It was early morning. He awakened to hear the usual screaming of his name.

“Wake up fucker.”

He was now called fucker. Everyone had been calling him that he should just change his name. He began to get up on all fours but was kicked in the ribs and fell back down.

“I said wake up, not have a calm awakening moment.”

He pushed himself up faster and was standing in front of Slaver B. Slaver B was a mean old man, not like slaver A, who was a sadistic fuck.

“Ready to begin the day.”

Slaver B sneered at him and gestured to be followed as he walked off.

Zelhaut looked around but could not see the woman.

He went to start his day as fucker, the most slaving fuck you could ever fucking see. He was digging more ditches it seemed today. What would this village do without him? They would have to whip trees to do their work for them, or god forbid animals. He liked animals. That is why he would never call people animals. Because he hates people, with some exceptions, like that tall lady “Anon” he met last night. She said she would be staying for three days so he should see her tonight. He will be sad when she leaves, but he will enjoy the rest of his time with her.

With something to look forward to he was a ditching machine. He finished the work slaver B gave him, hoping to get the rest of the day off. But alas, he was not lucky that day. Nor any of the other days either now that he thought about it.

So he slowed his pace when he was handed over to slave C, a little boy who knew how to handle a whip. Seriously, this boy was so precise, he could whip a spot in the same place over and over, making for some nasty wounds. It also hurt a lot.

Slaver C had chosen a spot on his ass this time. He wished he could open a can of whoop-ass right back at the boy but, he was weak. Without being able to level a class, he could not gain stats.

A class level is a person’s overall level. Every level in a class gives free stat points and health. Stat points can be put into, Str, Ag, End, Dex, and Int. The amount of health points given is determined by the class. Physical classes usually give more health points than magical classes. Affinity level gives power to the affinity used and mana points. You may be thinking, “well physical classes are better because they give more Health points than magical ones.” Well, that is kind of untrue. Magical classes may get the same mana points as physical classes when leveling up their affinity but, magical classes have an easier time leveling up their affinity. Magical classes deal more closely with mana, making them more involved in the process, which net’s more XP gained for the affinity than normal, without taking away any XP gained for the class. So, often a magic class has more mana and power than a physical class but fewer health points when they are both at the same class level. That is because the affinity level of magical classes are often ahead of physical ones.

Without a way to use mana, he couldn’t level up, even if he had a class. He was stuck with no clear way to improve. Even if he had the ronin class he would still be suppressed as he is now. Take “Anon,” for example, who had to sleep in his shack last night. She was probably kicked out of the inn because they identified her class as a ronin.

He walked back to his shack, the big blue moon in the sky providing enough light to see by. He walked through the door expecting to see “Anon” sitting on the box, but she wasn’t there.

He didn’t think too much about it and just went to lay down. After all, he had a feeling that she had been lying to him.

She was never going to stay for that long when she was on the run.

How had he been fooled?

He should remember that.

His hope for a good night’s rest had been dashed. He had a fleeting sleep, where he would go to sleep and then wake up, angry at himself for being tricked.

When it was finally morning, he had only slept for about three hours. He waited for someone to come kick and yell at him to get moving, but nobody came.

Why nobody had come for him made him wonder. He got up off the ground and went towards the doorway. He looked outside at the dirt paths, and they were empty. He stepped onto the path going towards the square, where people should be, to see what was going on.

When he arrived there, all the people were gathered. On a raised platform were four warriors of a church. Three paladins and one cleric. The paladins were wearing plate armor and had a shield and sword each. Paladins were known to be a physical class that dabbled in a bit of magic. The cleric was wearing light leather armor and carried a mace. Clerics were known as healers who could fight, making them the ideal healers for expeditions. Those two classes were exclusive to churches. The church has a monopoly on those classes. Only the most loyal can learn those classes and they don’t teach them to others unless they have the head of the church’s approval.

All of the paladins and the cleric had their helmets on, so he couldn’t tell their facial features.

“People of Zola, I ask again, did any of you see a tall female ronin come through here?”

The only paladin with silver gilded armor was at the front of the group asking questions about the tall woman.

“Her name is Nona, a blighted individual we have been tracking for weeks.”

He tried to back out of the crowd but got stopped by a voice. It was Maelstront.

“I saw her. She spent the night in that deficient pig’s shack.”

Maelstront was pointing right at him.

The paladins whipped their heads towards him.

He turned around to start running but was stopped by a sword pointed towards his neck.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Just for a walk.”

“Ha, looks like we got a comedian here boss.”

He stood there with the sword pointed at his neck as the other church warriors surrounded him. Looked like they were from the church of darkness. The church of the darkness affinity is often praised for its tracking abilities. They would often take bounties and ferret out heretics.

The boss of this group walked up to him.

“Greg put the sword away for now. You what is your name?”

“Zelhaut”

“And what do you know about this woman?”

The “Boss” unfurled a bounty poster with her mask drawn on it.

“Nothing.”

He expected to get punched but nothing came.

“I guess we’ll see in time. Lock him up but be careful not to touch him.”

The paladin that had pointed their sword at him, Greg, through some cuffs at his feet.

“Put them on.”

He put the cuffs on as the paladin leader spoke up.

“Everyone is to return to their homes and not leave them for five days. We will be patrolling the streets to make sure you all stay in your homes.”

All the people in the square nodded. They wouldn’t go against someone so high up in the church as a paladin.

Everyone returned to their home as he was ordered into his shack.

The cuffs were quite loose. He could move his hands about thirty centimeters, twelve inches, apart from one another.

While he was in his shack, he noticed that they had placed a guard at his door. The guard was facing inwards, watching him. He sat down and thought about why they were so serious about catching this woman. She was a ronin, yes, but to be chased by the dark church?

He was done with her. Leading him into this made him want to kick her ass. He had a lot of asses he wanted to kick. Everyone in this village for one plus those paladins and that smug-looking cleric. Just because he can fight and heal doesn’t mean he has to be so smug about it.

He waited for the day to be over. The paladin guarding the door switched out in the evening with the other one, Greg. Greg threw in a bag of food and water, not enough in his opinion, but it would at least be enough to not starve. Not much of a difference from usual then. He didn’t talk to anyone during that time, just sat on his ass. It was almost like paradise, doing nothing and not getting whipped.

He fell asleep looking forward to his five-day vacation. After all, why would they lock him up instead of just killing him? This was all probably just temporary, although why they had everyone quarantine for five days is very odd.

He woke up not feeling that good. It felt odd, not really like he had to barf, but just a feeling of wrongness. He felt as if he was changing into something else. The paladin must have picked up on his discomfort.

“Something wrong?”

“No.”

As if he would tell the paladin anything.

The day passed with the feeling of wrongness growing stronger. In the evening, Greg was back. Looked like they did twelve-hour shifts. He must have missed the switch in the morning.

He went to sleep that night a bit worried about the weird feeling.

And so the days passed where the feeling of wrongness continued to grow stronger.

On the fifth day around noon, he could not take it anymore. Everything felt wrong inside of him. He just wanted to peel off his skin then jump into a fire, everything about him was wrong. If he was a ghost he would leave this body right away.

The other paladin was watching him toss and turn as he writhed on the ground.

He was going to barf.

The paladin blew a horn he had strapped to himself.

He could feel something changing inside himself. Also, something building up, ready to be expelled.

The rest of the paladins and the cleric came rushing towards his shack and all looked inside.

“He’s been like this for an hour boss.”

“Looks like he has it. The rest of the villagers are clean with no symptoms. All right kid, get up we’re moving, now.”

The leader motioned towards Greg.

He looked up to see Greg sneering at him.

“A deficient and an infected, how lowly can you get?”

Greg drew his sword and pointed it at him.

“Now get moving, you little shit.”

He walked out of town surround by the group, Greg in the back keeping his sword at arm’s length pointed at his back. They stopped a good distance out of town, in an open area just bordering the forest.

The other paladin threw him a shovel.

“Start digging”

“What am I digging, a ditch?”

“No stupid, your digging your grave. You have hereby been declared an enemy of the church.”

“What?”

Just then he bent over and barfed.

Bleurgh

He felt so much better. But what he barfed up was not looking promising. It was blood. A lot of blood.

Just then he heard a ding and the interface appeared.

You have gained affinity: Blight Hp: 27/30 Mp: 10/10 Str:15 Ag: 15 End:18 Dex:12 Int: 10 Class: NA lv: 0 Affinity: Perpetual / Blight Lv: 1 / Lv: 1 Skills: Identify

The first thing that jumped out at him was that he had been blighted. There is no known cure for blight. After all, how do you cure an affinity? Then he saw his stats.

Some of his stats were quite a bit above average. HP for a normal person stops at twenty when they stop growing unless their class gives them some. Along with all his physical stats like Str, Ag, and End, which should be around ten at this age had five added to all of them. His endurance was already above average when he was tested so it just got boosted even higher.

His dex might not have been boosted, his was high before as well, no way to tell. The Int stat was average, and mana points had not changed at all, shocker. No way to use his affinity, so that number wasn’t going up. He was kind of surprised gaining another affinity didn’t boost the mana points… he forgot. Blight cuts off magic being used, why would it add to mana points, something that affinity views as useless.

“Hey, get digging you monster.”

He awakened from his stupor to see the group staring at him through the helmets. He looked down at himself. There were black veins all over his body. Blacker than black. He remembered this color.

“So that’s what I put in my mouth.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He got digging, really nothing else to do, he guessed that if he stopped they would kill him, then they would dig his grave. But, honestly, he wanted a nice grave thank you very much. This group would probably just dig a shitty grave. Literally, they might bury him in the hole they have been pooping in these past few days.

So he dug.

He dug until they told him to stop.

“Now, bend the knee and face forward.”

He held his hands up, still shackled.

“May I make a suggestion?”

“No.”

“Now hold on, is this going to be a decapitation or what?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you wouldn’t want my Blighted blood getting on you now. So how about you just shoot me with a bow or something from farther away.”

The head paladin seemed to think about it for a bit.

“Let’s go with the bow Greg. No need to make a monster suffer less.”

“Hmm, guess that’s true.”

Now, if an archeologist found him in the future they would be all like “Wow, There’s a vintage arrow inside this dumb skeleton”.

He stepped into the hole as the group backed up. Greg looked like he was about to draw a bow from his spacial bag when a flock of birds got startled from the tree line.

Thump, thump.

He could hear a very loud heartbeat, and it wasn’t his. He turned to see an enormous beast walking out of the forest. It looked like a giant sabertooth cat with ram horns and three tails with barbs at the end. This was a high-level beast, he could feel it in his gut.

He ducked into his grave and quickly covered himself with dirt.

Well, he was going to die anyway, but there was a chance here. A chance that the beast would overlook him if he was underground, a chance he would take to hopefully live. So he covered himself with dirt until only his nose was still in the air and waited. He heard the surprisingly light footsteps and loud heartbeat pass by.