Miren Porter

Miren was an orphan, having never met his parents, nor any other family. It wasn't clear if he even had any blood relations. Miren had appeared, as if, out of thin air and landed on the doorsteps of the orphanage.

Casey Lindt, the unexpectedly young owner of the orphanage, had found him in the middle of the day when she came back from grocery shopping. Not making a sound, eyes closed, and lying in his tiny crib she had found him. At first, she thought he was dead, but when she came closer his eyes had opened up. That's when Casey first saw it, the eyes which seemed to contain an endless void.

Her first instinct wasn't how she would react normally. As she owned an orphanage, albeit rare, it wasn't the first time someone had left a baby outside of the large doors. This time, however, she reacted with strong apprehensiveness. She was being careful in front of a baby, one smaller than most.

She wasn't afraid in the way you would have been if you were in front of a dangerous beast or if you encountered a natural disaster. It was more of caution as to not get caught, to not get swallowed up.

After a few minutes though, the feeling had faded and all Casey could feel was embarrassment and a bit of shame. With a chuckle, she cast her earlier thoughts aside and carried the small Miren inside. Inside the crib, she had found a letter, nothing unusual when it came to abandoned children. Most often it was the writing of a sad parent who lacked funds to raise a child, as well as the date of birth and name, but this letter was different...

[Miren Porter

Born: 10th of November, 2052.

At the age of 16, Miren will be forcefully admitted to Kirkegaard academy in order to develop his talents with other youths. ]

A letter which stated nothing except his date of birth, as well as that Miren, would be forcefully admitted to a certain academy when he had reached 16 years old. Without a signature or any other personal information, the letter couldn't help but look incredibly suspicious.

With nothing but a crib and the letter, Miren had started to live at the orphanage. For some reason, although it should have been impossible, memories from then onward were present. Miren had memories all the way from being just a small baby, who couldn't even walk or talk. As if his eyes had been recording a movie, all the memories were clear and extremely easy to recall.

Miren had been a well-behaved baby, never crying or shouting. The problems started when he had become 5 years old. While the other children had started to play with each other, Miren was always alone. The other kids at the orphanage always kept a distance, something which seemed like an inherent instinct, as if to not get close to the child with the bottomless eyes.

As time went on, the other kids had started to not only isolate Miren but also harass him as if to show him his place. Something which started with minor comments about his appearance, as to later escalate into physical violence. At every chance they got, away from the eyes of Casey, they would throw punches and kicks at Miren. Every day Miren would face the kids' violence silently and alone, they would never get a reaction from him.

Although Casey wasn't the only adult working at the orphanage, it seemed like no one else cared about what happened to the "demon child". Although they didn't feel it anymore, they were stuck on their initial feeling of when they encountered the child, apprehensiveness, and slight fear. Only Casey had been able to move on from her first impression of Miren.

As Miren had always been smaller than the other kids and stopped growing earlier than anyone else, he couldn't have defended himself even if he tried. Although he never really did try. Maybe things would have changed if he had actually reached out to someone, cried for help just a single time, or just fought back once.

Alas, Miren lived with the harassment. Enduring the pain which he couldn't understand why he deserved and grit his teeth. At some point, he learned to run. Both physically and mentally. When he saw the chance to escape from the physical violence he ran, ran as fast as he possibly could. And when he couldn't, his mind ran instead. His brain shut down for the duration of the infliction of pain, only to restart for Miren to feel the aftermath.

Miren was small and weak, with strength much lower than even girls the same age. He couldn't exert much force at all, but he was fast. With time he learned that he was much faster than anyone else at the orphanage and, as long as he got a chance, he could escape from any of the other children.

His mind was also speedy and, although he was by no means a genius, his brain could make logical conclusions very fast. It was as if he had several parallel lines of thought at the same time. Miren still had his limits though, at some point, it was like his brain couldn't pick up more information or lacked the neurons to make adequate logical conclusions.

When Miren was 14 years old Casey had shown him the letter from when he came to the orphanage. Kirkegaard Academy... One of the most prestigious academies for developing one's own personal strength and abilities. In this world where monsters roamed the earth and the demons had started to encroach unto human lands individual power was everything. Even the kids from the orphanage had gotten to train and practice combat as to later be able to join an academy.

1885 the world had changed. Something called the emergence of mana had occurred on earth. Mana had started to influence everything in the world, from plants to all non-organic materials like ores and metals. Humans had also changed. They had gotten stronger, faster, and as well as been able to utilize the inherent mana in their bodies to wield what could only be called magic. Being able to swing a sword imbued with mana to shoot an energy arc or conjure exploding fireballs onto their enemies.

With that being said, mana had already existed on earth before this. Hidden families had utilized mana throughout history for a long time, only passing the knowledge down to their own descendants, but with mana rapidly rising even common people had become able to use it. With the rise of people unable to control their own power, as well as animals evolving into monsters from the mana in the air, the world was chaotic.

In order to create some sort of management, the 5 largest hidden families joined together and created a joint organization called the Pentus. With time they managed to control and educate people on the usage of mana, as well as create an independent enforcement squad to minimize people misusing their newfound power. One of the systems put in place was the utilization of academies to foster powerful, as well as sensible, young people who could protect humankind, not only from monsters but also from other humans. The world now, which was pretty much just Eurasia, had gotten split into 5 districts, with each one of the 5 large hidden families ruling one each, naming them simply into districts 1 through 5.

Even if they lived in an orphanage they had to learn about the world and at least try to get strong enough to protect themselves from dangers. As such all orphanages had teachers sent to them to educate the lowly orphans with minimum knowledge, basic physical education as well as the amount of combat practice.

Miren couldn't understand why he would get to attend Kirkegaard. He was weak, and being fast wasn't enough to kill a monster or battle a demon. Some of the other kids had already started to develop their inherent abilities at this age, awakening battle arts with the help of sponsors and learning to use the techniques that come with them. Miren had at some point tried to learn several basic battle arts but to no avail.

Like this Mirens life continued, learning as much as possible from the teacher that the orphanage had hired and trying to avoid the other kids to the best of his abilities. As the other kids got stronger and more adept at fighting, some even awakened magic-related battle arts, Miren had mostly just gotten faster.

Although his strength had increased by small increments, it was nowhere near the average person of this world. In a world where the average person could easily deadlift 250kg, something only elites could do previous to the awakening of mana, Mirens strength was on the level of a small girl. Probably even weaker than most of them. In contrast, though, his speed had continued to increase. He was a lot faster than any other kid, even reaching the level of some adults who had already gone through their academy lives.

When Miren's 16th birthday came, several large men in black suits barged into the orphanage. Miren had almost forgotten about the ridiculous letter, when he was told he would be attending Kirkegaard, starting from that day onward.

Miren, or should I start to say me, myself, and I, had gotten free from the shackles of the orphanage, only to get presented with the impossible feat of attending the most famous academy in the entirety of District 5.