"Life sucks ass!"
These were the first words Phillip said as he plopped onto his bed. Well, not really his, considering it was supposed to be a temporary setup for his current position. Though, from his perspective, it might as well be permanent from what his last few months have been like.
Let's start with the school stuff, as this is far from the worst part of his current problems.
On the first week-
*GROWL*
"Shut it"
… On the first week, Phillip battled against the clock to cram in as many school requirements as possible. Alerting the owner of the restaurant that he would be attending school soon after being allowed to stay, the owner allowed him that week to study as need be.
Granted, for Phillip, this wasn't much of a real problem. Thanks to clones, and being a psychic at one point, he was able to collect all the information he needed within the first day, much less the week. He spent the rest of the time learning the languages.
By the time his school days started, he could handle a simple conversation, including greetings, goodbyes, and everything in-between. The only thing he had a problem with, and still does, to be honest, is an extended conversation. Gabriel helped him when he could.
He had been placed in 1-C for his first day, he was brought in front of the class to be introduced to the class.
The introduction was a … spectacle, to be sure
_Flashback_
"Everyone, this is Phillip," the female teacher said, gesturing to him with her hand as he stood in front of the chalkboard. "Please welcome him to the class."
The class gave a variety of hellos before calming down. Phillip noted that the class wore either black or white shirts while maintaining the brown bottom: pants for the guys and skirts for the girls.
Phillip gave a short bow before addressing them.
"Thank you for having me. My name is Phillip."
His words came out like honey, almost as if practiced time and time again. However, something threw the sweetness of his words to the wind.
The aura he projected around himself felt suffocating. Black as night and repulsing, the aura bittered his words with the presence of a person who would rather be anywhere else in the world.
His closed eyes and calm smile did nothing to elevate the matter. The class clamored up and fell into a long silence.
The teacher, catching on to the repressive atmosphere, coughed in pull attention towards her. "W-Why don't you sit at your seat? It's the down the row next to the windows, behind Hana Hamura."
A brown-haired girl rose her hand shakingly. Phillip sat down at his desk, causing the girl to straighten herself, and the person behind Phillip to lean back. Phillip smiled at himself.
The aura he gave off was always meant to be intentional. He didn't need a bunch of people he knew was going to backstab the first chance they got. Hopefully, this would persuade them to keep clear.
_End_
The results, unfortunately for Phillip, were a bit of a mixed bag. The majority of his class kept their distance, but also started spreading rumors of a "serial killer" entering the school. It was a rumor he needed to face the faculty more than enough times to calm the paranoia, but not one he faced completely as it also convinced the other classes to stay away too.
On the education front, Phillip made it sail. From the first day on, tests were brought to him to see how far along he was. Each one was blown out of the water, keeping him at the necessary level. When any actual tests were provided, he managed the top spot each time.
Ah, the cheating powers of the Shadow Clones.
Speaking of, Phillip had many clones around the city, on the lookout for any job openings or just lost spare change.
With schooling out of the way, let's talk-
*GROOOOWL*
"Shut. It."
… Let's talk about work. The owner of the restaurant, Sho, told him what his work amounted to, which was a lot.
_Flashback_
"Opening the store, cleaning the front, cleaning the kitchen, cooking meals, waiting for the customers, ringing up the customers, and the closing routine, which is found in this pamphlet here."
Sho handed him a literal dictionary-sized, paper-back book, detailing every single action to take and reaction to deal with.
"U-Um, isn't this a little much for one person?" Phillip stuttered at the workload.
"I know it's a lot to take in, but I can't afford a workforce," Sho said with a sad smile. "Besides that, I'll be working on several business ventures to bring in customers again."
"B-but I have school-"
"Oh, don't worry," Sho said, now with a better smile. "I can handle the store while you're away. I simply ask you to come back quickly so I can do my other work."
"Oh," Phillip responded with wide eyes. "Then I guess I should get started reading." He went back to his room with the new book, once again missing the changed expressions of Sho.
_End_
After school of his first day, Phillip quickly got to work at the restaurant. Cleaning didn't take too long, and with little to no customers coming by, he had plenty of free time to search for anything else to do.
The closing routine was the biggest part of the work honest. The door was closed and locked, the sign was flipped, and curtains were dropped. The free tables were washed once more before the chairs were flipped on top of them. Each table had four chairs, so some struggles were there when dealing with the smaller tables. The booth tables followed the same pattern, but because the seats weren't movable, they were instead just wiped down as best Phillip could. Kitchen counters were cleaned, utensils washed, and food stored back into the freezer, which only happened when customers came by. The bottom bathroom was also cleaned and buffed.
Then the weird parts came up. Phillip was asked to scan the vents for rats and dust them out. Sho stated it was because most of the building was still old, so he wanted to be sure when it came to them. It didn't bother Phillip all that much.
What did bother Phillip was the lights. Apparently, something happened with the wires that the main control panel couldn't control the higher levels, but the restaurant's lights won't turn on if those lights stayed off. The last time Sho said he started the lights downstairs before the lights upstairs, a fire broke out. He kept them on for the most part, but the electric bill began to get worse and worse.
Thus, it was Phillip's responsibility to turn off the lights.
Once the lights downstairs were off, Phillip ran to the top floor of the three-story building. Here, he ran into each room to shut off each light before getting the hallway light. After this, he repeated the process with the second floor, stopping only once to open his room's door to get there without swimming through the dark.
Closing started at 9:00 at night. By the time Phillip finished, it would be 2:00 in the morning.
The opening was almost as painful.
With school starting at 7:00, Phillip would only get a whopping 2 hours of sleep before forcing himself awake.
With the lights, Phillip HAD to start with the third floor, go to the second, and then turn on the restaurant floor. From there, he pulled each chair of the tables and pushed them in, aligned the same way as the night before. The kitchen utensils were placed in the right places and anything misplaced was placed back. To finish off, the door was unlocked and propped open and the sign was flipped back. The only grateful thing Phillip had was the lock was a twist-knob lock and not a key lock.
Only after that did Phillip get to go to school.
Thankfully, a young man coming out of the alley where the restaurant resided warranted enough attention from the neighboring people. Any time he went out for school, someone stopped him to talk about what he was doing? Granted, he always had to book it to the school afterward, but it was a nice change of pace.
By the second month, Phillip was well acquainted with the local businesses and regulars to them.
Now comes the worst part: the-
*GROOOOOOOOOOOWL*
Phillip sat up and raised his fist to strike the source of the growling, before placing it down, knowing that it would do nothing to alleviate the problem.
Anyway, the worst part was the payment.
The payment was a monthly source but because there was an extremely low customer count, Phillip didn't expect much coming in.
However, that was before he saw the prices and who did come in.
Mostly businessmen in suits came in. They may come only once a week at best, but they paid the bills for their expensive dishes and allowed the restaurant to keep any change when they overpaid.
At first, the question Phillip thought was how the building was in such a state if those people came by and the food was so costly. Sho stated that the food was expensive simply on the fact that only those men came, and would be lower if more common people came, and the building stayed this bad because of Sho's debts. Sho even showed Phillip documents to back this up, including a statement that showed that most of the money that the restaurant was making was going into Phillip's pay.
It made Phillip both excited and guilty.
That is until the check actually came.
_Flashback_
"Alright!" Phillip said, laying on his bed with an envelope in his hands, both energetic and exhausted. "First pay!"
"Doesn't it seem light for what you're expecting?"
Well, it's not like we ever picked up the money before. Maybe it's just light overall.
Tearing the top off, Phillip shook the contents of the envelope out. A large, folded piece of paper fell out, along with a single bronze coin.
One. Single. Coin.
"THE HELL?!" Phillip yelled, picking up the coin. Flipping it over a few times showed him that the coin wasn't some super coin. Picking up the paper, he unfolded it to see if there was an explanation.
It came with the paper unfolding itself after Phillip did, creating a list that reached the floor. On this list were reprimands, negations of pay that came from when things broke under his watch. This included broken utensils, glasses, plates, bowls, and anything that was handled without care.
Phillip wanted to stay mad, but he knew this list wasn't lying. He had many problems in the first stages of the job and alerted Sho's attention to these exact things. Sho even told Phillip that his pay would decrease due to these, Phillip just didn't think it would make this big of a difference.
"W-Well," Phillip stuttered out, picking up the coin. "It's just the first month, right?" Phillip flipped the coin and caught it, trying to cheer himself up. "We'll just do better this next time."
Oh, how he hoped.
The second month came around and Phillip was in the same position as before, only more exhausted than energetic. There was a new rule Sho implemented: if Phillip was caught stealing any of the food from the freezer, Sho would be forced to remove him from the premise. This was after the freezer lost a few pieces of meat. Phillip suggested that a thief was able to get in and take the meat.
Whether Sho bought this or not is unknown, but he did install cameras to watch over the fridge.
Well, that was Phillip's only way of getting food naturally. He was on the defensive for now.
"Second pay!" Phillip said, trying to amp himself up. He knew he did better this time, fewer reports were made, despite the lack of sleep. He had a feeling the cameras were pulled out of his pay, but it shouldn't make too much of a difference.
A torn envelope later, and two coins fell out. Checking the letter showed the mistakes, the cameras, and, apparently, the restaurant had several fault pipes in the bathroom that needed fixing.
Phillip swallowed. He felt like he was being exploited for cheap labor, but he also felt that all of these reasons were excusable. He shuffled the coins into his pocket and fell asleep.
The third month came, and Phillip was even more exhausted than before. Hoping beyond hope, Phillip tore the envelope apart.
A single coin fell out.
Reading the letter, the mistakes had apparently stacked up even more. That wasn't even going into that some of the customers had complained about their food and demanded refunds. Finally, the freezer and water pump need repairs, with the freezer being slightly higher than normal, and the water pump broke.
Phillip just shoved the coin away and fell asleep.
_End_
*GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWL*
Which is why we come to this.
Gabriel, how do you kill your stomach and still survive?
"You eat."
Phillip groaned before forcing his pillow on his face. Gab.
"No."
Gab, please.
"It's not going to help now."
Gab, just give me enough to go get something to eat. Please.
"You can't keep relying on this crutch."
Please! I'm going to die!
"You sent clones out to scavenge ever since Sho shut down the freezer. Call them back."
Phillip pulsed his chakra, as weak as it was now. He caught on how much venom Gabriel put in says Sho's name.
There was a brown envelope on the side of the bed, unopened.
"Are you going to open that?"
Would it make a difference? Also, why the fuck can't I get access to my money?!
The thing that Gabriel and Phillip were talking about was one of Phillip's special abilities.
During his first adventure, Phillip was bonded to the Darkness Dragon, and it granted him something grand.
For every coin Phillip spent, he would gain two in return. For every wallet stole, two more took its place, with double the money inside. A karma cycle, if you would.
After some time, the dragon was placed in a cloned body to continue Phillip's adventure in another dimension. At this separation, Phillip lost this ability.
However, Gabriel recreated this ability and made it better.
See, no dimension utilizes the same currency. So, at the end of each adventure, Gabriel would transform the money into pure energy, and transfer it into a pocket dimension only Gabriel could get to. At any new dimension, Gabriel would transform the energy into the right currency and place it into Phillip's wallet.
With this, Gabriel provided a source of infinite cash that Phillip could live from.
However, with more recent adventures, Gabriel noticed this become more of a crutch to Phillip, the person who had no problems giving away as much money as other people wanted.
Footing the bill for the last Goku all-you-can-eat was probably the last straw in the hay pile. Gabriel became set on making Phillip a far more frugal person.
Unfortunately, it had to be now that he puts his foot down.
"If you just spend every second tossing money at the problem, you're not going to learn how actually use money!"
Didn't we do that with the school?!
"Yes, as a necessity. Food can be gotten anywhere, something your friend Goku doesn't seem to get!"
Okay, look. Maybe saying I'll pay last time wasn't the smartest of ideas-
"Goku literally ate the place out of food, AND THEN ATE THE DAMN BUILDING!"
*GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWL*
Please don't say 'eat'.
"Look, there are many ways of getting what you need. Stop using money as an excuse, and use what you've learned instead."
"Heya, boss!"
Phillip flinched at the clone's voice. The voice itself wasn't a problem, it just brought back a bad memory.
Looking to his window, Phillip stared at the disfigured clone. One eye bulged out while the other shrunk in, both on different levels from the other. The clone had a hunched back, and one arm was heavily swollen. Two rows of teeth poked through its lips.
Phillip flinched again. The clone looked like if the Hunched-Back of Notre Dame fucked a beaver, had a son, and then forced the kid to snort cocaine. Guess that's what happens when you create a clone on low physical energy.
"Hey, you're the one that made me."
"Not with this in mind," Phillip replied, before getting to business. "What do you have?"
"Nothing much," the clone said, putting out his hand. Phillip cupped his hands together to catch whatever the clone dropped. When the clone unclenched his fist, three coins fell.
Three of the same coin that Phillip had gotten for pay the last three months.
Phillip steeled himself before asking the next question. "Anything from the hunting party?"
The clone put his hand to his chin before saying, "Yeah. Apparently, all the animals around here are infected with somethin'. So, no food there. Fruits and berries are out too."
Phillip groaned and dispelled the clone. Laying back on the bed, he placed both hands on his face to cover his eyes.
I'm going to die like this.
"... Look at the envelope."
If I do, will you-
"If there's nothing there, I'll allow you to pull enough for food for next year."
Phillip picked the envelope up and, shakingly, tore the top off. Dumping the contents, he prepared for the worst.
Several bills fell out, along with some silver coins of various sizes.
Phillip dropped the torn envelope in shock and excitement. "I got paid."
"Then, what are you waiting for? Go get some food."
Phillip scrambled to get the money into his pockets, causing two coins to fall to the floor in the haste. After he picked them up, he rushed to his door and opened it.
He almost ran over Sho, had he not stopped himself.
"Oh, ho!" Sho laughed with a smile. "I'm surprised you're awake at this time."
"Sir!" Phillip said as he halted. "Thank you for my pay today!"
"Nonsense. You've done wonderfully this month." Sho said, placing his hands on Phillip's shoulders. "However, I was hoping I could get some aid at this time of night."
"Oh?" Phillip was slightly scared at what Sho would need him for.
"You see, some of the foods in the freezer have… molded," Sho stated. "I was hoping you would hop down to the grocery store to find replacements."
Phillip beamed. He planned to do exactly that. A few more items shouldn't hurt much.
"Absolutely, sir!"
"Good lad." Sho handed him a list. "This has the items you'll need to buy."
Phillip took the list, readjusted his jacket, and rushed off to finish the tasks. Once again, his eagerness on the matter made him miss the change in Sho's personality.
"Such an eager one, isn't he?" Sho asked, with a hand under his chin as his thumb and index finger traced his jaw. Sho smiled evilly. "How long will it be before he breaks, I wonder."
"30 onions?" Phillip said, looking at the list as he walked through the store, pushing a cart along the way.
The list Sho gave him was detailed. While Phillip said onions, the list specified both how ripe each one had to be, type, color, and shape. This made each item made Phillip hyper-meticulous, looking for exactly what Sho asked for.
It scared Phillip how detailed the list was, making it seem like Sho was purposely making it hard on him to get back to both eat and sleep. Phillip shook it out of his system. It was him that was taking advantage of a man's generosity. Phillip needed to back Sho back for everything he's done.
Even though, it seemed like Sho was just using him.
Phillip pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing the thoughts out while reaching for another item Sho needed.
His outstretched hand brushed against another.
Pulling back, he looked behind him to see who he touched.
A black-haired girl stood there, slightly perplexed. She was wearing a black shirt with a matching collar and cuffs that had a yellow stripe on them, a yellow tie, and a black skirt. Her hair was held back by a large purple bow, leading to a large ponytail. Another piece of her hair was twisted into a braid. The front of her hair was decorated with two black hair clips and two green clips.
Overall, she looked like a Senba student.
"I'm sorry," she said, pulling back.
"Oh, no." Phillip gave her a grin and motioned forward. "I insist."
The girl grabbed the item she was looking for and scampered off. Phillip chuckled and grabbed his items before he moved along.
"Nice girl. Would be nice to meet her again someday."
Phillip nearly buckled as he arrived back at the restaurant. He had to place the groceries onto the ground to open the door and then brought them into the building. Running through the paces of turning on the lights in complete darkness, Phillip moved Sho's necessities into the freezer to be stored, before bringing the few items of his to his room.
The total for Sho's stuff was enough to sack Phillip's pay down to 10 percent of what it originally was, but Phillip was able to get some stuff for himself.
Peanut butter and bread have a variety of uses.
Sure, he wouldn't be able to eat three meals a day, but to him, it was a step in the right direction.
Now to see if he could get enough sleep in 30 minutes.
Waking up at just the right time, Phillip went through the paces as quickly as possible. He wanted to hit the 5th month like the last time. The morning went without a hitch, with no need to jot down a problem. Getting his pack ready, and a sandwich in a bag, Phillip was ready to head out immediately.
It surprised him that Sho was standing outside today.
"Ah, Phillip!" Sho said, smile and all, as Phillip walked outside to meet him. "I've got to thinking. Maybe I've been pushing you too hard."
"It's okay, sir."
"Nonetheless," Sho swiped his hand away, shoving Phillip's comment aside. "I deemed it necessary that you have today off."
"Really?!" Phillip was extremely surprised at this. He had no day off since the beginning. He was now excited that Sho was giving him such great things.
"Yes, I simply ask you to come back before closing."
Standing straight, Phillip gave his best business-oriented stature. "I promise, sir!"
"Good, now you'd best get to class." Phillip nodded at this and rushed out of the alley.
Now out onto an actual street, Phillip made sure the crosswalk nearby gave him the light, before running across. There was a particular place he wanted to get to before heading straight to school.
"Good morning, Phillip!"
Phillip grinned at the voice. The sweet voice was only beaten by the sweat smell from the shop the voice came from.
"Good morning, Ms. Chen! How's Kuro-chan?"
The mildly plump lady brought her hand to cheek, thinking of her dear pet. "He's doing just fine. Thank you for saving him from those dogs the other day."
"It's nothing, ma'am." Phillip smiled.
"Oh, but it means so much to me. In fact, I made you a reward." Ms. Chen pulled out a small bag from her brown purse which held four chocolate cookies.
"A-Are you sure?" Phillip was planning on getting sweets from Ms. Chen's shop today, but he was also planning on paying.
"Think nothing of it, dear."
Phillip gave a small bow towards her. "T-Thank you."
"Oh, you're so adorable!"
Phillip had no time to defend himself from the bone-crushing hug the woman gave, pressing him into her green, flowery dress. In two minutes, the hug ceased and Phillip pulled one of the cookies out of the plastic bag.
"You'll make a girl happy one day, you know." Ms. Chen told him. He just nodded as he bit into the baked treat.
"Or two, if you favor that."
Phillip nearly spat out the cookie he was eating, and coughed.
"Did I say something wrong, dear?"
"N-no!" Phillip said frantically. "I just need to get to school, and I noticed the time."
"Well, don't let me keep you!" Ms. Chen said while patting him in the direction of the school. "Good-bye!"
"Good-bye, Ms. Chen!"
In reality, Phillip had forgotten one of a few differences in this world was how marriage worked here.
From what he read, this humanity was constantly fighting something and were constantly losing people in large numbers. The biggest one recently happened back in 2000, where countries lost millions of their own civilians. Even without that, a city with a lackluster defense would seem to crumble overnight. This happened more times than one would think.
Desperate to keep numbers high, countries removed most, if not all, limits when it comes to marriage. That included participates at vastly younger ages, only stopping at the standard age of puberty, and harems cropping up. Granted, women happened to be the most common instigator, but there have been plenty of males in the field.
Phillip was disgusted in one part of this and more shocked in the other.
Forcing his flush down, Phillip got to school much sooner than expected. Thankful for his transformation for staying up, Phillip walked to the front entrance, confident that no one would notice his frame had thinned to paper, nor the bags under his eyes.
Keeping up in class was getting harder and harder. Ignoring the constant urge to just drop into the endless void of sleep, his stomach calling out for attention was becoming the worst annoyance. The only reason it didn't broadcast its growls to the world was that Phillip managed to make a seal that told it to shut the fuck up.
Phillip did this with one of the pens in by the cash register and a piece of receipt paper. No one would be able to find the thing, as it is taped directly on top of his stomach.
With the class winding down for lunch, Phillip got ready to pick up his bag and head for the roof.
"Hey, dude!"
Oh, right. This kid.
This kid was one of the few people that constantly ignored the aura Phillip made. Normally, this would be the key to Phillip that this person was at least decent. However, in his hunger, and with his mood being in the pits recently, this sent Phillip's aura up from repulsive to outright murderous. This sent every other classmate scampering, looking for their lunch spots as quickly as possible.
Not this kid.
Phillip doesn't know how this blonde-haired bitch boy managed to not get the memo before. Was he absent? Asleep? Either way, Phillip wanted to set the record straight.
When he stopped punching Phillip's arm.
"Hey, no girl actually likes the loner spiel, so just drop it!" the boy said, sending jab after jab into Phillip's arm while hugging his other. "Tell you what, how about you come with me and my friends, and we can talk about that really cute girl in 1-B."
Oh, how Phillip wanted to just strangle him.
"Yeah, I think her nickname was some 'Queen of Thunder', or something. Scary name, but maybe that's the challenge."
Strangle him with barb wire.
"I've heard her boobs are the biggest in the class! Maybe she's got the ass to-"
"Sammy!"
The boy looked over to the doorway to see a blue-haired girl staring at him, flushed red. "What's up, Ami?"
The girl stomped over to him, pried him off Phillip, and began to push the boy out of the room. Turning around, she uttered a "sorry" to Phillip before booting the other boy out of the class.
The boy, however, didn't stop talking.
"Looks like I'm off to get laid! I'll tell you how it feels later!"
A resounding smack echoed the halls as the door slammed shut. Looking at his desk, Phillip noticed it was cracked from the amount of pressure one of his hands applied to it between his thumb and palm.
"Getting that anger checked out?"
Yeah, sure.
Phillip sat there for a little while before he finally got up and headed towards the roof.
The door to the roof swung open from a small building stationed to the right of the roof. Phillip walked through and went to the shady side, which was the narrow side of the roof.
The roof was separated, but not through material means. The door told how the roof was cut in half. On one side was a large, open area in the sun with a few benches for students to sit down at. The other side was a far smaller side where the door building cast some shady. Phillip preferred the shade in compared to the sun, so he sat there instead.
The place was once a far more habited place, but once Phillip started showing up on the first month, students began to stay away and condemn the place. Not the Phillip minded. It gave him more chances to relax.
In the perpetual silence, Phillip snacked down on the cookies and his own sandwich. While neither of these was going to be a complete fix to his problems, Phillip felt his chakra begin to stabilize for the first time in four months.
And now, even better than the food, Phillip had the last of the day to himself. He thought he'd just sleep to recover more.
Phillip lifted one of his arms to his face to sniff it.
Maybe he should go to that waterfall the Sho mentioned during the first month. He definitely needed a shower.
Hello again!
Thank you to those that read this, favorited it, are following it, and to the very first reviewer!
To the reviewer, I hope the explanation in this chapter gives you your answer. If not, I'll try my best to explain it here. For anyone else asking this, please stay tuned.
So, the origins of Phillip's money are stated in this chapter, along with a few spoilers for later stories. The idea is that Phillip himself cannot access the Mula without aid from a higher power, like the dragon or Gabriel.
So, by himself, that money is untouchable to Phillip.
Gabriel, at this point, has watched Phillip use this infinite source of wealth frivolously and luxuriously, not realizing the wealth was a system to help satisfy his needs, not wants, much less the wants of others.
In this story, at this point, Gabriel has had enough of this crap. So, he's forcing Phillip into a state where he needs to think more and be more conservative towards his approaches. The school was an oversight on Gabriel's part that he was willing to fix, but shelter and food were something Phillip had figure out by himself, without the aid of divinity.
However, as you can see, Phillip has a few problems that haven't been iron out yet.
Anyways, that's the best I can give you on your question.
I'd appreciate constructive criticism. You all have a blessed day!