Beep!Beep!Beeppepepepepeep!
The never-ending sound of the alarm clock saturated the air. "Does this thing ever shut up!? It's like it's built to annoy people," a voice complained whilst yawning.
"What time is it anyway?" the young boy stated, looking at the clock. Peering at the digital display, he saw 7:30 AM. Seeing this, his hands started trembling in rage. They quickly shot out from underneath his blankets, grabbed the alarm clock, turned it off, then tossed it across the room at projectile-like speed. The alarm clock zoomed through the air, heading towards its impending doom as it crashed into the wall.
Crash!
"I could've sworn I set that thing up to wake me up at 9:00 AM, what sort of witchery is going on," declared the boy as he sighed. Now that most of his pent-up frustrations were gone, he started to calm down. "Another long day of trying to find a job and not being a NEET. I wonder when you're finally going to get a girlfriend, powers or anything Blake? Oh, wait you're powerless! Hahahahaha." The young man laughed to himself.
For Blake, today was just another day to remind himself that he was a broke talentless bum. In fact, on his very wall, he had a poster saying, 'broke talentless bum'. Blake looked at the wall and sighed. If only he could be a Ranker. To him, that was just a fleeting dream.
Blake was just your typical citizen, nothing special. In a world where the majority of people got stat increases, intelligence increases, and many other abilities, he had nothing. Every day of his childhood he would wait expectantly for his powers to show up; after all, there were cases when powers didn't show up until the age of 16. However, 16 was the final deadline.
Blake was 19 now. He was permanently going to be a suckerfish, the name given to non-enhanced people. His dreams, his aspirations to become a high-level Ranker, all of them had been dismissed by a bully called fate. It was his fate to be weak, bullied, and ridiculed; after all, he didn't have even a speck of power inside him. However, Blake wasn't going to let that stop him. He had to make something out of his life.
Quickly, the young adult scuttled towards the mirror. Blake had long, bluish, scruffy unkempt hair and was about 175cm in height. Paired with the most average of average faces, it was as if his whole existence was built to be a background character. A person who, if being chased in the crowd, would be easily lost; that was Blake's pitiful existence.
After gazing in the mirror and freshening up, Blake sat on his bed. He grabbed the phone which laid on his desk and scrolled through his emails. Maybe today he would find an appealing job that was willing to keep him. Most of the time, finding a job wasn't too difficult for Blake because ultimately, he looked like your regular run of the mill guy. Therefore, it wasn't that hard to get the regular run of the mill job. Keeping it was the problem though; once the organizations found that he had no powers and abilities at all, they would quickly replace him with someone with actual powers. That meant that Blake only kept a job for a minimum of two days and a maximum of about a week.
At this stage, Blake had cycled through at least 75 different jobs. Looking through the list today, he hadn't received any comments or replies for most of the job applications that he applied for.
"Guess I'm going to have to take that miner job for later today," he smiled. 'What time was it for again, 12:30 or something like that,' Blake thought to himself.
It was during this time, whilst he was pondering, that he received a phone invitation. He was just about to swipe delete, thinking it was one of those spam posts, when he glanced at the sender of the message.
"Japanese Ranker Association, why are they messaging me!" Blake shouted out in shock. He quickly tapped on the email to read more.
To Blake Kamoto,We at the Japanese Ranker Association would like to welcome you to visit one of our operation houses. We are in the lookout for scouts to enter one of the portals that recently appeared to give us information about it.In need of people like you, we decided to do a background search on you.You'd be delighted to know that if you complete our request, we will also provide you with a job recommendation reference. As you know, our name carries a lot of weight in the industry, so I'm sure you'll be able to find your dream job with our backing.If you are interested, you will be given more briefings and details about it at the rendezvous area. If you choose to come and complete the tasks, you will also be heavily rewarded with massive amounts of money.A black car will be waiting outside your house waiting for your response.I hope that you will grace us with your presence.- Senior Director Genzo Yabuki
After reading the email, Blake stood there in shock for a few moments. "The Ranker Association, they want to have me as a scout!" He shouted, unable to contain his excitement. Well, they did say that they would pay him a massive sum of money and he would get a recommendation from the association helping him find a new job, so of course he was elated.
It was such an amazing offer, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that had been given to him. Although, it did seem a bit sketchy. Why did the Ranker Association need him, a powerless? Surely there were a lot more suitable people for the job? Well, whatever the reason, he was sure to ask them when he met them. This was the Ranker Association; whatever scouting job they gave him, surely it couldn't be that hard.
'This is probably going to be some easy task, maybe a little challenging but hey free money,' Blake thought to himself whilst grinning.
He gazed out of the window only to see a black car waiting outside the neighborhood in Arygo Town. It was exactly where the director told him it was going to be.
Blake's previous expression had now changed into a full-blown smile. 'Easy money, this job's gonna be a breeze.' At that moment, Blake didn't know how wrong he was. He didn't know that from the moment he set his plan to follow through on the Association's plans, things would change for him forever. Whether a curse or a blessing, a positive or a negative, fate or coincidence, who knows? The only thing known was that Blake's life would never be the same ever again.