"You should kill yourself."

Inside a dirty alleyway filled with oily pipes, electrical wires, and broken walls, a young man sat on the ground with his back to the wall.

His head was lowered as he lifelessly stared at the ground visible between his legs.

The sun was positioned in the middle of the sky, perfectly above this boy. Because of that, the alleyway was brightly lit.

"I know that it comes as a bit of a shock, but I genuinely think the best course of action for you in this situation would be to kill yourself."

The boy didn't lift his head as he heard these words.

At this moment, a dirty and disheveled rat was sitting on top of a small rusty box made of metal. The rat was lightly scratching its snout as it looked with widely opened eyes at the boy, trying to establish eye contact.

"Listen," the rat said as it jumped down from the box and slowly walked towards the boy. "We all know what happened. It's not like I'm suggesting suicide without a logical basis, you know?"

As the rat came closer, the boy's eyes suddenly gained life, and he looked at the rat with intensity.

The rat's eyes widened, and it went on its hind legs as it slowly retreated. "Calm down, Nick. I'm not going to hurt you," it said with a nervous smile as it stopped retreating. "Look at me. I'm just a rat. How am I supposed to hurt someone that managed to get through the Zephyx Extractor Exam?"

The boy, Nick, looked back at the ground.

When Nick just lifelessly looked at the ground like that, he looked like a frail homeless person, but when he just looked at the rat, his entire demeanor changed.

In fact, Nick's body was anything but frail. While he wasn't very bulky, his muscles were pretty defined, which wasn't surprising, considering that he had trained for the last four years in hopes of finally getting out of the Dregs.

"Hey, Nick," the rat said, not daring to get any closer. "I know that you're still holding onto some hope, but we both know that believing in this fickle light of hope is just delusional."

The rat slowly moved around Nick's body, but it didn't dare to get too close to his body. "Over the last four years, you worked so hard on yourself. You trained every day, and you even committed some terrible acts just to avoid paying the Blood Tax."

"You didn't want to do these things, but you still did them. Why? Because you saw a way out of the Dregs."

"And you did it! You managed to get a spot in the Zephyx Extractor Exam for Ghosty's Lab, and you even managed to pass it!" the rat said with a lot of enthusiasm.

And then, the rat just sighed. "But your Zephyx Synchronizer was already attuned to a Specter. You managed to pass the exam, but Ghosty's Lab can't use a Zephyx Extractor with an already synchronized Zephyx Synchronizer."

"And you know that they are not the only ones," the rat said as it stopped on Nick's right side. "No Zephyx Manufacturer will hire you like this. You know as well as I that all the companies have specific Specters for their Extractors. Without the abilities from these Specters, you will either die very quickly or will cost the company more money than you bring in."

"So, what now?" the rat asked, looking at Nick with a sympathetic expression. "What's the plan now?"

"You don't have an education."

"You don't have contacts."

"You don't have a place to live."

"You don't even remember anything from before you were ten."

"You can't even join the gangs or any of their businesses since you vehemently refused to pay them their fees."

"There's no way out."

"Are you willing to continue living like this?" the rat asked with a sad and pained voice.

"I don't want to see you go through so much pain every day."

"Just stop."

The rat was carefully and slowly moving toward Nick.

As the rat moved closer to Nick, several pairs of eyes appeared behind the dark sewer grates in the alley.

They were watching everything with excitement.

Nick just continued looking at the ground.

"Don't you just want to rest?" the rat asked as it very carefully moved forward. "Every day, you sleep with one eye open, fearing that something or someone will attack you."

"You don't even have a single friend or family member."

"What's the point of fighting?"

"What's the point of living like this?"

"And now, even your last hope is gone."

The rat looked with a sympathetic gaze at Nick.

"Trust me. I've talked to millions of people, and I know a hopeless situation when I see one."

"I can make it quick and painless. If you want, I can even pay special attention to some people you dislike."

"At least, like this, you can go out on your own terms instead of just starving to death."

"Your death would actually have a purpose."

The rat managed to get so close to Nick that it could even touch his leg.

The rats behind the sewer grates slowly and carefully stepped out, but they still remained at a great distance.

It was important not to induce a fight or flight response in their target. Adrenaline can bring momentary life to the black hole inside the chest of a suffering person.

This had to be done methodically, slowly, and carefully.

"Just lay down, okay?" the rat said slowly. "I am going to lightly touch your leg now. Don't be afraid. I won't do anything."

The rat slowly extended its claw to touch Nick's leg.

BANG!

A powerful fist hit the rat, turning it into a bloody paste.

An instant later, all the other rats fled back into the sewer.

Silence.

The fist unclenched and took hold of the smashed rat.

Then, he took out a filthy, old, and disgusting brown sack and put the rat into it.

A moment later, Nick straightened his back and took a deep breath.

"This sucks," he said, his voice a bit deeper than the average man's.

But then, a small smile formed on his lips as he lifted the dirty brown sack.

"But at least dinner is secured."

Suddenly, Nick's eyes narrowed as he shot up to his feet.

He glared down one of the alleyway's exits.

Just now, a muscular man wearing a black coat and black hat had appeared near that exit.

At this moment, Nick could see a mysterious smirk adorning the man's lips as he looked at Nick with amusement.

"What do you want?" Nick asked with a harsh and threatening voice.

Nick had seen many people, and he knew that someone that was acting like this wasn't up to anything good.

"I don't buy drugs, miracle cures, Specters, Zephyx, or whatever you have to sell," Nick said.

A moment later, Nick's eyes widened a bit, and he put the brown sack behind him. "I'm also not selling you the rat!"

The man looked slightly taken aback, but he started chuckling in amusement.

"Your rat? You think I'm after your rat?" he asked with a smirk.

Nick eyed the man suspiciously. "I'm not buying anything! Also, it's rude to enter someone's home unannounced."

"Home?" the man repeated in confusion as he looked around the alleyway.

After looking for a bit, the man saw a small shack made of bits and pieces of discarded and rusty metal.

The man took a deep breath and sighed before his black hat vanished, revealing his handsome face.

There were a couple of covert wrinkles on the man's forehead, and Nick could also see a couple of individual grey hairs among his usual black hair.

The man just chuckled a bit. "You asked me what I wanted," he repeated.

"Well, you could call me a scholar," the man said with a smile as he looked at Nick. "I study Specters. More specifically, the powers Specters can bestow to humans."

"I said I'm not buying anything!" Nick shouted.

The man took another deep breath and released a sigh.

"I am a consultant to many Zephyx Manufacturers, and Ghosty's Lab is one of them," the man said as he slowly lifted his right index finger.

The next moment, a ball of bloody tools made of metal materialized above his finger. The tools were rapidly circling above the man's finger.

When Nick saw that, his jaw nearly hit the floor, and his eyes shone.

"You're a Zephyx Extractor?!" he asked in shock.

The man chuckled. "In the past," he said as the tools vanished again. "Nowadays, I am just a researcher."

Nick still looked with wonder at the man.

A Zephyx Extractor!

Nick gulped.

"Okay," he slowly said. "So, what do you have to sell?"

The man snorted in amusement. "I'm not here to sell anything."

"I'm here because my friend at Ghosty's Lab contacted me. They don't know what kind of power you've attained or from which Specter it comes. My friend knows that I am interested in these things, which was why he told me about you."

Nick became nervous when he heard that.

That sounded like some evil experimentation stuff!

When the man saw Nick's apprehensive expression, he nearly groaned.

"I'm not here to hurt you!" the man half-shouted with annoyance. "I'm just here to look at how your powers work. I will even refer you to some Zephyx Manufacturers if your power proves to be useful!"

"This is a good thing for you!"

Nick was taken aback, but his expression quickly morphed into one of skepticism.

Help?

A good thing?

In the Dregs?

Not even children would believe that!

"And what do you want in exchange?" Nick asked.

"In exchange?" the man repeated. "Do you even have anything that can interest me?"

Nick struggled to think of something.

"Nothing in this world is free," Nick said with suspicion. "Something advertised as free will very quickly turn into something that's not free after some time."

The man's expression turned deadpan. "Oh my fucking god," he said in exasperation.

Suddenly, the man appeared in front of Nick.

BANG!

The man hit Nick's head, and Nick fell to the side, unconscious.

"Is it so hard to accept that someone just wants to help you?!"

Silence.

The man took another deep breath and sighed.

SHING!

The bloody tools from earlier appeared in front of him.

"Now, let's see what kind of power you have."

A young man walked through the streets of a lively but dirty city.

At this moment, it was 2:00 am, but the sun was still shining.

It was always shining.

There was not a single moment when it wasn't shining.

This was how it had been for thousands of years and how it would continue to be for thousands more years.

The sun was directly in the middle of the sky, seemingly perfectly above the walking young man.

Surprisingly, even though the sun was in the middle of the sky, its light wasn't very bright and overwhelming but subdued and more orange-yellowish in color.

For the citizens of Crimson Fungus City, it was currently nighttime. Although, when one talked about night, they were referring to the time between 10 pm and 6 am. This had nothing to do with the state or location of the sun since that was always static.

Most people slept during the night time. No one really knew why, but most people followed that social norm since their parents, grandparents, and everyone else had done the same.

Some crazy people said that people slept during the night because, somehow, the sun used to do something called setting in the past.

Naturally, that was idiotic.

How fast would the sun need to move to go around the Earth?

How would it even move?

It made no sense.

As the young man continued walking, he saw several dirty, grimy, and rusty pipes coming out of the ground, which then slithered up the damaged and dirty walls of buildings.

The floor of the city was uneven, with half of it made of craggy rock and the other half made of rusty grates that led deep underground.

The smell of gas and oil blanketed the "streets", but the people living here had already gotten used to it.

CRACK!

Suddenly, one of the grates below the young man's legs broke, and the young man began to fall.

However, the young man just reflexively spread his arms and grabbed the grates to his side, stopping his fall.

The young man took a deep breath and released it before he pulled himself up.

After pulling himself up, he looked around the street for something.

He saw a couple of thin people that were sitting at the side of the road, talking with each other. Since it was nighttime, not many people were here.

"Hey, do you know where I can get a big sheet of metal?" the young man, Nick, asked the group.

It had been two years since Nick had met the "scholar," and Nick was now 16 years old.

The scholar had told Nick about his power, and he even taught him a couple of things over the next couple of days.

Right now, Nick was about 180cm tall, which was enormous for someone living in the Dregs. The available food was horrible, which made it difficult for people to grow tall.

Nick's body was also still quite muscular, giving him quite an intimidating appearance.

The group collectively furrowed their brows as they looked at him. Nick's bulky figure intimidated them a bit. "What do you want?" an older lady among them said with a tone of threat in her voice.

"I just told you what I want," Nick said as he scratched the side of his head. "I just want a sheet of metal."

"Why?" the older lady asked with annoyance.

Nick just pointed at the hole in the grates with his thumb.

The group just threw a couple of glances at each other.

"You want to repair the hole?" the older lady asked with skepticism.

Nick nodded. "I'm strong enough to stop my fall and pull myself out. Others aren't," he answered.

The lady's expression became even more skeptical. "And you care about that?"

Nick just scratched the back of his head. "I mean, I broke it. I should also fix it," he said with a shrug.

The group looked at each other again.

Then, the older lady pointed at one of the houses at the edge of the street.

The house was basically a ruin. A third of it was already missing, and all the metal of the house had already rusted.

The city had an overabundance of metal, and all the metal that the wealthy parts of the city didn't need anymore ended up in the Dregs.

This was also why nearly all houses here were made of rusty metal.

"The occupant of it said it two days ago," the older lady said, her voice neutral.

Nick nodded. He knew what it meant to "say it".

It basically meant that the person had committed suicide via a specific method.

"Thanks," Nick said as he walked over to the derelict house.

After a bit of searching, Nick saw a two-meter wide and long plate of metal and began to pull.

Sadly, the builder of the house seemed to have had a phobia of his house collapsing, which was why he welded everything together.

Nick tried for a while, but the metal plate only shuddered and made creaking noises.

Nick just sighed and looked around.

Then, he walked into the house, away from all prying eyes.

BANG!

A dent appeared in the metal plate.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

After four hits, the metal plate broke away from the house and fell to the ground outside as Nick exited through the new hole.

The eyes of the earlier group widened in shock.

They knew that this young man was strong based on his stature, but wasn't this a bit too much?!

How much power would one need to dent such a big metal plate?!

Sure, it wasn't super thick, but this was still metal!

Nick pulled the metal plate across the street with quite some difficulties, confusing the group even more.

The guy had just dented the plate, but now he had issues carrying it?!

This made no sense!

A couple of seconds later, Nick put the plate over the hole in the grate that he had created earlier and rubbed the sweat off his forehead.

He walked on top of the plate and jumped a bit. The metal was creaking, but it didn't move.

If the metal could withstand Nick jumping on it, no one would have issues walking over it.

Nick nodded with satisfaction and continued walking through the streets.

He waved a bit at the group as he left.

"Oh! Now, I know who that is!" one of the younger people in the group shouted a couple of seconds later.

The others looked at him. "You know him?"

The younger guy nodded. "He's that weird guy at the marketplace."

"The weird guy?" another person from the group repeated with uncertainty. "Oh, you mean the one that just sits there with a sign all day?"

"Yes, that guy," the other guy said with a nod. "I didn't recognize him since he looks much smaller when he's sitting."

The other people raised their eyebrows in understanding.

Some of them looked at the derelict house again with newfound realization.

That explained how he was strong enough to break the metal.

"This means he has an attuned Zephyx Synchronizer, right?"

The others just nodded. "According to his sign, yes."

The older lady in the group looked at the sheet of metal in the middle of the street.

"You know, if others actually followed his example and fixed what they broke, the Dregs wouldn't be nearly as bad," she commented.

Nick continued walking down the street, and a couple of minutes later, he arrived at a big plaza.

In comparison to the streets, the plaza was mostly made of stone, and the walls weren't too dirty.

Nick could see a couple of merchants stationed around their wagons filled with wares.

Since it was night, only the poorest and the richest merchants sold their wares.

The poorest sold their wares at night since there was far less competition, and the richest did the same since they could just hire someone to keep their shop open all the time.

The other 80% of shops were only open between 6 am and 10 pm.

Nick walked across the plaza until he arrived at the widest road in the Dregs.

The road led to one of the exits of Crimson Fungus City.

At the spot where the road and the plaza met, Nick stopped and walked to the side.

After sitting down, Nick pulled out a roll of cardboard and unrolled it before putting it on a metal rod he had brought with him.

Lastly, Nick just lifted his new sign and waited.

"Zephyx Extractor looking for work!"

And then, he waited.

People slowly woke up and exited from their derelict houses.

It was early in the morning, but just like always, the sun was high up in the sky, illuminating the streets.

Nick was still holding his sign as he watched the people with boredom.

Over 50% of the people were malnourished, and the remainder could still be called skinny. Only the richest merchants had some visible fat on their bellies.

Even though the sun was shining all day, nearly everyone had pale skin, and a couple of them even had black rings around their eyes as they slowly walked through the streets.

As Nick saw the people, he could tell that most of them were very fidgety and anxious.

Nick knew that this day would be the most dangerous day of the month since people became desperate.

Today was the worst day of the month.

The day everyone dreaded.

Nevertheless, Nick continued holding up his sign as he waited.

Albert, Nick's mentor, told him he would soon find work as a Zephyx Extractor in the Dregs. He only needed to be visible.

Albert was the powerful Zephyx Extractor that Nick had met two years ago. After Nick had woken up from Albert's slap, the two of them had gotten to know each other.

Due to the circumstances of how Nick had gained his mysterious power, Albert decided to mentor Nick for a couple of months since he saw a lot of potential in him.

Albert had left around a year ago, and he told Nick that he just needed to remain visible to find work. Apparently, someone would soon appear that would be interested in finding Zephyx Extractors.

This was why Nick was sitting in the marketplace with his sign.

Even though everyone dreaded today, to Nick, this was just like any other day.

Many people passed by Nick, and he also noticed that nearly everyone was throwing evaluating glances at him.

However, no one actually did anything to him.

Many people were scared and looked around nervously, but others seemed calm and relaxed.

All of the calm ones had small pins on their chest in the image of two crossed spears.

These pins represented the Insurance Gang, one of the most powerful gangs that were running the Dregs from the underground.

The people wearing these pins were not gang members but normal citizens that had paid the Insurance Gang to deal with all the matters today.

BANG!

Suddenly, a man with blonde hair got punched, and a group of three men jumped the guy that got punched.

The man curled into a shrimp and held tightly onto something.

The three attackers continued wailing at the helpless man, but they were careful not to break any bones.

"Hand over your credits!" one of them shouted.

The blonde man on the ground didn't answer and kept holding onto his credits.

The three gritted their teeth.

Killing someone was forbidden, and they were also not allowed to shed any blood.

However, the city wouldn't bat an eye if they broke some bones.

But despite how things looked, the three men were not psychopaths that wanted the guy to die.

If they stole his credits and broke the blonde man's bones, they would essentially kill him in the long run.

One of the men grabbed the blonde guy's hair and pulled back with all his power, but the man on the ground didn't let go of his wealth.

Even when his blonde hair was torn out, he didn't let go.

Two of the attackers looked at their last friend with frustrated and angry expressions.

The last one took a deep breath and took hold of his victim's head.

BANG!

He shoved the man's head into the pavement, and he lost consciousness.

Surprisingly, there was no blood, and the blonde man was still alive.

This had been insanely risky.

If anything went wrong, the attacking man would be killed by the city for killing another person or wasting valuable blood.

A different guy bent down and wrestled a small stack of paper notes out of the blonde man's hands.

After counting the paper notes, he looked at his two friends and nodded.

Then, he handed all the notes to one of his friends, who broke into tears.

The crying man hugged his two friends and bowed several times in gratitude in front of them.

His two friends only assured him that it was fine.

The crying man quickly ran away from the middle of the marketplace and into the arms of a woman by the side.

The woman was also crying a lot.

A moment later, the man let go and kneeled down as he beckoned forward.

Two young girls, not older than eight, came out from behind the woman and hugged the man.

"I have enough for you," the man said with a quivering voice.

Only a couple of people were watching the event. Most people were used to seeing something like this and didn't care.

All the people in the marketplace just walked around the unconscious man lying in the middle of the street, treating him like just another piece of rubble.

Nick had watched what had happened, but he didn't get involved.

What was the point?

There wasn't enough money to go around, and it was the duty of everyone to protect themselves.

As more time passed, more assaults happened, but Nick just waited.

And then, it was time.

Everything calmed down at about 2:00 pm, and the people became very quiet.

By now, the entire marketplace was filled to the brim with people.

No one was buying or selling anything at this moment.

They all were waiting for the same thing.

Two minutes later, the sound of a gigantic swarm of insects came from one of the streets leading to the marketplace, and the sound became louder with time.

Eventually, five people appeared in one of the streets, and they were accompanied by swarms of huge mosquitos.

The five people wore red uniforms with the symbol of Crimson Fungus City on them, showing their identities as people working for the city itself. Each of them carried a couple of big sacks with them, and they wore black gasmasks, keeping their identities anonymous.

As the five city agents walked down the streets, several mosquitos split off and entered the houses they passed.

They were searching for people that were trying to hide.

After a while, the mosquitos came out of the house again and returned to the five people as other mosquitos entered other houses.

Suddenly, an entire swarm of mosquitos charged into one of the houses.

"AAAAAHHHH!"

A terrifying scream came out of the house, but it rapidly became quieter until it vanished.

The swarm of mosquitos came out of the house a couple of seconds later, and some of them flew into the sky and retreated.

But just a couple of seconds later, new mosquitos replaced the ones that had just left.

After around five minutes, the five people arrived at the entrance of the marketplace.

The five people didn't say anything for a while.