Chapter 1

I stood in that hollow room, the table before me was empty, barren just a piece of wood. The chairs before me, once filled with life, were broken and destroyed. I stood up, my chair creaking as I did. I walked over to the door and took one last look at my old world, at the room where I had spent most of my days. I stared back at what I'd lost, and I shut the door, the wooden door locking as I left, I walked down the steps through the guild hall, the hall I'd loved. The hall once filled with joy and light is now dark and sad. I walked through and closed the door behind me leaving the broken building behind, the abandoned home.

I stepped onto the train, the whistle and steam hissing at me. I sat in the uncomfortable seats and put my headphones on, drowning in the loud music submerged in my thoughts as I stared out at the landscape flying past the window, the trees and lakes being pulled past my eyes. I looked into the beautiful sky, the gleaming clouds drifting carelessly across the blue sky. In the distance I saw something familiar. An annoyance I'd dealt with a hundred times over. I walked off into the gap between the cars, my headphones hanging around my neck as I hopped onto the top of the train, the music playing faintly in my ears. I stared up at the monster hovering above me, the huge scales burning as its wings flapped, the nostrils flaring smoke pouring out of them, I stared lazily into its yellow eyes yawning as I did. This dragon picked the wrong day to annoy me. This was the last day of my guild, the silver bullet. I pulled my hands from my pockets and drew my knife from my pocket, the curved blade shining in the spring sunlight. The dragon opened its mouth flames falling from its gaping jaws as a huge amount of heat burst from its body, the flames burnt around its mouth and shot forward spiraling and spinning in a vortex of heat. But then it was too late. The dragon's wings fell off in an instant as I charged forward, I shut its mouth squashing the jaws into each other, the fangs breaking and shattering as it fell onto the tracks folding and rolling away.

I placed my dagger back into my pocket and walked back to my seat placing the headphones over my ears and going to sleep.

I live in a world populated by magic. Humans are weak trash though, so we developed weapons and skills powerful items that could destroy anything we wanted. In that world guilds formed to profit off the trade of rare magical items and protection but there was one guild that stood above the rest, the Silver bullet. And I was the master.

But as humans built bigger cities and larger territories we were protected by huge walls and giant weapons so people needed protection less and less, as medicine and trade as well as manufacturing grew people stopped paying for the items we offered.

We had to evolve to grow into something else, but I wasn't smart enough to see that. Our vault was cleared out and every member set off to make their own guild leaving me behind in that dusty dark hall.

Every one of my friends abandoned me leaving me penniless and jobless. I decided to move to the capital city along with everyone else and leave being a guild member behind. I decided to take two things with me. My dagger and my headphones.

Six years passed

I woke up in my flat, my bed was a mess, I stood up knocking over eight beer bottles, the sound piercing into my head like a spear. I stumbled across the room getting dressed and I opened the door. The fresh air blasting at my head. I wandered out into the streets walking down to the shop where I work.

After a day's work I headed back home picking up more beer as I walked. I stepped back into my house setting the supplies by the door. I walked past my dagger as it stood on my wall, untouched, and picked up my phone jumping onto my bed. My eyes widened as I saw the small text alert.

Everything was silent. I couldn't hear what the doctor was saying. All I could hear was the muffled voice and the rhythmic beeping from the other room, the cold glass pressed against my hands. All I could see was my brother lying alone in a room. Tubes connected to everything, his body decaying.

"Due to the nature of your brother's disease it would be very difficult for us to secure the necessary medicines and therefore it is very unlikely that he will survive the year."

I looked up at her from the floor, my arms pressed against the glass. "How much? and by when?"

"His condition would become irreversible in three months. And you would need 100,000,000."

"A hundred million are you kidding me?!?!"

"Well sir because of the decrease in guilds rates have gone up, there is nothing we can do."

I walked home, the number taunting me, the sight of my brother lying there flashing in my eyes. a pathetic feeling lingered in my gut as I went home.

I sat in the small cafe with a coffee clutched in my hands, he was sitting across from me. My old Vice commander, my old best friend.

"Sam what the hell do you want? It's been six years."

"My brother he's um sick, I need money and I need it fast."

"Hah classic you! You only care about others when you need something."

"Just listen, I just want to know if you can take me on any high class raids. Please man. I'm sorry. Just I need help. I can't let him die"

"Aight man, I'm the head of a top class guild you'd know that if you kept in touch. Anyway I can hook you up with so low to mid class raids but I can't just take someone on a high class who hasn't even fought in six years but its guild policy that we take seventy percent of all revenue. I'm sorry but Guilds aren't the same anymore you won't find much better and I'm not sure many people will hire a merc as inexperienced as you. I love your brother but there's nothing I can do."

I signed some contracts and for three weeks I worked

£100.