Rebels!

"Dave, you really got a [Lightnining Rabbit Essence]?", asked Ayano flabbergasted."Yeah, it is of the Ultimate Ranking... Is it that rare?" Dave never heard about essences or anything like that, so he didn't know how big of a thing it was.

"If it is rare...??? Dave, there are people, who got their hands on essences of monsters before. It is not that uncommon. But not a single person ever acquired the essence of a transcendental being," explained Ayano to Dave. She shook her head and had difficulties to understand the situation. "Okay... let me explain from the start! Essences contain part of the power the monster had during its lifetime. Through consuming essences you can gain a certain part of its power!"

"Okay," said Dave. "If you say part of the power, do you mean that you get for example an ability of that monster?"

"That is correct, though it is not the whole truth," responded Ayano. "What you gain through consumption of an essence is always determined by the quality of the essence. High-quality essences, for example, will even strengthen your body to some degree."

"You said there wasn't a single case of someone gaining an essence like mine... Doesn't that mean that you don't really know what will happen once I try to take it?", concluded Dave.

"That is true... though there are some speculations people have done over time. Most people share the opinion that consuming this kind of essence will lead to you gaining the very seed of its power." Ayano shrugged her shoulders. "But since there is not a single person in this world, who was yet able to test it, we can't be sure."

"I will have to think about this for some time. In the meantime, I have to start questing again. I didn't tell you yet but to win this fight, I had to dump a big chunk of my Heroism stockpile on this. My guess is that I need at least 200k or more," said Dave annoyed.

"I think we won't be able to acquire that many if we rely only on questing...", voiced Ayano her concerns.

Dave smiled at her. "That is true and that is the reason, why this time I will first invest and then reap the profit." Suddenly Dave noticed a new window in his view. "Oh.. why didn't I see this before."

[Your agility stat broke through to the ultimate rating. With this, you stepped with your feet into the ranks of transcendental beings.From now on the max rank of your skills isn't SSS but ULTIMATE]

Smiling brightly he left the lab together with Ayano. It was finally time for some real-life fights!

In the harbor on the outskirts of the island New Asia, Dave and Ayano were walking alongside the shore. To farm heroism the most effective way Dave decided to activate a filter and only show quests of the S rating and above. Unfortunately, though not a single quest appeared yet. "Arrrghhh... Why can't there be even a single quest!", shouted Dave.

"We shouldn't be unhappy about the fact that the civilians are safe right now. In the near future, there will be a time, where we will miss this peace."

Sighing remorseful Dave said, "I guess you are right. It is just that I don't have much time left..."

"I know Dave and that is why I will show you a place where you will find lots of quests. I didn't intend to show you that place because it is extremely dangerous there but I think we are out of other options...", responded Ayano.

"Where is a place on this island that is dangerous?", asked Dave flabbergasted. New Asia was always safe as far as he knew, well at least he thought so before his best friend was killed in brought daylight.

"Did you ever ask yourself what is beneath the city?" Ayano moved forward and pulled Dave by his hand. They were changing directions for the lake in the city.

"No, not really... I guess since this island weights tons there should be a gigantic hollow space. Otherwise, It couldn't float on the water or?" He looked kind of skeptical. Before Ayano asked him he really never wasted a single thought on the question, what might be beneath the city.

"That is actually correct. It is a similar principle to icebergs. If engines would have to hold this city and its high-rise buildings over water then we wouldn't be able to produce the energy we need.", explained Ayano in a way that you could see that she was an offspring from a rich family.

"To make sure that this whole thing keeps floating New Asia was built with more than 90% of its mass underwater. You should be able to imagine what that means." Ayano looked deeply into Dave's eyes."Under this city is a space that is 9 times bigger than the actual city... and now guess what happened to this space after some time."

"I don't know...", mumbled Dave but then he stopped speaking, "Wait! Don't tell me people are living under this city?!?"

"BINGO!", said Ayano cheerfully. "Didn't expect you to understand that so fast. You are more intelligent than I expected."

"Well thanks, I guess...", responded Dave not sure if this was a compliment or not.

"By the way...how do we get under the city?", asked Dave trying to change the topic.

"Oh, that is pretty simple...You still remember where we first met Dave?",she responded with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Yeah, how could I forget that day. The day my best friend died..."

Dave had a downcast look in his eyes. What happened that day weighed still heavily on his mind.

'It is around 2 months already since I lost the only person, who was like family to me.'

Ayano interrupted Dave's melancholic thoughts. "I am sorry Dave. It wasn't my intention... It is just one of the few save entries to the underworld that I know off."

"Underworld?!?" Dave was surprised by its name. "That doesn't sound good... are you sure it is a place that we should visit?"

Ayano laughed. "No, actually, we shouldn't go there but what else could we do. You saw yourself what happened last time I went there even though I was tremendously weakened at that time."

"You mean.. Wait you want to tell me those two are people from the underworld. Why the hell didn't you tell me sooner?"Dave was angry at Ayano. It was such a piece of important information to him he didn't understand why she would keep that a secret from him.

"No, that is not true at all. Do you still remember how they escaped?", said Ayano calmly.

"Yeah with a submarine... so what about it...? You wanna tell me they are from somewhere else? How does that make sense? From which other place could they possibly come from?", replied Dave annoyed.

"Yes Dave, actually they are from somewhere else. They come from the mainland!"

Dave wanted to ask another question but Ayano stopped him.

"Just wait and let me explain." She took a deep breath and started her explanation.

"50 years ago obviously not every person on this planet had a spot on one of the seven islands called New Asia, New Europe, New Africa, New Australia, New America, New Southamerica and New China. These islands were all of different sizes. The biggest of all of them was New America. New America alone can accommodate around 20 million people. As a simple comparison, you should be aware that on New Asia live around 15 million people."

Dave nodded approvingly.

"Then now comes the part the general public is not aware of. All islands combined were able to house 100 million people! You think 100 million is quite the big number I guess. But what you don't know is that back then 10 billion people were living on earth! That information was kept secret from every new generation that was born here."

After Ayano's explanation, Dave was kind of skeptical.

"Ayano how could someone keep something like this a secret? I mean you can't forbid 100 million people to talk about something. Even if they aren't allowed to do it in public then they still could do it at their homes or?"

"Of course some people passed that information on. Otherwise, there would be no way for me to know about it, would there? But you still don't know the whole story behind it. You have to understand that only 1 person out of 100 was allowed to move on the islands at best! What do you think, how they chose which person to pick?"

Only one kilometer away from Kowalski's Burger Palace Dave was already in the middle of the island near the lake. He walked slowly along the shore and took his time to overthink his answer.

"There are many possibilities. They could have taken only young people or they could have simply drawn lots...."

Ayano smiled hearing these answers.

"Dave you try to think to fair about this. In truth, there were 3 ways to board these islands. And I know all of them because as you might know my grandpa was part of the group, who owned and build them. I am telling you he wasn't a nice guy. He was all about money and science."

Dave was shocked to hear that. He tended to forget from which family Ayano was and he found it even harder to understand that she, who was a kind-hearted person by nature, was supposed to be related to a person with a character like that.

"The first way was to pay money or know the right people." continued Ayano. "The companies, who built the islands, needed money to cover the astronomical expenses that arose through the construction. The families, who boarded the island like that, are today still pretty big names and you should know them.

The second way was that you had a profession that was needed. Like engineers or something like that.

And the third was your genes. Scientists screened most of humanity and picked for the third group those with the best genes."

After Ayano finished her explanation Dave was kind of down.

He said to Ayano,"You know I think most people would say that the third way is the fairest. But I see it differently. You can't change with which genes you were born. What you can influence though is how much money you earn or how good you are in your profession. Those are things you can work to achieve."

Ayano looked deeply into his eyes. She saw a completely different part of Dave's character right now.

"I understand what you mean. As long as you have a chance to influence your fate you think something is fair. You want to say that?"

"Exactly. It is not your fault to be born with bad genes. Of course, I understand why they made that decision. It is obviously the most logical way to keep humanity alive but it is not the fairest way!"

After one last look, Ayano giggled."You know this got surprisingly deep. Maybe I should just continue the explanation. Where did we stop again? Oh yeah, so they had to pick people for the islands... But what happened to those that weren't picked?

I will tell you what happened to them to keep this short.

They survived!

Today, we call them Rebels!"