To Judge Himself!?


    It wasn''t the first time for Wiro that he had been asked to do such a thing.


    He could still remember the first time he had been told of it. It hadn''t been his fault at all. Yet it could also be said to be his fault.


    It was a simple reason...


    Slowly, Wiro backed away from Nn, the memories of his past haunting him like a specter in the cold darkness until his back met with the wall, and he slid down, raising his hands to look at them as if they were not his own.


    He soon clenched them tightly before once more unfurling them with a sigh.


    "You know, I was raised in the Celestial Misty City Orphanage Home down in the 7th realm. Just a minor kid with nothing but his brains and cunning. At least, that was always what I thought I possessed... heh..." Wiro began chuckling to himself in mockery as he looked at his own feet.


    "I remember,pared to the average orphanage boy, I was pretty smart. I could guess where the other pupils were going to keep their remaining food if they never finished it quite easily, and I could guess the majority of the staff''s actions just as easily too."


    "It was easy for me to read people—maybe a little too easy.


    In the orphanage, food never got passed around equally. Some gotrger portions than others, especially those hateful bunch who were just like me, but with muscles instead of brains.


    In a ce where we scrambled for as much extra food as possible, they, with theirrge muscles, could simply walk into the eatery lobby, and quickly, everyone would beg to give them half their food.


    It was all done in fear—they could crack open your skull if you refused. And the Celestial Misty staffs also didn''t seem to care, almost like they were supporting them. It was hateful, but that was how it was—a dog-eat-dog world..."


    "My brilliant intelligence had always just been a tool for me to amuse myself, until I saw what power was capable of, and then I had a brilliant spark of imagination.


    I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to be like the big bad hunters—the name we called those bullies of ours, who wrestled food away from us. I wanted to be like them, but this time not with muscle, but with brain.


    Easily, I seeded with my intelligence, telling them the ces where the staff kept the food before they could even serve them at all, and at night, we''d sneak in and take some food before any staff or students even woke up.


    The sudden abundance of food, with them not having to hunt for it, made them eventually designate me as their leader. But the staff noticed the anomaly—the big bad hunters no longer using force on other children, and the strange missing ofrge amounts of food before serving time.


    Eventually, we were caught, and it didn''t take a genius for the staff to realize I was the problem.


    Their way of punishing me was really simple...


    "Judge yourself, Wiro. Judge yourself." No matter how smart I was, I couldn''t do it. Not that I didn''t know it, I just couldn''t say it, couldn''t admit it. But then, I really did judge myself and then I was told...


    "Your brain will take you nowhere, Wiro. It''s useless." Those were thest words I heard until I was thrown out of the orphanage and found myself in the academy not long after...


    "The Academy—I thought I could prove them all wrong, but I guess I was just being delusional."


    "Everyone in the academy is either stronger or wiser than I am, and if not wiser than me, they''re stronger than me. My brain took me nowhere, just as they predicted. But then, there was you..."


    "You were not only weaker but even dumber, a proof to me that what they said about me was wrong. I could make you feel horror and piss your pants from simply touching you once and without me even possessing muchbat power at all."


    "You gave me the belief that being wise was just as powerful as strength."


    "So every day, I would run to the thing that reaffirmed my belief in my own superiority and correctness. Almost like a drug addict who runs back to his drugs every day."


    "You saw the relief in my eyes when I discovered you were alive, didn''t you?" Wiro suddenly asked as Nn''s eyes narrowed.


    Truly, when Nn had fought the fat boy, even though he was attacking him, Nn was able to see the young man had some relief in his eyes—the relief that Nn was alive.


    Now he understood why Wiro was relieved.


    To Wiro, Nn could be said to be a drug, and Wiro was a drug addict.


    What happens when a drug addict is told that there are no more drugs, but then after a week finds out there are now drugs?


    That was exactly what Nn was to Wiro.


    A drug that he lived on. Without Nn, Wiro was essentially just a soulless body.


    Another piece of trash like Nn himself, with only a useless brain and no brawn. Both were the same, just that one could hide his own, and the other had been exposed.


    All in all, they both were still in the same circle...


    "Judge myself? I deserve hell for what I''ve done. It''s something I know, Nn.


    But it''s useless, somehow. No matter what I do. It''s useless. There''s no purpose at all for me in the academy.


    No reason to even keep living. What''s the point of living if you will always be regarded as trash anyway?" Wiro whispered, but in the next instant, his ears perked up when he heard the sound of footsteps.


    When he raised his head up, he found Nn slowly walking off, moving out of the dark alleywayz his dagger disappearing from his hands.


    "Take your goons to the medical bay. Don''t let them die on me..." Those were thest words he heard from Nn as he watched him fade away from his sight.


    Now, all that was left was Wiro, alone with the battered bodies of his four goons around him.


    "Why?"