Useless, waste of time, Talentless piece of garbage, all names I've been given by those around me. What use is someone after the world collapses if you don't have any special talents?
Clatter! A wrench skidded across the workbench as I leaned back, rubbing oil from my eyes. Another dead machine. Another day wasted.
Without a talent, you're no hunter. Just dead weight. You have to be lucky to be born with something worth using in the new world nowadays.
Nakashima Rokuro
Age: 19
Occupation: Junker.
Talent: None.
Guild: None.
———
In the world we live in now, I'm known as a junker since I just work on different pieces of equipment or even machines from time to time.
The collapse forced me to go into this kind of field so there wasn't much else I could do without some sort of talent. What is a talent?
Talent is something that people are gifted with from the moment they are brought into the world. Some can use tremendous amounts of strength to destroy monsters while others can use "Magic" but it's odd.
Magic was always just a cool concept we read about in books until the collapse changed everything.
The person in the reflection looked like a ghost — short white hair, hollow red eyes, jacket stained with ash. He barely looked like me anymore.
It's not always bad though, Sparks flew as I peeled back the cyborg's chest panel. Broken servo. Fried memory core. Still, its eyes flickered. Maybe... just maybe, it wasn't totally dead.
The cyborgs could be useful if the right modifications are made but what does it matter if everything is just a scavenger hunt anymore.
But the army didn't really have anyone to make the modifications anymore, they've proven to be weak compared to someone with a S rank talent or even an A rank talent. There's lots of different categories of skills, magic, and even fighting styles I could get into but it would be pointless.
I doubt even I can modify anything with this cyborg. Ugh, this is all just a huge pain in the ass. I'm better off by myself anyway since people will just die if they stick with me.
That damn star thing really did end up causing the end of the world somehow, the collapse as we all know it. Changing the way the world works, giving people these talents to work with, and even bringing in damn monsters.
But a couple of cities are still standing strong after everything that happened, new things were formed like games... Guilds.
No guild will take me without some sort of power to back them up since this world is all about survival. The hunters guild has been working on rebuilding the world from the ground up but it'll take quite a bit of time.
A computer suddenly turns on next to me. "System Active." This thing is actually still functioning?
Everything seemed absolutely worthless when it came to its systems but yet somehow it's active. Click. Clack. Click. He began typing on the computer next to him to see what he could figure out.
Memory core.... Functional.
Heart.... Functional.
ba-dump. ba-dump. I can hear it's heart beating since I have the chest opened up so maybe I can work with this cyborg after all. I didn't think it would still be alive in the slightest from the damage it took.
Limbs.... Undetectable... Error.
Fluids.... Present... Too low for functioning...
It'll take some work but I might be able to scavenge something off of the other junk bots I found. This isn't the first cyborg I found and it probably won't be the last one either.
At the time I was too busy rushing around to realize that it was a female cyborg, should've been obvious by the chest but I was blind. I've been a mess since the world ended... Since I lost my sister Minami. My thoughts tend to scatter quite frequently lately and it makes it hard to focus.
Death, despair, and of course no support in the world. Everyone left me to die when their talents awakened and of course I couldn't do a damn thing.
Maybe fixing up this robot will be enough to get me my the money I need to get into the city of Elyndra but I doubt it. It's only a rumor to make it to such a city in the first place.
I've been stuck here in Ashvalis since everything broke out so I don't think it'll be possible for me. You'd have a better chance of making it into that damn city with a talent or enough of a high rating from the hunters guild.
Junkers won't get into a place like that, especially with nothing to show for it. It's one of the best looking cities out there and is still mostly in tact.
Shit floats above us in the skies with very few interactions with us here.
"Where am I...?" A voice asks softly from behind him, just barely audible.
Did I really just hear something from behind me? Turning around I could see the cyborg just barely sitting up on the table there. I didn't think it was possible for it to function like this yet.
Voice box... Functional.
It's a little glitchy but I can probably do something about it. At least to make it more functional. Everything caught me off guard when hair formed Short waves of blue hair curling softly around her head, like strands of ocean caught in slow motion...
I should've guessed it was a female from the chest but it was harder to see it the time and I wasn't really focusing on it too much. Even her eyes are taking on color now, it appears to be a sky blue for her eyes.
"I guess you could call this my shop, I'm just a junker who planned to fix you up a bit." I say with a bit of nervousness in my voice.
I was never the best at talking with girls, even if she's a cyborg. She just seems to be staring at me for the moment here but it's probably because she doesn't have a lot to function off of.
Fixing her up with what I have will have to do for the time being until I can get lucky enough to find better parts.