Chapter 51: A Lot Of Bad luck.

He didn’t want to survive by luck while someone close to him paid the price, but he didn’t tell his sister his reasons or his opinion. Instead, he rubbed her blond hair with his bloody hands as he said, "Whatever you say, little sister. You’re always right. I’ll change from now on."

"You always say that, but you never change," she said, rolling her red eyes at him.

"I promise to change. How about this? Whenever someone starts calling me names, I will right up to their face and smash their teeth in instead of arguing with them and escalating the matter by arguing with them," he said, chuckling.

"You rascal," Leila said as she punched him in the arm and glanced carefully in Alexander’s direction to make sure that he wasn’t offended.

Fortunately, Alexander didn’t care that he had become a bad example. He was thinking about the brother-sister relationship between them.

’They seem to have a close relationship for siblings. It is probably because they have been through a lot together. Then again, I never had a sibling, so who am I to judge?’

’I guess I wasn’t lucky in the aspect of family. On the bright side, it made it easy to get over them,’ he thought, chuckling.

’Besides, I was lucky to get the Life Forge and survived while everyone else died. That makes up for my bad luck in my family, relationships, my physique, my looks, and my place of work.’

His parents had divorced early, and he had been left to live with his mother, who was an alcoholic. After years of abuse, he was taken into the foster system. Then he bounced around families for a while.

He didn’t have good luck in his relationships either. His previous girlfriend had cheated and claimed it was his fault.

During couples therapy to salvage their relationship, she said he pushed her to cheat because he wasn’t masculine enough and didn’t make her feel safe. He didn’t know if she was right about him not being masculine enough, but he knew it wasn’t a forgivable reason if it was true, so he broke up with her.

Physically, he was average. In terms of looks, he was also average.

The only thing he had going for him back on Earth was his intelligence and mental fortitude. He was good at studying and could endure doing it for a long time.

Eventually, after years of hard work, he got a business degree and got a job as a financial analyst at a hedge fund. But his boss turned out to be a hellish demon, hell-bent on breaking him.

So if someone were to ask him if he missed Earth, he would say, "I do very much. I would trade my current situation to go back to Earth in a heartbeat."

He would rather be on Earth partly because the problems he had there couldn’t compare with what he had gone through in the brief two years he spent in the Obsidian Maw.

He didn’t like being hungry all of the time. This problem, in particular, put all the problems he had on Earth into perspective. Now they look like silly problems to him.

After experiencing both sides, he would give up on being an Apostle without much thought. But he also wanted to return to Earth because he missed the internet, movies, memes, laws, order, and freedom, to some extent.

So even though he didn’t miss his friends and family on Earth, he had plenty of reasons he would gladly return. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the choice.

Sighing, he thought, ’I guess the food here is good. As long as no one puts their foot up my guts again, I could get used to this.’

’Plus, I have the potential to change my life and achieve something I could never do on Earth. So what the Obsidian Mae lacks in hospitality, it makes up for with potential.’

’Besides, if these young people can manage it, I must be able to endure it. I have the Life Forge, so I must not complain.’

He was already 27 years old. He was getting up there as a Drone because the average life expectancy for Drones is 30 years. Rarely does a Drone live to 40.

So compared to young people like Robert and Barnabas, he is ancient. Barnabas is 16 while Robert is 18. These two were physically superior to him as a 27-year-old man. He refused to let them be superior to him emotionally.

He was thinking about this as he ate his food. He was so deep in thought that he barely paid attention when Robert and Leila left the table.

Fortunately, all of that thinking didn’t go to waste. By the time he was done eating, he had recharged his will to preserve and was ready to face the world with a renewed vision.

"Maybe it is because I just ate and I’m full, but I feel like I can take on the world," he said confidently.

"I am sure it is the food high," the worm said, raining on his parade.

Chuckling, he said, "You’re probably right."

As he walked down the stairs, the worm asked eagerly, "What are we doing today? Do we go and earn money to start the farm now?"

"I told you earlier. We need to go on missions for the Order before we can earn any money."

"We can’t run missions until we finish our training. So we won’t be able to earn any money for one month."

"Fine," it said, frustrated. "Go and learn how to fight."

"And get good at it too. Frankly, your recent fights have been embarrassing."

Alexander’s eye immediately twitched, and he said, "So you know that it is embarrassing to be beaten black and blue in a fight. Where was this self-awareness yesterday when you made Tessa beat me up?"

The worm, without shame, said, "I just learned about embarrassment from you yesterday. We have that beating from Tessa and your lamentations about it to thank for that."