And yes, we found him… but he was a little different.

…

(Cy POV)

When I was a kid, I used to give my parents and grandparents lots of trouble because I was super scared of everything.

And when I say everything, I mean everything, including the sound of people drinking water, eating as I thought it would have poison despite knowing how much my parents loved me, and then the worst of them all… blenders.

I really hate blenders.

But enough of that because I eventually came out of my scared shell and evolved into an amazingly confident guy.

I mean, my dad was one of the most important A-rank adventures Amlas had ever produced as he actually stayed in the city rather than leaving.

He took care of city disputes and acted as a guardian for everyone…

I was proud to have such an amazing dad as my personal guardian… though his methods of teaching didn’t rub the best on me.

Becoming such an important figure would, of course, get to your head, and most of the time, the person would travel down a descending path into somebody who thought they were a god.

And, I guess you could say it happened for my father, but he was a benevolent god that stayed for the praises of everybody.

But besides the occasional cocky remark, he loved my family and me so much that he would always make room to spend time with us.

This, of course, led to him eventually teaching me the way of the spear.

“You’re the son of an amazing man. Of course, you’re going to be amazing with the spear,” He continuously said, and my vulnerable mind latched onto this.

In tandem with his continuous praises that practically put me on a pedestal above everybody else in my class, I began to grow a god complex as well.

Yes, I’m aware I have it, but since it’s so ingrained into my body, my natural reaction follows this complex.

My ego grew bigger, but just like my dad, I cared for the people I loved, such as my family… and my friends? Well, I didn’t have any as nobody wanted to be my friend.

Though, even without friends, life was amazing… until it just wasn’t.

We got a call from the government saying that somebody had severely injured my father with no other information included.

That was it.

When we visited him in the hospital, he was already on his last legs, and soon after we had left to buy his favorite food, tacos, he died.

His cold body was a strange sight to see during the funeral, and as it went up in flames, I had terrible thoughts.

‘He died cause he was weak… He died cause he wasn’t strong enough, so I shouldn’t feel bad,’

But after seeing my mother and grandparents cry, I couldn’t hold back the sadness that I wasn’t even aware I had been suppressing.

From that day on, I slowly began to humble myself, but I couldn’t fully rid myself of the god complex that kept creeping its way back into my life.

Each immediate thought I had made me beat myself up, even more, making me sadder and sadder until I felt like I had depression.

It was a self-diagnosis, but from everything I had seen online, it seemed pretty accurate.

Then, one day, everything had been taken away from us mysteriously, as if our possessions had never even been ours.

This forced my grandparents and mom to get new jobs, and my mom especially overworked herself.

She would come home every day so tired that she couldn’t even eat dinner, so she normally just had the leftovers for breakfast.

My depression only grew worse as people began to tease and mock not only me but my father from a distance.

I was too strong for them to physically bully me, but their emotional and psychological attacks were too effective.

Then, high school came.

A new me, a new persona, and a new repudiation which I hid by never saying my last name to anyone…

The poor school that I previously went to was nothing compared to this place, meaning nobody knew who I was.

I met new people while trying to suppress my complex as much as possible, but the more comfortable I felt around them, and the more they became my friends, the more it began to slip out.

I was fearful of losing my friends and potentially having them think that I was an asshole who didn’t care for anybody.

But, even when it slowly slipped out more and more, they just ignored it and continued to be my friends.

I was so happy and thankful for this new life… until the dreaded and expected day finally came.

My Spear Theory teacher died, and that was when the reality of the civil war finally hit me.

I tried to convince my mom and grandparents to leave for two days straight, but their pride as the family of somebody who once stuck with Amlas through thick and thin didn’t let them leave.

They were trapped, and I couldn’t do anything but watch them slowly lose their jobs and see them slowly grow more desperate to support their family.

When the civil war had basically kicked off a few days ago, tons of companies run by large families were shutting down in order to pour as much money into hiring soldiers for them to control.

I was scared I was going to lose everything as my mom had begun to grow more and more desperate throughout the past few days.

Her love and pride clashed, and no matter how many times I tried to get her to set her pride away, she just continued to push forward.

And then, one day, they finally came.

“We have come to pick up Charlotte Benoit,” One of the three adventures announced, and my fist slowly balled.

“Y-Yes! I’m right here!” My mother suddenly called out, her stuff already packed into a large duffle bag.

“Good. Let’s go then,” Another adventurer said.

My mom began to follow them without even giving me a glance… until…

“Charlotte! W-Where are you going!?”