allen, captivated by those silver eyes, found himself comparing his little sister to the goddess standing before him.

A crybaby and irredeemable idiot who was painfully bad at singing, who constantly annoyed Allen, who was weak.

After looking at his teary-eyed sister—Allen took the goddess's hand.