Morning found the orphanage smelling of fresh bread, warm light falling in slats across the floorboards of the room I now apparently shared with a stranger. I lay there a moment just breathing it in before I noticed the pale blue window still hovering quietly at the edge of my vision, patient, waiting for me to look at it properly.
"Huh. What's this… Exploration, enhance now?" I murmured the words half to myself, and the moment I gave the thought my full attention, something surged through me — quick, electric, gone before I could fully place where it had come from.
[System Notification: Movement speed enhanced to Level 2]
I sat bolt upright. My movement speed just — increased? Just like that?
I swung my legs off the bed and crossed the room, and the difference hit me on the second step — my feet were carrying me faster than I meant them to, the floorboards passing under me almost before I'd finished the thought of walking.
Was it yesterday? All that walking, looking for the Guild — could that have done this?
The door creaked before I could chase the thought any further, and Rosalia leaned in with a smile that hadn't dimmed at all since the night before. "Kazu — come along, I'll show you where you're actually sleeping. I imagine the dining room floor wasn't what you had in mind."
"O-okay," I said, scrambling up to follow her.
She led me down a corridor hung with small, hand-painted landscapes, the smell of baking bread following us the whole way, until she stopped in front of a plain wooden door. "This one's yours now. You'll share with Nozue — he keeps to himself, mostly, so don't take it personally if he's slow to warm up. I'll leave you to settle in."
"Thank you, Rosalia. For all of this."
The moment she left, a second, larger display bloomed into being in front of me, more detailed than the one before it:
[STATUS] Level: 1
Name: Kazu Gonomiya
Job Class: God
Passive Skills: Divine Knowledge Infinite Mana Maximized Self-Healing
Active Skills: None Magic Spells: None Unique Skills: Exploration (Level 2)
I read it three times, and it still didn't fully make sense. It's like I'm inside a video game. Levels. A job class. My eyes caught on one word longer than the rest. God? What does that even mean, calling it a class?
"Kazu," said a quiet voice from the far corner. "That's your name, right?"
I hadn't even noticed the boy sitting there — dark-haired, folded into himself on the edge of the second bed, watching me with the wary patience of someone used to being overlooked. "Yeah," I said. "You must be Nozue."
He looked away almost immediately. "No reason I asked. Just — making sure."
The awkwardness of it sat there for a moment between us, and I decided I didn't much feel like leaving it that way. "Nozue, I don't really know anyone here yet. Would you want to be friends?"
His cheeks went faintly pink, and for a second he looked more like a startled kid than the guarded shape he'd been a moment ago. "Friends? I don't — I don't really do that, usually."
"That's fine," I said. "I'd still like to, if you're willing."
He studied me a moment longer, like he was checking for the catch, and didn't seem to find one. "…Alright. Kazu."
I grinned wider than the moment probably called for. "You're my first friend in this whole world, you know that? We should probably sleep, though — it's getting late. Goodnight, Nozue."
"…Goodnight," he mumbled, still faintly flustered, and turned toward the wall.
I woke before the sun had properly cleared the rooftops, my mind already circling back to the Exploration skill and the plan I'd half-formed the night before. If walking raised it to level two, running the whole city might do more.
Rosalia was already awake when I came down, stirring something over the hearth. "Good morning, Kazu. Up early — planning something?"
"Exercise," I said, grabbing a waterskin off the counter. "I want to run the whole city, see what happens."
She frowned, more out of habit than real worry. "The whole city? You'll wear yourself thin before noon. Here — take extra water, at least."
"Thank you, Rosalia."
Outside, the morning air still held some of the night's coolness, the system's faint hum sitting quietly at the back of my thoughts as I started down the cobblestones. I noticed the difference almost immediately — my pace came easier than it should have, my breath staying steady where it would once have caught.
Enhance again? I thought, testing it. Level 3. There it is. Easier every time. I kept my legs moving, chasing the feeling of it more than any real destination. I'll circle the whole city if that's what it takes.
Two hours later, winded but grinning despite myself, I checked the status window again.
[STATUS] Level: 2
Unique Skills: Exploration (Level 12) Active Skills: Dash (New)
Level twelve. I stared at the number until it stopped looking like a mistake. It was Level 2 this morning.
[New Active Skill Acquired: Dash]
Dash. What does that even—
The moment I gave the word my full attention, my body blurred forward without waiting for the rest of the thought, ten feet of empty alley closing in an eyeblink.
I stood there a second, disoriented. I was just back there. I only had to think it, and it happened. The status window offered a small note beneath the skill — a three-second cooldown between uses. I tested it twice more down the alley, each burst landing exactly where I'd been looking. Wherever my eyes go, that's where I end up. Every three seconds. Understood.
The sun had crept higher than I meant to let it, and I turned back toward the orphanage with lunch on my mind — until a shape peeled itself off the wall of a narrow side street ahead of me.
[Warning: Killing Intent Detected]
I went still before I'd consciously decided to. "Who's there? Show yourself."
A man stepped out from the shadow of the alley, ragged at the edges, a knife already loose and easy in one hand. "Sharp little thing, aren't you. I've had my eye out for a stray just like you." His tongue ran along the knife's rusted edge, unhurried, like he had all the time he needed. "You'll fetch a good price."
My pulse spiked hard enough that I could feel it in my ears. "Stay away from me!"
Dash —
I didn't wait to think it through further. The alley blurred past in bursts of three seconds at a time, his shouted curses falling further behind with every one, until the distance between us had stretched too far for his voice to reach me at all.
By the time I burst back through the orphanage door, I was breathless and thoroughly relieved to be standing on familiar floorboards. "Rosalia — I'm back!"
She looked up from the stove, brow already knit with worry before I'd finished the sentence. "Kazu! I was starting to think something had happened to you — you were meant to be back at noon."
"Sorry," I said, still catching my breath. "I got carried away with the running."
"All day?" She shook her head, though the worry in her eyes hadn't fully let go. "You must be starving. Sit — eat something before you tell me anything else."
I dropped gratefully into a chair as she set a plate in front of me. "There was a man," I said, between bites. "Chased me with a knife. Said he wanted to sell me. Why does this city have people like that?"
Her expression hardened in a way I hadn't seen from her yet. "Bandits. They prey on anyone with no one looking out for them — it's an ugly trade, and unfortunately a profitable one, which is why there's no shortage of men willing to do it. You have to be careful, Kazu. I mean that."
"I will," I said, mouth still half full, and meant it. "This is really good, by the way. Thank you."
She smiled at that, some of the worry easing out of her shoulders. "You're welcome, dear. Oh — you left something on the chair earlier."
I glanced back and spotted the small copper card sitting where I'd apparently forgotten it the night before. "Oh, right — I'll grab it before I head up."
But she'd already reached it first, and whatever she read on its surface stopped her cold. "Kazu — is this your Guild Card? Rank F… Job Class: Assassin Healer? You never told me you'd already registered."
I turned back on the stairs, surprised into stillness. "I meant to mention it. It just — hasn't really felt real yet."
She turned the card over in her hands as I came back down to join her. "You must have dropped it out of your pocket without noticing." She looked up at me properly then. "Adventuring is no small thing to take on alone, at your age."
My face warmed with something between pride and embarrassment. "I'm still figuring it out, honestly. The receptionist said I'd need real combat skills eventually — swordsmanship, magic, something like that."
Something shifted in Rosalia's expression — thoughtful, a little wistful. "Ah. Well, I wasn't always a caretaker, you know. Before my knees gave out on me, I did my share of adventuring myself. If you'd like, I could teach you the basics."
My whole face lit up. "Really? You'd do that?"
She waved me over toward the hearth. "Come, sit. Watch my hand — focus everything you have into your fingertips, and let it become fire. Follow exactly what I do."
She demonstrated, and a small flame bloomed at her fingertips, warm and steady, dancing like it belonged there. "Now you."
I stared at my own hand and pulled everything I had toward it, straining until my head ached faintly with the effort.
Nothing happened.
"It's not working," I admitted, deflating a little.
Rosalia considered me, tapping a finger against her chin. "Tell me again — what exactly did the Guild say, when they tested your mana?"
"They said it might be something unique. Or just too much for their equipment to measure properly. They weren't totally sure which."
"Ah." Something clicked behind her eyes. "I have something at home that might tell us more precisely than they could. Wait here."
She returned from a locked drawer with a plain sheet of thick parchment, unremarkable at a glance. "It looks like nothing, I know. But it reacts to whoever holds it — reveals their true class, their limits. Here."
The moment my fingers touched the parchment, it caught fire with light — not literal flame, but something close to it, gold ink blooming across the surface in characters that hadn't been there a heartbeat before.
Rosalia went very still as she read them. "Kazu." Her voice had dropped to something barely above a whisper. "Your class… it says God. And your mana — it says infinite."
I stared at the glowing page, the words refusing to settle into anything I could hold onto. "What does that mean?"
She looked at me for a long moment, awe and something closer to fear both moving through her expression at once. "I don't know. I'll need to ask someone who understands this far better than I do. But Kazu — whatever this is, it isn't ordinary. Not remotely."
I sat with the parchment still glowing faintly in my hands, my mind racing through questions I had no way of answering. God. Infinite mana. I turned the words over and over, and none of them made me feel any less like the same hungry, tired kid who'd woken up on a cold bench a lifetime ago. What exactly am I? Am I even still human?