I pick up a crate and load it into the loading cart of the company I work in. It's the largest moving and goods transportation company in the Village.

Ever since the Village expanded people started moving left and right, the town isn't yet accustomed or built for "Autorollers", yet so the wagon is still largely used. A few clever individuals picked up on this and used their own assets to start a business. One of those of whom is my boss and the owner of the company Mr. Reyas.

Mr. Reyas is a tall burly man with a scruffy black beard and keen squinty eyes. He's an astute businessman but his personality leaves a lot to be desired. He seems to think I'm the worst kind of person an unrealistic dreamer, and constantly badgers me on my work ethic.

The thing is I'm usually super tired from all the body and mind workouts I do throughout the day. By the time I go to sleep I knock out and when I wake up to work I'm usually still super tired. Mr. Reyas doesn't like excuses though, especially when we're working for super important customers, like today.

He managed to secure a deal on a move for some items from probably the most respected person in the Village, Mr. Recondos. Man, you'd swear the man was his father in the way he constantly treated and addressed him. I mean it's not too surprising, if I had the chance to talk to the man, id probably address him in the same manner and be just as nervous.

That's just what Rankers are, the top Dogs of society, and the higher the rank of the Ranker the more prestigious the treatment he receives. I hear A Rankers constantly get to be guests of honor for Mayors and Governors.

Man what a life, it sure pays to be strong. Still being a Ranker isn't all glamour riches and perks, they have to constantly defend their rank against those rising stars or would-be challengers. It's dangerous business. I'm sure as of this moment in the Village there are countless prospective challengers and Rankers greedily eyeing Mr. Recondos rank and waiting for the right time when their odds of victory are the highest.

That's the rule amongst all the nations and territories of Potestera, as long as it's not in an inhabited area Rankers can and will engage in combat with each other without consequences.

And the uninhabited area rule is only for low Rankers, Rankers that are strong enough have been known to battle it out in inhabited areas just as well. In this remote Village, City, whatever it is, you don't see too much of that but you can sometimes catch a glimpse of spectacular battles out in the wilderness. Usually, they tend to be of high-level powerful Beasts in territorial disputes, scary stuff.

In Potestera danger is ever-looming, which is why most commoners tend to stick with highly populated, heavily defended towns and cities, and still, chances are you could have a bad day and get caught up in some sort of scuffle. Even in Volunterra which is relatively safe compared to other nations, people tend to learn some form of self-defense or carry some weapon to defend themselves. Nobody is a pushover and you usually want to steer clear of strangers, you don't know if they might be some sort of hidden expert or something, it's best to avoid trouble.

There's some crazy stuff in this world and powerful forces at play, and yet here I am a bunny in a jungle ripe to be hunted.

Why are things like this! I hate it! I hate everything about my situation I wasn't even born wealthy to compensate for my poor constitution and talent. I'm pretty much dirt poor having to work every day to provide my basic necessities for living. I wouldn't be so broke right now either if it weren't for my goal of becoming a Ranker.

An expensive endeavor indeed, in order to improve my strength I scrounged up my life savings first for a good hunting blade and second for this Elemental Slingshot.

The blade I got for when I go to the edge of the wilderness to camp out and "hunt", it's used to kill and skin animals, usually a failure more than not. Most of the fauna stay deep within the wilderness and I'm too scared to venture in there. I've been mowing over a trip a little deeper now that I have my Elemental Slingshot though.

Well, see how things work out.

Man, this Elemental Slingshot is my pride and joy. Such a sweet and cool piece of equipment. Only with this thing on me do I feel less like an idiot and more viable as a member of this crazy world. Its Y shaped about 8 inches long and made of special super elastic, super-strong materials. It's also super flexible with adjustable settings depending on what type of ammo you're about to shoot.

This slingshot can shoot things no other slingshot can shoot.

Searing shots, frost shots, hydro bullets, acid pellets the list goes on and on.

It's really freaking cool and it actually makes me kind of a threat. I've been practicing my marksmanship with it and I'm actually getting pretty good. My goal is to master it completely. It's not any sort of amazing "legendary weapon", and not even in the stratosphere of a "wielder weapon", I don't even know what rank it would get as a Ranked weapon, nevertheless it technically has magical properties to it as its composition and the ammo it uses were created and built by an Alchemist.

Which kind of Alchemist would spend precious magical resources on making this Slingshot is beyond my knowledge, probably not a very smart one but regardless his blunder has given me a lifeline. May the universe bless that stupid Magon.

I happened to catch sight of it when I came upon a black market peddler. He was trying to get rid of the thing since it turned out to be a bad investment for him since it was too high quality and expensive to sell to any old commoner and too ridiculous and kind of useless for anyone with the capital to afford its price. They could probably get a much better weapon for a little more if they're willing to spend that kind of money.

But it was a godsend for me when I saw it the peddler immediately noticed my interest and took advantage of my desperateness.

I was actually in the process of looking for a weapon but was having no luck whatsoever, when I decided to settle on a cheap weapon with high damage I came upon this thing. The peddler squeezed me out of almost everything I had but I had to have it so I really couldn't give up. Once I got it though I found my back pocket was in real pain. Still, once I found out about the capabilities of the slingshot I was more than satisfied.

It came with 20 different types of ammo when I bought it which was another reason why it cost me an arm and a leg. Still, boy was the ammo amazing, I used a wind-type Gale Shot and it tore a foot-long hole into a tree.

Now that's power!

After that I haven't used any more of the special ammo, I saw the prices they had at the time of buying them and I almost fainted. I'm only gonna use it for life-saving situations, for practice I use rocks or metal pellets, I've actually been collecting a bag of things I feel would be adequate projectiles and could do some damage. I've actually found pretty cool stuff most interesting of which are some magical beast's fangs.

You can sometimes find them in the edge of the wilderness, when I shot one out of the magic Slingshot it seemed to have a weird effect and the impact on objects was quite powerful. It seems the slingshot itself is more intricate than I taught.

Now If only it could actually give me, Guso, magical properties as well that be amazing! A guy can dream, can't he?