Klein had left the entrance of the thick-walled Sanctuary this morning, even before the artificial lights had risen substantially. The guards, switching their posts to beat the cold, noticed Klein bringing out the most cherished gift of the Sanctuary: the Sentael-Nits31. It was a mechanical carriage that balanced on two wheels—a bike, they called it. Its chassis was forged from crimson and dark-dyed, high-quality scrap metal, built from the indestructible leftovers of Murad Xie's own armored car, Prozencia.
"It's a gift he got from Murad Xie... how disappointing," one officer sneered with envy, his hands gripping his heavy belt to heave it up.
"I'd honestly would've never used it. A mockery, giving away your son's stuff to strangers," the other guard muttered smugly.
They watched him pass into the deep depths of the rising dawn, but in their jealousy, they failed to notice the shifting bundle of rags hidden perfectly behind Klein's back, right under the shadows of the great walls and the crimson-black bike.
As the light gradually rose, bringing a stagnant warmth with it, the stationed guards had already swapped with their peers, and Klein had long passed out of their line of sight. Standing in front of the endless rustyards, Klein reached back and pulled the heavy rags away.
The purple-haired boy immediately sneezed. Akira scrambled off the back of the bike, splashing down into the metallic dirt.
"Oh, whoa, wait. Didn't I tell you to wait?" Klein asked.
"It smells like rotten crap under there!" Akira cried out, rubbing his nose.
"This was the only way... they'd have reported you to the Chief. We talked about this," Klein said. He grazed his hand roughly over Akira's hair, pulling away the loose strings of rag. "We better go before the Rust Miners make their appearance known."
Klein slid a long silver key into the back of the bike, slowly kicking the heavy motor to life right next to it, and jumped onto the leather seat. "This joyride doesn't come for everyone! Hop on, kid!" Klein tossed him a small metal helmet, dyed to match the crimson bike.
Akira climbed up. The machine was twice the size of Klein, and Akira struggled to find a foothold. Once he did, Klein had to double-check to make sure the boy was secure; Akira was so light and undernourished that Klein couldn't even feel his presence, save for the faint warmth of the boy pressing against his back.
Soon, they were speeding through the vast rustyards. The bike itself made hefty, explosive sounds that did not match its relatively slow, grinding speed.
"How do you feel about the joyride, Akira?" Klein called back over his shoulder. He knew this was only the second time Akira had passed through this sector. The last time was during the harvest, where the children had to follow a blind, old guide who had lost his way, relying entirely on Deinne's coordination to reach the gates safely. But this time, Akira didn't have to walk for an agonizing hour. He could sit back and watch the decaying, marvelous creations of humanity.
Klein watched Akira's face light up with wonder, though it quickly gave way to terror as they passed the massive, corpse-like structures of the rusted, gutted buildings. As the artificial light slowly crept in, Akira raised his head toward the end of the road.
"It's way huger than last time!" Akira cried out aloud, his voice echoing off the scrap.
Klein smiled. "The gate hasn't changed. It's you who's going to change!"
By the time Klein reached the massive shadow of the gates, he finally killed the engine.
"Are we going to train here... sir... mister?" Akira asked, sliding off the bike.
"Call me Klein!" He removed his helmet and hid the bike beneath the rusted bridge, leading Akira toward one of the massive, jagged cracks in the steel walls. According to the Askardya textbooks, the cracks had formed from centuries of monster harvests. But the truth was far to the contrary.
"Tell me what you know about the wall," Klein asked.
"It's big... it stops the monsters," Akira replied nervously.
"Then why don't they come in through those cracks?" Klein asked.
Akira stood there, completely without an answer. Klein noticed the boy trembling. "Is it too cold here?" Klein asked, offering the spare long coat he had brought.
"No... that's not it," Akira said, pushing the coat away. "The monsters... they won't come here, right?" he murmured. The terrified look on the boy's face gave Klein his answer.
The absolute truth of the gates was rarely spoken of to the common people, nor did the ledgers of Askardya teach it in their syllabus. Klein had often wondered why Murad chose to keep it a secret.
"The walls... the gate... it isn't for the monsters, Akira," Klein said with slight hesitation, unsure if the boy could handle the weight of this leak. "Keep this between you and me. I want to show you something!"
Klein led Akira into a narrow, suffocating crack that cut all the way through the fifty-meter-thick steel walls. Though hesitant, Akira followed his master.
Finally, they stepped out into the true darkness. The outskirts of the gate.
The only light that reached this place bled through the crack behind them, bringing a sliver of fresh warmth from the Sanctuary into a sterile, dead world. The outskirts were a vast, echoing void; anything past a few hundred meters was swallowed entirely by a deep, suffocating abyss.
"The monsters... won't they come here...?" Akira panicked, trying to rush back toward the safety of the crack.
Klein halted his retreat, grabbing his shoulder and forcing Akira to stare into the abyss. Akira squeezed his eyes shut, only opening them when Klein strictly commanded him to. In the darkness, Akira's mind played tricks on him. He saw pictures of faces, screaming men, and things he had never truly seen—visions like the ones he had hallucinated in the depths of the canals during his childhood ritual.
"What... is this... why are you showing me this?" Akira tried to shake off Klein's grasp, but Klein held firm. He fully understood the boy's primal terror.
"You must listen, Akira!" Klein commanded, and Akira stopped struggling. "You have a fear of the dark... a fear of the night," Klein whispered. It is a luxury we cannot afford in the upcoming times, Klein thought.
Akira listened, turning back to look at the void once more. But he couldn't keep his eyes open. With so little light, it felt as though the darkness was physically creeping up to him, slowly swallowing him whole. Akira shivered violently, and Klein could feel the cold sweat on the boy's skin.
Klein released his grasp and shoved Akira onto the freezing ground, just beyond the reach of the Sanctuary's bleeding light.
"Fear... it's an instinct... but it is completely useless here," Klein said, his voice dropping into a deadly calm.
Klein removed his long leathery coat, revealing a thin, tucked-in shirt and his heavy combat pants. On his gadget pouch rested two expensive, lethal daggers. Without warning, Klein drew both of them simultaneously, the metal screaming against the sheaths, and connected them to thin, black garrote wires.
Akira looked up and smiled weakly. The boy trusts me a little too much, Klein thought. Swirling the daggers, Klein sliced a shallow cut across his own palm and threw the bloody blade into the dirt right next to Akira's hand.
"Mister... sir... w-what are you trying to do?!" Akira scrambled backward, completely confused. He didn't understand Klein's sudden hostility. Maybe my bloodlust hasn't reached him yet, or does he know this is a facade? Klein wondered. He intentionally wanted Akira to be terrified of another human being. To unlock his true survival instincts, Klein knew he had to amplify the boy's nervous system first. He had witnessed the ritual; Akira wasn't afraid of drowning. But now, isolated in the dark abyss, his senses were on high alert. His primal instincts would be sharper, too.
"Get away! I need my mom... she won't let me be here!" Akira cried out, his tears falling like small pearls, reflecting the limited slivers of light.
"What will you do if I strike you right now?" Klein asked, taking a slow step forward.
Akira remained paralyzed, his voice abruptly dying in his throat.
"ANSWER ME!" Klein roared.
The pearl-like tears now flowed like the canals. "I'll die..." Akira sobbed.
"Then you have lost your crown... and you have saved nothing!" Klein said, stepping right over Akira, leveling the sharpest points of his knives at the boy's chest.
Akira squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away toward the abyss. He stayed frozen in that position for what felt like an eternity.
"Are you afraid of the dark now?" Klein asked softly.
Confused as to how he was still alive, Akira slowly opened his eyes. Hovering above him, the terrifying man he had admired wore the gentlest of smiles.
"Look into the abyss," Klein instructed. Akira did as he was told. "Do you see the faces and the dread spreading?" Klein stepped closer.
"N-no..." Akira whispered, wonderstruck. The terror of the void was completely gone, replaced entirely by the adrenaline of the knife that had just been at his throat.
"That is the truth, Akira... the depths of whatever lies beyond the gate isn't as fearsome as the things holding the knives." Klein reached into his pouch, pulling out a newly bought pair of expensive, dual-daggers—sized perfectly to fit a child's hands—along with a spool of wire. He pressed them into Akira's trembling hands.
"Be wary of men, Akira! Not everyone is redeemable," Klein said as he helped equip the boy with his new tools. Akira touched the hilts, trying to process the sheer luxury of the weapons. He stared back and forth between the dark abyss and Klein. Neither felt as terrifying as they had a moment ago.
"Before you hate me... Murad Xie did the exact same thing to me," Klein chuckled, backing away. "Akira! From today onwards, I will train you to be stronger! To not just be a king, as I said, but to be a conqueror!" Klein smiled, his crimson hair shining faintly from the light bleeding through the cracks.
Today was the 3rd cycle since the last harvest, and midday was rapidly approaching.
Akira had asked Klein about the monsters' presence, and Klein explained the terrible truth. The Founder, Idris, had manipulated the system so that monsters only breached the gates once every 7th cycle, allowing mankind to replenish their food stocks. But now, with the taint of the black miasma, that controlled system felt like a death curse.
The smell of the outskirts was metallic and rusted, choked with dust and clumps of shed monster fur. But there was no sign—not even a distant growl—of the beasts. This reinforced Akira's hopes. Klein noticed the boy's natural affinity for curiosity; he found Akira gathering strange materials, rocks, and clusters of steel that vaguely resembled blades. "King's Stash," Akira called it. It was a hallmark trait of humanity, a desire to collect and build, something which miraculously lingered even within the degraded men of the Sanctuary.
Klein wanted to teach Akira more. He wanted to tell him the story of Muzair Xie, Rais Xie, Captain Harvin, and the legendary expedition from eleven years ago. He wanted to share the truths that existed beyond these outskirts—the truths the Askardya ledger and Murad refused to teach. But Klein stopped himself. Not now. His job was to train Akira both mentally and physically. For now, Akira was slowly losing his fear of the dark by letting his instincts understand that the present threat was always more unforgiving than the unknown future. Klein doubted himself on that.
When midday finally hit and the warmth swept through the cracks stronger than ever, Akira's fear of the dark vanished away, though a sliver still lingered in his heart. Klein brought out the food. It wasn't premium meat. It was raw monster heart, sliced thin, intended to be eaten by growing soldiers. Aaron Krovnic had offered human heart—which was said to yield better muscle growth—but Klein had rejected it, knowing Syuri would have tossed him into the boiling pits if he fed her son human flesh.
Akira gagged, refusing to eat the raw meat.
"You won't have enough strength for the next set! Eat it now so you can eat a lot more afterwards," Klein ordered, forcibly making Akira chew on the smallest slices. Akira threw up several times, spilling bile onto the dirt, but Klein cleaned it up and forced him to finish before they began their physical training.
Twelve pushups in sets of three. Thirty jumping jacks. Breathing exercises. Core, arm, and leg stretches.
Klein called it a "warm-up." Akira couldn't even manage a maximum of two pushups per set. He couldn't finish four jumping jacks before he started panting heavily, wheezing like a stray dog. During the breathing exercises, he nearly lost consciousness from the toxic air, and during the stretches, Klein could swear he heard the boy's undernourished bones cracking.
It's to be expected... his mom hasn't taught him a thing about physical conditioning, Klein sighed with every failure. But ultimately, the sheer amount of sweat dripping down onto the cold ground was enough of an achievement for Klein's first day.
Before long, Akira was laying flat on his back on the ground.
"Stand straight and try to pick up your daggers," Klein commanded.
Akira weakly shook his head, refusing.
"Giving up? Giving up on saving 'everyone' this early?" Klein taunted.
Akira frowned. "This isn't what saves them... mom said so!" he pouted.
"But this will!" Klein snapped back.
Akira gritted his teeth, lifted the safety latches, and tried holding the dual daggers above his waist. But his thin, bony arms shivered violently under the weight. The blades had purposely been forged lighter on Klein's strict orders; Dicardys had made no mistake. It was simply Akira's profound lack of physical strength.
"That's enough for today! Let's get back home," Klein said, mentally calculating the ways he could fix the boy's diet as Akira got ready to climb back onto the bike. "Oh, wait! You haven't finished your heart slices!" Klein yelled, dragging the boy back and force-feeding him over twenty more strips of raw muscle. "This will strengthen you, boy!" Klein smiled warmly.
The 4th cycle had arrived, and dawn had broken over thirty minutes ago.
At the gates, the guards from the first batch watched the second batch head off to rest. Both groups stayed completely silent, confused and terrified as they watched Klein standing in front of the entrance, visibly furious. None offered a question, fearing his elite authority.
Klein's nerves were fraying. He tapped his fingers aggressively over his elbows, checking the rising artificial lights again and again. Dammit, I told him to come before the dawn. Klein ground his teeth together. Just where the hell is he? Shoving his hands deep into his pockets, Klein stormed inside the entrance.
"Get my bike back to the stable!" he roared, hurling the heavy silver key at the closest, luckiest guard. The sheer force of the throw struck the man's chest plate, cracking the rusted iron down the middle.
"Sir! Yes, sir!" the guard saluted, forcing a wide, terrified smile.
Klein walked a long mile through the city, trying to clear his angry head. He knew the next harvest was only three days away, and Akira's actual combat training hadn't even started yet. Yesterday, they had only done the warm-up, and Akira had barely survived it. How will I ever teach him the Ryu Fighting Style at this rate? Klein thought.
He finally approached a run-down house toward the East, sitting right by the dry canals and towering, thin metal buildings. This house alone was the least attractive one in the entire eastern sector. Klein didn't bother knocking. He pushed the rusted door open.
"Saving rats, are you?" Klein started to bark as he pushed inside, only to meet the sudden, deadly gaze of a white-haired, green-eyed lady.
"Klein... did you wish to kill my son?" Syuri asked. She was seething with rage. Even though she didn't look like a warrior, her eyes promised she would kill Klein as if he hadn't been her long-time friend.
Syuri led Klein into the next room. There, lying completely stiff like a corpse over an olive-green bed made of fur and leather, was Akira.
"He killed me, mom!" Klein could hear Akira crying pathetically at the sight of him.
Klein instantly understood. The mere "warm-up" was enough to completely break the boy's muscles down into severe, paralyzing soreness. It'll take years... four days isn't realistic, Klein murmured to himself, rubbing his temples.
"If you train the boy like Murad trained you... he will break before you can even start him on the weapons."
A gruff man's voice echoed from the far chair in the shadows. Klein blinked, wondering if the man was a master of stealth, as he hadn't even acknowledged his existence until he spoke. As Klein turned around, he saw a cripple sitting in the dim light, missing one arm and one leg.
"Roste! What are you doing here?" Klein yelled out in shock.
"I told you, didn't I? That I am free," Roste replied smoothly. A small, genuine smile spread across Klein's face.
"I didn't have much time to think about it... but every second I spent in that bed made me realize where I am. I choose to believe there is hope for humanity," Roste said, his eyes shifting to look at the bedridden Akira.
"He has come to join our cause, Klein. Do not be surprised." Syuri walked up closely behind Klein, stopping just a hair's distance from his ear. "It's going to happen quick..."
"I can feel it... that's why I hadn't reached out to you. I knew you'd come here," she whispered to Klein. He did not understand, but the grave tone of her words made him incredibly wary.
"How near?" Klein asked quietly.
"Soon... it's time to return to the overworld! And this harvest will bridge us a way." She slid a letter into Klein's pocket.