Novel Full Chapter 457: Slum district
Chapter 457: Slum district
Darkness pressed against Ethan from every direction.
He opened his eyes and saw nothing. No light filtered through. The air was thick, damp, and sour with rot. Something sticky clung to his skin. His body felt impossibly small, heavy, and weak.
“Status.”
A translucent panel surfaced within his consciousness.
[Master: Ethan Hunt
Physique: 200 gm
Spirit: 200 gm
Talent: Infinite Comprehension
Age: 1 day]
For a moment, even he was silent.
“Yumiko,” he said inwardly. “Where am I?”
A brief pause followed.
[Master, you are inside a dustbin. You were discarded here shortly after birth. Your biological parents could not afford to feed another child.]
Ethan tried to lift his hand.
It trembled weakly and barely moved.
The world had reset him to a newborn and then thrown him into garbage.
The smell invaded his lungs. He felt the crushing weight of the lid above him. Hunger twisted inside his tiny stomach like a blade.
His breath grew shallow.
“How am I supposed to survive this?” he asked. For the first time since entering the tower, tremendous urgency entered his thoughts. “I will suffocate to death before the trial even begins.”
[When pedestrians approach, I will notify you. You must cry. There is a statistical probability that someone will investigate.]
Cry.
Ethan almost laughed at the absurdity. A being who had torn space apart now depended on instinctual wailing.
Two hours passed in suffocating darkness.
[Master. Someone is approaching.]
Ethan inhaled what little foul air he could and forced sound through his fragile throat.
“Wa… wa…”
The cry came out thin and weak.
Footsteps slowed for a while.
Then it continued.
The lid did not move.
Silence returned again.
[He has left. Conserve energy for later.]
Over the next two hours, the pattern repeated. Ethan cried three more times. Once louder. Once desperately. Once with calculated rhythm.
No one opened the lid.
In the slums, abandoned infants were not rare.
Hunger sharpened even more in this 4 hours. His vision blurred despite the darkness.
“Is there another method?” he asked.
[There is the third protocol. However, the strain may permanently damage your current vessel. Survival probability is low.]
Before Ethan could respond, footsteps approached again.
This time they were quicker. Impatient.
A woman’s voice cut through the street.
“Those idiots cannot even use protection. They ruin their lives and then toss the child like trash.”
The lid scraped open.
Light flooded in.
Ethan blinked as cold air struck his face. A young woman stared down at him. Her hair was tied back loosely. Her clothes were worn but clean. Her expression was hard.
Then she saw his eyes.
She hesitated.
“You are still alive,” she muttered.
She reached in and lifted him. Her hands were rough but steady.
“I will take you out of here,” she said flatly. “Then I will hand you to the beggar syndicate. Whether you live or die after that is your luck.”
To her, she was simply removing refuse from the street.
To Ethan, she was a variable that altered his destiny.
“Lady, you have no idea what karma you just claimed,” he thought calmly.
She frowned slightly.
“Why are your eyes like that?”
Ethan’s gaze was steady, unnaturally clear for a newborn. For a second, she felt as if she were the one being examined.
“Do not look at me like that,” she said, shifting him against her chest. “I cannot afford to raise you. I cannot even feed myself properly.”
She continued walking.
The slum stretched around them in cracked concrete and corrugated metal. Sewage trickled along narrow gutters. Children with hollow cheeks watched them silently.
After several steps, she slowed.
Then stopped.
She cursed under her breath.
“I do not know what I am thinking.”
Instead of turning toward the syndicate’s district, she walked in the opposite direction.
Her name was Liria.
Her house was little more than a single cramped room with a broken bed and a rusted stove. She placed Ethan gently on the bed and heated water over a small flame.
She washed him carefully, removing filth and dried blood. Her movements were awkward but careful.
“You are troublesome,” she muttered. “You look like trouble.”
After cleaning him, she wrapped him in old clothes and placed him on the bed.
“I will try to find milk,” she said before leaving.
When the door shut, Ethan focused inward.
“Yumiko. World structure.”
[This planet is named Xylem. It once belonged to a higher energy civilization eons ago. Residual traces remain in geological layers, but there is no accessible cosmic energy. It is currently a standard mortal world.]
“Combat potential?”
[Advanced firearms, industrial technology. Certain martial lineages exist. Exceptional individuals can deflect bullets or shatter stone. However, no one surpasses biological limitations.]
Ethan considered this.
“So becoming the strongest within a year is not the real obstacle. The true task is locating the Axe of Chaos.”
[Correct. The administrators may be testing your adaptability under suppression.]
He exhaled slowly.
“They want me to wait while other God Children cultivate.”
[That is likely.]
Ethan stared at the cracked ceiling.
“It does not matter. They misunderstand something fundamental.”
Thirty minutes later, the door opened.
Liria entered with another woman. The second woman was thinner, holding a baby girl in her arms.
“Sofia,” Liria said quietly. “Thank you for coming. I will repay you somehow.”
Sofia gave a tired smile.
“You rescued a child. I was curious. But my daughter needs milk too. I can only spare a little.”
Her gaze shifted to Ethan.
She froze.
“Now I understand.”
“What?” Liria asked.
“He does not look like a slum child.”
Sofia sat beside the bed and gently lifted Ethan. She adjusted her clothing and fed him.
Warmth spread through his body.
The burning in his stomach eased.
For the first time since reincarnation, he felt stability.
“I can only give this much today,” Sofia said softly. “I will return tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Liria replied, lowering her head slightly.
After Sofia left, Liria wrapped Ethan more tightly.
“The night will be cold,” she murmured.
Five days passed.
Ethan grew at a pace that defied biology.
On the fifth day, Liria stared at him in disbelief.
“Is it just me,” she said slowly, “or have you grown too much?”
Ethan could now move with coordination. His muscles strengthened rapidly. His mind, of course, remained unchanged.
Excessive growth would draw attention.
If the slum people found out about him, they might sell the information to the government, then he could imagine what would happen.
“Dissection tables”, a single thought came to him.
“I will leave tomorrow,” he decided internally.
That afternoon, Sofia visited again.
She stopped in the doorway.
“Does he not look like a two year old now?” she whispered.
Liria’s face paled.
“You noticed it too?”
Sofia knelt beside him and fed him as usual, though unease lingered in her eyes.
“Perhaps it is some rare disease which is cwas tooing him to grow so fast,” Liria said weakly.
Sofia shook her head but said nothing more.
The next day, Liria returned from scavenging.
As soon as her eyes landed on the bed, she froze. The bed was empty.
The clothes were folded neatly.
For several seconds, she did not move.
Then her breath quickened.
“Who took him?”
She searched the room frantically. Under the bed. Behind the stove.
Nothing.
Her hands trembled.
“I will find whoever did this,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “Even if it is a gang. I will kill them.”
Her anger masked something deeper.
Attachment. She was treating Ethan as her own son. So his sudden disappearance cut deep in her heart.
In a narrow corner of the slum, far from the main paths, Ethan crouched behind stacked debris.
His body now resembled that of a small child rather than an infant. Growth had stabilized to a more controlled rate.
He watched the distant shacks silently.
“I need seven more days,” he calculated.