The infant laid, crying, on the floor of a deserted alley of Ironholes. Not far from him, in congealing pools of their own blood, among the dirt and the trash, his parents lay motionless too.

For a few minutes, neighbors' grumblings were the only answers to the distress calls of the baby. Some of them were even bitching at the assumed irresponsible parents and their noisy child.The 11th bell had resounded softly some time ago in the anti-Sirius poor district, so it was sleeping time for almost everybody in the area. It only made things worse.

A dirty-dressed neighbor, Jose, a bit more angered than the others, went out to try and bring back silence himself. The Everlasting Sunlight was hurting his sleepy eyes. Guided by his ears toward the unpleasant sounds, he looked for the baby. When he felt he was close enough, he added his personal touch of loud noise.

“Hey, do you know you are in an anti-Sirius residential district here? That it's sleeping time now? Can't you silence your little crying demon or take him to another place? If you want, I can gag him myself or give him some...”

He interrupted himself before adding quietly to himself.

“Oh, gods. Shit! Why couldn't they have died somewhere else or at another time? And they were some black-haired fuckers too! The murderers could have finished the job at least.”

The dirty man turned around and shouted to those of his neighbors watching through the windows.

“The parents of the baby are dead, murdered. Someone has to fetch the guards!”

“Go fetch them yourself, Jose. I'll offer you a drink next time, I promise.”

“Yeah, go there yourself. Get the weeper out of here.”

After some arguing, he had to yield. They had teamed up against him. He had no chance. With disgust, he went to retrieve the crying package and set for the guardhouse.

The baby had been entrusted to Magdalena in the guardhouse some minutes ago. She was the one to take care of registering and placing newly orphaned children.

“The poor little thing.”

She looked at the now asleep boy. She took some paper and a quill pen she plunged into a bottle of dark blue ink. “Tell me your name, please. Identify person.”

Status : Metello Level : 0 Ether : 0 Class : None (none)

“So, you are called Metello. Black hair, orphan, weird name, you have not the luckiest start in life tiny thing.”

She mumbled to herself.

“I guess I don't need to ask the “Holy Merit Orphanage” to know if they will take you in with this hair. I will talk with Heloise for this time.”

She added a little louder as if the baby was listening.

“You will see that she is a very nice person Metello. I just hope you will not follow most of her kids and go the [Rogue] way. She does all that she can so that her children grow well, but that is a hard job. Harder than mine. Try not to push me to arrest you in the future at least? OK?”

Some cycles after his thirteen birthcycle, Metello was sitting, reading in the orphanage library. His plain raw shirt and his gray leather pants covered his a bit weaker than average body. A gray rat leather hat hid as much of his short dark hair as it could. For him, the library was a safe place, a room where he could relax. To get in, you had to get through the headmistress' office, Mrs Richardson, and she was close enough to hear if there was a bit too much of a fuss in there. The boy had needed this safe place a lot in the past.

His hair color had been a strong magnet for bullies when he was younger. He had been told early that he was the only one in all the city with this kind of hair, and on the rare times he went for a walk in the streets, he could only believe it. These streets taught him too that bullying him was not just an orphan thing.

Now, Metello was one of the older kids of the Equality Orphanage, infamously nicknamed “Rogue orphanage”. The number of bullies had decreased a lot in the building as he was a bit less of the easy prey he was, and he knew how to avoid problems now.

With the hours he had spent in the library in these almost thirteen years, reading had grown as Metello's favorite hobby with drawing. It was far from a noble's book room as it was furnished only with a small old table, three mismatched chairs, and a lone half-filled bookcase. Despite that, he got to like reading. Above all, he loved the tales of heroes fighting the living and undead legions of Nox, the goddess of disorder, coldness, and darkness.

However, Metello couldn't help feeling a bit bored when he finished his leather-covered book. It was the third time he read it. It wasn't even the book he read the most out of the 63 books he had access to as he had read his favorite stories no less than six times. It wasn't easy to get new books to read from the headmistress. Several times, she had managed to borrow some books for him from the outside and he was grateful for that, but it didn't take away the boredom he felt now.

Metello would have sketched hero scenes as he liked to do if he could but the last drawing slate had been broken some cycles ago by a younger kid, and using paper was too costly for the orphanage.

As he heard the 15th bell resounding, he stretched his thin limbs. He stood up and put away his book. He had some chores to do before dinner, and this time was as good as any. He went out of the library through the corridor and entered the office.

Mrs Richardson was there, dressed in her simple pale orange [Priestess] robe, her hair fixed in her usual casually tied gray bun. Remembering his last time request, he timidly asked her.

“Excuse me, Madam, do you have news for the books the orphanage could borrow from the other orphanage ?”

She looked up, a small smile on her face, enhancing her wrinkles.

“Metello. I'm sorry, but they won't let us borrow theirs as we thought. I've even been told not to ask ever again. Perhaps they are afraid our kids could eat their books, those fools.”

Disappointed but not surprised, Metello breathed deeply. “Thanks for trying. I'll be doing my chore then.”

He turned around to exit but was interrupted by the [Priestess]. “Oh, wait a minute, please. You got your birthcycle last week. I guess it's time to have “The” talk if you've got nothing planned more urgent than chores.”

“ “The” talk? What it is ?”

“How refreshing to have a kid not knowing all of it for once.”

The small smile that bloomed on her lips faded with a sigh.

“I presume your relationship with the other older kids is to blame. “The” talk is the one about class choices. I avoid telling about it too early to the children to let them enjoy being kids and discovering what they like in life. Obviously, there are often information leaks from the older ones. Nevertheless, I still try to keep it that way. As you are coming of age in a year now, you have to think about your future adult life, about what you want to be and do.”

Metello nodded. He remained silent, unprepared for the seriousness of the discussion.

“Do you have an idea of what kind of adult you want to be ?”

With a wince, he replied.“Not really.”

“That's fine. I can help you think about it.” She stood up and took a book from her bookcase. It was filled mainly with account notebooks, but there were one or two real books too. “This writing is called “How to choose and unlock a class”. The title is quite explicit. Yes, it's a book I didn't let you borrow yet, and you will be able to read it tomorrow. However, I'd like to tell you about it a bit now. You may know or think you know things about the system, especially since you learned the Prayer of Status some years ago, but we better start again from the beginning. I have been sometimes really surprised by what the children thought they knew about it. I'm going to read and comment on a passage from the introduction.”

Metello nodded again.

“The divine system covers several interdependent concepts which are firstly the statistics, secondly the blessings, thirdly the class. Those are combined to form the different sections of the Prayer of Status.

The statistics are the numbers the gods chose to evaluate your general abilities.

A blessing is a specific power one of the gods bestows somebody when he assesses the person is worth it. There are a lot of them.

A class is a definite pattern of improvement on which you can progress by absorbing ether from monster cores or improving the associated blessings.

I guess you knew that at least most of it.”

Metello did not talk much with other children about it, but the divine system was much present in the hero stories, and he learned a lot from reading them. He nodded, even knowing he heard details he ignored.

The headmistress continued.

“There are ten basic classes, each a different path you can walk on as an adult.

These classes are [Acolyte], [Artist], [Civil servant], [Craftsman], [Hunter], [Merchant], [Rogue], [Scholar], [Warrior] and [Worker]. Each can lead your life toward a different goal, to fit a different role. Therefore, I recommend every kid to think deeply before making a choice you can't take back, a choice that will influence greatly your future life.

When you pick a class, the system applies bonuses on your associated statistics, and concerned gods and goddesses grant you specific blessings.

Unfortunately, you won't have to choose between those ten as you have to unlock these classes choices by getting the prerequisite blessings. Only the [Worker] class is available to everyone.

Later, classes can evolve to other tiers if other prerequisites as fulfilled, but always on the same general path chosen at first.”

The headmistress stopped the reading and looked at Metello.

“For example, I am a [Priestess], but I got the [Acolyte] class at first. [Cook], [Farmer], and [Miner] are other special tier classes coming from the [Craftsman] and [Worker] classes. There are a lot more special classes than basic ones. I hope everything is clear for you ?”

Metello slowly nodded, and Mrs Richardson kept on her explanation, leaving the book at the side.

“You should have broadly understood what a class is, but be careful, a class is not a job. You can work as a cook while not being a [Cook]. It is just a lot easier. Some classes and jobs are really tightly linked, but it's not always the case. As a [Priestess], I could have worked in a temple, as a monster hunter, as a craftswoman, or for many different jobs. The one I'm doing now, for example. In reality, I'm mostly working with papers and all that is more characteristic to the [Civil servant] classes.”

“That said, the best thing for you, for now, is to think about the kind of job you want in the future and choose your class accordingly. That way, you would have more tools for this job, knowing you can always switch jobs later. So, do you have something in mind? Or some hobby you have that can transition into a job? Some expectations you have in life ?”

It was a lot to assimilate. The stories he had read were not as detailed as what he heard there. The basic class choice was not an epic subject. He hadn't the time to answer as the headmistress continued.

“You could get a job about books or...”

Mrs Richardson stopped in the middle of her phrase, and her voice tone changed.

“Haven't you said several years ago that you wanted to travel? If I remember correctly, you even said something like you wanted to “leave this goddamn fucking shitty town forever”. These were some really nasty words for a seven-year-old. You learned that kind of thing well.”

This time, he opened his mouth, ashamed. He had a past of speaking not too well indeed. “Sorry, Madam.”

But she was right. For him, traveling meant leaving this town that hated him because of his hair color. Perhaps, it could mean finding his parents' town too. With even more luck, he could even find grandparents, aunts or uncles.

She saw that the boy was considering it a lot. “It could guide your choice. Not many jobs allow you to travel far, but there are some.” She listed, looking up as she searched her memory. “I can think about some jobs which allow traveling. For example, there are traveling merchants, some kind of artists or scholars, game hunters, monster hunters too, and boat-worker jobs. There are surely more.”

It was the second time she spoke about monster hunters, and it appealed to him. He couldn't help but imagine himself as a character in one of his books, enjoying the freedom to go where he wants and the capability to defend himself. In a little corner of his mind, the possibility to become a hero was here too. He smiled at his own reverie.

Mrs Richardson was looking at him and it didn't escape her blue happy eyes. “It seems you have some ideas for now to ponder.”

Coming to himself again, Metello answered. “Yes, Madam.”

“Very well. I keep the book here. I will lend it to you tomorrow after breakfast. Now, you have things to think about and chores to do. I have my chores here too. I have to ask one last thing before you go. Please refrain from talking in detail about that to the other kids.”

Thanking her again, Metello got out, then went through the building to the storage room. There, he found his tools to mop the wooden floor.