New Beginnings Old Pasts

"Oh, I thought you saw something. If you didn't see anything that's fine" he said relaxing his guard.

'Something? Something like a face in the trees or the other end of a wardrobe door?' only now did Amadi realize that the forests had been eerily silent from the moment they got here till now! Weren't there any animals?

"Shouldn't the forest have animals?"

"It would be a problem if there 'were' animals in this forest"

"What?"

"Nothing, let's go, nobody stays in the forest past sunset" with that Amadi had one more thing to haunt his nightmares

In the end Amadi didn't finish reading the introduction messages of the magical system to avoid any further misunderstandings.

Along the way Agu initiated some mild discussion, occasionally informing him about new information he wasn't privy to about the general order of the bestowment of partial rights to the personnel ritual and other things while reminding him again that he should wait for a particular sign for choosing a person for each category.

As for Amadi, he felt indifferent about it. He had a SYSTEM; as for it's OP-ness, that was up in the air.

But if there was one thing he learnt about those Chinese novels he read while waiting for people to come online, it was that those systems featured badass MC's gaining cheats through the gacha rolls, or from completing simple missions like: {Fart 2 times in a day:0/2}. Pfft, hee was scoffing in his head just thinking about how all those MC's had it too easy. On the other hand he also felt a bit of anticipation.

'Maybe my life can finally become easy…' he thought with unspoken feelings brewing within him.

The two of them walked in silence as the trudged through the serene forest trees that cast a net of shadows over their heads.

…

The two of them seemed to have a tacit agreement between them.

Amadi was new here and Agu was supposed to show him the ropes, per the king's order. He was apparently the last to arrive there, his 'siblings' had already had enough time to lay groundwork for their future plans.

Though, he didn't know why they had brought the others five days earlier or why they were going through this entire roundabout manner just because he was the 'youngest', he was going to observe first, make plans, then work really hard to achieve his goals

'Honestly, why does the chance to be king not entice me at all, but selling these innocent people into modern day slavery when they're clearly unprepared for it doesn't appeal to my conscience at all.'

Amadi was aware of where the chief was coming from with his motives. Who knows what kind of fate these natives would face if they reconnected with the world? He didn't put it past human nature to exploit one another for their own good.

But what was the chief thinking gathering a bunch of young adults to help build a city out of a town? The others didn't look like trained architects to his untrained eye.

He thought back to their previous appearances. Apart from the big one the others looked like they were even more high profile than him, an he was a low-profile millionaire until just recently.

Also their clothes looked eccentric through the unobvious high quality, they didn't look like any style he had seen before, maybe some obscure underrepresented minorities? It really put emphasis on the chief's travels 20 years ago

As for him he was going to rely on the system to breeze through any challenges and come out on top-

"We're here" a voice grunted, waking him up from his daydream.

They had arrived at a small hill overlooking the town square from above. From up there a large amount of people could be seen working busily like bees.

There were people setting down plastic chairs in aisle formation across different rows, with men and women of all ages decorating the square in a relaxed manner.

"What is going on? What are they preparing for?"

Agu who was watching this scene with a solemn expression sharply turned his head at him, before seriously glancing into his eyes to detect traces of something, only to fail to find it.

He then sighed while rolling his eyes animatedly and threw a piece of paper at Amadi.

Amadi caught it and read it, after reading it he felt the whole thing was comical.

"It's for a joint 5-prince coronation ceremony and inauguration of our Chief Secretariat?"Amadi asked while feeling that he should have just said so directly.

"What else did you think it could have been, my sweet sixteen?" Agu replied faux-humorously with a serious face

"I didn't expect you to be able to crack jokes, sir." Amadi replied earnestly

"…" Agu replied with a stare before explaining, "This evening, by 6pm, all of you will be the stars of the show, so you'll need to prepare. Go to the dressing room and wait to be fit with regal attire." He said pointing towards a solitary building behind the area that was being decorated

Amadi nodded and handed the paper back to Agu, only to have it refused. "Keep it," he replied waving his hands.

Amadi had already memorized the contents but still held on to it anyways.

"You're not coming?" as soon as Amadi asked that question he was immediately regretting it. He felt like he just set himself to be retorted at!

To his surprise, Agu responded calmly, "Normally, but I'm the Chief Priest, so I'll have to get ready for officiating the event." He laughed dryly in between.

'You're actually dissatisfied with your job. aren't you' Amadi rolled his eyes as he questioned whether this short man in a robe had no other aspirations than to hang people upside down and eat Origin fruits.

'Officiating? As in DJ?' Suddenly Amadi couldn't help but picture a short man with his head just barely reaching a laptop, with him wearing dark shades, a durag and playing 2000's songs while his pants are dropped enough to show his underwear.

This thought deleted itself as soon as it came about, almost as if his brain forbade its existence.

"You just thought something rude just now." Agu said piercingly

"Nope" Amadi whistled a tune while facing somewhere else

…

KNOCK KNOCK

After knocking twice for no particular reason, he walked into the wooden house that he was supposed to get dressed in.

He was met with four faces directed towards the door in various degrees of questioning glances.

He stared at four pairs of eyes, four pairs of eyes stared back. The entire atmosphere still, as if a black sheep had walked into the midst of a herd of pure white sheep.

It seemed like the silece that hung it the air would last for ages-

"How far?" Amadi asked in greeting.

"Yo" a voice replied in a deadpan manner

"Good day to you too" a female spoke curtly

"Hi" a boyish voice rang out

"What's up?" a deep voice spoke with enthusiasm

Hearing this Amadi smirked to himself 'Technically, none of the responses were correct' but he was only picky about the level of energy, not the responses.

Before Amadi could follow up, the owner of the deep voice, a bear like, square jawed man with an amiable face rushed over from the seat he was on.

His every step caused the floorboards to vibrate, giving one the illusion that it was a moving car rushing past instead of a human being.

Amadi was too stunned to move as he stood in the same spot as the bear-like guy stopped right in front of him

Then next thing, he saw a palm as big as his face ascend towards him.

It took a moment for him to realize that it was a handshake, he gripped the hand and it turned out that it was his hand that was gripped.

"I'm Ikenga, it means strength in my mother tongue" he spoke with excitement leaking through his heavy native accent.

Unfortunately Amadi was unable to pay detail to his accent, he was too busy being thrown around by the 'shake' of his hand followed by his entire body!

It wasn't that Amadi was short, he was actually a 1.73 meters but compared to the embodiment of strength before him, he was only qualified to be a piece of mobile furniture.

"I'm Amadi, it's nice to meet you" after the 'handshake' ended, he hurriedly began introducing himself to shrug off his embarrassment, before he heard an irritating laughter that sounded like a chuckling hyena come from behind the mountain man.

They both turned towards that direction to catch a pair of arrogant eyes watching with humor.

"What is it?" Ikenga asked coldly.

"No, it's nothing, continue" he said solemnly, but the smiling look never left his eyes.

"This idiot is called Ugonna." Ikenga simply waved his hand in the direction of the laughing boy as if he didn't exist.

"It's U.G! If you really wanna be specific about it call me U.G Dawg."

"Okay. Dog" Ikenga said while turning to face him.

Amadi found it funny and laughed loudly. He was followed by everyone else's laughter

Hahaha

HAHAHAHA

Hihihi

Ha-haha

Before he knew it, the entire place was filled with laughing sounds, with the only one that wasn't face.

"I'll make you regret this" he looked like he was talking with Ikenga when really he was looking straight at him.

"And last but not youngest…Kene(K-ne)"

"Nice to meet you" he had a nerdy look to him even though he wasn't wearing any glasses, he had on a handknitted(?) brown robe of high quality that was decked in jewels, and had an illustration that looked like either soil with grass growing in a patch atop a mountain or a huge evergreen tree with a canopy full of green. It looked like it should only be worn on special occasions.

"Yo" Amadi didn't know what to say to this kid, he just gave a straight reply

"Oh, sup" the boy seemed to find it awkward before awkwardly trying to imitate him by putting his hands in the robe's side pockets. In the end the air became stale

"So, nice robe bro, where'd you get it"

"Thanks, I have no idea where it came from, it was beside my bed in the morning, but if anyone asks, it's mine." He said while petting the robe fondly. It was weird for others to watch so they quickly agreed and looked away

"Okay"

"That's everyone. So now, do you want to ask us anything, we've already been here for a few days so you can go ahead, ask freely."

"Do you all have mothers?"

They all replied affirmative, leaving him alone being the one with his mother dead

"Actually, my mom was said to have gone missing while on an exploration, her robe is similar to this one, but I know it's fake, it has to be…" it was Kene that spoke, while blinking dust out of his eyes he finally continued

"Anyways, why are you asking, did your mom go missing too?" he tried t ask in a good natured way but came off as prying into Amadi's matter to change the subject.

For a secong Amadi considered how much he could tell them. They were related by blood, apparently, but they'd just met today! He was taking a huge gamble telling them this, what would they say, how would they react?

"She's dead. Murdered by aliens" as he said those words, he felt the memories come back to him.

Scenes of a huge fire, smoke choking up the air, causing him to barely be able to make out the scenes of a battle.

The day when he turned 4. The day when his mother revealed 'the secret'

The day, he lost her