Punisher System: SSS-Class Guardians

It was a very foggy night at the docks. Sam was standing in an empty area near the workers' dormitory. He looked around, but there was no one in the vicinity except him.

Sam took a step forward, the fog parted like it was making way for him.

Then all of a sudden, the fog turned red. Sam heard a dripping sound of water behind him. When he looked back, his blank eyes widened.

Lying behind him was Ain. He was in the center of what seemed like a 'Devil's circle'. It was a symbol used in rituals to summon demons or fulfill wishes in an unorthodox way.

Ain was split in half. His lower body was missing. His eyes were wide open as he looked in the direction where Sam was standing.

Sam took a step back and called out, "AIN!" His eyes were filled with horror.

The something dripped on his cheeks. It came from above him.

Sam looked up.

He saw Ain's other half crawling on the ceiling. A black creature with no face or defining feature in its body was wearing Ain's lower half.

The black slime-like creature saw Sam staring at him.

Then... It opened its mouth.

"Brother..."

...

Sam opened his eyes.

It was pitch black, but no matter, Sam held no fear as he sat up from his bed. His back was drenched in cold sweat.

"Ain!" He called out in the darkness. Sam knew it was useless, but he still wanted to let out the grief that was brewed inside his chest.

What was that? Sam rubbed his forehead. He had been dreaming strange things for the past few months now.

All those dreams were pretty bad, but fortunately none of them seemed to happen in reality.

Just recently, he had dreamt about Rena and Cia hanging on a meat stall. Their bodies displayed on the hook like butchered animals. He had been praying like crazy and pestered Eri to come home early. But when they came home, Rena and Cia were safe.

"Am I going crazy?" Sam thought of those comments that he heard countless times. Maybe those people were right. Why does he keep dreaming about his siblings' demise?

He swung his foot down the bed and stood up. He felt thirsty after sweating buckets from that dream.

Opening the door, he saw a soft orange glow in the living room. Sam squinted his blurry eyes and walked towards it.

To be honest, after that dream, his heart was still beating fast. It was very late at night, right? Someone was still awake? Could it be that Ain just came back?

When he arrived at the living room, he saw someone sitting near the fireplace. The silhouette was familiar to him. He called out, "Big brother?"

Cia raised his head and saw the dazed-looking Sam standing there. Although there was no emotion on his face, his eyes held a bit of timidity.

"Oh, you're still awake?" Cia tried to smile despite the massive pain in his head.

[Host, getting your MP below 15 is still considered mana drain. Headaches are a mild side effect of that] The system explained. Its tiny heart almost burst thinking about what happened at the arena.

"I just woke up." Sam replied and he suddenly felt calm. Seeing Cia made him feel a bit secure.

Cia nodded and closed his eyes.

He couldn't sleep from the pain. It was like a toothache, but worse. The system suggested to relax himself first and wait for the mana to recover before sleeping.

"I feel like a squeezed-out worker." Cia muttered through the system. After what happened at the arena, Cia escaped after making sure that Yusi was dead.

Everything was chaotic. Just as he thought it couldn't get any more worse, the police arrived.

It was really a terrible sight. Cia managed to escape, but Ain got caught. This world already had the existence of cars, but this tiny town didn't have that. The main transportation was carriages.

With how many gamblers that got caught tonight, the police had no choice but to tie them all up and walked to the streets holding the 'criminals' on a leash. Cia even saw the 'parade' from the window.

It looked like some kind of forbidden procession. It woke the neighborhood up. Tomorrow, the awakener and the demon will probably be the main topic of discussion.

But what despaired Cia the most was that when he saw Ain again, another task was issued.

---

[Sub Mission: Ensure That Ain's Awakening Will Be Successful.

Countdown: 20 days, 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Reward: 1000 EXP

Punishment: Ain's Death and Failure of the Main Mission]

---

Such a long countdown didn't reassure Cia.

He opened his eyes and saw Sam pouring himself some water. Sam didn't look good. It was as if he had something weighing on his mind.

"You can take a seat beside me if you don't want to sleep yet." Taking care of their mental health was also a part of keeping the siblings alive. Cia now understood how burdensome this task was.

Sam looked hesitant before finally sitting beside Cia.

"You looked like a snail that is about to retract inside its shell. What's wrong?" Cia was not feeling well but not blind. He could clearly see something was off with Sam.

"Brother, are dreams real? Like, do they signify something?" Sam finally let out the nagging thought that had been on the back of his mind.

Cia thought of those random dreams of his about a cat turning into a giant dinosaur and dancing in the middle of the building debris.

"Ahem... Probably not all dreams. Why? What did you dream about?" Cia shook those thoughts away from his head. This is a world where supernatural happens. Maybe dreams in this world signify something?

Sam pursed his lips. It was very difficult for him to say that he kept dreaming that his siblings died. Because it sounded a bit like a curse.

But when he saw Cia's exhausted but gentle eyes looking at him, Sam mustered the courage to tell him what happened.

"I kept dreaming of you guys dying. I swear I'm not thinking about it, but for some reason, I still kept dreaming about your deaths." Then Sam told Cia about the contents of the dream.

After he listened, Cia was in deep thought. The first dream about him and Rena sounded very tragic, but it felt very familiar.

Being hanged like meat... That Bakras looked like a pig, right? That axe also resembled a butcher.

[There seemed to be some facts in Sam's dream] The system commented.

Cia had no idea if it was coincidental, but it was really worth noting. Especially now that the system issued something about Ain, then again Sam dreamt of something bad.

Rather than literal, those dreams seemed to be symbolic. But why do they sound more traumatizing than if they showed what would really happen?

Cia stopped his thoughts when he saw Sam looking at him worriedly. He raised his hand and patted Sam's head.

"It's alright. Dreams are just dreams. Even if they were real, brother is here to protect all of you." No matter what, Cia needed to comfort Ain. Real or not, the anxiety and burden of seeing his siblings in such a tragic state is hard to bear.

Besides, isn't his mission is to protect them?

Sam was still young, just fourteen years old. In the modern world, he would have been starting his rebellious period. This world is different. Children mature early because of struggles. Still, in Cia's eyes, Sam deserved to be carefree.

Sam felt the warmth on top of his head. His mind went blank. He realized that this seemed to be the first time he heard someone reassuring him.

Grandmother was strict and always angry. Ain was unreliable and always away from home. As for Eri, he was just two years older than Sam. Even if he wanted to reassure Sam, he couldn't do that since even he was having a hard time supporting the family.

Reassurance, even just superficial ones... There were none.

Sam nodded. He no longer felt anxious about his dream. "Thank you brother."

"Why are you thanking me? I'm your brother. It's my duty to protect you." Cia was being honest. This body gave him a second chance at life and aside from the main mission, he also felt sense of responsibility for his siblings.

After the talk, Sam became sleepy. He bid Cia goodnight and went back to his room while Cia continued to stare emptily at the fireplace, waiting for his headache to pass.

...

"....So Chief, that's what happened." A police officer reported what transpired at the arena.

"Old man Jos is still hanging. It's unknown how long the capital will hold their stance on this issue. Ability users in this town were useless since either they were foreigners or just waiting for the pie to fall on their lap." The Police Chief was looking out the window. There were numerous lawbreakers lined up outside. It was already certain that by tomorrow, everyone will probably know what happened.

"Sir... Are we just going to sit still and wait for the final outcome?" Solen felt suffocated just thinking about what's happening in the town, "The nobles fight, us civilians suffer. They are audacious enough to bring demons into play. What will happen to us?"

"Fight back? How?" The Chief wasn't offended after being questioned. He laughed, "Fight the capital? Fight the awakeners? Fight the guardian? Do we have the ability to?"

"Even if we leave this town, the fact that there is a demon in Syrencrest is already spreading. Those neighboring towns and cities wouldn't accept us. They would treat us like we have plague!"

Solen was silent, but his clenched fist showed his inner turmoil.

As an officer, he had more knowledge as to what's happening in the town. People killed by the demons were not just those who deserved to be killed, but also those innocent civilians.

A single mother whose husband died in the sea. She was working at the tavern late at night just to raise her two children. She did nothing wrong, but one night, she was attacked by a demon.

Only her left foot was left behind the scene. Her children became orphans, but it took seven days for people to notice that she never came home.

Her first child who was five years old contracted fever on the second day. He died leaving behind a two-year-old brother. His brother stayed with a corpse for many days before he was discovered.

The youngest was sent to an orphanage, but he no longer had a chance to live a normal life as he lost his ability to speak after that incident.

What pained Solen the most is that it's not that they don't have the ability to eliminate demons. There is the guardian and there are other awakeners, but they never took action because of some power struggle.

If you're not powerful, is human life not human life?

Solen felt the unfairness of this world.

The Chief looked at him and could guess what he was thinking. He sighed. "That's the reality... We need to accept it."

"Now investigate that new awakener that emerged out of nowhere... They call him the weeping man right?"

"Yes." Solen's eyes flashed a glint of light.

He hoped that this wildcard will bring good rather than harm.