At last: the massless form stood still, reduced to a fizzy, brown liquid, glimmering as a bright yellow torch shone over it. Beneath the lens lay a miniaturised quantum sensor, and all the displays showed POSITIVE. Her heart skipped a beat, but she forced herself to bottle up the feeling. It was better to fail with no hope than to fail when full of hope. She carefully laid a barrier of purified crystallised mana between the two special mirrors and flicked the switch, vaporising the crystals and causing them to assimilate with the photons.
The photons slowly grouped together, before forming a solid—with actual mass, nonetheless! —causing the scientist to break out into an ear-to-ear grin. This was the first time the solidification process had been stable for more than a split second! Turning the dial with immaculate precision, she vaporised the final product before distilling it and pouring it into a glass vial.
She quickly ran it through another series of tests, and held her breath as the results began to pop up, one by one.
GREEN.
GREEN.
GREEN.
GREEN. GREEN. GREEN. GREEN. GREEN.
GREEN. GREEN. GREEN.
GREEN…
…
RED.
Micah let out a breathless sigh as exhaustion caught up to her. Everything was going well, but the elixer hadn’t stabilised. From the simulations, it seemed to constantly flucuate, changing its nature to immitate the mana outputs around it. Her eyes sank into cavernous hollows, the dark bags beneath them deeply etched, carved by the passage of countless sleepless nights. The sheer weight of her fatigue seemed to drag her features downward, leaving her expression heavy and lifeless. Even her posture betrayed the toll, shoulders slumped and body wilted under the oppressive burden of exhaustion.
“Tomorrow…” she whispered to herself, “tomorrow.”
Restless, she poured the liquid from the vial to an inconspicuous coke can and tossed it into the bin. Her assistants would throw it out later and no one would ever find it once it reached the dumpsters.
The sun hung snugly between two ivory clouds, its dim radiance being overthrown by the chilling cold and icy winds. People shivered as they hurried to work, a group of excited high school girls squealed while discussing their favourite Divers, and a thick, ambiguous fog covered most of the street. Although the bustling metropolitan city of Sydney usually radiated with heat, the sun was nothing but a pale smudge in the sky today. The sun had been nothing but a pale smudge for a while.
One month into winter.
It had been a long month.
The mana fluctuation around the monopolised dungeons in Sydney had attracted many Dungeon Divers. Unstable mana fluctuations usually meant more monsters, higher density mana cores and huge veins of crystallised mana which, henceforth, meant there was potential to make an absolute killing. But, for the mundane civilians, these volatile changes were concerning. No less than two dungeon fractures had occurred, and one of them was a tier 7 threat.
Though there had been no casualties due to the large pool of Divers during that time, buildings and infrastructure had certainly taken their fair share of damage. Collateral damage couldn’t be helped when monsters escaped their dungeons. They were savage, attacked on sight, and followed intrinsic bestial desires.
Really, it had been such a long month.
“Fucking chills…” Diego muttered to himself.
His stomach growled once again, but he was no stranger to staving off hunger. The hobo clung onto his paper-thin bedsheet, and curled his body into a ball to conserve heat. With every breath, he let out thick fogs of vapour.
His teeth rattled vigorously, and a glacial chill ran down his spine every time the wind smacked him in the face, leaving him shivering like a madman. He could even feel his blood begin to… clot? Freeze? Diego huddled near the trash for warmth. Even the scarce thermal decomposition from rotting foodstuff was welcomed with open hands. Hygiene? Diego had tossed it away years ago. Although the thin plastic covering separated the scraps from Diego, the smell was still exasperating. But that too, was something he had become insensitive to over the years. Now twenty-seven, he was commemorating his sixth year of homelessness trembling in the piercing polar. It was fitting, at least. Diego was never much of a romantic, but even he could still see the beauty in the irony. If things hadn’t taken a turn for the worse, he would be huddling next to cashmere suits, bags filled with hundred dollar bills and all the women in the world. Instead, he lived in literal waste.
But Diego had learned to accept it. Two years of unemployment and six years of homelessness had taught him humility. Some humility, at least—he was still ever-so-cynical and had been high on crack for at least three of those eight years. At one point, Diego had even tried learning how to cook his own meth. It didn’t end well. Though usually quiet and self-reserved, he was an outgoing and egoistic person at heart. His quiet demeanor was simply a byproduct of his lifestyle.
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The cold faded out eventually; as all things did. Instead, a biting numbness took its place. He trudged through the snow-covered streets, ignoring the judging stares all around him. Orphanages and street urchins were commonplace, but a grown man in rags was a rare sight. After all, it would be insanity for an orphan to refuse guaranteed employment and housing under the government's wing when they turned 18.
Diego, however, never received that offer. Why? A simple reason: he was no orphan. Both his bastard parents were probably pampering the little pompous princess right now, having their rich person parties and sniffing cocaine away from the media’s watchful eyes. Just thinking about them would have led to a scowl climbing up Diego’s face before, but now, he really couldn’t care less. After they disowned him for the simple fact that he had not awakened any Ability even at 17 (when the norm was 14, the latest at 16), he had stopped looking at them through rose-tinted glass. At the same time, Diego understood it was partially his own fault for being stubborn and insisting on becoming a Dungeon Diver even though it was clear he would have no hope in the field. With his academic prowess, he could’ve easily gotten a respectable office job, but he refused the offers his parents gave him with their connections.
But, the past was the past. Diego had no interest in dredging up old relics and memories.
He was hungry, and also thirsty. Although Diego’s strong, weathered immune system was a badge of honour and a flexing tool he used in front of orphans, it still wasn’t strong enough to handle contaminated snow-water. Not near the mana processing industry, at least. Diego moved with surprising efficiency and quickly found himself crawling down a tight hole that gave him access to the massive dumpsters that were intertwined with an entire apartment four streets down from his hidey-hole. Since Australia was an island and border control was good at their job, Diego didn’t have to compete with racoons and rabid rats. Ibis’—massive white birds the size of a large cat—couldn’t climb down shafts to access this remote location, meaning his only competition came in the form of pesky roaches.
The hobo held his nose high in the stale air and tried to find something edible and, if he got lucky, a half-empty can of coke or fanta. His hand passed some warm and squishy material that he chose, rather, not to think about. A bit of scouring later, his fingers brushed against a thin sheet of metal. Diego gave it a light tap, and the rippling inside caused him to simper.
Lady Luck had smiled upon him today!
A half-empty can! He felt around before pulling the drink out of the dumpster. The dim light further romanticised the beauty—it was coke—the lord of all soft drinks! Hardest to spoil, not to mention. “Helloooo~ beautiful!” he whistled.
Diego chugged the entire thing in a single gulp.
And fell into a coughing fit.
His throat clamped itself shut, causing the homeless man to gag for air.
“SHIT! This is not coke!” screamed Diego at the top of his lungs, frantically finding something amongst the trash to quench the raging inferno in his mouth. “Even vodka after hot chilli didn’t burn this much!” Desperate, he scurried up the shaft and shot back up to the surface, before licking the icicles atop a street sign like a madman. He broke a smaller one off, blunted the sharp edge and began chewing on it.
However, it came to no avail. In fact, the icicles seemed to be mocking his agony. The burning climbed higher, curling into his sinuses and his eyes started to water. He stumbled, gripping his head as if the pressure might burst through his skull. His vision blurred, and he collapsed to his knees, clutching at his throat.
Diego was hysterical now, and the sight of a homeless man bursting out of an alleyway before ravaging a street sign for its icicles before suddenly wilting on the floor caused the general public to fall into pandemonium. Wait—no, it wasn’t the sight of his crazed frenzy that caused everyone to freak out, the hobo realised. The mechanical voice resonating from the loudspeaker brought him back to reality. “Tier 5 dungeon fracture. Please evacuate immediately to your nearest evacuation shelter. Tier 5 dungeon fracture. Please evacuate immediately to your nearest evacuation shel—”
CRUNCH.
The metal pole snapped in half, the perpetrator a massive hobgoblin that had broken off from the initial horde. Diego’s pupils shrunk to tiny slits at the sight of a giant alpha—goblins were easy pickings, but a hobgoblin took an entire party of skilled Divers to take down. They were bigger, tougher, sturdier and far, far more intelligent. While goblins held the same amount of brain power as a newborn, hobgoblins were as smart as children; they could use surrounding debris as weapons, and held an intrinsic battle sense. The only thing worse was a goblin shaman—smaller than hobgoblins and a much paler shade of green, they exhibited a human appearance and could even speak the simple words.
And now Diego stood, eyes damp and mouth ravaging, next to a two-and-a-half tall alpha hobgoblin with the shadow of death looming right before him.
Something in him just snapped.
A dark neon haze circled around him, he felt the skin on his left hand turn an ugly shade of goblin-lime green, and out of nowhere, jagged fangs sprouted from his molars.
The alpha hobgoblin let out a guttural roar, the sound reverberating through the crumbling streets and shaking loose debris from the nearby buildings. Diego barely had time to register the deep, primal terror in his chest before his body moved on its own. The dark neon haze coiled tighter around him, wrapping him in a suffocating yet empowering embrace.
The hobgoblin lunged, swinging its monstrous arm in a wide arc. Diego ducked instinctively, the wind of the strike roaring past his ear. His goblin-green hand shot up, fingers now elongated and clawed. He slashed through the beast’s exposed side, leaving glowing, lime-green streaks of energy that burned like acid into its hide. The hobgoblin reeled back, a mixture of rage and surprise etched into its feral face.
Diego didn’t stop. His mind swirled with fragmented thoughts, half his own and half whispers from the neon haze. He launched himself forward, fangs bared, biting deep into the hobgoblin's massive forearm. The metallic tang of its blood filled his mouth as it howled in agony, shaking him off with a violent swing that sent him skidding across the pavement.
Pain seared through his body, but the haze whispered promises of strength. He rose to his feet, the green glow of his left hand intensifying. His vision blurred as his perception of time fragmented—the hobgoblin’s movements became sluggish, predictable. It grabbed the broken street sign, now a makeshift spear, and hurled it with uncanny precision.
Diego sidestepped, the weapon narrowly grazing his arm, and retaliated with a raw, primal scream. The haze responded, surging outward in a violent pulse. Tendrils of light lashed at the hobgoblin, binding its limbs and slamming it to the ground with enough force to crack the asphalt.
But the alpha wasn’t finished. It tore free of the glowing binds with sheer brute strength, its beady eyes glowing red with an otherworldly fury. The haze grew darker, more volatile, as he prepared to face the monster. His lips curled into a feral grin. Diego could tell he was't in full control of his body; instinct was taking over, but he still managwd to sound some words
“That…” he meaninglessly said to himself, “was not a normal cola.”
