I Became The Administrator of A Sacred Ground

Euri didn't find the offer particularly attractive. But he knew that at the moment, his only asset was his brute strength, and Aemon was perceptive enough to see that.

"If it involves violence—"

Aemon held up a hand to cut him off. "You'll just be there to make up numbers. We don't hand out money to people who might wipe us out of existence. The most intense it can get is a couple minutes of wrestling down a debtor trying to escape. You can't even do that?"

Sighing, Euri agreed to the deal. Aemon accompanied him to the metro circuit and introduced some fellow debt collectors he would be seeing frequently soon.

"I'll give you a call if suitable work comes up. We get two or three visits assigned each week from the boss. So be ready to head out at any time."

Those were Aemon's parting words as Euri got onto the train.

Half an hour later, Euri stood outside his school campus, staring in stunned silence at the spectacle under construction. Banners were being hooked over entrances, flags were visible on top of every building, and the rarely used auditorium was getting a proper makeover.

The colorful banners sported welcoming notes and motivational quotes for 'participants' and 'sponsors'. Some banners directly mentioned Red Sea Labs, thanking them on behalf of the school for their generous offer.

All the flags had the same design; rectangular red background, with two right-angled triangles at the center, facing each other and taking the appearance of open wings.

It seemed that the kick-off of the new program would be quite ostentatious!

In the classroom, he got more info from Jaakie and Shenna. Apparently, a massive truck had arrived early in the morning to deliver a set of packages so large that each had to be carried into the buildings by more than a dozen men.

"They're assembling an absolute unit of a machine in one of the unused classrooms," Shenna said, having seen it himself.

"Man, I hope it won't be used to test things not under our control," Jaakie grumbled.

"Our parents aren't superhumans. How could we have any special attributes or affinities like those geniuses they brag about in the news?"

His concern was probably from the minor trauma they all had received during childhood, when government-affiliated tester organizations had come to the slums to discover special humans.

Ever since the first cosmic notice had declared that cross-dimensional gateways were going to be used to assimilate their world with the 'Real Human Civilization' that reigned over the macrocosm, countless research projects had been financed to find out the differences between those superior lifeforms of mankind and them.

It was said that many superhumans had already encountered humans from other planets in the alien planes beyond the dimensional gateways, and some governments around the world now knew what the distinctions were.

Many big clans were allegedly capable of producing offspring whose genetic uniqueness gave them special attributes, being categorized as superhumans from birth!

Euri had even read articles about how this next generation of superhumans was slowly going to create a greater divide between the ordinary humans and superhumans who had cultivated themselves into power and prestige. Poisonous, regressive concepts like purity of blood, lineage, and nobility were going to take over society under a better format, with tangible proof to boot.

The entire day went by with Euri feeling as absent-minded as his fellow students, albeit over different reasons. Most of his classmates were constantly peeking out of windows and corridors to watch the rapid preparation for the soon-to-be-held announcement event.

Even after the classes ended, most of them didn't leave right away, hanging out around the campus to watch things progress. Euri, on the other hand, hurried to catch a returning train.

As expected, his parents were home. And judging by their countenance, both had taken a hit of Black Foam not too long ago, probably right after lunch. Euri gloomily stared at each of them for a couple of seconds before entering his bedroom and locking the door.

There was a knock on the door an hour later.

"Euri, come help with the dinner."

Grudgingly, he followed his mother into the kitchen and started chopping vegetables, putting a lot more force into the movements than required. If a gourmet tasted these in a meal, they'd be perhaps able to sense the frustration and unwillingness of the cook.

The clacking noise made his mother glance at him wearily several times.

"...You know, your father and I went out after you left for school."

His chopping slowed down.

"We haven't been on a proper date for what... seventeen years? Yeah, seventeen. The daylight in the late morning, the streets, the atmosphere—everything felt so alien."

Sighing, Euri resumed his work at full speed again. He would be turning seventeen pretty soon. Did she have to specify the timeframe?

"After the date, we thought we should go to the factory and ask our overseers for an explanation. Your dad was very insistent on it."

Euri's knife lost its speed again, and the shape of the chopped vegetables began to grow erratic.

"Turns out, both of our overseers were pretty much forced by their superiors to lay off the two of us. Even they don't have an explanation for it."

Euri looked up at her from his corner, eyes narrowing.

"So your dad made a big ruckus and forced his way into the Director's office, demanding to know why only the two of us were targeted in particular. Although we couldn't find the Director himself, his son told us that we aren't qualified to know or demand any answers. When your father protested, he was beaten up by the security. That boy was just a little older than you, but the filthy things he said to the two of us were enough to make me drag your father out of the factory."

His mother wasn't subtle while wiping off the wetness from her eyes.

"So I hope you won't be as rude to your dad as you were this morning."

His mother returned her attention to the stove immediately, but Euri stayed still for a long time before resuming his task of cutting vegetables. This time, the pieces were chopped up with absolute precision.

If a gourmet tasted these pieces in a meal, Euri doubted that they'd sense the malice and fury of the cook.