10 years ago.
Ragna was nine years old. He was still under the care of an orphanage.
However, unlike other children, where they could have some fun, Ragna was actually being beaten up by a few kids in a small alley.
"Gah!" Ragna coughed up blood. His body was full of bruises, and his consciousness had become fuzzy.
"Hahaha. This is interesting. Look at this…" one of the guys grabbed Ragna’s arm. "I hit this spot earlier and it was supposed to turn blue. But it’s already gone!"
"It’s true. Then we don’t have to worry!"
"He is such a good dummy for practice."
"A living dummy!"
They just laughed and kept beating him. They hit him with a wooden sword, stabbed him with a wooden spear, or even slammed him with a wooden shield.
Ragna didn’t say anything to them.
It was only after two hours that these guys started getting exhausted. With one of his eyes closed due to injury, Ragna weakly extended his hand and said, "Pay…"
"Huh?! You bastard! We’re not done yet!" The guy roared while stomping his body.
"Pay…" Ragna kept saying the same thing.
They looked pretty disturbed and disgusted.
"Pay right? Take it! Ruining our mood!" The guy tossed some money and walked away with an annoyed face.
The others could only follow him.
Ragna glanced at the money and said, "This is not the amount we agreed…"
Ragna’s voice didn’t reach them as those people had walked away. It wasn’t like he could catch up to them. Even if he managed to do it, he didn’t have the ability to fight back.
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These people might get their money back out of pettiness.
Ragna could only grit his teeth and grab the money on the ground.
He laid down on the ground for one or two hours, recovering a little bit with the help of his constitution.
After he recovered enough to walk, Ragna returned to his orphanage tattered. Fortunately, he walked quite far away, so by the time he reached the orphanage, a lot of his injuries had been healed.
"Big brother Ragna!" A few kids noticed him and immediately rushed to him.
"Oh? I bought some candies. Why don’t you share it with others?" Ragna smiled, handing them a small pouch filled with candies.
"Really? Yey!" The kids hurriedly ran to the other kids.
Ragna just enjoyed the view of their smile and happiness before walking to the inside, only to find an old woman standing in the entrance with her arms crossed.
"Nana." Ragna greeted her with the best smile he could muster, despite his injuries.
"Are you doing it again?" She looked concerned, her voice filled with worries.
"I heard that the orphanage is about to be closed. I don’t really want that." Ragna shook his head.
"But, look at you! You are being beaten like this. Do you think I will be happy if we manage to stay open?"
"I’m grateful for you… for taking in a child that is left alone in the winter. Without you, I might not be in this world anymore. You gave me love, you cared for me as if I were your own child… I just wanted to repay you."
She bit her lips as tears started forming on the corners of her eyes. On one hand, she couldn’t bear to see Ragna sacrifice himself like this. On the other hand, she couldn’t deny the fact that the orphanage was about to close because they had no money left.
She had done a lot of things, but it was futile. She couldn’t get the money to do it.
"Please accept this." Ragna smiled while shoving the money into her hand before walking away. "I’m going to get some rest."
When he was about to reach his room, Ragna noticed a little girl standing in the hallway as though she were waiting for him.
"Big Brother!"
"Lilia?" Ragna looked surprised as the little girl just hugged him. "What’s wrong?"
"Nothing. Lilia can’t do anything to help. She wants to grow up much faster so that she can help Big Brother and Nana."
"Is that so? I’m happy as Lilia’s big brother."
However, that never happened. The orphanage didn’t need money anymore, not because they had secured a huge fund but because it was destroyed.
There was a monster wave that struck their cities. The people were running around the street, trying to go to the gate, where they opened up the path for evacuation.
"Run! Run!" Ragna shouted, leading the people from the orphanage.
Buildings began to collapse because of the destruction the beasts brought. People were eaten left and right.
*Bam!*
All of a sudden, a beast emerged from a wall.
"Watch out!" Ragna hurriedly jumped toward the beast, trying to use himself as bait.
The beast simply knocked him away with a single wave of its tail.
"Gah!" Ragna crashed onto a pillar with a force that knocked him out for a few seconds.
When he regained his consciousness, Ragna had to witness something he never expected in his life.
The children were completely gone. He wanted to believe that they just used the chance he provided, but no, he could see severed limbs that weren’t eaten away.
He recognized all of them.
"Big Brother… I’m glad… you’re alright…" Lilia’s voice echoed weakly from the side.
"!!!" Ragna widened his eyes and hurriedly checked on Lilia. Her ribs must be broken and there were some superficial wounds.
"Don’t talk. I will help you. We will—" Ragna abruptly stopped because Lilia said, "Don’t… Big Brother… You should… escape…"
"Don’t say anything. You’re going to be fine." Ragna bit his lips. He believed it was going to be alright because he had suffered a much worse injury compared to this.
However, his thoughts had been distorted because of his special constitution.
"Ah. If only… I am… like big brother… I won’t… make you… cry…" Lilia looked unwilling but those were the last words she uttered before succumbing to her wound.
"Lilia… Lilia!" Ragna turned pale. If Lilia had this body instead of him, she would have survived. People might think this body was a blessing, but Ragna thought it was a curse. He was just a person who could only witness people’s deaths but was unable to follow them.
What he didn’t know at that time was that this was not the end of the misfortune that his special constitution brought.