Chapter 1: Grace to Grass
"Can’t you walk any faster bitch?!" Ran shouted, hissing as he stared at the black haired boy behind him.
Hung on the boy’s shoulders was a huge bag that sagged all the way down, till it almost reached the floor, dragging him down with each step.
The lower part of the bag kept dripping with liquid, forming a small pool beneath the boy as he walked.
"I’m... trying..." Leon muttered, sweat dripping down his face as he walked.
He was indeed trying his best, but the bag was simply too heavy for his weak self.
Ran however, didn’t seem to be having any of that, and the frown on his face worsened.
He walked towards Leon, suddenly kicking him on his leg.
"Agh!" Leon grunted, falling to the ground, the huge bag collapsing on his back.
The feeling of such heavy bag landing on his bag alone was hell, and he felt like all the bones in his body had been crushed under its weight.
Burst of laughter rang out around him, sharp and mocking, bouncing off the stone walls of the dungeon corridor.
The other party members — four of them in total — pointed and sneered, their voices overlapping as they cackled at Leon struggling beneath the collapsed bag.
"Pathetic."
"Can’t even carry a bag."
"What a joke."
Among them, a girl with short blonde hair and sharp eyes stepped forward, pointing a slender finger directly at Leon. She was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that made people forget how cruel her words could be.
"If you can’t even do your job as a porter properly," she said, her voice smooth and cutting, "then why are you even here?"
More laughter followed her words.
Leon said nothing, his palms flat against the cold dungeon floor, arms trembling as he tried to push himself up.
Ran smirked, clearly entertained. He turned away from Leon and sauntered towards the blonde girl, about to slide his arm around her waist.
The girl quickly moved away though, a look of disgust flashing across her face. It disappeared almost as quickly as it came, but not quite fast enough.
Ran didn’t miss it, and his smirk faltered.
"Come on Delor," he said, his voice dropping to something he probably thought was charming.
’Ugh... so ugly, disgusting.’ she screamed the words in her head, loud and clear, but didn’t dare say it to his face.
So instead she turned back towards Leon, still crumpled on the ground, and let her expression shift into something between irritation and amusement.
"It’s just that..." she said, forcing a small awkward smile onto her lips. "This l-loser is pissing me off terribly."
The words worked like a switch.
Ran’s big yellowish eyes went wide. Then they snapped towards Leon, burning with sudden fury, as if everything wrong in the world had just been traced back to the boy lying on the dungeon floor.
The three remaining party members exchanged quiet glances among themselves, but didn’t say a word.
"You hear that, loser?!" Ran shouted. "Get up and do your job properly, damn it!"
Leon’s jaw tightened.
Slowly, he gnashed his teeth together, the frustration and humiliation boiling in his chest.
However, he dodged himself to stand back up, pushing back against the heavy bag.
’This would have been so much easier...’ he thought, his eyes drifting to the bag.
The mud-soaked, dripping, unnecessarily heavy bag.
’...if you didn’t fill it up with mud, bastard.’ he thought, his gaze turning to Ran, who stood a few feet away with his arms crossed
Leon’s expression didn’t change, but his thoughts churned quietly.
Ran only packed so much mud in the bay to make things difficult for him, and impress Delor.
Leon said nothing, simply holding the straps firmly, forcing himself to move despite the weight pressing against him.
Ran looked him over once, then he hissed.
"Good." He said. "Now try to keep up."
He turned and walked ahead without another glance, the rest of the party following behind him.
Leon began to move also, clicking his tongue.
’Where did it all go wrong.’ he thought.
He already knew the answer though.
He had always known.
It was last year. The day of the awakening ceremony.
Many of his peers had awakened good talents, securing their futures in the society, while he had only awakened an F-rank talent, called Lifter.
The talent boosted his physical strength by two percent — but only when he was in the act of lifting or carrying something.
Even from the name alone, anyone could tell how useless such a talent was, built only for carrying loads.
And so, that was precisely when Leon fell from grace.
He had been one of the most promising students, the son of the guildmaster of Roaring Lions, an S-rank guild. Everyone believed he would awaken an A-rank talent at least.
However, all expectations laid on him were terribly shattered.
His parents had been the worst of it, deciding he was nothing but a stain on their name and legacy before disowning him.
All of that focus, all of that investment and expectation, shifted overnight.
Shifted to his twin brother.
Who had awakened an S-rank talent on that very same day, making it all worse.
Then Delor, who used to be his girlfriend broke up to him, moving to Ran instead, the A-rank talent.
Ran had always resented him, so the moment he fell from grace, he swooped in and took full advantage of the situation.
And Leon found himself with nowhere to go and nothing to his name.
No talent strong enough to fight with.
No party willing to take on a player with an F-rank ability.
Except one.
Ran and Delor had extended the offer themselves, framing it as mercy. A kindness extended to someone who had nothing. Leon had known better than to believe that, even then.
There was no mercy in it.
There never had been.
They had taken him in so they could have someone close enough to ruin whenever they pleased, someone who had no choice but to absorb it all in silence and keep walking.
And that was exactly what he had been doing ever since.
’But then... I can’t even do anything about it.’ Leon thought, his teeth pressed together hard.
The small change Ran tossed his way after each dungeon run was barely worth counting. But it was what he ate with. It was the only reason there was anything in his stomach at all.
He had tried to find something else. Of course he had.
He had gone to numerous guilds in the city, but all simply rejected him.
His eyes drifted forward, settling on Ran and Delor walking side by side at the front.
He felt jealous of them... incredibly jealous.
Ran had an A-rank talent, which was why people followed him despite his terrible personality, while Delor had a C-rank.
The three other party members trailing behind them sat somewhere between C and D-rank among themselves, nothing spectacular, but functional enough to hold their own in a dungeon like this.
C-rank. D-rank. On any normal scale those were simply average ranks. But compared to him with something even worse than an F-rank, they were far better.
Suddenly, a loud growl came from the front, causing the party to halt.
"That’s weird," Ran muttered, almost to himself. "I thought we already cleared this floor."
