Nothing

"Dagger Thrust!"

As soon as I called out the skill name, the remaining energy in my body started to move in the direction of my right arm. It started to suck all that energy. I suddenly felt like I was going to faint.

Within a few milliseconds, the muscles got 'charged' and my hand holding the knife thrusted forward with a very fast speed.

Puchi!

Bang!

The knife entered Carlo's chest right at the center. He watched in horror when his heart started to ache. As if that wasn't enough, a wave of energy suddenly pulsed out from my arm throwing Carlo away from me. He flew a few meters until his back hit a tree.

Thud!

Carlo's eyes were filled with horror and surprise. All four of his limbs were now resting on the ground meanwhile his back was resting on the tree trunk. He knew far too well what would happen if he were to remove the knife.

Blood was profusely coming out of the wound on his chest. It slowly trickled down from his pale shirtless skin onto the ground. The red blood was pooling on the ground and got absorbed greedily by the soil.

Carlo turned his face downwards to look at the old man's handmade knife which was now slowly seeping away his life. Then he moved his head upwards and asked with a confused expression, "How?"

Those were his last words before his body slowly limped further. With my blurry vision I noticed that all the muscles in his body relaxed. His face became expressionless and his eyes lost their focus. Those were his last words before he died.

***

My body was lying lifelessly on the ground while my head was held up to look at the dead body. My consciousness was only tied to a thin string which could break any moment. From the previous stunt, I was devoid of any stamina but it was still returning albeit very slowly. The pulsating in my heart was still high as it was not yet relaxed. There still was no sensation of pain.

I rested my head back on the grass and looked upwards through the gaps in the leaves. A mesmerizing starlit dark sky was staring back at me. To calm myself, I said in my head, 'So this was still not an emergency for Delta, ha-ha!'

"Uff!"

As I gained enough stamina, I sat up with some difficulty. The pain was slowly getting to my head. The effect of adrenaline was slowly subsiding.

'All that training did help, however…'

Discontinuing my thought I looked into the empty eyes of the man I just killed. Although I had come out victorious, it didn't feel like I had won. The feeling wasn't good. I had killed a human for the very first time.

I was feeling nausea. There was nothing more that I wanted to do other than vomit out all that I had in my stomach. But, I held it back. I closed my eyes and tried to stop thinking about it or divert my attention from it but nothing did work.

I was a mess. It was difficult to believe what had just happened.

'I knew that I would have to kill at some point but this was still too much! I need to calm down and get used to this feeling.'

Phew! Phew!

I took deep breaths. At some points the nausea and the guilt would suddenly flare up but I clenched my teeth to control my emotions. It was difficult but I pulled through. I wasn't some psychopath who would enjoy killing his own kind but I was an orphan who was forced to do a certain goddess' bidding.

Phew!

I blew some air with a heavy mind. I was now calm and collected. Opening my eyes, I noticed something very strange with the corpse. At the wound on his chest where the knife was located, some very bright particles started to accumulate.

As the particles coalesced with each other, they formed a small transparent and spherical drop. It looked like an oil drop floating in the air defying gravity.

From my distance, I wasn't able to see the mystical drop properly. Therefore, I got up as I have already regained some more stamina and went closer to observe. As I moved closer to the corpse of Carlo, the oil like drop also started to move closer to me.

After limping for a few meters, I stood above the corpse. The drop moved upwards towards me as if it was alive. I frowned as it landed on my left palm as I had already raised it to catch it. What looked like a mystical oil droplet from afar was actually more magical from up close.

The clear spherical droplet had small, numerous, glowing, blood red particles inside of it. They looked like they were alive as they moved slowly inside the sphere. The drop itself was the size of a small fingernail. However, before I could I observe it more, to my horror, the drop got absorbed by my skin as if it phased through it.

"What? What just happ-"

Before I could make sense of what had just happened, my mind blanked out. A familiar feeling went through my body as I found myself floating against gravity.

'This is the same feeling I felt while watching Alex's memory!'

The scene infront of me moved, pausing my thoughts, as if I was fast forwarding through a movie. It then stopped at a certain memory before it started to play.

***

"You disgusting piece of shit, stay away from me!" A young blonde boy, who looked to be seven, kicked another boy slightly younger than him. The older boy wore decent clothes when compared to the boy he just kicked. He was holding a smaller version of the red bamboo gun and looked like a child version of Carlo.

"How dare a disgusting nameless slave touch me? I am a trainee knight!" There was anger on young Carlo's face but his eyes had something different, they had joy inside them. He then smiled and pulled out his gun and pointed it at the young slave.

"Forgiveness…master…forgiveness!" The slave joined his palms and with tears in his eyes, he started to beg for mercy.

Carlo's smile widened and suddenly a loud and crisp sound echoed from the right, "Carlo you bastard! Get back here!"

Both Carlo and I turned towards the direction of the sound. There was an old knight, his right arm was plastered as it looked broken. He was bald and wore the leather armor that the knights wore.

"Tch!"

After an annoying click of his tongue, Carlo ran back towards the bald knight.

"Don't get full of yourself even if you are good with your marksmanship amongst your peers! You are still nothing! You understand? Nothing!" The bald knight yelled at him while constantly poking his chest with the index finger of his left hand.

"Tell me what you are?" He yelled again.

"Nothing!" Carlo answered with a shout.

"Tell me again!"

"I'm nothing!"

…

After mocking Carlo, the knight trained his marksmanship. He would constantly beat him to correct his posture with his cane. However, Carlo's shooting was already better than most of the kids practicing in the training ground.

Carlo's days were simple. Most of the time was him training his marksmanship. First it was stationary targets, then oscillating targets, then running targets and then flying targets. Day by day his training was getting more and more difficult.

He would bully kids during his free time. It was his 'entertainment'. The intensity of his bullying constantly increased as he got older. He was the prime example of weak to the strong and strong to the weak.

Days moved by and Carlo scored the top in all of his marksmanship tests. He was becoming a better knight by the day. His only goal was to become a royal knight who guards the princesses just so he could get to spend some more time with them. It was a pretty common goal in the camp. Also, with his skills, it was pretty obvious that he would get the job.

However, Fate had something else planned for him. A week after the blonde's 18th birthday, he was called by a knight into the palace on the pretext of increasing his rank.

"Are you sure my rank is going to increase?" Carlo enquired with an excited voice.

"Not just your rank. You will even be placed in a better unit than what you are currently in." The old man who was taking the teenager inside the castle replied matter-of-factly.

The excitement in Carlo's eyes crossed all boundaries as he asked, "Am I finally going to be a Royal Knight?"

The old man looked at him and said, "You will know soon."

As he said that, he stopped infront of a room on the second floor of the castle. He knocked the door three times and then slapped the door twice.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Thud! Thud!

After a while of providing the passcode, the door creaked open. Carlo felt it was all strange but didn't mind it too much as his brain was blinded by the euphoria that he was going to receive the fruit of his hard work.

As the door was opening, the old man looked at the darkness inside the room and said, "Do you know Carlo?" Carlo looked at him. "This world is filled with secrets, secrets that cannot be revealed to the common people. As the rank increases, you also get to know more about the secrets. As to why I am telling you all this, just keep in mind that you knew nothing all this time because you were nothing. However, from now on, you will no longer be 'nothing'."

As he finished speaking, the door opened and they walked inside the darkness.