My Precious Herbs...

Petya tries not to visibly cringe when the hired thug smashes his cabinet with his fist and tosses all his ingredients onto the floor.

"Ah- those are my most expensive herbs… do you know how much I saved up to get those?" Petya mumbles pathetically.

These particular herbs came from one of the dungeons on Mirror Earth, and due to its healing properties and affects when consumed and absorbed into the body, it's a considerably coveted ingredient for talented chefs, pharmaceutical corporations and apothecaries.

The tall man raises his foot-

"Wait wait wait no-!"

-and stomps on the plants harshly, rubbing them into the ground with the heel of his dirty shoe.

Petya's heart is bleeding. He clenches his fists tightly. He's so useless right now that it frustrates him. If it weren't for this powerless body, he would have the courage to stand up for himself…

On the other side of the room, tattoo covered goon number 2 is going through his drawers, recklessly tossing out personal paraphernalia and all the pills Petya has made but was never able to sell.

One particular bottle catches the goon's eye underneath all the others, and Petya instinctively reaches out before managing to stop himself.

But it's too late. The short man notices Petya's reaction and grins slyly. He opens the bottle.

Inside is 9 marble sized pills, pale gold in colour, dull and lacklustre. They are clearly below E grade.

The goon snickers to himself, this is the precious thing that the kid wants to keep safe? It's not worth anything at all.

"Oh? What do we have here?"

"It's… umm, nothing really…"

"It's nothing? In that case, you don't need it."

The man raises the bottle into the air with both hands-

"No no, not the essence pills too- f*ck!"

-and smashes it, the loud noise of the breaking glass bottle making Petya flinch. His head slumps forwards and he covers his eyes with his hand in agony.

"Why can't you just hurt me instead of my precious materials… what sort of divine punishment is this?" he mutters under his breath.

After his small apartment has been completely trashed, Petya's standing quietly in the middle of the room, already feeling a pulsing headache coming on from seeing everything wrecked and ruined beyond compare.

"Seriously, did you guys have to go this far? I preferred it last time when the only thing you broke was my front door."

The two men just shrug. They looked menacing in the midst of their destruction, but now that they've finished their task they appear quite nonchalant. They were getting paid for this, after all.

"Sorry kid, it's what the boss ordered. You know what he wants. If he doesn't get the money by Friday, then we'll be back." the tall one shakes his head.

"Just do yourself a favour and get that credit sorted, yeah?" the short thug says.

"Yeah, yeah." Petya waves them off flippantly with a sigh. "Thanks for the apartment makeover. You know what? I think it has the potential to become a modern art exhibit."

When they finally leave, Petya curses and raises his middle finger into the air at them. However, it does little to relieve his anger.

"Heathens." he grumbles, slamming his door shut. He immediately regrets it, because the door breaks off its hinges and falls to the floor.

"..."

*****

Petya's cleaning up his apartment when he comes across something he hasn't seen in a long time.

The man that was throwing his things onto the floor must've taken this out of his drawers along with other miscellaneous belongings.

He slowly picks it up, eyes saddening.

"Tyoma… I miss you."

In Petya's hand is an old wrinkled photo of him and his elder brother. Tyoma is giving him a piggyback ride and wide bright smiles are stretched across their young faces.

Tyoma was born with the ability of body reinforcement and teleportation. Two abilities naturally, which is extremely rare, even rarer than abilityless individuals like Petya.

However, despite that, it's actually not that uncommon for people- namely, high rank military officials- to have two abilities, as they usually gain the secondary ability from an alternate source, such as SS and SSS grade enchanted armour, artifacts or elixirs retrieved from dungeon subjugations.

Dungeons are a mysterious thing. They don't seem to follow any specific rules as a whole, but there are some of the basics that the military discovered about dungeons.

1, they are completely random. On the outside of the small portal, there is no telling where you'd end up once you passed through. At the bottom of the ocean, a vast desert, in the middle of the sky or a jungle.

2, you are not alone. Almost always, strange monsters that are foreign to Earth and Mirror Earth are residing inside them.

Some are dangerous and would attack you even if you didn't bother them, and others would ignore you if you ignored them.

3, hidden within these landscapes, will be an ancient temple guarded by the strongest monster in that dungeon, named Guardians, or- 'final bosses', some would say.

After defeating a Guardian, a large golden chest would appear at the main platform of the temple, containing unfathomable treasures. These treasures don't respawn.

And from then on, the dungeon is deemed as complete. Either the dungeon will kick you out automatically, or sometimes it will stay open and you can leave and come back anytime.

A famously known dungeon is one of the latter, known as 'Farmer's Paradise', where numerous special plants and herbs are grown and collected. The spiritual herbs Petya bought originated from here.

In other circumstances, the dungeon will repeat itself, monsters and Guardians coming back to life- except the treasures at the end won't appear as it had already been collected. These types of dungeons are commonly used as training grounds.

When dungeons were first discovered, they didn't know what to name them initially. But one of the military generals and a member of the Union was a secret video game fanatic thought that these portals seemed extremely reminiscent of the 'dungeons' you would find in an RPG game.

He put forward his suggestion of naming these portals 'dungeons' and surprisingly, it was accepted. From then onwards, that was what they were called.

In the first few dungeon expeditions, too many lives were lost due to unpreparedness.

But the stroke of luck that brought them to their first treasure hoard, those rewards were distributed to the most important military personnel.

What they received at these temples far surpassed their losses.

Powerful armour and weaponry. Enchanted artifacts and antiques. Elixirs and pills that could do the unimaginable. Items that mere modern science couldn't begin to understand despite thorough research conducted by scientists.

Even though they couldn't decipher these treasures, they did however manage to investigate the alien machinery and spaceship debris left over from the war, which resulted in significant breakthroughs and advancements in technology.

Staring at the picture silently, Petya snaps out of his daze and folds the picture up carefully, putting it into his front pocket. He looks around his apartment and sighs.

Ah, f*ck.

What's he meant to do now?

Since the creation of the Union, the currency of all money became credits. 1 credit is equivalent to 1 dollar.

How is he supposed to conjure up 10,000 credits by this Friday?!

'Goddamn loan sharks... if only I hadn't made that deal back then, this wouldn't have happened...'

His bank account only has 2,500 credits, and he still needs to pay rent and bills this month which is around 1000. Petya feels an ache in his soul.

'Maybe I should become an escort...' he hums, rubbing his chin. They make a pretty penny, and male ones are often in demand. Just the thought of all that money... he can buy all the ingredients that he wants... he... hehe...

'Wait, I'm not seriously considering this, am I? Snap out of it, Romanov!' Petya slaps his face to get rid of these thoughts.

No, he'd rather become an Outrider.

Outriders are an illegal and dangerous profession. Ever since the survivors of the war were rounded up and assigned to a sector, thousands of large cities, towns and settlements all over the world were left in ruins, completely devoid of human life.

Outriders made money by travelling through the Barren Ground to reach these abandoned cities and scavenge for anything they could sell. Valuables, trinkets, odds and ends- that sort of thing.

Petya's father was an Outrider.

He doesn't know much about his passing, other than the group he worked with had left him for dead at the hands of a dangerous creature.

Humans weren't the only ones who had mutated after the nuclear blast. If anything, they had gotten the better end of the deal.

Animals, however... had not so pleasant consequences when exposed to alien radiation. They turned into monsters.

Although, they're nothing like the ones you'd find inside dungeons. These mutated monsters are ugly and gruesome looking, like they've been zombified.

Petya shivers. Yeah, if he became an Outrider, he'd have to deal with all those deformed animals... no thanks.

Guess he's going to stay as a broke apothecary...