The sun shone brightly from the sky because it was noon time. In a city filled with lots of people who were busy with their own activities, the atmosphere was rather busy as vendors kept calling out the names of their goods in the market and their prices, enticing customers.
But somewhere around the less busy side of the city, a shadow ran within the crowd, doing his best to avoid being caught by the people chasing him from behind.
"Damn! How did they find out?!" the figure said.
It was a young boy in tattered clothes, with brown skin that looked dry and braided shoulder length black hair that looked very dark. But the most striking thing about him was his eyes.
They were so blue that they looked unnatural. Though there are people with different types of eye colours, this young man's own stood out a lot, almost as if they could pull people in.
In his hands, pressed tightly against his chest, was a heavy bag filled with stuff inside.
"Damn you thief! Stop there!"
One of the men armed with weapons shouted, his face flushed with anger and tiredness. He was at the forefront of the group as their leader.
"What?! So that you can beat me?!" the young boy shouted back. "Not a chance. Hehehe!"
"Damn you kid! Don't let me catch you!" the leader shouted back angrily.
"That's for sure! Hehehe!"
The young boy took a sharp turn between buildings. It was a narrow passageway filled with lots of things that blocked the road, but the young boy kept zigzagging and jumping over them. It seemed like something he was used to.
Immediately, he found the place he had prepared for himself in case he was caught, so that he could hide for a while.
Between the loads of debris and stuff, the young boy slipped through silently and hid himself from sight.
"Damn that bastard! How can we find him like this?!" another man shouted.
Because of how heavily packed the passageway was, it wouldn't be easy for them to find the young boy.
"He must have run to the other side. Some of us should find another way there, while the rest will pass through here in case that bastard returns to pass here again," the leader of the team said.
"Now divide yourselves into two groups and do as I said. We need to catch that bastard, unless we will be the ones to face our lord's wrath."
Without further instructions, the team divided themselves into two. The leader and some others passed through the cramped passageway the young boy had taken, while the others ran to find another way.
"Tch! That damn bastard!" the leader cursed as he and his men kept zigzagging and jumping over the stuff that filled the passageway.
The young boy, who was hiding within the debris, held his breath and stilled his body, not wanting to do anything that would give away his location.
It didn't take long for the men to pass by the place where he was hiding. This wasn't his first time doing such a thing.
His name was Aderouki Toba.
He was sixteen years of age, or so he calculated based on his peers in the slum.
Even his name was given to him by himself.
He was an orphan. Worst of all, he didn't have early memories of his childhood. His memories began when he was ten, living in the slum like a rat with others as well.
He never questioned it or bothered to find his family, or even if he had one. All that mattered to him was survival.
Because as a slum kid, there was nothing else he could do except survive.
Toba tried a lot of times to find work and free himself from slum life and the heavy hunger that always accompanied it, but to no avail.
No one was willing to take in slum children into their business, because people from the slum had no trust guarantee.
The reason was because a lot of slum people back then were hired for work, only for those same slum people, who should have been living a good life to steal their money and goods and escape to another place.
Which was why the people in the city treated the slum people like rats, like garbage.
And this greatly affected Toba, because he wanted to eat a lot of food to his own satisfaction, live a better life, and maybe even aim higher.
But the most important thing to him was food.
Which was why he and his slum friends would always spy on people to find out who had the most food to steal from.
That was how they had been living for five years, even building skills around it.
"Oh God! When will I begin to live a better life?" Toba muttered under the pile of debris.
He had seen youths his age living better lives than his. But unlike his other slum friends who had hatred and disdain for them, Toba only envied them and wished to live like that.
At least he would have food to eat every day and a better cloth to wear.
Toba knew that the men who were looking for him had long since gone, but he chose to remain hidden for a very long time.
It was from the experience of one of his slum friends who hid himself and thought his pursuers were gone, only for him to appear in front of them and receive the beating of his life.
Because of this, Toba and the others learned from it and became even more cautious in any of their missions.
Toba even slept off while hiding, only waking up at midnight.
He brought his head out and looked around before heaving a sigh of relief.
"Hehehe! They can never catch this young lord," Toba said with a confident smile as he came out from the pile of debris.
He looked up at the night sky and saw that it was a full moon. Because of how bright the sky was, Toba's blue eyes looked enchanting.
"I wonder if the rest have returned to our base," Toba said quietly as he took in a deep breath.
"Well, no matter. Let me go and see. Hehehe, now I have a lot of food to eat," Toba said with a grin as he looked at the big bag in his hands.
Immediately, without waiting any longer, he dashed off.
Because it was nighttime, there weren't many people around, except for those who were on night duty or those who liked having fun at night.
It took a while and lots of running before Toba got to the slum and entered their secret base.
It was an open wide space hidden behind a building.
Toba saw five boys with three other girls camped around a bonfire, laughing and joking with one another, except for one girl who sat quietly, like nothing happening concerned her.
"Phew! I was busy hiding but you guys are already having fun!" Toba said as he walked toward them, sat on the ground in a lotus position, and dropped the big bag between his folded legs around the fire.
"Ooh, we thought you had been caught. Guess you made it out," a young boy around the same age as Toba said.
"At least we haven't shared our spoils yet because of you, so you should feel grateful," another young boy said. He seemed not to like Toba much.
"And I would have taken this one with me for myself!" Toba replied with a smirk.
"Come on, why are both of you spouting rubbish? We only have one another to survive," a young girl of the same age said.
"Well, let's share our spoils fast. I'm hungry," Toba said when his stomach rumbled loudly.
A young boy among them stood up. He seemed slightly older than all of them. He was the chosen leader of the group.
Immediately, he began to divide the food equally among the eight of them. Although there were some arguments about what they wanted or what they didn't want.
But to Toba, all that argument was meaningless, because to him, beggars had no choice but to manage what they had. So he stayed silent.
After a while, the food was evenly distributed among them. Every one of them was happy, well, except the girl who sat there with an expressionless face.
The others were already used to her.
Toba picked a loaf of bread and began to eat, enjoying the fruit of his labor as he signed with an excited expression.
"When I was in the street, I heard some news," the group leader, Mide, said.
"Ooh, what's it?"
Everyone's interest was piqued as they listened attentively.
"I heard the five kingdoms are coming together to host a tournament!"
"!!!!!"
"WHAT?! THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!"