In a small room, a figure lay on what could only be described as a tiny single bed, uncomfortable to look at and even worse to sleep on.
But for the person lying there, it didn't seem to bother him in the slightest.
Of course, that person was Evan.
Soon, his unconscious face twitched slightly, then slowly, he opened his eyes.
After the serious wound he had received from the wolf, he had lost a lot of blood, and combined with all the previous injuries he had already endured,it was more than enough to push his body to its limits.
The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was the half lit ceiling of his room, which, strictly speaking, wasn't a room at all, but a closet.
While the other slaves and servants in the manor had at least a small but proper room, he had the "privilege" of having a closet all to himself, full of stuff, dusty enough to make him cough with every breath.
Quite the upgrade, considering that in his previous life, the closest thing he had to a home had been an entire unused garbage bin in a hidden corner of an alley in a small town.
His life had been harsh, each day no different from the last, filled with hunger and constant threats from those around him, and he had thought he would finally find peace on the day of his death.
But unlike him, life didn't seem ready to give up on him yet.
And so, out of nowhere, he found himself in this world, forgotten by God,
A world full of surprises, some pleasant, some not.
He endured the pain coming from his shoulder, a vivid reminder of what had happened, but soon he let out a sigh of relief as it gradually subsided.
"Haa, just a little longer and I can finally get out of this hell," he muttered to himself as he prepared to get up.
He expected his body to hurt, but strangely, the pain wasn't as intense as he had anticipated.
He was certain that no one had bothered to properly treat his wounds; at most, they had stopped the bleeding and bandaged him. So he had expected to suffer for a while, but the pain was surprisingly mild, almost as if his wound weren't serious at all.
Hm?
Confused, he inspected the bandages, and indeed, when he removed them, he saw that his wound had already healed considerably.
"Could this be the effect of being an awakened?" he wondered.
After all, he had finally awakened, and the awakened were naturally stronger than ordinary humans, possessing greater strength and endurance, with a body that healed itself slightly faster than normal.
In the end, he set that matter aside and focused on something far more important.
His expression grew serious as he murmured something in his mind and looked ahead.
And as if by magic, a subtle point of light appeared before him for a moment, then instantly expanded into what looked like a thin, translucent, glowing blue screen.
"Alright, let's see what I've got."
---
[Name: Evan]
[Age: 14]
[Rank: F]
[ESS: 0%]
[Bloodline: None]
[Divine Clone]
> Clones: 1
[Skills]
[Storage]
---
Evan fixed his gaze on the translucent screen in front of him as he began examining his information.
He had been looking at it for two years now, and had grown used to it, since almost none of the information on it ever changed, and he hadn't had much opportunity to use the system to its full potential until now.
For a moment, his eyes paused on the status screen, where another line of text appeared:
[WARNING: You are afflicted with a Slave Mark (F-Rank)]
Since arriving in this world, Evan had never known freedom.
He had been reborn in the body of a 4 year old boy, and for as long as he could remember, he had always worked as a slave in that manor.
He didn't know how or why he had ended up here; he only knew that his life had been destined for slavery from the start.
For someone from a world where slavery had disappeared centuries ago, that reality was hard to accept. All his rights had been stripped away,
even the right to choose his own death.
The slave mark etched into his body prevented him from rebelling, escaping, or even taking his own life.
That, however, changed when he discovered that he was not entirely powerless.
At the age of twelve, just as he had begun to fully accept his new life, the Baron's son, who had reached fourteen, awakened.
Awakening was mostly random, but most humans would awaken at some point in their lives, usually before the age of sixteen.
After that, the chance of awakening dropped drastically.
A method was therefore established to forcibly awaken those who had not done so naturally by sixteen, though it was not very effective.
Those who used this method generally progressed more slowly than those who awakened naturally.
Percival, having awakened naturally, had essentially secured his family's status for the current generation.
From that point on, the young noble devoted himself to training, especially under his father's pressure. One of the things he decided to do was go on hunts outside the city walls.
These hunts were meant to sharpen his skills and gain combat experience, but the young noble did everything except that.
Instead, he sent his guards and slaves to fight for him. Many died because of this, but one, in particular, survived to the end, and that someone was Evan.
Each time, he came close to death but managed to stay alive.
This, however, seemed only to irritate the noble.
If before he had treated Evan like a tool to use when convenient, now he regarded him as a personal toy to torment whenever possible.
What Percival did not know was that Evan had not survived all this time and all those hunting sessions by luck,
he had awakened something within himself,
The Divine Clone System.