Chapter 2 - Money Is Just A Number

After lying down like that for 10 more minutes, Nathan stood up and went to the small kitchen to prepare dinner.

The house that they are living in is very small.

It only has a living room, 1 bedroom, a small bathroom, and a kitchen which is so small that it can't have two people in it at the same time.

Everytime that Nathan is in the kitchen he feels like he is being restricted everywhere by how small it is.

But since it can do the job of a kitchen, then it's fine.

After washing the rice he placed it in the rice cooker. Then he grabbed some pork from the freezer and washed it for a bit before letting it become tender while boiling.

He went back to the living room and turned on the TV.

It is time for the news program and the news anchor is reporting about the price of vegetables and pork going up.

"Because of the recent bad harvest from a lot of places, suppliers of vegetables raised the price to make up for their loss. The price of pork is also facing a price hike because of the 'asf' or 'african swine fever' that hit a few piggery. Now for other news…"

When Nathan sees that, he frowns and sighs.

"Sigh, A raise in price, huh. I guess there will be no pork for us this time." He mumbled while watching the news.

The sound of the door opening sounded this time making Nathan look behind him.

The door of the only room in the house opens and a pretty girl walks out from the room.

"Brother you're here." The girl said,

"Yeah, I just got home a while ago. I'm already cooking dinner. Just wait for a bit."

Nathan pats her head as she sits down beside him.

She looks at him and frowns, "I told you that you should stop cooking dinner and let me do it."

Nathan smiles at her, when she acts like that he feels his heart warmed up.

"Just let this brother of yours do it, while you, our genius Natalie, should focus on your studies."

He tapped her nose like that and acted intimately before he stood up and went to the kitchen to continue cooking.

Natalie, who was left alone on the sofa, looked at the back of her brother silently.

'Brother…'

She clenched her fist as she felt frustrated with how powerless she is and is unable to help her brother.

Natalie, just like Nathan, matured early because of their circumstances.

She knows just how hard her brother is working everyday just for the two of them, especially for her.

That's why she wanted to help her brother even just a little.

She took out her phone and looked at the message on the screen.

It's a message about some contract related to writing.

Natalie is an author of a web novel on some site. She was writing as a hobby before but then a notification appeared on her novel telling her about a contract.

She was happy when she learned about what it entails, 'This is a way to make money!' she thought happily,

She immediately wanted to tell it to her brother, but then she changed her mind, she wanted to surprise her brother with it now.

'I will help you brother, just wait for it!'

…

After they had their dinner, they chatted for a while about some things that happened to their day.

Except that Nathan did not tell Natalie about him being fired on his job. He doesn't want her to worry, that's why he did not speak about it.

A while later Natalie stood up and volunteered to wash the dishes.

"I'll do the dishes, brother. So you should just rest there for a while."

"No no, you should go back to your room already and continue studying or something. I'll do the dishes."

Nathan approached the sink but then Natalie pushed him out of the tight kitchen.

"I. Said. I. Will. Do. It!" She said word by word as she pushed him out. Then she went back to the sink and started washing the plates.

Nathan looked at his sister like that and sigh, then a smile made its way to his face as he looked at her gently.

"Okay then, do it carefully, okay?"

He went back to the living room and prepared his place to sleep aka. the couch.

Since the house only has 1 room, Nathan gave it to Natalie since she is a girl and needs some privacy.

Nathan watched a few dramas that are being broadcasted on the TV to make him sleepy.

After Natalie finished washing the dishes, she said goodnight to her brother and went to her room.

Nathan also turned off the TV and tried sleeping.

An hour passed by, Nathan still haven't fallen asleep.

Because of losing his job today, Nathan is thinking about many things like what is he going to do next and the likes.

And so even after an hour of tossing around and trying to sleep, he still can't rest his mind peacefully.

Finally, Nathan decided to get up from the couch and went to the kitchen to drink some water.

Then he went outside, sat down on a bench that he made with a few woods that he saw littering the house and looked up at the bright white moon up in the sky.

There is no noise except for the crickets since it's already 11 pm.

The crickets are like musicians who add a background music to this lonely, cold and silent night evoking emotions from the depths of people's hearts.

Nathan closed his eyes and inhaled loudly, feeling the cold wind passing through his nose and going through, he exhaled and felt like some kind of weight was released from his body.

Stayed like that with his eyes closed outside the house, even though he felt that he might fall asleep in here, he did not care about it. He just wants to appreciate this moment.

But then an electrical voice sounded inside his mind.

[Tap System has been successfully activated.]

[Initializing soul bounding to the host.]

[1%... 3%... 8%... 25%... 99%...]

[Soul Binding successful]

[Good Evening, Host]

And that is the start of how the poor man's life of Nathan ended.. From that day onwards, money is just a number to him.