I was washing dishes in a restaurant.

“Stop using so much water! You know how much mana that costs?!”

My boss got right up next to me and yelled in my face. I didn’t look his way and just weakly nodded my head.

Fuck you you fat fuck.

He walked away and started yelling at some other kitchen worker.

I sighed.

A world of magic and I’m a damn dishwasher…

I was envious of the Five Percent who could use magic. I actually used to think that one day I would figure out how to shape my mana. I thought that I was special since it turned out I had more mana than most people and I was born in Generation Five Percent. But I was wrong. 21 years and still no magical skills.

“Could you be any slower?” My boss was back and right in my face.

Instead of lowering my head like usual, I stared him right in the eyes and when I saw his ugly face my nose flared and I clenched my teeth.

I had a feeling I hadn’t had before. My vision was darkening even though nothing happened to the lights in the kitchen, and my tinnitus was pulsating loudly. I could feel the blood in my hands flow as well. Something clicked inside me. Rage.

“What the fuck are you looking at? I’ll slaughter you you fucking pig! Get the fuck out of here!” my boss said.

I took the nozzle I used for washing and sprayed him right in the face.

***

“God damn it…”

I was now on my way back home, unemployed.

It was nighttime. While heading to the subway, I was mumbling to myself as usual.

“From now on, not paying rent anymore for my shitty room! Even if the landlord tries to evict me! Not like the police'll even do anything about it. As if they have any authority anyways. I need mana for food instead. Yeah. That rent mana should be stored instead. How much mana do I even have left in my personal battery?”

I sighed. I tried clearing my mind. But as soon as I did that, I noticed my tinnitus.

“Damn it…”

It was even loud outside right now, but I could hear that annoying sound anyway. Stress always made it worse.

Also even though tinnitus was only a sound, I felt like I could see less because of it. Even with my eyes wide open.

“Focus, focus. Focus. Relax.”

I tried staring at the different magical neon signs while walking.

“I really like walking in the center of Tyoto. All these cool signs make me feel like I’m in the center of the world. I’ll never live in a small town ever again,” I mumbled out loud, trying to distract myself from my tinnitus.

I made it to the subway. I swiped my personal mana battery and hopped on.

I sat down and started looking around. In front of me was a serious-looking older man in a suit reading a newspaper and wearing glasses.

He quickly glanced at me while I stared at him, then he ignored me and continued reading.

“Yeah she had some huge titties man!”

I looked to my left and saw a group of guys talking loudly. Or more like one guy talking loudly. A tall slender blonde with long hair slicked back was in the center and all the other guys were surrounding him. I raised my eyebrows in shock when I looked at him. Everyone on the train was looking at him.

I sighed. A pang of envy hit me.

The guy was levitating mid-air in a casual laying on the side position with his hand supporting his head.



I glared at him but he didn’t notice me.

I’ve never seen that kind of magic before, he must be one of the advanced ones. And I’ve never touched titties before. Fuck you.

I then noticed my tinnitus again.

“Son of a bitch.”

No mercy.

I then noticed from the right side of the train another group of guys coming into the carriage. When they noticed the other group, they started competing for attention.

Suddenly tension filled the air.

One guy from the new group was manipulating a small fire in his hand and talking very loudly.

The older man in front of me looked at the young man using magic and clicked his tongue before continuing to read his newspaper. He was probably envious that it was only about 20 years ago the ability to freely manipulate the innate mana in one’s body started manifesting in about 5% of the newest generation.

Another guy from the levitating guy’s group produced a ball of water in his hand and started showing that off.

The fire guy took offense to that.

“How pathetic! You can only make water! As if that isn’t the most basic magical blueprint you can buy anywhere. What a waste of magic!”

“Shut up! I can do more than that. And what is that pathetic little flame, huh?!”

The older man in front of me sensed something was about to happen and got up to walk to another carriage.

“Oh yeah!” the flame guy said.

Suddenly, the small flame in his right hand grew into a ball, and he tossed it. I could feel its heat when it passed by me.

“AAAAAAAAARRRRHHH!”

I looked to my left and saw the older guy in the suit with his face burned off.

What the fuck!

Right then, the train stopped at a station and opened its doors. Everyone on the carriage got up and started hurrying out, me included. I jumped out of the opened doors in front of me, right as I felt some kind of projectile fly past me. I heard another scream as my back was turned against the train and the doors closed and it started moving.

“What the fuck!“ I had never seen a scene like this before.

I overheard a conversation.

“Should we call the cops?“

“Tsch! What'll they do anyway? Useless pigs...“

I looked around and saw everyone was shocked. But of course, no one was calling for the police.

Luckily new trains came every other minute. I waited for the next one and went back home.

Chapter 2: When the loser has a girlfriend but you don't

It was now the next day.

As always, I woke up tired. My tinnitus was singing loudly.

I banged the back of my fist against the wall of my small room.

I reached behind my head and pulled the curtain open.

“At least the sun is out and the sky is blue…“

The first thing I did was grab my personal mana battery and channel all my mana reserves into it. Making mana batteries isn’t worth much, but it was something. And I was unemployed. And I had more mana reserves than average and my mana recovery was faster. So at least I could make a little but no substantial amount by doing this every day.

I unlocked my personal mana battery and checked how much I had left.

“Shit… And I’m not even gonna get paid for the last ten days. Fuck.”

I put on my clothes and exited my room. I saw a long hallway filled with lots of doors or similar one-room apartments. I went to the communal toilet and paid swiped my personal mana battery to take a shower. Luckily water generation was very mana cheap so a shower cost almost nothing.

When the shower water hit my face, I remembered the old guy with his face melted off and screaming.

I have no idea what’s happening to this city…

But more than traumatized by what happened, I just felt envy.

“Fucking fire magic, water magic, and what was that new magic I saw? Levitation magic! And then there’s me with jack shit!”

After showering I went back to my room and just stared at the blue sky. Then I looked down and saw the huge, beautiful urban jungle.

“I’m so happy I moved away from that countryside… screw everyone..”

Even though I was all alone in this city with no friends and no girlfriends, and struggling to get by, I was still happy about where I was. When I was in Tyoto, I felt like I was in the center of the world. Where all the action happened.

***

I had nothing to do, so I decided to take the train to the center and just loaf around.

I passed by a newsstand and saw the headline:

Magical Gang War on the Train! One civilian killed, one gang magician badly wounded!

I bought the cheap newspaper and read the article. It pretty much gave me no new information. Even the newspapers had no idea what was going on. But it did talk about how disappointing it was that the police were doing nothing about the murder.

If that fireball had hit me, no one would have cared either.

Behind me, I heard loud girl voices. I looked and saw one ugly, short guy with two amazingly hot girls by his side holding onto his arm. The girls were giggling and flirting and touching him and he just smiled casually.



What the...

The short ugly guy took a look at the newsstand where I was and looked at the headline.

Then he let go of the hot girls and rushed over to the newsstand and bought a paper and skimmed through it.

The girls followed him and hugged him from behind while he was reading.

“Hey shut up, I’m trying to read,“ he said in a shrill, unmasculine voice.

How the fuck can a guy like him have those two babes and I’m still a virgin…

I was glaring at him. And as if sensing me, he turned his head and looked right into my eyes. I saw his pupils shifting and he had a deadly look.

I took a step back in shock. I felt this weird feeling I had never felt before.

Was that… magic?

Suddenly, my tinnitus pulsated and I got a big headache.

The guy looked confused at me. And his deadly look turned into one of pity.

“The fuck you looking at!“ I said while holding my head. I could feel my headache and tinnitus pulsating.

“Oh my god, what’s your deal?” one of the girls said while holding him.

“Fucking loser,“ the other girl said.

“Hey, shut up. Let’s go,” the short ugly guy said.

They then turned around and walked away. The guy glanced back at me with a look of pity.

The fuck is that look! Fuck you! At least I’m not short and ugly and with a girly voice. You probably paid those girls to act like that. Fuck off!

I was eating a burger to comfort myself. Even though I should probably have saved the money and bought something cheaper to eat.

While I was eating my burger, I stared at my hands

“What was that feeling I got…“

I put my hands together and tried recreating it. I was sure it must have been something magical that bastard did. I rubbed my hands together for a while trying to do something, but I nothing happened and I felt like an idiot.

I sighed.

At least while eating the burger, that headache went away so that was good. But my tinnitus was still slightly pulsating more than usual.

Mostly my tinnitus was very loud in my left ear, but sometimes on and off I’d also notice a smaller tinnitus in my right ear. But right now, I couldn’t hear the right ear tinnitus at all and only my left one.

“Now what should I do…”

I looked around the restaurant. There were a few people like me eating alone, but most were young couples or groups laughing and having fun.

I’d arrived in Tyoto from one of the smaller villages in the outskirts about half a year ago. But all I’d done in that time was work as a slave in kitchens and sometimes loaf around the center for a few hours. I hadn’t even made any friends yet. I had all these expectations while I was in the village and they were all shattered. I hadn’t even talked to a cute girl yet. Though I would easily admit that it was crazy how many cute girls there were around in Tyoto. At least compared to the village.

I sighed again.

I felt like my mana reserves had filled up again, so I grabbed my personal mana battery from my pockets. I squeezed it and expected to see it light up which meant it was charging.

What’s this!

Usually, when I filled it up, I would feel nothing and just watch the battery keep blinking until I was out. But something completely new happened.

“I can… feel my mana?”

The feeling was very vague, but it was like my mana was pulsating from my body into my right hand. It was like the feeling of goosebumps but without getting goosebumps.

Wait, this is the same feeling I just got from that ugly short guy!

Then the battery stopped filling up and the mana stopped pulsating. The feeling was very vague and I couldn’t feel how much mana I had, so I didn’t know when it would stop.

I stored my battery and tried to capture that feeling again, but nothing happened.

“Hahahaahahaaaaa!” I said aloud and the people inside the restaurant glanced at me, but I didn’t care.

I walked around the center of Tyoto. The sun was shining down on my face. I was standing in the middle of a crowd. For the first time since coming here, I felt alive.

I kept walking around and walking around, just looking at all the buildings and all the colors and all the young people.

This must mean I can use magic?!