Chapter 6: A Year and a Half Later.

"Here we are again my dear listeners, sorry I just had to take a break, I think you noticed that in the last chapter my voice changed... but you don't have to worry, at least not for the moment, however I would say to start with a little report and with some information, from the events of the last chapter a year and a half has passed, in this time our protagonist has trained a lot driven by the terror he felt that day in front of Lucifer and I would say that this is all for the report, but as for the information know that this book is very old and some pages have been lost if not entire chapters, for example the last two pages of chapter 5 have been torn away, but I don't know what was written so I preferred to stop the story there, as for the missing chapters for example chapter 7 is completely missing, and I have no way of recovering it, I will do my best to remember it and I will add it in the eighth chapter, having said that I am wasting too much time so... let's start reading again!!!

'It's been a year and six months since that day, another six months and he'll be back here… I've learned to manage my power a little now, the power of copying could be defined as infinite, but I can't copy a technique or obtain a power without directly touching the owner, plus if the person I touch is too much stronger than me I risk imploding due to the influx of copied powers, plus I've discovered something else, if I touch the face of someone with powers I copy all of their powers, but if I touch any other part only a part is copied, and I have no way of knowing what powers I have unless I force them all into my head and memorize them.'

"…What a drag."

'Come on, boy, don't be like that"

"Easy for you to say, you're not the one who has to run around killing demons."

At that moment while I was talking to Lucifer I was on top of a mountain of rank 10 demons all dead, next to me I had my katana, in this time for me it was not all that easy, after Satan left that day the police arrived, apparently the governments of the whole world had mobilized to stop the demons, but not everyone was happy, half of France was destroyed by a demon of grade 5 who left when Satan appeared, England suffered many deaths, about seventy thousand, and America was the unluckiest, there a demon of grade 4 had appeared who was killed by 10 nuclear bombs but it still cost them a lot... I was taken and locked up, they did experiments on me to see what I could do, that period lasted two months seemed to be endless... torture of all kinds, senseless physical tests and training that could be considered as torture, all this went on for six months... after those six months I became quite strong and from that day I stopped being a hero, I became an anti-hero, if I may say so.

'Skill, strength, stamina and endurance, you have improved in all of these, plus you know how to use long and short bladed cutting weapons, blunt weapons and even a little bit of magic.'

'Yeah, but it cost me six months of my life and a lot of my sanity.

If it wasn't for you Lucy I...'

'Boy, if you are where you are now it's only thanks to you, I only helped you spiritually, you did the mental and physical part.'

'Haha... well it's time to go home.'

It was hard to say what a home really was for me at that time, I traveled all over the world to kill demons like a madman, I also found out that ranks apply based on race, of course there are some races that are stronger than others, for the human race I was a rank 0, for the demon race a lower rank 8, and for the god race a medium 10, the more I fought the more injuries I accumulated, this day January 24, 2024 I had

accumulated 7 cuts, 9 punctures and 4 gunshots, I was already wondering how it was possible that I was still alive but it all happened in a year so I had time to calmly recover before going back to fight.

"Hmm..."

'23 humans, 43 demons of grade 10, 5 demons of grade 9 and 1 demon of grade 7'

"How did you know that I was thinking about how many lives I have taken so far?"

'I know you, and then I hear all your thoughts'

"right"

I opened the door and entered my apartment, it was a local quad but I was the only one living there, I lost contact with all the friends I had and I saw my family about once every 3 months.

"Anyway Lucy you forgot a number."

'Oh right the special humans right? If I'm not mistaken you are three right?

"Yeah"

During the experiments on my body they discovered that there is a way to awaken the hidden powers of people, most of humanity does not have powers but there are individuals known as the Special Humans or more simply US, already the Americans were the first to unlock a power if a human being, in the entire planet earth there are 73 beings excluding me who have powers.

"With the three that I killed there are 73 left, I don't have much time now, we will have to go to China and ask for the collaboration of their US, if I'm not mistaken they have 4, but there is only one that interests me above the other 3"

'Are you referring to the one who calls himself Midas?'

"Exactly, if he took that name from the real Midas then by taking his power I will be able to transform what I touch into gold, but I will only take it if I can activate and deactivate it on command, the real Midas hated his life because he couldn't even eat alone since the food he touched turned to gold."

'Well, by evaluating the power closely we will understand if it can really be useful to us or not.'

And so I left for China, I went to Qinghai, which is where the guy I was looking for lived, once I got there it was easy to find him since there were people running in all directions, it took me a while to understand but they were running away from Mida, because he had started turning people into gold.

"Hello my dear listeners, I apologize for the intrusion but I had to point out that D is Italian and does not know Chinese and Mida being Chinese does not know Italian so they will communicate by speaking in English, sorry for the sudden interruption now I will continue reading."

"You are Mida?"

"Why can't you see it? Wait... what the fuck is a little guy like you doing here, you said my name so you should know who I am, I am Mida the number one in China and you are about to die, kid."

"Why are you doing all this?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm creating gold statues for my private garden, and the quickest solution was to turn the people around here into gold statues."

"Tell me something mida, can you deactivate and activate your power at will?"

"Of course you can, do you know how boring it would be otherwise? I couldn't do anything by myself... hey wait but why am I talking to a kid like you? I've decided, I'll kill you also because turning you into gold as you are would be a waste of my abilities,"

Right I didn't say but after I escaped from the lab I couldn't have a quiet life anymore, my hair grew a lot, it reaches my shoulders now and I stink to death because I can maybe take a shower every 3 months when I go back to visit my family.

"Midas, let me introduce myself, I am D, and you will die today."

"You are D? The legendary man who first unlocked his powers? Now that is fun.

Let's do this, touch me and copy my power, if it is really you then you will have no problem copying it and turning me into a golden statue, right?"

"With great pleasure."

I put my hand on his face and copied his power, all that remained was to understand how to use it, once you copy a power it is not always easy to learn how to use it, depending on the complexity of the power there may also be restrictions, but in this case it was simple.

"Everything I touch will turn to gold because I am Midas, king of gold."

"What the fuck are you saying?"

"It is a line from a book I read."

After that my fingers turned gold, even if I wanted to have only one hand with the golden touch it wasn't easy, the power flows regularly, to block it on one side and make it come out only from the other takes practice.

[MIDAS TOUCH]

It only took a second to turn his arms gold and by doing so I had neutralized his power without any problems.

"Bastard, what the fuck have you done to me?! Put my arms back right now you bastard!"

"Now tell me false midas how does it feel to be helpless? It won't even be necessary for me to kill you the people around here can't wait to get revenge for what you put them through, well I'm sorry but apparently you're worth less than an extra false midas."

A local family offered me food and a bed and allowed me to take a shower as a sign of thanks for freeing them.

Unfortunately not all Special Humans are good, there are also people like that.

After that I used the Midas touch to turn bricks into gold, after which I sold them to have some money aside, about 300k euros, I needed it also considering the fact that I travel a lot, I took a plane ticket and went back to Italy, there was a girl there that I had grown fond of, and the only one who managed to escape with me from that laboratory where they were testing us... even though she had never given results of unlocked powers they continued to torture her hoping to be able to awaken them... I know all this because they tortured us at the same time, they always did this, they tortured us in pairs up to a maximum of 5 people. 

"Hey Sera, how are you doing since we last saw each other?"

She ran towards me in tears as soon as she saw me and hugged me very tightly.

"I thought you would never come back..."

"I promised you, didn't I?"

"...You're a bastard.

"Really, is this how you greet a friend?"

Sera was a girl about 167 cm tall, black hair, black eyes, dark circles covered by black makeup around her eyes... dressed in black, she had a bit of an emo style including that stuff they put on their neck... but knowing what she had been through I couldn't tell him anything... and then considering that I hadn't washed for 3 months I had no say in the matter.

We sat on two swings to talk a bit.

"So how's your hero mission going?"

"You know I haven't considered myself a hero for a long time, right?"

"You and your philosophy: a hero would let one person die to save 100 but you would kill 100 to save even just 1."

"Well you can't say I didn't do it."

"That's true, I'll give you that, D."

During the escape from the lab to save her too, who by the way had been unconscious for almost half the time, I had to kill 200 people... but I don't regret it in the slightest.

'Why did you say I was right before when I said 23?'

'Well, you seemed so proud of yourself that I didn't want to ruin your mood,'

'Fuck you, D.'

"D, you... are you still thinking about that girl you told me about?"

"Well, I can't say no, after all I'm someone who falls in love easily... even if she's dead I can't stop thinking about her..."

"And there's no other girl you like?"

"...It's a secret."

"...You're an asshole~"

"But that's not a secret!"

Every time I saw her we laughed a lot, but today I felt like there was something different.

"Hey D, be serious, there is no girl you like?"

"Hmm... I don't think so at the moment."

'Boy, are you stupid or are you pretending?'

'What are you talking about Lucy...?'

'...'

"D... sorry if I smile too much... I hate showing you how my teeth are because of those experiments..."

'Boy...'

'Be quiet for a moment Lucy'

"Sera..."

I got up from the swing and hugged her head with my arms, making her face rest on my belly.

"Sera, don't you ever say something like that again, you are beautiful just the way you are."

"..."

Sera clung to me and started to cry so hard, I couldn't help but stay there still and hold her in my arms and every now and then give her a few caresses on the head. After a few minutes he calmed down and we started talking again.

"Evening, let's do this, I will grant a wish of yours, provided that it is within my possibilities, you can ask me whatever you want."

"Can I ask you something of my choice?"

"Yes. Anything of your choice."

"So... I would like..."

"...?"

"I would like you to give me a kiss!"

'eh...?'

"what...?"

At that point the fact that I had no experience at all had made itself known, in other words I remained there stunned for a while since my brain did not understand the meaning of that request... but after a few seconds to make her happy I granted her wish, I approached and kissed her.