Diary System

Knock knock

"Ares it's me," Eris said after knocking on the study room door.

She just came to visit her brother after finishing all her work. She wanted to make sure Ares was perfectly fine after the recent terror incident.

Ares quickly threw the weird diary into a special vault he installed behind a bookshelf. He then opened the door to see Eris standing with a trolley full of warm cooked food.

"You didn't eat breakfast and lunch, don't you? So let's eat and tell me if you have a problem" Eris said softly while looking at her only sibling.

"Hmm, can I see the pictures when I was small? I suddenly felt curious what we all looked like when we were small" Ares asked since he knew even if he wanted to eat dragon's meat, Eris would try to fulfill his wish let alone just to see childhood photos.

Before, he was never interested in orginal Ares's past but now it seemed he had to do something about it.

Eris is a *brocon and anyone who wasn't blind could see it.

*(Brocon/brother complex: attachment and obsession to brothers. It is also commonly abbreviated as "brocon". Not necessarily incest just extreme siblings affection and pampering.)

Eris who grew up without her parents always pours her affection on her only younger brother whom she thought she needed to protect.

However contrary to Ares's expectation, Eris hesitated, "Is there anything else you wanted to see? Maybe you can take a trip to the beach in Heizt Territory?"

'I just wanted to see our childhood photos so what with this sudden trip suggestion as if she wanted to kick me out of the house for a while?'

Ares thought maybe seeing the childhood photos might trigger some of the original Ares memories to appear faster.

Despite sensing something amiss Ares just pretend he didn't realize anything since he knew Eris would put her guard up even more if Ares showed more reaction than he was supposed to.

"I want to go hiking in Yaro Mountain. Can I?" Ares asked.

"Oh, that's also a nice idea. There are a lot more animals and insects around the mountain that you might be interested in" Eris's expression improved when she believed Ares didn't realize anything amiss.

She would give her brother anything but his sudden request just now caught her off guard.

'His childhood photos? How could she show him something that didn't exist but she couldn't say that either.'

Eris was torn between guilt and sad feelings. She didn't want to lie to him but she also didn't want to tell him something that might open his old scars.

"I want to go alone? Can I?"

Hearing that Eris contemplated for a moment before agreeing since Yaro Town was in Kiba territory and the mountain area never had any dungeon thus her brother wouldn't accidentally step into a dungeon.

"You need to activate your tracker on your smartwatch all the time so we could immediately know if something happened to you"

Eris's worry wasn't random or without reasons. Ares had been transported inside a weird dungeon during his midterm test and he also unknowingly entered dungeons twice. Thus she could only think her brother might be born with bad luck and needed extra cautions.

She couldn't just trap Ares inside their family mansion all the time.

Later that night, Eris decided to call his grandma since she was closer to her, unlike Ares who was closer to their grandpa and great-grandmother.

"What is it, my dear Eris?" Amma's voice sounded exhausted since her workload increased due to the terror incident.

"Ares's asked me about his childhood photos," Eris said directly.

"...So what did you say?"

"I immediately changed the subject and manage to persuade him to go on a trip"

"Do you think he's stupid? He just let you be for now. That brat has the same temperament as both your grandpa and Grand. You do know how those two act"

"But if I lie, he will know so what should I do?"

"Hmm, I will talk about this with your Grand. She's the closest person to Ares so she might know what to do"

"I just want him to be happy" Eris muttered.

"Hiding things didn't necessarily make someone happy. It might make them wary instead. Don't worry about him too much, he's not a kid anymore"

"Yes, I know. By the way Amma, my mother send me a birthday gift. It was a pair of necklaces and earrings. What should I do with it?"

"Send it to me to be appraised properly"

"Couldn't we just throw them away?" Eris was uncomfortable accepting gifts from someone she didn't interact with much and after what her mother had done to her brother.

She didn't even remember her mother's voice anymore.

She never had much affection for her mother since Amma was the one raising her while her real father might come to visit her at random when he wasn't busy.

Unfortunately, her father didn't like Ares much since he wasn't his. Ares also realized that resulted in the two of them didn't interact with each other at all.

The last time she saw her mother was before Ares fall into a coma. After that, her mother seemed to vanish.

They only knew she was still alive because of the gifts she sent to Eris on her birthday or when she won a competition or every time she got her test result.

Instead of feeling happy, she felt disgusted since she didn't feel any affection from those expensive gifts consisting of pieces of jewelry, artifacts, and rare magic books.

Eris didn't have an interest in jewelry and beautiful artifacts. She also wasn't interested in magic like Kara and Ares. Eris was more like Karin who was fond of weapons.

Any kind of weapons. That was why she learned to wield more than 10 weapons.

However, her own mother didn't seem to know about that and kept on giving her things she wasn't interested in. Unlike Ares who knew exactly what his sister liked.

Thus Ares gave her a dagger inscribed with a special magic circle capable of acting like a grenade when activated.

She likes it.

Ares said it was just a prototype and would give her something better but Eris prefer the prototype dagger-grenade over those expensive pieces of jewelry and artifacts.

"Ok do whatever you want. If you give those to Ares, he might auction them in the black market" Amma playfully suggested.

She wanted to see what her daughter would feel when she saw those gifts were auctioned off.

"Oh, I don't want Ares to see those gifts since he never got anything" Eris was worried Ares would feel he wasn't accepted by their mother.

"That brat wouldn't care, believe me"

The more she talked to her grandma, the more she felt the little brother from her perspective was actually different.

"That money hungry brat"

That was how Grand described Ares. While grandpa always called Ares his little troublemaker prodigy.

Compared to how Eris views Ares as her obedient, soft-hearted little brother.

"Sigh, whatever. He still my brother even if he was a demon"

***********

A few days later, he already arrived in Yaro Town, the capital of Kiba clan territory. The town was surrounded by lush green forest and even the town was filled with plants and trees.

The Kiba was originally a hunter clan. Living inside the thick forests and hunting for a living. They cherished nature as much as the elves and that was why they have a pretty tight relationship with the elves.

Contrary to the Zanuki which the elves despised since for them the Zanuki were demons in humans' skin. Their ability to live in an area full of demonic energy made the elves think that way.

Other than that, some elves had been killed by them when they saved the Moran clan from being experimented on by the elves for their World Tree.

Elves unlike their beautiful appearance are not a kind species. There were also lunatics amongst them. Elves are also xenophobic and biased to the extreme.

Unlike their counterpart, the dark elves who were more open and flexible, the elves were too rigid and conventional. That was why the free-spirited Zanuki also weren't comfortable when dealing with them.

Kiba acted as the mediator for the elves when they were dealing or making trades with humans.

Taking advantage of the free time he had, Ares had practiced how to use the luck and misfortune he had.

The misfortune doesn't mean he would get an accident rather the diary or what he now calls the system would issue missions that he didn't like or annoying things would happen to him.

It must be because the power wasn't strong thus the misfortune was just on the level of annoyance and not yet harmful.

But still, due to uncertainty, he didn't dare to bestow the misfortune point to anyone else even though he knew they wouldn't die.

On the other hand, luck seemed to help someone do something better. For example, when he used the luck point, he understand certain things better when reading complicated books.

When he bestowed the luck point on Kara, she suddenly got an idea on how to make her research better after pondering about it for almost a week.

Luck and misfortune couldn't grant immediate change like you will win a lottery and become rich overnight or a truck will crash on you today.

Looking at the missions that he had to do these past few days during his experiment on luck and misfortune, Ares sighed.

[Mission: Do volunteer work in one of Zanuki funded orphanages (completed)√]

[Mission: Help the two homeless lads (completed)√]

[Mission:.....]

.

.

[Luck bestowed on the user]

[Unwavering loyalty from the two unnamed homeless]

[User can bestow names on them]

Ares didn't know how many times the system made him dumbfounded. It was completely different than Cedric's system.

"Is it because of the unique authority, the Balancer?"

Until now he still didn't know what and how the authority functions.

Currently, he was sitting under a tree not far from the Moon Goddess church compound after he finished helping the church as a volunteer. All because of the system's annoying missions.

Ares wasn't a philanthropist thus he wasn't interested in doing charity works that didn't affect or profited him in any way.

Not far from him, two teenagers who actually older than Ares were walking toward him, holding trays full of food and drinks. After seeing how much Ares eat, they always seemed to feed Ares every time they saw him.

"Young master" the two of them greeted him simultaneously.

"Hn"

After meeting them five days ago in a dusty rundown back alley, Ares decided to put them under an orphanage funded by the Zanuki.

Due to social pressure, the nobles would usually choose a few orphanages to fund, and the richer they were, the more orphanages they would fund and the Zanuki was no exception.

However, these two lads were already 17 years old and they would be considered adults next year when they reached 18 years old of age. At that time, they couldn't live in the orphanage anymore.

Ares had thought of making them Hamsyar's assistants but seeing the system said that they were loyal to him, he had another idea.

"Both of you didn't have an official name, am I right?" Ares asked.

"Y-yes young master" the one with caramel brown-haired answered. He looked like a big golden retriever puppy looking at his master.

"So how do you guys usually call each other?"

They told Ares that they have known each other since childhood. Both of them were neighbors and run away from home since their parents were abusive to them.

They were too young at that time and their parents never really called them properly other than calling them 'bastards' or 'ingrates'.

Thus they didn't really sure what was their name or if their parents have ever given them proper names.

"Just call me Two and this is One"

So they just called themselves 'One' and 'Two' based on who was bigger since they also didn't know their birthdays.

The one that looked like a golden retriever was 'Two' since he was skinnier than 'One' despite having the same height. Both of them were malnourished and almost died from starvation the moment Ares saw them.

Instead of resting, they always tried to find Ares and helped him do whatever they could.

"What if I gave the two of you names?"

"R-really young master? If it is you, we will gladly accept it," Two said while One still remained silent.

"Let me think about it for a few days before I decided"

"T-thank you, young master"

"You're not a stutterer aren't you"

"N-no"

Two who were actually quite eloquent when talking couldn't help himself from stuttering like an idiot every time he talked to his savior.

Since he had to depend on himself to survive, he didn't believe in any God until he met the red hair youth in front of him.

If someone asked him how he would describe a God, his description would be the red-haired youth in front of him.

The indifference in his eyes as if he were looking at everyone the same way. The kindness he showed them without a hint of pity.

That's also why his partner and also family, One didn't say anything when he decided to follow Ares. One must also feel the same way.

Between the two of them, One has a bit of an ego and also insecurity due to his disability. His eye was blind on one side and the other side would also go blind in a few years thus One already decided to commit suicide before he became fully blind.

But he changed his mind after they met Ares.

He not only helped them but also seemed to have future plans for them.

"Don't die without my permission."

That was his order after he saved them. They could feel some sense of comfort from the words although they sounded harsh.

"Come to this address after you guys turned 18. Your travel expenses and proof of identity are inside the envelope. Only come when you are no longer eligible to live in the orphanage" Ares passed an envelope to Two.

"Yes young master"

The two of them bowed deeply towards Ares until Ares's silhouette was gone from their view.

Ares felt like he was already done wasting his time doing all the annoying missions and it was now for the main mission, saving Cedric's ass.

"It wasn't described in the novel how Cedric got the first clue about his clan so this must be it but did he really need any saving? He's the protagonist, how can he die that easily?"

Ares was actually lazy to interact more with Cedric since his goal is just to live. He didn't care much about the demons' invasion or the Demon King's abuse of power.

[Penalty: Misfortune will be bestowed for a month]

Ares saw the holographic-like sentence appear above his right palm.

The diary that he had flipped dozens of times for the past few days, suddenly vanished and the cross-shaped stigmata tattoo was shining at the same time.

Thus he concluded the stigmata could act as some sort like a spatial bag. However, when he tried to retrieve the diary back, nothing happened.

After that, the missions would appear on his right palm in the form of a golden holographic screen. It is more convenient and also more annoying at the same time.

"Fine I do the mission but where is the place?"

Since it wasn't mentioned inside the novel, Ares didn't even know where to start.

[Yaro mountain, hidden cave, south of the Yaro mountain bottom hillside]

"Now you're being cooperative" Ares commented and as expected no response from the system.

That night inside his hotel room, he found another bizarre thing happened. When he was organizing his things inside his spatial bracelet, the weird *stone tablet he found in Mist City was vibrating as if it was alive.

*(In chapter 38)

The grey stone tablet was shining blue.

At first, Ares was a bit reluctant to touch it but when it kept on trying to move in a certain direction, Ares felt it might have a connection with the mission he had to do.

"Is the hidden cave have any connection with this weird stone" Ares muttered while looking at the stone tablet inscribed with ambiguous sentences in Jawi writing.

He had thought of investigating the stone before but didn't have time to do so. Now when the stone suddenly seemed to react to something, it might be the perfect time to investigate what is this stone actually is.

"This is why I love to be alive. Life is always full of wonder"

Even in his past life where he lives like shit, he never thought of committing suicide since he always felt like every day he could encounter something new and interesting.