It begins inside this city where one man was dreaming to set out into the lands beyond the walls of this city and become a full-time adventure. His name is Hiroki, and he just turn eighteen this year and has been working as an apprentice to a blacksmith, named Hajime. Hiroki has short light-grey hair and light-blue eyes.

Hiroki was working as a delivery boy at the age of fifteen in order to save enough money to buy himself the perfect equipment. After dealing with some setbacks, he struggles to get the right amount of money to buy his armour and weapons, while also had to wait a couple of years until he is old enough to join the adventures guild. His business as a delivery boy eventually got the attention to Hajime and asks for him to work with him at delivering weapons and equipment to adventures at the guild. He gladly accept it and remain working with him with much more payment than before. Hajime also plan to ask him to help with the forge when he is ready to master the skills of forging a sword or a piece of armour. If Hiroki makes a perfect equipment and got it sold by a client, Hajime will give him the money for the price of that particular item.

Hiroki felt so happy working with the blacksmith, unlike his relationship with his parents and his twin brother. His brother is Shunsuke, and he is the golden child to the family. Hiroki and Shunsuke look identical with the hair and eyes, but Shunsuke's personality is completely different compare to Hiroki. Ever since he was born, Shunsuke was a perfect child that got everything he desire from his parents, while Hiroki was becoming nothing but an outcast to this family. Hiroki tried so hard to get their attention, but he could never beat his brother and found himself always being in his brother's shadow.

Instead of trying to get their love, he always gets into fights with them. He got a fight with his father one day.

"How is it that you're both twins and he's far more talented than you?"

"I've told you many times not to compare me with my brother…" Hiroki replies while looking upset "Were both different."

"I can already see the difference between the two. You can do better if you try!"

After that, both his parents start to feel ashamed to have Hiroki as their son.

"I just wanted to be recognised… Is it really that hard?" Hiroki asks himself while sitting in his room and left in a depressing state.

He also heard a conversation from his mother one day, talking behind his back and saying "Hiroki was such a hard boy to raise. Because of him, I struggled to sleep and suffered a severe postpartum depression. But my other son was perfect. He wasn't a burden to me at all. And now he's much smarter and better than my other son. It would've been enough to have him as my only son."

Because of that, he no longer saw these people as his parents or his family. He hated them and himself for not being the perfect child they desire. Despite gaining some achievements, his parents would never praise him and show any signs of caring towards him.

"I have no place in this house…."

While his parents show no caring towards him, his brother on the other hand was completely worse than his parents. Shunsuke was on top of the hill who looks down on others and wish to stay like that forever. He loves the attention, loves to be better than Hiroki and loves to put him down because his parents would always protect Shunsuke over Hiroki. While Hiroki was trying to get enough money to buy equipment for his adventure, Shunsuke only need to do half of it and leave the rest to his parents to help pay for his armour and equipment.

One time, Shunsuke did something bad to Hiroki by stealing a great opportunity of a lifetime.

During the cleaning at the back of the room for the blacksmith, Hiroki stops and looks at this tall rectangular display case where a mannequin with a suit of armour was inside of it. This badass armour was blue with golden outlines and has both a perfect kite shield to match the armour and a curve looking sword. He always plan to keep as much money as possible to buy that armour from the blacksmith and reach his brother's level. In the end, he knew he cannot ask Hajime for the armour, so he decides to find a different set of armour.

Instead of starting off with a high level armour, he went to a low level as himself as a rookie adventurer. He got the equipment he got from the blacksmith and has a perfect armour ready for action. The whole set was leather clothing with chainmail underneath and protects his body with metal plates covering his chest, back, shoulders, arms and legs. His metal helmet covers his whole face and only a typical line stretching across the front of it as an eye socket to see through. His gains a regular-sized shield and a longsword.

"I'll hold onto the shield and sword, while you go for a walk and test its mobility." Hajime says to him "You need to get used to its weight first before you start focusing on other things."

"You're right." Hiroki replies while moving his arms back and forth to stretch.

Hiroki sets out and wonders the streets and takes a half hour walk around the place to feel the weight of the armour and equipment he is wearing. He also expects to do some training with the sword later when he is done or do it tomorrow.

During the walk around the city, he pulls off a typical saving a damsel in distress. He sees two men trying to make a move on a woman wearing a nice dress. She is a young woman with chin-length blue hair with a green dyed fringe on the right side and has brown eyes. She was not happy with the men trying to flirt with her and one of them attempts to grab her. Hiroki calls out to them and rushes over to interfere. These men just came out a tavern so of course they be drunk enough to get into fights and causing trouble towards others. He thought by approaching them in full armour would intimidate them enough to back off and retreat, but one of them thought it was a good idea to punch him while he is wearing full armour. He defends himself and punches the man away from him, knocked him down to the floor and stands in front of the woman to protect her. The other man decides to pull out a dagger and attempt to rush him to stab him across the side of his chest. Because of a terrible roll, Hiroki fail to block the man from stabbing him in the side of his chest in a vulnerable place of his armour, pierced straight through his leather and chainmail underneath to actually hit his skin. Hiroki grabs onto the man's wrist to stop him from pushing the dagger any further and punches him hard across the face to knock him to the floor.

This battle was over and the guards show up to apprehend the two men. Hiroki steps away and pulls the dagger out of his body and notice the blood at the end of the dagger. While he cannot feel the pain right now, due to the adrenaline he is feeling from fighting them, but he will feel it as soon as he makes his back home to see the blacksmith for another patching up to do.

"Hold on!" The woman calls out to Hiroki and bows to him "Thank you."

Hiroki looks back at her while keeping one hand to his wound and responds "It's nothing…"

She raise her head and looks back at him with still the same calm expression on her face. She then lowers her eyes down to his injury and responds "You're hurt…"

"This is nothing…. I suffered worse than this…. It's nothing." After that, Hiroki turns away and takes his leave.

"This was my first combat… And my first injury was saving a woman…" Hiroki thought to himself and smiles happily over the fact that this was probably his first quest of saving someone.

He returns to the blacksmith and explains to himself what happen.

"Are you kidding me!? You're wearing armour and you still got yourself stabbed?! Unbelievable…."

"But… You're the one who made this armour." Hiroki says to him while sitting on the bed without his armour and shirt.

"Are you saying it's my fault the armour didn't protect you?" Hajime asks and sighs with annoyance. He looks back at the injury and starts to look serious when beginning to stitch up another wound of his.

"You've got to be more careful. You're too damn important to me."

"I'm sorry…."

"Jeez… You're going to have to prepare yourself when you go outside. There's things out there that could do more damage than you." Hajime says while looking concern to Hiroki

"I'll try to be careful next time. And besides, I doubt there's anything out there that's worse than my brother."

"Let's hope you're right."

So after patching his injuries, Hiroki continues doing his job like nothing happen. However, when he came back to the blacksmith, Hajime told him there was a woman looking for him and asks who was wearing that armour.

"Her name is Xenovia Quartz, and she's a paladin of the Holy Light." Hajime explains to him "She saw your armour on a mannequin and asked who wore it. She said you saved her from two men and was looking for you."

"R-Really? Where is she now?"

"Probably back at the church or looking for you. I said your name and your appearance, so she'll be expecting of you."

"Do I have any more work to do?"

"No." Hajime shakes his head "Go! Go see her!"

"Right, thank you." Hiroki turns around and sprints out the door to look for Xenovia. He was feeling happy knowing he did something nice to someone and probably expects a reward from her. "I wonder if I can ask her to train me."

But then his happiness went away instantly the moment he found his brother coming out of the church. This was his opportunity of a lifetime, but his brother went ahead and stole it from him. Shunsuke would wave at him with a happy look the moment he saw Hiroki approaching the church. This made Hiroki lose his happiness and looks worry when approaching his brother.

"What are you doing here?" Hiroki asks him

"Xenovia was looking for me. She wanted to thank me for saving her from those men and rewards me by joining her team." Shunsuke says to him

"W-What?"

Xenovia found Shunsuke instead of Hiroki and assumes he was the one who saved her from those two men. She was wearing a clad of white armour with a blue cape at the back and blue knee-length loincloth at the front. Her weapon was a large blue sword with some gold ornaments on her back.

Shunsuke plays his role as pretending to be his brother and goes with her to the church to speak with her. She explains she could easily take care of those men, but doing so would ruin the dress and was told not to get the dress dirty. She rewards him by offering him a wish, so he ask for the reward to join her team and be part of her party on fighting monsters outside the city.

"You did good saving a woman like that. She's amazing, and she's interested in me. Of course, she'll probably be disappointed to learn that someone like you saved her. So, I'll be taking good care of her." Shunsuke says to him.

"But she asked for me and not you…. You have no right to –"

Shunsuke would end up grabbing his shoulder tightly. His happiness turns to an evil glare towards Hiroki and whispers to him "Shut up. Don't say anything you prick. You take this away from me and I'll end you."

". . . . ."

After that, Shunsuke gives him a couple of soft slaps across Hiroki's face and returns to being happy again. He walks away and returns home, while Hiroki remains where he was and left shaken by what he just said. He looks back at the church, tempted to sort things out by telling the truth, but he fears his brother and worries what he could do to him if he finds out he told the truth. In the end, he shakes his head and turns around to leave before anyone could see him. Once again he let his brother get away with this and cannot do anything about it. He forgets about what happen and decide to lie to the Hajime the blacksmith and says to him "She only wanted to thank me for what happened."

And while he was by himself privately, he sits back against a wall and looking depressed at what his brother did "Damn him… How can he do this to me? Is he having that much fun taking everything from me?!"

But this moment was not the last time his brother did something bad to him. It gets worse. In the present time, Shunsuke decide to pay a visit to his brother and decide to show off by wearing this red dragon armour he just got today. It was red with golden outlines, no wings or helmet right now and was carrying a magical spear in his hand. He just came up to him to rub it in his face that he beat his older brother once again at a competition to see who can become an adventurer first.

"Check it out. I've got my full dragon armour and spear all ready for my adventures beyond the castle. Jealous?" Shunsuke asks while looking happy and proud of himself at this achievement.

Hiroki was surprise at first to see him in this full armour, but he responds with a straight face to Shunsuke and says "Not really. I'm busy right now, so get lost." Then he tries to walk past him to ignore him. However, Shunsuke waves the spear in front of him to prevent him from leaving.

"Hey. Don't ignore me. That's rude." Shunsuke says to him while looking angry at him.

Hiroki looks back at him and responds "Did you seriously come to find me just to get me jealous? That's pathetic."

Shunsuke clenches his teeth and replies "Someone's acting all high and mighty. I'm still better than you."

"Were done. I'm going home." Hiroki grabs onto the spear and lifts it over his head so he could continue walking away from him.

But then Shunsuke turns towards him and smiles "I also came to thank you for saving up all that money for me."

Hearing those words made him pause for a few seconds and turns his head to look back at him to see Shunsuke looking back at him with a sinister grin on his face.

"What are you talking about?" Hiroki asks him

Shunsuke waves the spear in front of him and replies "This spear was quite expensive. But I appreciate you saving up enough money to help me buy it. Thanks bro."

"No…" Hiroki shakes his head thinking this could just be a lie and he is just saying this just to get into his head. He asks "What did you do?!"

"Don't feel bad, our parents were actually proud of you to offer me enough money to buy the spear. They're also glad you used the rest of the money to take us to a perfect place to eat."

"Are you serious?! All of my money? Gone? I don't believe you."

"You can't hide anything from me, brother. What you owe is mine."

"No…. That was my money… All of it!" Hiroki replies with upset and anger while also starting to feel a little lightheaded.

"Our money. Don't be a stingy brother and keep all that to yourself. Besides, you can just make more money because you've got a job. Sharing is caring, right brother?"

Hiroki was frozen when hearing that. He did all this hard work to get this far with the money and learn that it was all taken away by his abusive brother. He was pissed. His sadness turns to anger, and while he was feeling unbalance, he steps forward and grabs onto the spear with both hands to keep himself from collapsing to the floor.

"You're a thief! And you're no longer my brother! Hand it over!" Hiroki shouts at him while keeping a strong grip on the polearm of the spear with both hands. "You have no right to steal that money from me! That was my money, so that spear belongs to me!"

And so the two fight over the spear until his Shunsuke decides he had enough of his rebellious brother. He decides to use the spear against his own brother by swinging the front of that spear towards him and delivers a serious cut across the side of his cheek. That was enough to break the fight and brought Hiroki down on his knees and pressing his hands hard onto the floor to stop his torso and face from hitting the ground. He cries out in pain while pressing his right hand against the side of his face and spitting blood that was going into his mouth. He then moves to the side to sit up while keeping his hand pressing against his face. He expects his brother to look down at him with surprise and say "I didn't mean to hit you."

He was completely wrong, Shunsuke stands over him and aims the tip of the spear to his face. He looks down at him with this evil look and says to him "Don't ever touch me again or I won't show mercy on you."

He was serious. He had the look as if he was really ready to plunge that spear through his own brother's face. Hiroki looks up at him with a terrifying look and beginning to send tears down his face.

"W-Why? W-Why would you do this to me? I'm your brother…."

"Just like you said before. We're not brothers. I'm the chosen son, not you. I get everything I want, while you get nothing. That's how it works. And besides, watching you suffer is just too much fun."

". . . . ."

After that, Shunsuke lowers the spear and starts walking away from Hiroki.

Hiroki was left where he was. Broken, depressed, humiliated and defeated. This was as low as he can go and he cannot do this anymore. He eventually got up off the ground and took the sad walk of shame back to the blacksmith to ask for help stitching his injuries. The moment Hiroki came through the door, Hajime look back and left in shock to see him entering the room with blood dripping down his face and looking depressed.

"Oh my god! Hiroki!" Hajime runs around the front desk and rushes over to him "W-What happen to you?"

"I was attacked…" Hiroki replies while facing forward. His body starts to shake when sighing.

"Just keep your hand on the wound, I'll patch it up for you." Hajime stays on the left side of Hiroki and offers help to take him into the other room.

After a good wash and a dozen rags of removing the blood off his body, Hajime got to work trying to stitch the cut. It was a painful experience, but he just nod and did what Hajime told him to do. This pain of having him stitching his face and closing the wound was nothing compare to what his brother did to him. When Hajime asks "Who did this to you?" Hiroki cannot say anything. He remain silent while still bringing more tears down his face. He asks again, but Hiroki refuse to say it was his brother and ends up saying "I don't know him…."

Hajime said nothing to him after that. He focus on patching him up and washes his face again. With that all done, he let him go and told him to be careful when returning home. Hiroki thanks him and takes his leave from the room, while Hajime cleans up the mess in the room. However, before Hiroki takes his leave from the house, he looks to his left and finds a broadsword on the nearby desk. He glares at it with a calm expression while his mind was telling him to do it.

He was picturing the scenario in his head. He returns home with the sword, walks straight upstairs to his brother's room, walks into the room and drives that sword through his body before he could react on time. He would continue to stab him until the entire was completely in red with Shunsuke's blood. Soon, his parents came into the room when hearing a commotion happening upstairs and witness such a devastating discovery. The mother would cry out in terror at the sight of one of her sons killing the other, while the father rushes at him with fury to attack his own son. He would either succeed in disarming the weapon or be cut down by his own son. The mother drops down on the floor on her knees, terrified and shock to see such a horror while screaming "Murderer! Monster!" And then she too would probably be next to die. In the end, he stands over the bodies of his dead parents and brother, until he eventually decides to take his own life by dropping down to his knees and running the sword through himself to end it.

But it never happens. The hardest part was walking towards that sword to pick it up. Hiroki was broken and had no will to fight back. In the end, he returns home without saying a single word to his parents and returns to his room to remain there without getting anything to eat. He collapses on the bed, stayed awake for quite a while and continue to cry himself to sleep.

The next day, he learns Shunsuke has already left the house and went out to begin his adventure outside the city. He got a contract from the guild and sets out to enjoy the outside world, while Hiroki was left behind to start all over again with collecting money. It was slow to regain what he lost, and he was not in the mood to get more money by helping with forging weapons, so he returns to just being a delivery boy and a cleaner to the blacksmith.

But one day, Hajime asks him "What's taking you so long to buy the armour and gear? You've got enough money to buy yourself a house, so why haven't you bought anything?"

". . . . . ."

"Hiroki… What's going on? You haven't been yourself since that day you got cut. Did it really traumatised you enough to give up on being an adventurer?"

"I. . . . I don't have that money anymore . . . My brother stole it." Hiroki replies while looking away and feeling upset just thinking about it

"What? Why would he. . ." Hajime pause for a moment and then touches the side of his face to make Hiroki look back to face him. He looks at the cut across his face and asks "Who did this to you?"

Hiroki still tries to keep it to himself due to fear and what would happen to him later. In the end, he finally gave up and starts crying while trying to tell him what has been going on behind the scenes on what his brother did to him and what he said to him. Hajime was left furious at learning what his family and brother has done to him.

"That's terrible… I didn't know parents like that actually existed. That's insane. You should've left that home a long time ago."

"I'll be on the streets… My brother will probably find me anyway and traumatise me again…" Hiroki replies "I can't even fight back…."

"Be confident, Hiroki. Don't let that man destroy your dreams of becoming what you've always wanted to do. You don't have to go through that hell every day."

"What choice do I even have? I can't leave and I've got nowhere –"

"Then you're going to live here with me." Hajime replies with a smile

"W-What?" Hiroki asks while looking surprise at him

"I've got another extra bed for you to sleep in. And you don't have to worry about him stealing your money again, so let me handle your payment and all you got to do is continue doing what you've always been doing."

"But why do this for me?"

"You're a good kid, Hiroki. Someone like you shouldn't suffer like this. You did nothing wrong, but those parents of yours should really suffer for what they've done."

After that, Hiroki smiles happily while having tears go down his face. He tries to wipe the tears away while saying to Hajime. "Thank you…. You won't regret this…."

Hajime stands up and gently touch Hiroki's shoulder "Everything's going to be okay, son."

And so this place here was his new home. He got whatever stuff he has back at his original home and brought it here, except for the bed and any furnishing because he knew his parents would probably tell him to leave it here so they could sell it. So the moment they knew he was going somewhere else, they went ahead and sell all of his furnishing in his room and replace his room with something else or give it to his brother as a place for his equipment as an adventurer. Every day, Hiroki remains with the blacksmith and would actually experience what a real father figure would treat their son. Hajime was becoming more of a father than his real father ever could.

Now, after one week has gone by and Hiroki finally has everything he needs to finally set out as an adventurer. His equipment, his bags he attach on the back of his waist, weapons and shield, money and food for a long adventure. It took him so long to get here and starts feeling nervous when preparing to leave this place. His goal was not to join the adventures guild, but to get as far away from this city and start somewhere else. If he stays here, his brother will continue to harass him and sabotage him and leave him in despair, so the only option is to get away from his brother and start a life somewhere else.

Before leaving, he bows his head to Hajime and replies "Thank you for everything you've done for me. One day I'll come back and I'll repay you for the kindness you've gave me."

"You don't owe me anything. But if you want to repay me then you best stay alive out there. Don't get yourself killed. Stay alive for me."

Hiroki stands up straight and looks back to Hajime "I promise."

"I am proud of you, you know. You're ready for this."

". . . ." Hiroki was a little surprise when hearing him praise him so. This made him shed tears and replies "I always wanted to hear those words from my father… But you're more than a father than he ever was."

Hajime smiles and steps forward to give him a hug. Hiroki hugs him back and hugs him tightly while feeling emotional. They remain like this for a couple of seconds until finally they back away from one another, and Hiroki would turn away from Hajime and walk back out the door. His new life begins. His first stage of becoming an adventure was to go straight to a carriage driver and pays him to take him somewhere away from this place to an area perfect for a rookie like himself. He knew exactly where to go with the right price.