Mr. Ordinary

Well…

if I'm apparently narrating this now, I should probably start properly.

Hey there. I'm Fourth, just your average ten-year-old kid with blonde hair, golden eyes, and absolutely nothing special going for him.

And I guess the best place to start is earlier that morning.

I live in a small village far enough from the big cities that anything remotely interesting becomes the topic of conversation for at least three days. It's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone—the farmers are already working before sunrise, merchants open their stalls while complaining about their backs, and old people sit outside their houses watching everyone pass as if surveillance is their full-time occupation.

Kids run freely through the streets, neighbors casually walk into each other's houses, and if you do something embarrassing in the morning, there's a pretty good chance half the village will know about it before lunch.

Annoying sometimes, sure, but honestly? It's peaceful.

Most mornings smell like fresh bread, damp grass, and smoke drifting from kitchen chimneys, with people shouting greetings across the street, shopkeepers arguing over prices, and someone's mother inevitably screaming at their kid to stop running around barefoot.

Nothing exciting ever happens here.

This morning, I was walking down the stone path toward school with breakfast in hand, passing a merchant cart and a few crystal lamps that hadn't been turned off since sunrise, when I noticed a raven standing near an old wooden fence.

Its feathers were messy, its body looked thin, and it stared at my breakfast with tired little eyes.

"..."

"Caw..."

I stopped.

Normally, I hated ravens. There was one around the village that had annoyed me more times than I could count, stealing food and knocking things over whenever my day was going suspiciously well. I wasn't sure if this was the same one, but this particular bird looked pretty miserable.

"Caw..."

Its head lowered.

I sighed. "...Fine."

I tore off a tiny piece of bread—not a big piece, because I hadn't eaten breakfast either—and held it toward the bird. "Here. Go on. See? I'm not that heartless."

The raven stared at the piece before slowly stepping closer and crouching.

Then—

FLAP!

"Huh?"

It launched itself directly at me, flew straight past the tiny piece in my hand, and—

SNATCH!

"What—"

The weight in my other hand disappeared.

I froze as the raven shot into the air with my entire remaining piece of bread clenched in its beak.

"..."

I looked at the pathetic little piece still between my fingers, then at the raven comfortably perched on a nearby rooftop.

"...You didn't even want this one?"

Caw.

It started eating my breakfast.

My eye twitched.

Caw.

Another bite.

"You tricked me."

The raven stared directly into my eyes, swallowed another chunk, and gave me one final—

Caw.

"...I hate you."

I looked down at the tiny piece still sitting between my fingers before reluctantly putting it into my mouth.

It somehow tasted like defeat.

🟡🟡🟡

Anyway, right now I'm standing in the school courtyard with the rest of my class while the teacher drones on about something nobody is actually listening to. Everyone else is whispering and laughing with their little cliques while I stick to the edges.

I'm not big on mingling. To be completely honest, I don't have a single friend.

Isolation isn't as bad as it sounds, though. It gives me plenty of time to read my favorite manga or dive into world-history texts from the village library, and books are significantly less likely to steal your breakfast.

Unlike certain ravens.

Today, our training teacher instructed everyone to pair up and practice using Orka.

Orka is a dormant energy flowing through every living soul. Normally, you can't see it, but concentrate enough in one place and it flares to life as a pale blue glow. It's pretty versatile too—you can channel it into different parts of your body to massively boost your physical strength.

Simple enough, right?

The important part happens in the center of your chest, where a specialized organ called the Orka Shard acts as a reservoir that generates and stores Orka.

You might be disappointed to hear that my reserves are strictly average. Not enormous, not pathetic—just painfully normal.

The teacher called a couple of students forward for a demonstration. The first concentrated Orka into his arm, that familiar pale blue glow wrapping around his fist before he threw a punch that practically hummed with power.

The second manifested the same blue Orka into a glowing defensive shield directly in the impact zone—what we call a Barrier .

"Oh? No partner for Fourth?"

Great.

I'd been so busy monologuing inside my own head that the entire class had already paired up without me.

"Well then, you're with me!"

The teacher's cheerful voice made me want to sink straight through the ground and disappear.

"Channel your energy and bring it!"

I took a breath, flooded my fist with Orka, and lunged forward. The teacher caught my punch without moving an inch.

"Nice form," he said with a smile, completely unfazed. "But you're throwing a punch, not a greeting. Put some real weight behind it."

A tiny spark of irritation flared inside me.

Fine.

I gathered everything I had into my open palm and unleashed it as a concentrated Orka blast, but the teacher instantly raised a Barrier and absorbed the blast.

"Very good, Fourth! You've got a natural feel for this."

Okay, I admit it. Even for a cynical loner, getting complimented by the teacher felt pretty good.

At least there was one thing I didn't completely suck at.

When the drills finally wrapped up, we were given a break while the teacher headed back inside to put away some of the training equipment.

I headed toward the shade of a nearby tree so I could read in peace, only for an explosion of shouting to immediately ruin my plans.

"Yo! Amachi is picking a fight with Shane again!"

Of course he was.

The surrounding chatter made the situation pretty obvious: Amachi, our resident reckless troublemaker, was once again challenging Shane, his self-proclaimed arch-nemesis.

Out of pure curiosity, I stood up and found the two of them facing each other in the middle of the plaza while our classmates formed a circle around them.

"That guy Amachi never learns, does he?" I muttered.

Amachi was a boy with shocking red hair and striking crimson eyes—and, yes, the same idiot earlier who was definitely not sleeping during class. He was a problematic kid who constantly acted out and picked fights, seemingly desperate for attention, which naturally left him almost as friendless as me.

Hey, don't lump us together.

My solitude is completely voluntary.

"Shane! Show him his place this time!"

Standing across from Amachi was Shane, sporting emerald-green hair and matching eyes.

He'd only transferred into our school last month, yet he'd already become the golden boy everyone praised as a "once-in-a-century prodigy."

Honestly, just thinking those words made me want to gag.

Even though the three of us were the exact same age, our personalities couldn't have been more different.

Amachi made the first move.

The energy in his palm distorted and twisted, rapidly forming into a violent, howling gale of emerald wind.

Shane didn't even blink. He tapped into his own reservoir, and a handful of small rocks materialized around him before hovering calmly in the air.

What they were using was something called a Core —an advanced supernatural ability separate from Orka, though it required Orka as fuel. Cores differed from person to person, granting their users abilities that could range from ordinary elements to completely bizarre powers.

"Yahh!" Amachi roared as he charged.

" Stone Wall, " Shane muttered.

The rocks hovering around him instantly shot forward, expanding and fusing together into a thick slab of solid stone directly in Amachi's path, stopping Amachi's charge.

"Is that all you've got, loser?"

With a casual motion, Shane shattered the wall apart and turned the fragments into a Stone Shower , sending a rapid-fire barrage of jagged rocks straight at him.

"Gah... Argh!"

Amachi desperately raised a Barrier, but it wasn't enough. The barrage shattered through his defense and sent him crashing into the dirt.

Shane didn't even let him breathe.

As Amachi scrambled back onto his feet, thick thorny vines erupted from the ground and locked around his ankles, leaving him helpless as another wave of heavy stone projectiles slammed into his chest.

Amachi cried out and collapsed flat onto the earth.

"Saw that coming."

"Seriously, why does he even try?"

The surrounding comments actually made me feel a little sorry for him. Stubborn and obnoxious as he was, taking a beating like that in front of the whole class had to sting.

Shane turned around to leave, only for a ragged voice to stop him.

"W-wait..."

Amachi forced his trembling body off the ground.

Why are you getting back up? You're begging for a trip to the infirmary at this point

Even though I'm not much for gossip, I agreed with everyone else.

If he refused to quit now, he was only going to hurt himself more.

And yet...

Some tiny, stupid part of me wanted him to win.

Come on, you've seen this kind of thing before—the hopeless underdog refuses to stay down, surpasses his limits, and somehow defeats the perfect rival while everyone watches in shock.

It would've been cool.

Shane merely looked over his shoulder, appearing completely bored. "Just stay down. Let's not waste any more time."

"...We're not... done yet!"

Amachi clenched his fist, gathered Orka around it once more, and bolted forward.

Shane caught the incoming punch in his open palm with terrifying ease, a smug smile slowly appearing on his face.

"...Damn it..." Amachi hissed.

Then came the real disrespect.

Shane's free hand began to glow as the exact same swirling wind energy Amachi had been using formed around his palm.

"Tricks like this? Anyone can do them."

He unleashed the blast at point-blank range.

The gale exploded against Amachi and launched him across the plaza, sending him crashing into the dirt as the crowd erupted into cheers for their beloved class genius.

Another entirely predictable ending.

"Man, Shane is unreal!"

The golden boy casually returned to his circle of fans, leaving Amachi motionless in the dust.

Yeah, turns out having a main-character complex doesn't mean jack in the real world.

I hated Shane's smug attitude, but I wasn't blind.

The guy was a monster.

His special Core allowed him to create four different elements—earth, plant, and wind—which gave him a ridiculous amount of versatility compared to everyone else.

Amachi, meanwhile, was basically a one-trick pony with wind.

That fight had been over before it even started.

"Well, no shame in losing to a cheat code," I muttered as I turned away from the training field.

I needed to get back to my spot before the teacher came back and somehow dragged me into cleaning up the aftermath.

Still, before I left, I glanced back one last time.

Amachi was still lying in the dirt, battered from head to toe.

And yet, one of his hands was slowly curling into a fist.

"...Seriously?"

I looked away.

Whatever.

It wasn't like that idiot had anything to do with me.

...

I stopped.

...I probably shouldn't have thought that, should I?