Leaving the Slums

When the light emanating from the girl's and Yune's body started to fade away, the whole building had fallen silent once again, but was soon washed away by Aldrich's voice, who now had a grin on his face.

"I guess there is only one of you this year, luckily it is a strong one. I really am blessed to find someone with a holy light mark in such a filthy place."

As Aldrich commanded a soldier to bring the girl to him, he was interrupted by the voice of a soldier in the back of the building.

"Sir Aldrich, this person here has also received the mark."

Aldrich looked annoyed to have been interrupted by someone, but upon seeing that the soldier was holding a boy in his hands and hearing that he had also received a mark, the smile reappeared on his face.

"Bring the boy here."

Yune was then quickly guided to the front of the building and was now before Aldrich. As he arrived, Yune could see Aldrich with a big grin on his face, inspecting the mark which had formed on the girl's hand.

"Very good, this is indeed the holy light mark. I will make sure that you are treated well from now on, girl."

As Aldrich was done examining the girl's mark, he set his eyes upon Yune.

"Show me your mark, boy."

Yune remained emotionless even in this situation, but complied immediately, lifting up his shirt to reveal the mark which had formed in the middle of his chest. The mark was purple in color and about the size of a tennis ball. The mark was relatively simple: a circle made out of four broken lines with a plus sign going through each of the four lines of the circle.

This was Yune's first time seeing the mark himself, and for some reason the emotionless expression, that had been dulled by the life he had lived for the past fourteen years, swayed a little as he was struck with awe for some unknown reason.

But this sense of awe was not mutual. Aldrich looked rather displeased as he examined the mark on the boy's chest.

"I don't recognize this mark, boy. Do you know what that means? It means that it is probably worthless, but I am a man of my word. So, I will take you out of the slums."

After having said his part, Aldrich's focus redirected to the girl who had received the holy light mark and his expression immediately brightened up a little.

"Let's get out of here."

With his purpose here done, Aldrich couldn't wait to get out of this filthy place and guided the girl towards the exit. Yune didn't get the same treatment though, as another soldier forcefully grabbed his wrist and started to follow in Aldrich's footsteps.

Just outside of the building, a few vehicles were stationed. After Aldrich had guided the girl into a luxurious car, the soldier had arrived with Yune and wanted to place him in the car, but was abruptly stopped by Aldrich.

"Wait! What are you doing?! Do you think I will let someone so filthy sit in my car? Take him with one of your cars."

The soldier's grip suddenly tightened on Yune's wrist as he had become annoyed by the mere fact that Yune had to sit in a car with him. Not being able to disobey Aldrich's orders, the soldier took out his frustration on Yune as he walked towards on of the military vehicles and threw Yune in the back of one with the rest of the cargo.

Not having expected anything else, or anything on that matter, not one bit of Yune's body or face gave any kind of reaction to the situation.

Shortly after, the vehicle's engine could be heard starting up before driving off with Yune. Being alone in the back of a vehicle, surrounded by cargo boxes, Yune couldn't help but start looking through them.

Opening the first box, a glimmer could be seen in Yune's eyes. In his perspective he had found a holy grail. The box was full of military rations and bottles of water.

Not wasting even a single second, Yune grabbed a handful of military rations and started eating them like some wild animal. Being so famished, Yune didn't even take the time to chew the food properly, just wanting to get the food to his stomach as fast as he could. And when he occasionally started to choke on the food, he just washed it down with some water.

After eating his fill, and then some, Yune sat back down once again. At this point, a sliver of hope started to form. The hope he had been dreaming of for the last fourteen years of his life, getting out of the slums.

With this slight reassured feeling in his mind, Yune suddenly became tired and slowly closed his eyes as he fell into a deep sleep, which was the first real sleep he would be getting since a long time.

After a drive of a little over fifteen hours, the boy finally awoke from his slumber when the vehicle came to an abrupt stop. Opening his eyes and looking through the back of the vehicle, all Yune could see was a flat grassy area surrounded by a mountain range.

Having only seen the slums for all his life, the sight of this terrain looked beautifully refreshing despite it just being grass and mountains. Yune was glad he was here, but he was confused as to why. For as far as he could see there was no sign of civilization whatsoever.

But his question quickly got answered as the soldier that was driving him yelled at Yune to get out of the car. After grabbing as many military rations as he could, Yune complied and stepped out of the vehicle.

Once out of the vehicle, Yune could quickly see that he wasn't just in some random place. As he turned around, his eyes were met with what seemed like a city. With directly in front of him a huge gate and a large metal fence, which surrounded the whole city.

Yune slowly started to walk towards the gate as he had nowhere else to go. Now standing in front of the gate, he was spoken to by who seemed to be some type of soldier. This person wasn't wearing the same attire, but his uniform resembled more that of Aldrich's.

This soldier looked at Yune with a slight disgust, but his expression didn't show any type of disdain towards him like the previous soldiers, and even exuded at least a small level of professionalism as he tried to put up a warm smile.

"Hello boy, may I see your mark please."

Yune showed this soldier his mark, and after verifying it, the soldier guided Yune into the building nearest to them and kindly gave him the next set of instructions.

"If you talk to that lady over there, she will register you as a student of the academy and will give you further instructions, okay?"

Yune nodded in reply and walked up to the lady behind the counter. As he arrived, she tried to give him a kind smile, but her face contorted slightly as she saw and smelled Yune. But at least she tried staying professional like the previous soldier, which was enough for Yune as this was already a huge improvement from what he was used to.

"Good morning, you can call me Rosalie. I assume you are here to register as a student. May I know your name and age please?"

"My name is Yune Mun, I am 14 years old."

Rosalie quickly typed something on her computer and printed out a card and gave it to Yune and offered him a loving smile.

"Here you go Yune. With this temporary identity card you can unlock room number 5029. After showering and putting on the uniform, you can come back here and I will help you create a student identity card. Sounds good?"

Yune understood the gesture and offered her a bow in return before quickly heading to his room.