Walking slowly along the bustling roads of Orario, Najin took one thoughtful step after another. For a while, his eyes had been flickering erratically, constantly looking around and constantly trying to discern.
But when his mind could no longer handle the stress, he had to rest.
He was still human, after all.
But he couldn't. And he wouldn't.
Najin refused to do so with all his might. This was a matter of life and death, and exhaustion was no reason to stop.
His belief was firm. As long as he mastered this and turned it into second nature, then he could guarantee his safety in everyday life.
Still… some part of him reasoned out:
What if pushing himself would be his undoing? Exhaustion would mean that he could no longer absorb, consider, predict, and move at peak form. Exhaustion would bring in the possibility of collapse.
Of his vulnerability to the elements.
Yet Najin simply answered back, "I'll rest when I'm dead."
…Eventually, Najin navigated to the city centre, standing so close to the Tower of Babel that he had to crane his neck just to see a larger portion of it.
From there, he scouted the area where the flow of adventurers was the greatest, and deduced where the Guild most likely was.
More walking followed, and even when he was tired and hungry, Najin forced his mind to work and his body to follow.
Slowly, he traversed through the crowd untouched.
It could not be called graceful and otherworldly. Instead, he was like a snail or an insect, reacting sensitively to all the stimuli around him.
To some onlookers, he looked insane or dazed, while others thought of him a coward, filled with fears and anxieties.
And Najin noticed these things.
He read their expressions and their body language, whispering the words they would say next, trying to guess at their conversations and thoughts.
Most of the time, he was unsuccessful.
However, he could guess the most likely patterns.
Stuff like:
"What's wrong with him?"
"Hey, do you see that?"
"Look at that guy."
"Why is he walking like that?"
"Huh? You okay?"
And many more standard lines.
When Najin painstakingly arrived in front of the guild, a migraine was bubbling to life.
'…I need food,'
And a job to get the food he needed.
Luckily, he escaped the entertainment district and the rundown area he had slept in and found himself standing in the city's economic centre. With the Guild frequented by adventurers and stalls lining the streets on both sides, Najin knew that it wouldn't be too difficult to find something he could do.
The sun was already shining overhead, and most of the adventurers were in the dungeon already. Though some could still be seen returning, bruised and dusty. Others still wore shiny armour and clean clothes, setting off for the dungeon despite the midday heat.
Merchants were attracting these adventurers to their wares, and exchanges were frequent.
The faint tinkling of coins tickled Najin's ears.
Perhaps he could find a place that needed an extra pair of hands.
He kept a lookout for any sign that a stall or store was hiring. Moving away from the Guild and setting off to the northern parts of the city. There, he found more stalls and even a long line of clothing shops in the shopping area of the northern main street.
At this point, he had walked so much that it was already early afternoon. His stomach had long stopped growling as his body began preparing for starvation.
Luckily, Najin had experienced worse hunger before. The pangs of dizziness that had plagued him were pushed to the side.
Still, those who experienced starvation once would know just how bad it could get. The sheer magnitude of such trauma left him reeling for days. The things he had eaten by sheer desperation…
Perhaps it was better not to recall the details.
An apocalyptic world wasn't kind to the hungry, after all.
"Focus, Najin,"
Chiding himself for almost missing to predict a fleeting glance sent his way, Najin shook his head.
He kept walking and looking for a place that was hiring.
Eventually veering off the northern mainstreet, he found a shop in a calmer portion of the shopping area.
Finally finding a "Hiring!" sign, Najin almost scampered over in relief. He found himself standing at the doorway of a clean and simple storefront. The glass window revealed a similar interior, and shelves filled with various items.
Looking at the sign hanging above his head, he saw the name, "Thresholdings by Janus," and inwardly nodded. It was sketchy, but not too sketchy.
Plus, the name Janus struck a memory. It was most likely a god.
Though, as far as Najin knew, this god had two faces. He began preparing himself for a rather unusual sight as he placed his hand on the door and pushed.
—Tiring!
The soft chime of a small bell rang in his ear, announcing his presence.
"Hm?" there was a voice that hummed in surprise, "A child quite out of place."
It was the soft, gentle voice of a young man. A voice one would hear alongside the tune of a harp.
"Welcome to my shop. What is it that you might seek?"
Najin looked over and spotted the source of that voice. Indeed, it was a young man with a calm and languid temperament. A polite smile was on their lips.
"…Are you the god, Janus? The owner of this shop?" asked Najin.
"That is indeed I," Janus replied, "Come in, child. It seems like you stand at quite the wide crossroads."
Najin stepped closer, amused at how, instead of the two-faced god he expected to see, he was instead met with a young man with hair parted perfectly down the centre, one half was white and the other was brown. The same went for Janus' eyes: one eye was a warm gold, the other was a cool grey. The god's clothing was also a symmetrical half, similarly mismatched in tone: dark on one side, light on the other.
Wordlessly, Najin's gaze flickered to the key-shaped pendant hanging around the god's neck. However, it was but a fleeting glance as he noticed Janus' own scrutinising gaze.
"…I can feel that you carry so much, but your hands are empty. Not even a bag or a pouch on your shoulder, yet you have travelled from afar."
Janus' eyes seemed to gleam, and Najin realised that it must have been fate that brought him here. The god leaned forward, gesturing around his shop.
"It seems like you are not much different from the trinkets in my shop. You face the beginning of beginnings, reborn from a painful parting."
A wry smile appeared on Najin's face, 'Fate, indeed.' Somehow, the god could sense his peculiar circumstances.
Najin wasn't surprised.
Thus.
He made his decision then and there, already informed by the voices of the crowd and the many stories he had eavesdropped upon.
"Lord Janus," Najin bowed in a show of humility before the divine, "Will you be willing to accept me as a part of your Familia?"