The Rise of the Urban God

CHAPTER 12

“Dustin isn’t home, either, so he can lick Robin’s feet, too,” another man said, making the rest laugh even more.

Ulmer stopped.

Kale waved his hands in a cross-manner, telling him to don’t do anything stupid and just keep going.

However, Ulmer turned around and walked toward them, looking at the one that just spoke, “Take back what you said.”

“Or else what?” all of them stopped playing and surrounded him quickly.

It was so obvious that this was their plan from the beginning. Kale quickly rushed away to ask help from the other adults around, but because of Henry, nobody helped him. Kale came back in about two minutes, and everybody except Ulmer was gone.

And Ulmer had no injuries on his body or face.

“Where did they go?” Kale asked in sign language.

“They learned their mistake and apologized before leaving,” Ulmer said.

Kale could see that the poker cards, water bottles, and meat packets were still there under the tree. Why would they leave these things here? It didn’t make any sense, but the thought of Ulmer being able to fight and tussle with many men didn’t even cross his mind.

Kale and Ulmer then headed back home.

Meanwhile, the gamblers all regrouped in another street, where there was an officer waiting for them.

“Did you beat him up?” he asked them.

“Beat who? That motherfucker?” they cried out pitifully. “Don’t ever tell us to do anything related to him. And you also… Don’t go near him, or he’ll fuck you, too.” They warned the officer and then left.

“Just what in the world happened?” the officer could only wonder. “I must report this incident to Senior Henry.”

This officer had a two-star silver badge.

The officers were ranked in four tiers: Apprentices, Junior, Senior, and Sir.

Apprentices were given copper star badges. Juniors were given silver star badges, and Seniors were given gold star badges.

Every tier had badges ranging from one to five stars.

These badges were not given according to age but according to merit, which was why Henry was able to reach the 1 star golden badge level, even though he was still young.

The influence a gold-star badged officer had compared to a silver star badged officer was like the difference between a village-level officer and a district-level officer. The platinum badged officer was like a state-level officer with the highest rank and authority.

Meanwhile, Kale and Ulmer came home.

Kale told his mom about what happened at the hotel, and it really worried her. She went to the restaurant to talk with him.

Ulmer wasn’t sure what he should do now since there was no such thing as television in this city. There were books in the house, but he was not the type to read them. If he was, he would have gotten better grades in college and wouldn’t have gotten scolded by his parents so much.

Unlike him, Suki was reading the books. He sat down with her and asked her about her school, and her reply shocked him.

She didn’t even know what a school was.

There was no such thing as a school in this city, either. All kids were home-taught by their own parents, and so the literacy rate was a hundred percent. And there were scholar tests for children who can then freely learn from retired scholars that generally managed libraries all around the city.

However, the problem here was that even though learning from a scholar was free, it was up to the scholar whether they wanted to teach someone or not, so the kids generally tried really hard to get picked and taught by scholars. Suki was also doing the same thing. She would study from morning till evening and then play in the evening. This was her daily routine.

But if there were any guests at home, she would happily spend her time talking with them, eating with them, and listening to their stories.

In just a day, Ulmer understood that Suki was the liveliest character in the house, and also that Ayana was the brightest because she passed the scholar test as the fifth top ranker of the city but did not become an actual scholar for some reason Ulmer did not know yet because Suki didn’t know the reason, either.

Later that day, when Ulmer entered Ayana’s room after knocking on the door, she saw him reading books. She gave him the bank card and said, “Don’t leave it in the dress. It’s a valuable thing.”

“Why? Will someone steal if I leave it in the dress?” Ulmer asked her.

“Suki does steal from Dad’s pockets,” Ayana said in a low voice. “Our family members only have copper bank cards, but this is a gold bank card. If she sees this card, then she might take it and use it. So, don’t let her see it.”

“I’ll be more careful with it then,” Ulmer said, putting the card in his pocket.

“I have a little gift for you,” she said, giving him a box.

Ulmer was not expecting this, so he was pleasantly surprised. He soon opened the box and found three things inside. A watch, a pen, and a purse.

He was lacking these three things, for sure. How perceptive of her.

Ulmer felt so touched by her gesture and her innocent smile that he couldn’t help but smile gratefully.

The last person that gave him a gift was Brianna, but now, he felt like he could finally forget about those old gifts that included a bicycle, gaming playstation, and so on, and move on by wearing these new gifts. He wore the watch, put the pen and purse in his pockets.

“Thank you, Ayana…” He was about to hug her but stopped midway because he wasn’t sure if he should do that without her permission or not.

But she leaned in and hugged him tightly.