2109 AD
" Really a haunted show?" Indhra questioned with an annoyed expression while Shinsu stood beside him.
" Yeah…" 47 replied while sitting on a chair behind a table with his usual appearance," Well, the majority of the time, these horror shows are safe, with no actual ghost appearing. But this time, the horror and scoop productions are going to an actual spirit-infested factory. That's why I am sending you three with the team: to protect the people and give Taka a good name.
" You know that we, Taka, are planning to invade the castles next year and take over the kingdom's politics. For that to happen, we must gain a good reputation among the public, not only a rebel force trying to take over the country."
" That and all fine, but did you say, 'three'?" Indhra asked with a drop of sweat dripping from his forehead.
" Yeah…well, look behind!"
A young boy with a baldric holding a black sword around his waist stood behind, his yellow-and-black striped eyes. Indhra quickly understood that he was an awakener, but he had no idea who he was.
" His name is Hidoi, and guess what, he is a fellow God Armour! We realised that pretty recently." 47 chuckled from the bench he was sitting on.
Hidoi lifted his arm to wave at Shinsu with a smug look on his face.
Shinsu waved back, as she is as kind and warm as freshly baked buns.
Hidoi winked at her, and Shinsu, being innocent, understood nothing.
Indhra looked in shock as he swore to beat the crap out of this 'fellow God Armour' for trying to steal his girl.
" Indhra and Hidoi, don't kill each other so early, you will have plenty of time later!" 47 continued," Now, go to the old Sliva haunted chocolate factory!"
********
" Dayum!" Hidoi gasped while looking at the factory. It was old, shredded and looked almost like a typical haunted place from those movies.
Indhra was still not over with Hidoi. And Hidoi kept on taunting him by hitting on Shinsu the whole walk. His blood was boiling, pumping to kill Hidoi somehow.
" Huh? They still didn't arrive?" Shinsu gasped in laziness.
" Well, I don't have any problem until you are here, ma'am!" Hidoi again tried to hit on Shinsu, trying to enrage Indhra. Shinsu, being innocent as hell, didn't get it again, leaving Hidoi even more disappointed.
" Ahh…it's so hot! May I go get some ice cream for us three?" Shinsu asked while her stars shone in her eyes.
" May I go get for you, my lady?" Hidoi grabbed the opportunity.
" No need!" Shinsu started to sprint, leaving both of them confused," I am enough!" She screamed with all her energy.
" Damn! Is she your sister, cause I don't think so, she would like a guy so silent and ugly like you!" Hidoi said with a slight embarrassment.
" What did you just say!?" Indhra gave him a side eye before trying to punch his face.
Hidoi held his arm, kicked his feet, and pinned him to the ground.
" Brother, you really think you can fight me? Of course, I look better than you, it's a fact! Anyway…" He threw him towards the distant wall as the sun started to set, " A person as ugly as you doesn't deserve her! Keep waiting, I will be the one who will marry her!" Hidoi turned back with a smug look on his face.
" Now come on! Stand up and wipe off that blood. And do not cry, I hate crybabies eve-" Suddenly, he felt a kick in his balls, dropping all of his energy. He fell on the ground as another kick was felt.
" Don't talk about me…" Indhra gasped, kicking Hidoi's balls again," and her, in that…way!" He kicked again and again until blood came out of Hidoi's nose and mouth.
" Well, remember…" Indhra continued before lifting Hidoi on his shoulders," I will be the one who will marry her!"
" Hey guys!" Shinsu appeared while giggling, holding the three icecreams in her hand. That was when she noticed Indhra and Hidoi both bleeding, but Hidoi's wounds were severe.
" Huh? What happened?" She asked, keenly glaring at Hidoi's blue body.
" Yo!" Indhra replied," The ball spirit attacked us, and destroyed his balls!" Indhra said while pointing at Hidoi.
" He is lying! He is the one-" Hidoi was stopped by Indhra's palm right in front of his mouth.
" Well, as you know, my sincere self, I exorcised the ball spirit with a few wounds before saving my weak friend over my shoulder," Indhra commented with a smirk on his face.
" Wait…a ball spirit?" She came closer to Hidoi and checked his body," Did he play baseball with you!?"
There was an awkward silence for a minimum of 10 seconds.
" Holy shit, she's innocent!" Hidoi commented with tears building up in his eyes.
********
" So you are the people they appointed for us?" A middle-aged man wearing a black coat appeared at dawn while Hidoi gasped for his balls.
Shinsu stood up at the sign of their arrival.
With the middle-aged man were two other people, one of whom held a camera, and the other was a young, mid-twenties, big-muscle man who was wearing a brown outfit.
The middle-aged man, looking like the leader, introduced himself and his teammates to Shinsu," My name is Peter Watsen and here are my companions Clancy Jarvis, our cameraman, and Andre Strickland! We came right from the Silvia kingdom to Luvinia to shoot about this haunted building."
" My name is Shinsetsu, and behind me are Indhra Trix and Hidoi Gustav. All three of us are awakener, and we promise to protect you if something goes wrong!"
" Damn, she's good at tempting foreigners!" Hidoi commented from behind, silently.
" Shut up!" Indhra said while walking a bit forward toward Shinsu, pushing Hidoi forward too.
" I see…" Andre said with a smile," You guys are really young, but I can sense that everything will go perfectly!" he looked back at Clancy before waving forward," Clancy, come on, start the camera, let's go inside the factory!"
And all of them went inside the haunted building, while a faint spirit of a child glared at them silently, trying not to be noticed.
********
" Well…what is the script?" Hidoi asked while a faint flame was on top of his finger. He was using it to illuminate the dark corridor they were walking in.
" This is dark…Woah, I heard something…is this place haunted…blah, blah, blah!" Peter, the producer of the show, joked," Clancy, remember to tell the editor to cut this part!" He continued. Clancy replied with a salute.
The group entered the main chocolate packaging area. It had many machines, all powered by Mana. There were still a few chocolate packets scattered around the floor.
" So, how do you guys broadcast this show?" Shinsu curiously asked.
" We do it on a television. After the recording, we edit it, and then we broadcast the finished recording to the public of Silvia through the kingdom's main broadcasting channel." Peter answered her question.
" Wait!" Shinsu, with stars in her eyes, started questioning," You guys have channels in your country that broadcast this type of content on television?"
" Luvinia doesn't have those?" Peter questioned back.
" No! Here we have to buy discs or cassettes and use them to watch anything! We don't have any signal-capturing channels here."
" That's sad! You guys have to pay for everything. We pay monthly once and get a lot of content for that money, the whole month."
" Damn, Luvinia must improve its services!" Shinsu bragged about this for another solid ten seconds before going to the next room.
" Looks like this is a kitchen!" Hidoi commented.
Shinsu looked at a cooker on top of a gas stove. She proceeded to open it, and to her surprise, there were cockroaches. One of them started to walk on top of her arm, but then she released some of her Mana, and the cockroach went flying, crashing on the wall, and turned to pulp.
" I hate roaches!" Shinsu looked at the dead one in disgust before going to the next room.
This one didn't look at all like a factory. It was a living room with a chimney.
" This factory is combined with a house?" Andre asked Shinsu.
" Our captain had mentioned that a family used to run this factory. Maybe this is their house." Indhra answered his doubt.
" Yeah," Shinsu confirmed," Before the family went missing in the factory! And then, all the workers suddenly leaving there jobs for no reason."
Andre felt a bit tense after getting to know about this place more.
" Don't get tensed up, it is less likely that we are going to find the spirit here or anywhere." Peter tried to calm Andre.
Andre suddenly felt a chilling presence.
BHAAM!
There was a sudden bang. Andre turned back to see a glass shattered on the floor just in front of the chimney behind the dining table.
Andre walked forward to clean the mess so that no one would be harmed in the near future with those tiny shards.
He bent down and, just for a second, looked beneath the chimney to see a lever.
" Everyone! Clancy! Come here!" Andre called all of them.
Clancy, with his camera, walked forward and bent down to record.
" A chimney?" Peter gasped.
" What should I do, Captain?" Andre asked the producer. Peter at first was a bit hesitant, but then commanded Andre to pull the lever.
Indhra stopped Andre.
" Wait! There can actually be danger!"
" Yeah…" Shinsu doubled down.
" Ahh…you really think there would be a ghost here?" Peter looked at Indhra.
" Yeah…No, there isn't any. I mean, even if there were something like that, then it would've already attacked us, am I right?" Hidoi said.
Andre, under all the stress, decided to pull the lever. There was a silence for some time until the wall beside them started to move.
There was an unknown small area. When he went inside, Andre discovered stairs going up.
Everyone followed him as he walked up.
The room was large, with a path leading directly to the right side. Andre followed the path before the others.
" Hey Andre! Why are you running so fast?" Peter asked, a bit tense about Andre's weird behaviour. Suddenly, there was a sound of rumbling.
Shinsu and the others ran as fast as possible to see a spider-like creature wearing female attire.
The spider turned its face towards them to reveal the face of an aged woman with pure white pupils and worms going inside and outside of her body through all the openings. The spider with its pointy legs pierced right through Andre's chest. Blood was coming out of his mouth, his eyes were pale as if he was already beyond gone.
Shinsu quickly got ready," Producer! Be as far as possible from the spider, we will handle it!"
The spider quickly lowered its head and took a nice bite from Andre's corpse as Shinsu pulled out a brown stash.
" Indhra and Hidoi! Distract the creature, I will exorcise it!"
Both of them activated their Mana Vision.
Indhra's body was covered in lightning as he ran as fast as possible. Hidoi pulled his hand back with his right one forward, forming a flaming bow and arrow.
Shinsu placed three candles below her and started chanting with eyes closed," Oh, the mighty lord of Weaponries! I request you, the power of the holy light that illuminates the good and destroys the evil!"
Suddenly, the candles were engulfed in flame, with all of the flames tangling together, concentrating on the brown stash in her palm. It illuminated a green light, removing all the evil.
She reopened her eyes, looking at Indhra and Hidoi fighting with all their power while the spider kept on healing with each hit.
" Hidoi!" Shinsu shouted while throwing the stash at him. It opened mid-air to reveal a syringe with green liquid contained.
Hidoi held it and charged at the monster. It raised its leg at him, but then, quickly, Indhra punched the beast down, giving space for Hidoi to inject the syringe inside the beast's stomach.
The sharp cries of the monster disturbed everyone as it dropped Andre's corpse on the ground.
Peter quickly ran towards Andre, holding him by the back, trying to check his pulse. He was already long dead; there was nothing that could be done.
The situation became tense as Clancy threw his camera aside and rushed to the scene, trying to calm the emotional Peter.
Shinsu took a sigh of relief, but the same couldn't have been said about Indhra. He felt an even more chilling presence.
He looked down in terror to see the beast turn into rocks, leaving a carcass looking like a human.
" It's not over!" Indhra quickly realised that something else was also in this factory.
" What is it?" Shinsu asked.
" I don't kn-" He turned back to see no one. What the hell is going on? He turned back in terror, trying to sense what was happening.
" I wanted a family…"
The sound of a child haunted Indhra.
He quickly turned back to see a human-looking child of about his age or even lower looking at him with sorrowful eyes.
" Who are you? And what are you doing here?" Indhra understood that whatever the child was, it was the key reason why everyone disappeared.
" My name is Rukia…I was just like you, an orphan. But then I was finally adopted by the family that owned this factory."
" You are a spirit, right? What happened to you!?" Indhra got a bit annoyed with this situation.
" I was killed…"
Well…that's obvious.
" I was killed by my mother. She locked me inside the chimney in the living room. I died while crying for help, but no one came. The only one who loved me in the family was my grandma, whom I gave to heaven. You fought her just now, right?"
" Huh? Then…does that mean you were the one who killed the owners of this factory?"
" Yeah…I did kill, and it was so fun!" She gave a slight grin before realising what Indhra was about to do.
Suddenly, she felt pressure in her chest.
Shinsu and Hidoi appeared in front of Indhra, who quickly held the syringe passed from Shinsu.
He sprinted at the weak spirit and quickly injected her with a green liquid inside her.
Indhra got a view inside her. The way she thinks, the way she killed her parents, everything flashed in his mind.
" What mistake did I make? Why is she jealous just because I am better than my sister?" The image of Rukia lying on a pile of garbage appeared. Her grandmother slowly lowered her hand to her, giving her a new way of life.
" Why was I the one who died? Why can't it be her?" Rukia thought.
Everything blacked out for those two. Indhra and Rukia.
Rukia looked terrified, and Indhra had a face of relatability.
A place…
He hugged her with all his energy.
" It's okay!"
A place where everyone can live peacefully…
" I will show it to you! I will show what you deserve! Now, please rest…for me, for your only friend except her…"
A place where no one kills each other. Where no one fights. Where everyone rests peacefully until death! I…I want it, for some reason; I don't want to kill anyone…
Until…
********
Indhra woke up to the sound of screaming and suffering. He was tied to a pole while his right hand was tied with a cloth, trying to stop the bleeding.
I can't use Mana!
In the world of Mana, awakeners cannot use Nature Mana if they are wounded. And because of Indhra's heavenly restriction, he can't heal himself. Hence, he can't use any Mana.
He looked over his shoulder to see a tiny shard of glass. He used his tie-up left hand to pick the shard.
He used it to slowly cut the rope that tied him.
The scream became louder and audible. With each slice of the rope, a painful sound of an ice pick dragging at a human body was getting more and more audible, with the noticeable screams of agony which were slowly reducing.
After some time, the rope was cut through.
He stood up and quickly rammed into the locked door. He looked to his sides to see that it was his and Shinsu's room.
He grunted and slammed with greater power. After many slams, the door was broken open.
With the sudden opening, Indhra fell on the floor of the corridor.
He weakly stood up while quivering to see the entrance towards the cafe.
The sound increased as he ran and slammed the door open.