Nero, had a hatred for his own luck.

In case one forgot, Nero was that philosophy student that met the S-Class when they were dealing with the dislike normal humans had for Sages.

Nero himself was a normal human, though the one thing he forgot to mention when with his new Sage friends was that he had odd luck.

See, Nero believed himself to be under that old Chinese curse about interesting times, as where ever he went it seemed odd things happened.

Case in point, he went to Berlin and met the strongest Sages of their year and talked to them, rekindling their belief that normal humans can appreciate them.

Nero wasn’t blind to how strange it must seem to others, how he just so happened to befriend them so easily and be there to help them when they needed it.

But he grew tired of trying to tell people that he wasn’t trying to trick them or get anything from them, they rarely believed his talks of his luck.

Another example of his luck was his current situation.

“This, is a robbery. Calmly drop your valuables into the bag, and no one gets hurt.” How was it, that in a few months of no train robberies, Nero just so happened to be on a train when it happens?

Worse, they were Rogue Sages, meaning that there was no way Nero could do anything to escape the situation, ignoring his luck he was a normal human.

“Ah… brilliant timing.” Nero heard someone say from nearby, turning his head slightly to look at the adjacent bench, seeing two men seated, the one who spoke having metallic silver hair, and a sleeping blonde one.

“Wake up you lazy bastard.” The accent was old Empire, and the silver haired man slapped the sleeping one upside the head, waking up his apparent friend.

“Huh? Are we there Jones?” the blonde man opened his eyes, revealing his eyes to be an eerie yellow, bright and glowing supernaturally, he and his friend were clearly Sages to Nero.

“No, but our train is being robbed. Let’s handle it before civilians are drawn in.” the man, Jones, said as he stood, walking to the middle of the passage, allowing the Rogue Sages to see him.

“Oh, Sages…” one of the robbers said aloud, realizing that there weren’t only civilians on the train, a poor choice of target on his part most likely.

While the still unnamed blonde man began to stand, Nero blinked, and suddenly the other Sages were defeated.

“…Huh?” Nero voiced out his confusion, noting that Jones had not seemed to have moved, except his hand was now held out towards the downed Sages, and in his hand was a pistol?

“They’re all four or lower, probably Sages who never got into one of the four Academies or dropped out. And from what I can sense, about seventy of them?” Jones said to his friend.

“Ah, so chumps? But they’ll probably know that these guys are knocked out by now… we’re going to need to deal with them away from the train.” The blonde man’s words got a sigh from Jones.

“Rick, travelling by foot is awful, and you aren’t willing to keep your Manifestation out long enough to get to civilization.” Jones said, finally stating the name of his partner, as the now named Rick frowned.

“You complain despite waking me from my sleep… listen, just toss them all out the train, I know you have enough control to get all of them out and repair the train even while its moving, and falling from the train wouldn’t knock out or kill even a three Star Sage.” Nero, sitting close enough to hear all this, got it into perspective how powerful his new Sage friends were.

“Yeah, but… I’m going to have words with mister Argos about why we’re late for our talk.” Hearing a familiar name, Nero spoke out.

“Sorry, but are you two talking about Yule Argos, King of Ice and headmaster of Valour Academy?” Nero’s question got the stares of the two Sages sent in his direction at that.

“Yes, we are kid, why is that important?” Jones asked as Nero took a moment to get used to the creepy eyes Rick was looking at him with.

His face itself seemed to be depicting boredom or intrigue, but those glowing yellow eyes… weird…

“Uh, my name is Nero, I’m a philosophy student and I’m visiting the four Academies to talk to the Kings at said places for a project.” Nero admitted, getting the two powerful Sages to pause to look at each other for a moment, then looking back to Nero.

“Well, in that case, you might as well come with us, it’ll be a bit more tough, but this train does have to make a few stops before going to Valour, but we can cut straight through.” Rick offered, and Jones sighed, seemingly agreeing.

“Reluctantly, Rick is right, you’d make it there faster with us… and besides, it would arguably be safer travelling with two eight Star Sages.” Hearing their power had Nero’s brain blank itself for a moment to register the information.

Kazuya, the second-strongest Sage in that class of Nero’s friends, could lift a metric ton, and was on the verge of becoming a three Star Sage.

And Rick and Jones were both eight Star Sages, could theoretically lift about two hundred thousand tons were such a thing possible.

Nero was good at maths.

No wonder Jones could eject all Sages from the train from where he was standing, despite the train being a bit shorter than two kilometres long… his power reached that far from where he stood.

Nero had read reports of the Fae Wars, and how at times single Sages defended long swathes of land, and at first he thought it was exaggerating… now he wondered if some numbers were understatements.

“Uh, sure, I’d be really glad if I could come with you two.” See, this is what Nero’s luck did. He was about to be robbed, and then just so happened to be saved by two eight Star Sages who were travelling to the same destination.

“Great, now we’re leaving.” Rick grabbed Nero, who was luckily holding his bag, and with a sudden blur, Nero found himself on a stretch of grass parallel to the train, the exterior of the train in his vision as it sealed itself after it stopped imitating jelly.

“Sorry about that kid, not used to protecting people, normally bodyguards do that, and well, we’re bounty hunters.” Rick admitted as he put Nero onto the floor, Nero taking the chance to see the Rogue Sages all staring at the eight Star Sages with fear in their eyes.

The fight was over so quick that all Nero could recall was Rick sparking for a moment, and Jones arm blurring once more.

An hour later, Nero was walking behind the two Sages, still in awe over the seventy trapped Sages (trapped due to some ‘seal’ ability that Jones had) as he tripped over something.

“Hey Nero, get up kid, we got a long way to go yet.” Jones called back as Rick flashed over to Nero, helping the younger boy get up.

None of them noticed that Nero tripped over a clear, sparkling gem half buried into the ground.

Again, Nero’s luck was weird…

That’s just an average day for Nero really.