Chapter 4: Clearing Alone
As he began to grow up slowly, this belief became more and more concrete. As the kids in the orphanage were adopted one by one while he grew more and more in age and became increasingly undesirable for adoption his belief in the almighty began to grow bleaker.
Success was allergic to him while hardships and obstacles loved his existence. Failure after failure broke his back every time he tried to stand up straight for himself. Whatever remained in him was taken out by the society that condemned him for being a loser who was bound to become the dreg of the society in the future.
Currently, Alex was a high school student who should have been enjoying his life like all the other students of his class but even that had become hell on earth for him. He was 18 years old already but nothing had ever gone his way even once. Lady luck seemed to be wary of him as she visited all those around him one by one and skipped him whenever it was his turn.
The reason that he had been having such a hard time wasn't something special either. It was just the fate of any loser in the school to be ignored and abhorred by everyone else.
Even at this very moment, Alex was feeling depressed as he cleaned the school storage room all alone. Usually it was the duty of two students every day to clean the storage room after school but he was working all alone like a total pushover.
Covered in dirt, droplets of sweat trickled down his face and his back as he paced around the room with the cleaning materials. His hands had long since tired out and his wrists felt as if they were about to fall off but he wasn't allowed to slow down and rest because of a beautiful woman who was sitting on a chair inside the storage room.
The woman was acting like his slave driver as she ordered him around as if he was obligated to carry out her orders. The woman looked relaxed and comfortable watching Alex working so tirelessly. She would shout at him whenever he was about to fall down or stop working but otherwise kept to herself and hardly said a word.
Seeing as the woman was wearing the same uniform as Alex, it appeared that she was likely his partner who had been detailed for cleaning duty along with Alex but had yet to even think of helping him out. Instead of helping him, she was busy bossing him around.
While Alex was covered in dust and gruel, she had managed to keep herself and her uniform as clean as it could have been.
The woman was beautiful with a perfectly oval face and sharp facial features and long wavy hair but the attitude that she was currently displaying was enough to denounce her as a heartless woman with a nasty personality. She had highly exaggerated bodily proportions that stuck out even though she was wearing a uniform that appeared to be a few sizes large for her. The curves of her body were visible even through the loosely worn uniform.
It was hard for any healthy man to look at such a woman without thinking a few bad thoughts but Alex who had been with Catherine in the same room alone for such a long time had barely even turned his head towards her let alone ogle her.
The reason for such an affront to all the men in the world was that she was the person who had been bullying Alex ever since they had entered high school. He had been humiliated and demeaned on many occasions by the woman but Alex had always felt too weak to fight back. Catherine's terror had seeped into his very bones and even her shadow was enough to scare his soul out of the body at this point.
It wasn't as if Alex hadn't put in effort to escape this predicament. In fact, he had tried his best to avoid Catherine as much as possible but his damn fate always surprised him by making him cross paths with Catherine when he least expected it. Each of those times were vivid in his memory as if he had just lived through them yesterday.
Today had been one of those days when his fate had chosen to make him cross paths with her again and his luck had turned its back on him.
The class teacher had assigned him to clean the storage room and out of all the students in his class, the teacher had chosen her to be his partner as if to torture him even further.
As such Alex had found himself stuck in the same room with Catherine despite his revulsion at the thought.
Obviously the high and mighty Catherine didn't clean a speck of dirt in the storage room and lounged about as she made herself comfortable while he was made to do all the work.
Meanwhile, he was panting and wanted nothing more than to rest for a moment after he had cleaned more than half of the storage room all by himself. His bones ached and his mind was shutting down from exhaustion but he was keeping himself straight and immersed in his work since he knew what would happen if he stopped cleaning.
Catherine's favorite past time seemed to be related to all the misery in his life and he had no intention of getting tortured for no reason when he was already breaking his back doing manual labor.
Alex worked tirelessly as he began to sweat profusely and his body began to feel cold. A silence took over his surroundings as his sense of hearing was the first thing he lost. Buzzing filled his ears and all he could hear was static. Even though he was inside the storage room, he was able to feel the presence of the wind around him that was enveloping him in its embrace and asking him to take a breather. His eyes were the next to betray him. Darkness clouded his vision as all the light was pushed towards the periphery. Trying to focus a little more was of no use so he shut his eyes for a while in order to forget the terrible sensation that he was about to black out but his chest still felt stuffy and his head felt heavier than usual. It was getting harder to stay on his feet.
Alex had experienced such situations before; after all, this wasn't the first time he was close to blacking out. He shut his eyes for a while and took loud and heavy breaths as he tried to regain control of his runaway senses.
Catherine on the other hand seemed oblivious to his current condition as she continued snacking while sitting on her comfortable chair.
Alex finally managed to calm down but as soon as he tried to stand up straight, the whole world began to spin and he lost his balance. It was similar to the disorientating feeling you had when you stood up too fast.
This made his feet turn to jelly as he plummeted to the ground while still holding on to the cleaning materials.
Thankfully, even though he was half out of it, Alex's survival instincts kicked in as he managed to save the cleaning material from falling onto the floor which would have earned him the ire of Catherine. Of that he wasn't too fond. Therefore, he didn't care about himself but the cleaning supplies he had in his hand.
His fall finally triggered a reaction out of Catherine who had been least interested in his activities.
"What do you think you are doing? Who told you that you could rest without my permission?"
Alex was dumbfounded at how unreasonable the girl was. She had been working him like a field horse to the point that he had fallen from exhaustion yet she still had the nerve to say that to him.
Eyes wide in half anger and half confusion, Alex stared at the girl who was looking at him as if he was some kind of bug that she wanted to squash beneath her feet. He wanted to glare at her with all the anger that he had managed to hold back in since he knew that it would have only brought him more pain.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone