Chapter 1: Where it started

They say that no mortal should hold the power of a devine, for they will bring ruin to the world, should they seize that power.

God, who has created everything in this universe, one day decided to create a new line of humans. Perfect humans, the god called them. None of them need to eat, drink or sleep. They needed not to do anything that normal humans had no choice to do in order to live.

God created a hundred of these perfect humans called primes. More perfect than the elves from the other world. The first prime was the strongest one of them that could bend the world around them. The hundredth may have been the weakest, but in no way weaker than a human. And while humans could barely grasp the concept of magic, primes could use magic with ease.

These primes appeared to the world more than 3000 years ago and have been living in this world since then. But not with ease, since jealousy was something mere humans could not fight against.

At first, God had planned that the primes would become the leaders of this world, and so it was for a millennium. But one day a mortal made a realization. "If primes are perfect humans, then what are we?" This sparked the discrimination of primes and they were soon taken out of positions of power and even killed. Over the years, primes have been hunted down to near extinction. The remaining primes are scattered around the world and have mostly learned to blend in with humans.

While they could breed, they had a hard time finding people who they could live with and share the small moments of their lives. Only two primes could bring forth a new prime, but since they had an extremely small drive to reproduce, they barely managed to do it with each other before it became too difficult to do so. The breeding between humans and primes did occur, and the offspring were called half-primes at first, or in some cultures "carriers of the fake blood." Half-primes weren't seen in a bad light in most cases, since people believed that the human side of half-primes makes them more akin to them than primes. In some places, calling them half-primes was considered discrimination, so for that reason half-human gained more popularity.

The half-humans had an easier time than normal humans controlling magic and casting spells. They also could live much longer than normal humans could. In most cases, half-humans were seen with eyes of envy, but not to the point of malice. At least in most cases.

But a thousand years ago, god was killed and replaced by a mortal, who inherited the power of a god. That person brought beasts to this world that were newer seen. They were labeled as demon beasts, due to their aggressive nature. They would bring ruin to the other living beings around them and destroy the ecosystem. Humanity has fought them ever since, but a few hundred years ago, a great push was made by all the kingdoms of the world and the demon presence has been greatly reduced. Nowadays, demon beasts are mostly observed by stories told by generation to generation.

In recent decades, the world has been ravaged by a world wide war that has claimed the lives of over hundred million. Compared to the population of the current world, this number is massive. The war was fought with machines of war, such as planes, tanks and firearms. Magic has taken a role in this war as well, but due to the difficulty of learning magic, magic was rare to see on the battlefield.

But on this day, the horrors of war are about to end. The two major powers that are still fighting are about to have their final battle between the Republic of Atlan and the Relouch Union. The final battle is held in the small country of Luxar, in the city of Louchburg. The Union is threatening to use a never seen bomb in the city that would take out half of Luxar. They threaten to detonate this bomb if the Republic doesn't comply with the demands they have set. The demands that the Union has set makes them able to control the rest of the countries with an iron fist for centuries. The threat itself isn't the issue, but the amount of civilians that they hold hostage is. The Union is putting their highest ranking people in the city, telling the Republic that "if we don't win, we will take all of this away." Luxar is considered a very important country, so taking it out is said to mean the world would be set back for two hundred years.

This is why the Republic has sent their forces to find this bomb and neutralize the threat. They also have sent their special forces, for it is that important of a mission. They must act quick, or the Union will make the world go backwards.

Jackson Ovlebeld is one of the special forces soldiers, and is sent to assist the rest of the Republic's forces on eliminating the threat.

And so Jack jumps off of a plane and dives near the ground and pulls the parachute as late as he deems possible to survive. Once he is on the ground, he sees many bullets coming his way and finds cover. He takes his sniper rifle and shoots as many as he can before the enemy decides to charge.

With no backup coming on his way, Jack decides to use his cloaking device. It is a device that uses magic to make light go past him, but the cost is that he can't see during this time. They call this device "false invisibility" since there is a known invisibility spell, but barely no-one can use it.

Since Jack can't see, he uses his magic sense to make something out of his surroundings. This method allows the user to make a picture of their surroundings on their head, but the downside is that anyone who is sensitive to magic can detect that someone is using magic like this. Trained individual can even pinpoint the location of the person casting magic sense.

Luckily, since there are rarely any magically sensitive people on the battlefield, Jack can go on with ease and pass the enemy soldiers. He travels the city for a while, until he finds a group of three enemy soldiers walking around. Jack makes sure no-one is around farther with magic sense and he deems that there are no-one besides these three nearby. He silences his sniper rifle with a magical device and kills two of the soldiers and captures the last one remaining. He interrogatives the enemy soldier as fast as possible to gain intel about the location of the bomb. The enemy soldier, begging for his life, tells Jack the rough location of the bomb and that it is in a bunker. Jack shoots the enemy soldier's leg and casts a spell that puts him unconscious. He continues to search the location of the bomb based on the intel he got. Of course he is taking this intel with a grain of salt, but goes to the location anyways.

After avoiding many enemy soldiers on the way, Jack has made it to the rough location where the intel he got indicated. Since there were many more enemy soldiers around, he thought that the enemy soldier might not have lied, but still proceeded with caution.

Jack sneaks around to find the entrance to the bunker while not alerting the enemy soldiers. After a while, an explosion can be heard in the distance that makes the constant gunfire silent for a bit. The enemy soldiers are alerted and some of them are sent to investigate the source of the explosion. Jack deducts that the most likely reason for that explosion was because of his allies. While the sound was loud, Jack thinks that it was quite far away.

During this confusion, Jack saw a couple of superiors coming from a certain direction and deduced that they might have come from the bunker to investigate. And so he decides to follow them, and wouldn't you know it, he found the entrance. He followed them silently, and when he didn't detect many soldiers around that could notice, Jack shot the superiors with a silenced pistol.

Jack's mana, while more abundant than the average person thanks to him carrying a heavily diluted prime blood, was starting to get to the point where he couldn't use his magical devices for much longer. Because of this fact, he started to hurry and kill as many enemies as he saw on his search for the bomb.

After a while of searching, he found someone that he didn't expect to see. The emperor of the Union. While it would be great to kill him right here and now, Jack thought that it wouldn't matter if the bomb were to explode. He continued to search, and after a while, a ruckus started to form since someone had noticed the bodies. Jack hurried his search, but his mana was getting so low, he decided to stop using his cloak. So he sliced around people's necks with his knife, since he had to make sure he had ammo for him to leave the bunker alive.

The enemy soon found out his location and many started to swarm on him. And while being chased, he finally found the bomb in question. He set up a barrier and started to do two things. First was to send his coordinates to his allies, and two was to try to make the bomb unusable. He sent the signal and then started disassembling the bomb. The disassembling was hard since this bomb was the first of its kind and Jack had no idea how it worked. He first started to take the electronics out of it, though with extreme care and worry that it might blow up.

After succeeding on that, he tried to take it apart. This was difficult because he didn't have the equipment to do so at first, so he searched around and eventually found some. The magic barrier was getting weak, so he had to hurry and do something. Jack managed to take a few important looking parts apart from the bomb and placed them carefully somewhere safe.

The magic barrier was about to break, so Jack readied himself, found cover and took out his pistols. When the magic barrier broke, a barrage of bullets came to the room. Jack couldn't even poke around to shoot. But with his remaining mana, he casted magic sense and shot with his pistols, while his head was behind cover. Some of the enemy bullets hit the pistols, and one got hit to the point of breaking. Jack now had only one pistol, a sniper rifle and a knife.

He saw a dead enemy soldier that still had her gun, so he took it and blind fired the automatic rifle at the enemy. The enemy bullets had become much less frequent. There was an unsettling amount of time of silence, until Jack heard grenades bouncing on the room. This wasn't good. He pulls out a small barrier device and activates it with the little mana he has restored in his body and puts it. The explosion didn't detonate the bomb, but shrapnel managed to break through the magical barrier. Jack now had shrapnel lodged in his face, his right arm and he has even lost his left eye.

He now hears people coming to the room and he must rise up and fight. Since his right hand is covered in shrapnel, he can't move it efficiently enough. He makes the choice to use his left hand to grab his knife and start slicing people. Even though some bullets hit him, he doesn't stop even if it hurts. Some of the soldiers have left since Jack's allies have gotten into the bunker. He manages to kill the remaining enemy soldiers and soon the room is empty. Jack hears a lot of gunfire and screaming, but none of them are important now. He has started to bleed heavily from all these wounds and blood loss was something that was knocking close by.

He manages to patch most of the places that were open, but the blood lost was too much and he soon loses consciousness. He manages to make up some of the muffled sounds that are calling for him, but he can't do anything.

The next time Jack opens his eyes, he sees that he is on a hospital bed with a needle that was putting some liquid on him. He could barely move from the pain, so he had to wait patiently for someone to come check for him. After a while, a nurse came to check on him and she then went to get a doctor to check on him. Nurse soon came with the doctor and Jack was asked to answer some basic questions. After the checkup was done, he said that it has been four days since the mission to defuse the bomb. Doctor said that he would inform the military that Jack had woken up and later that evening, an officer came to talk to Jack.

"Greetings soldier!" The officer said in a loud way. Soon after the nurse said to the officer quite strictly "This is a hospital. Please use your indoor voice." The officer sheepishly answered "Oh, right."

The nurse then left and the officer then said in a much softer tone "Glad to see you are alive agent Ovlebeld."

Jack then tried to salute with his right arm, but he couldn't thanks to the pain. Jack then asked "How is the war? Has it finally ended?"

Officer then said " The Relouch Union has surrendered and we have signed some papers to make sure they will pay for their crimes in due time."

Jack asked "Did you get the emperor?" To which the officer said "When our soldiers saw him, he put his gun to his head and shot himself in front of all his subordinates."

Jack then said "I see. Then what is my next mission?" To which the officer looked a bit baffled and said "You still want to work even though the war is over? Don't know if you are just patriotic or if you have a screw loose."

Jack then said "I was born during this war and I was raised to become a soldier. I don't know what else to do. If there is some cleaning up to do, I will be up for the task."

The officer then sighed and said "Your first priority is to get better. We will inform you more after that is done. Are we clear?"

Jack then once again tried to salute, but stopped after the pain hit. Then he shouted "All clear!"

The officer then left the hospital and some time passed before Jack got better. Then he was summoned to a celebration where they handed out medals to soldiers. Jack got quite a few. After the ceremony, Jack was summoned to his commanding officer's room and there he would get his next mission.

The officer Johnson handed some papers to Jack and while Johnson was sitting on his chair, he said to Jack "You will read about this from the papers, but you have been assigned to guard a lady named Eveline Runeberg. Your job is to make sure no harm will come to her. This mission was assigned to you since the higher ups trust you to do it well. Are there any questions?"

Jack looked at the papers for a while and then said "So you think it's better for me to be sent off to guard some noble lady. To get me off of your face." To which Johnson said "You don't need to know the specifics. All you need to know is that the military has a reason to keep her protected from outside forces. If you want to know more, ask the person yourself. Though you probably won't hear much of an answer. Any other complaints?"

Jack then says while saluting "No sir. I will head there immediately." And then Johnson said "Be sure to report if any harm comes to her. Now go."

With a salute Jack says "Yes sir."

And so Jack was sent to guard this lady called Eveline Runeberg. Though Jack was a bit disappointed on the mission, he would do what he was ordered to. For that was his purpose in his mind.

Couple months ago, in a lab far east in an island nation, a scientist said to another scientist "These results are amazing. With her body parts, we could bring energy to a small country for decades."

The other scientists answered "Agreed. It's a shame that we can't have more of her body parts."

Some other scientist comes to the room "Luckily we might have an answer to that soon. There is a promising magic device being worked on that can restore lost limbs. Though it's only in development, the tests have been shown to be quite promising."

One of the scientists then says "Then we can easily solve energy costs for who knows how long. We are lucky that our test subject is such a pacifist. That, or she might even have a kink for this kind of thing."

The other two scientists chuckled and then one of them said "All joking aside, make sure you don't kill her before that device is ready for her."

The other two then said "Of course." And continued their work.

Inside a room sat a lonely woman who was now called n.0249. Her left leg, right arm and both of her eyes have been cut off for the scientist's tests. N.0249 has heard that they plan to take out her remaining limbs soon, but she bears no ill will towards these people. Even though they might be sick in their heads, n.0249 thinks that she deserves this to some decree. She has come to peace with her fate.

While n.0249 is blind, she has extremely good other senses. She can hear littlest of things, feel the air pressure from far away, smell even the tiniest of drops of sweat and has a great magic sense. Her senses are heightened with her magic and she can even tell what people look like. This is all thanks to her carrying prime blood on her vanes. She doesn't miss her eyes that much, though she misses reading books.

One day n.0249 heard something unfamiliar far outside her room. Something she has never heard before. She was once told what a helicopter is since she asked about the sound it made. She has never heard these kinds of things before. Small repeated explosions, the breaking of sound barriers and metal hitting walls in a fast manner. She has never heard this sound before, but what she was hearing were the sounds of guns firing. She then heard people scream in panic, so she asked the person who was monitoring her "Why are people in such a panic."

And before the person monitoring her could answer, the sound of alarm came blasting from the speakers. The monitor soon left and n.0249 was left alone while hearing unfamiliar sounds.

After a while had passed, the screaming and the gunshots stopped. Later the door to her room was opened with a key and she asked "What is happening?" To which a woman replied "You will be rescued"

What happened was that the Republic of Atlan made an assault on a research facility that was in one of the remote islands controlled by Oros, a far eastern country.

Many questions were asked and many conversations were held. In the end, n.0249 was given the name Eveline Runeberg. She was given the family name of a noble who first found her and adopted her to the family. She gained land of her own and servants alongside it. She did not think she should deserve this kind of treatment and voiced her concerns. But people saw this as a result of brainwashing, so they hoped that Eveline would grow out of it. The people around Eveline saw her as a young teen, though she had told them that she was much older than that.

So Eveline was placed in a mansion that was near a town that saw much trade and visitors. She befriended her head maid Evangeline, who was the one who primarily helped her to do daily tasks. Now she had someone that could read books for her so she was happy.

And so Eveline lived for a while, not knowing of the war that was raging on outside. And later she hears the maids celebrating for the end of a war she never knew was happening. While she didn't know that a major war had happened before the maids' celebrations, she was happy all the same.

A while after, she heard that a new person would be joining her soon. She was told that the person would be her guard. While she understood why she was assigned one, she didn't agree that it was necessary.

And soon would come a day when the two of them meet.