Left For Dead

"Sob... why are you doing this. He's only a child."

The sounds of a woman crying could be heard inside a spacious and luxurious room.

Looking down at his wife was a man standing over two meters tall with a large frame. "Honey..... it can't be helped. This is for the greater good. I have to think about the safety of the rest of the family. I also don't believe what she told us, but I cannot ignore it. You know she has never been wrong."

"You want to talk about our family's safety while you are throwing out our youngest child. How hypocritical," the woman didn't fail to let her husband know of her frustrations.

Although she was in her early 40s, Alice didn't look a day older than 25. She had silky black hair that fell down to her waist. Even though she was known as one of the strongest and most beautiful women on the planet, she couldn't stop herself from crying when she found out her youngest child was taken away behind her back.

"Listen, I know you might hate me, but we can't have him anywhere near our family or society. I got Camron to take him to a place isolated from the rest of the world. With this, even if the prophecy is true, there won't be an immediate threat to anybody," her husband replied.

"DON'T ACT STUPID WITH ME. I KNOW YOU'RE JUST MAKING AN EXCUSE TO THROW HIM OUT BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE HE IS TALENTLESS!!!" Alice couldn't take it anymore and started shouting at her husband.

Draven Fross, the man she was screaming at, didn't reply to his wife's words and just stood there staring at her as if he was confirming her shouts.

"See, I knew it. If it were any of the other children, then you wouldn't have thrown them out. Why... Why couldn't you have just talked to me before making a decision? We could've had him live with my parents and monitor him. Why did you have to throw him into the wild... Why?" Alice kept venting to her husband.

Draven now stopped acting dumb and gave her a straight-up answer, "If what Diana said was true, we would have to kill him anyways. Plus, I don't want to endanger the lives of my in-laws. You and I both know there is no room for that boy in this family. Our family is one of the most respected families in the world, and having that boy around won't be good for both his sake and ours. In a way, I am doing him a favor. It is impossible for him to have a happy life here. You've seen how everybody treats him."

Alice knew some of her husband's words held truth, but it just didn't sit right with her. She felt that she had failed as a parent, which greatly hurt her. More so, she felt disgusted with her husband saying that they were doing her son a favor. She looked down and touched the bump on her stomach. 'I won't let anybody take my children away from me again, even if it's my husband,' she thought to herself as she wiped the tears out of her eyes.

She then turned to look out the window and mumbled under her breath, "I hope we get to meet again someday." Alice knew this was only wishful thinking but still prayed that a day would come when she would meet her child again.

**

"Huhhh..." a sigh escaped from Alan's mouth as he tried to stay composed while walking out of the teleportation circle made by Camron, his father's guard. Although his father, Draven, didn't need any guards, he decided to have a space magician to help save the lives of others in the event that he couldn't. Draven was one of the ten strongest individuals on Earth, and sometimes the power that he displayed would put both enemies and allies in danger.

"Well... Alan, it might not be what you are used to, but it's a lovely place for an outing. I hope you enjoy the scenery in this town. It's not often that I get to come here," Camron said.

'Does this guy think I'm stupid.' Even though Alan was 8 years old, he was a brilliant child, more brilliant than most adults. However, none of that mattered in this world because he had no talent in anything. He had no mana, and he wasn't adept at using any weapons.

Alan knew what was happening around him. He knew that he would be abandoned by his family a week before he even came to this village in the countryside. He had overheard Camron's son laughing and talking with another child about Alan being gone the following week. He never thought much of this, but when he saw the look on his mother's face, he started to question the words he had heard.

To confirm his doubts, his father told him that Camron would take him somewhere next week, which caused a fury of emotions to well up in the little boy's heart. He cursed his family for wanting to get rid of him right when he had just turned 8.

What caused him more grief was his mother's face, which kept popping up in his mind while he was walking around the village Camron had took him. His mother was the only person in the world that was kind to him, and he was confused on why this happened. He knew that his mother wouldn't throw him away because she was the only one that protected him against the ridicule he faced every day. He wished that this wasn't his mother's doing.

Alan stopped himself from getting absorbed in his thoughts and calmed himself down. He knew now was not the time to be thinking about this. He had to think about his survival at the moment.

"Okay Alan... why don't you wait here for a few minutes while I go and get something. I know it was your birthday a week ago and I never prepared a gift for you. I'll be back in a moment with something,'' Camron said to the little boy.

'This guy is horrible at acting,' Alan thought to himself. If only Camron knew that child could see through everything that was happening.

Alan watched as Camron walked away from the boy. As he looked at Camron's back, getting further away, he realized he had nobody in the world: no family, no friends, nothing.

"I guess this is it," Alan said. He would now have to find a way to live as a homeless child.

Thankfully, he didn't panic when he realized the predicament he was in. When he had confirmed his suspicions a week ago, Alan decided to put a plan into play to ensure he had a chance of survival.

The first thing he did was steal a storage ring from Camron's son so that he could stock up on things that he would need to survive. Storage rings were expensive, and Alan never had one because he had never needed it before. He stayed in his house most of the day because he didn't want to deal with the gazes of other children.

Alan specifically targeted Camron's son, Sebastian, because he found the boy very annoying. He wanted a little bit of revenge for all the times he would make fun of him. After he stole Sebastian's storage ring, he checked the contents of what was inside. Except for the pocket money kept inside, the rest of its contents wasn't useful to him.

Although he didn't like people, he didn't want to steal from just anybody because the rest of the maids, butlers, and guards were respectful of him and did their jobs properly.

For the next week, Alan stored everything he owned inside the ring and filled the rest with living supplies, food that he stole from the kitchen of his family mansion, and a tent that he ordered online with his mom's credit card.

The year was 2167, and technology had advanced to the point where deliveries would take anywhere from 5 to a maximum of 30 minutes from anywhere around the world. However, the world Alan was currently looking at was totally different from what he knew. The houses of the village looked like they came from a fantasy novel. The men were busy doing labor, livestock was out and about, and children were playing outside with no care in the world.

Alan looked at this scene in shock. He was only 8 years old, so the idea of being abandoned created fear in his heart but looking around at the smiles of the other children calmed him down and allowed him to think properly.

"Okay, the first thing I need to do is find a place to sleep."

Alan walked around, observing both the landscape and the people of the village. Just as the sun was about to set, Alan found a spot in the corner of the village where he set up his tent. He then used his ring to bring out a bag of potato chips and some fruit that he proceeded to eat.

As he ate, he remembered being given a vial of nasty green liquid on his birthday from one of his older siblings, Roly. With all that was going on, Alan forgot about his birthday, which happened the day before he found out he was getting abandoned.

"Here, take this. I found this inside a dungeon, and it reminded me of you. It's probably some poison or something," these were the words that his brother told him while laughing at him.

Alan was reminded of his older brother's words, and they made him clench his fist in anger. Other than his mother, no one in his family cared that he was leaving.

He then took out the second gift that he had gotten on his birthday. It was a steel bracelet with a fancy pattern carved into it with emeralds embedded on the side. His mother was the one that had given him this gift and told him it was a defensive artifact with limited uses. Alan was weak and couldn't use mana, so his mother had to get him an artifact with spells already ingrained into it. This made Alan smile as it reminded him of the one person that loved him in his life.

As he was looking at the two gifts in his hand, he heard voices outside of his tent.

"Hey, look here. It looks like one of those villagers decided to go camping for the night," a voice said.

Alan frowned as he realized that he couldn't get out of this situation. He didn't know whether the people outside were friendly or not but decided that if worse came to worst, he would activate the bracelet and run into the village and scream. Alan proceeded to step out of his tent.

"Look what we have here. You don't look like someone from this village, boy. Hey, we should take this little guy and find out if we could get any money for him," one of the three men said.

Alan realized that these men were criminals and decided he would run for it. To create a distraction, he would throw the poison in the leader's face before making his move. He opened the vial, but what happened next shocked everybody.

The liquid immediately turned into a cloud of gas and engulfed the three men. Once the cloud parted, what Alan saw was something that made him want to vomit.

A green baby was crawling on the ground in his direction, looking up at him. Both its eyes and drool were pure black, and its head was the size of an adult's.

"Hoh... to think that the one to wake me from my slumber would be a child. Interesting," the baby said.

Suddenly, a notification sound could be heard inside Alan's consciousness, and a screen appeared before his eyes.

<You have woken the god of knowledge, Izmos>

<Congratulations, you have unlocked "The Thief System">