I wasn't daydreaming.

A living star creature was sleeping on a table beside the throne of the Priestess. It was really cute to see it sleeping peacefully with a mild smile. But not until I decide to poke it.

It awoke momentarily just to spew an amount of warm, glowing rainbow goop on my hand, then in an instant, it went back to sleep. I looked at my hand with much contempt. My face went blank as I stared at it, after distancing it from the source.

"Yep… I take back what I said. I should… I mean we-- should just avoid it before it wakes up entirely." I thought as I glared at it.

"Okay, that's done. Let's get out of here." I requested, flinging my hand up and down to shake off the glowing vomit.

Aria carefully placed back the cloth over the star; then from there, we simply just walked away and made our non-hasty exit out of that empty Kingdom.

Nothing was coming out to get us, even after getting in and out with the staff of high importance. Even as we exited the whole place, still nothing. It all ended so quickly and easily… that fact bothered me.

"So let me get this straight… Did we just fight one monster in a completely empty area??" I asked, surprising myself with my lack of silence even after all that just happened in that ‘empty area’.

"Pretty much? I do wonder where that cursed Blood Moon Priestess went off to." Aria replied, pointing to her chin while thinking about that, then shaking her head to dismiss herself of such thoughts. "Why am I even complaining? We've done it! Um… I mean!- you've done it! You got yourself a brand new and stronger staff. You just got a whole lot stronger as you intended!" She added with a bright smile.

"Thank you for helping in making that happen." I returned the smile after replying.

Something just came up in my mind which I forgot to ask.

"I forgot to ask earlier. How'd you even find me, did you have another map? I'm pretty sure Clyde only had one of those since he said it was an abandoned quest or something." I asked as we were walking home.

"Actually…"

She cleared her throat and willingly prepared to reenact and narrate the exact events before she went to look for me.

"After you left, he went back down to drink his order. He seemed to be drunk from that one whole beer he just drank, and it wasn’t even emptied yet! But anyway, he called for me."

She paused to impersonate what Clyde said. Probably because she was making fun of him. The way she did it degraded a little of Clyde's image in my mind.

"I only wanted to hyelp…! But I guess-s-s… I should wait. I s-s-should have some P-PATIENCE while I'm doin' absolutely NOTHIN' here!" She coughed unintentionally. "Ugh… wow, his drunken accent is straining my voice, but no serious matter-"

And she continued.

" ''Hoi! Waitress lady! Ye're al'dy friends with us r-right?? Oh r-r-right ye're just f-f-friends with me… but never mind that… I g-got somethin' important for ya' t-to d-do… as a.. f-friend… go… check up on her, or somethin'… I won't be able to take it upon myself if a-anythin' happens t-t-to my new party l-leada'…'' he said while burping over his drink. Then I replied with, 'But I don't even know where you sent her.' Soon after he just barely made words to respond to my question; upon realizing that I wasn't able to get a single clue out of what he was saying, he finally slowed down… to think, then spoke slowly.

He was all like, ''Just… move southwest and… go further… 'n that's it! Find the old ruins… of Omasetsu, with a bloody hole… on top! Now get goin!'' Then he made these inaudible sounds. I couldn't make out whether he was sobbing, or enjoying himself. Possibly even both! I just nodded and bowed before leaving."

She ended the whole reenactment, breathing deeply.

"So he was looking forward to that…" I replied after a sigh.

My earlier dumb judgement went back to me for a moment, but I wasn't put down by it anymore.

"But that's okay- I feel stronger now, and with that, I kept my end of the promise. All I need to do now is try it out!" I added, drawing my new staff for its potentially first test run.

"Tomorrow- do it tomorrow. We still have to get home before nightfall." Aria replied, lightly (not really) smacking my head.

"Ow… o-okay, okay- I was just too excited… sheesh," I responded with a pout while rubbing over the area that was hit.

------ ------

It’s been more or less an hour already as we were walking back towards the confines of Asparthens, when all of a sudden, the sky turned dark red. Just the surprise of the event made me look back at the ruined Kingdom we recently came from. The small red dot in the center of the city that we once saw earlier, turned into something even bigger. We then heard a very loud wailing sound coming from the center, a woman's voice wailing, which later turned to screams of anger. To think we already were at a distance and still heard that, was alarming. After the sounds had stopped, a glowing object from that particular area shot straight up to the sky… and immediately after that, the same glowing object unexpectedly fell right in front of us in a loud, groundbreaking thud… like a shooting star.

All that made us stop traveling for a while. Sensing no danger, we both took our time with a closer inspection after the dust from the impact had cleared… it was the star creature again.

Now, I got to see it awake. It had a pair of huge, cute eyes, but both were teary.

Well, if any ordinary person would have had to be launched, take a fall like that and survive-- would they end up just teary-eyed from the pain and not shatter to bits?

"Rurururu ruuu…" It cutely muttered while it coughed out its rainbow puke.

It was in pain, so I approached it cautiously. I had second thoughts, but I tried to touch them again. As soon as I laid a single finger on it, both my hand and the star glowed brightly, unexpectedly projecting… something. The star must've been the cause since it also lit itself up. Kind of like a virtual reality system back in my world. I was mesmerized, distracted enough not to panic or pull my finger away. I looked around, to see that Aria was still behind me. Whatever the star creature did, seemed to have worked on all three of us there.

A scene played. From what it seemed, I could conclude it was a memory. It had the star creature there, still sleeping and being covered by the same cloth.

"Where's the staff…? Where is it where is it WHERE IS IT!?! Worthless servants, worthless guards… WORTHLESS!!"

A woman, who elegantly overdressed in a lot of red, appeared in the memory.

"That's the Priestess of the Blood Moon! She must've arrived just as soon as we left. Talk about convenient timing…" Aria explained.

The star in the memory woke up, then made gestures to call the priestess' attention.

"Great… now you're awake- you disgusting, useless, good-for-nothing, freeloader!!" She shouted angrily at the star.

"Ruru… rurururu…" Half-awake, the star spoke and visibly frowned while making a sad tone.

"Fine then! If this world wanted to forsake me this badly then I'll let it have its way! And as for you!-"

The woman harshly grabbed hold of the creature and put it right near her face.

"With such a precious item missing, I have no need for you or your useless talents anymore… I think you've overstayed your welcome for far too long already!"

I felt offended by those words I heard. I… wasn't sure why.

"Now then… GET THE HELL OUT OF MY SIGHT- AND STAY OUT… FOREVER!!!" She screamed harshly and threw the star with a force that literally tore through the sheet of clouds in the sky.

After all that the memory ended, everything fading away like smoke and mist.

"So… you were kicked out of your harsh home?" I asked, hoping that it'll be able to understand me.

It did seem that the star creature understood me. It emitted the same light which activated a 'memory projector' function. It was cool (contrary to the feeling I’m supposed to be feeling tentative to the situation); everything looked too real to stay as illusions.

Another memory played. I saw a burning city. It was chaos, and countless structures were crumbling everywhere, even from the angle of the memory. It must be the star creature's first original home… well… there goes my question.

Amidst all the chaos, the same star creature in that memory was snoozing over the staff, making it glow. Then a woman (from the earlier flashback), covered in bloodstains with her elegant clothes charred, grabbed both the star and the staff. The star woke up in response but it was too late. It had been captured and was taken away from the destroyed kingdom to the Blood Moon's throne.

"So that harsh priestess took you away from your real home?" I asked with concern, correcting my insensitive question from earlier.

It nodded as it softly whimpered with real tears.

The memory continued by fading into a completely different scenario. It showed a scene from the time they arrived in the empty, yet ruined throne. It looked more like a hideout than a throne, to be honest. The guards opened its cage but the star seemed scared to go back out.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Come on out." The Priestess requested, making an effort in comforting the startled star.

"I have a little something for you-" She said with a comforting yet menacing voice.

Then she offered a bribe to lure the unwilling star creature out. She brought out a ceramic bowl, filled with flat, stale-looking food. It almost seemed like it was a bowl of flakes that looked a lot like… chips. Though "chips" as a term may be too advanced for this world, I'd refer to them as those anyway.

The star in that memory seemed curious with the chips and slowly made its way out of the cage. It ate one and it seemed to have forgotten what it was being afraid about, so it dug in and ate the contents of the bowl.

"I knew you'd like them! From now on- you'll be living for me, my innocent little… Starflake." She seemed happy as she replied while petting the star.

I understood the memory very well, and it wasn't a scene to take lightly. If you were more of a perceptive person, you'd know that she was just thinking of using the star creature for something of her selfish gain, and the name it was given, was an insult. It was a 'star' creature and there were 'flakes' scattered on its face while it was eating what she fed it.

I'm quick on these minor details. I wasn't at the top of my high school class for nothing… annnnd again- here comes the useless stuff jumping in front to stand out stronger than my shady memories.

"So you were taken from your home, dragged to her blood throne, and you've lived like that ever since?" Aria asked.

She seemed to have also picked up quickly on the events. The star slowly nodded again.

"I wonder why…" She said, kneeling to its level.

But before it could force itself to ‘shed some light’ on that matter, it gave up and laid down on the floor, unconscious as it seemed. I do wonder why it bothered showing us these… seconds after meeting with us again.

"Let's take it with us. It won't survive out here." Aria requested while looking at me with concerned eyes.

Just with that happening, I sensed danger was coming. How? I just happened to notice a fleet of [Armored Samurai] guards moving out from the entrance. Okay, okay, "saw" not sensed. We were far, nonetheless. I knew too well that we should have bailed as soon as possible. They were all glowing red too. That just gave the hint of danger even more.

I also second-guessed the why’s about bringing this random star creature along. But it's one of those things that you don't need a solid reason to do. The fact that it's unwanted and alone is enough for me.

"Okay, I'll carry it. But I think we should hurry! We really should just be on our way right now!"

After I shelved my newly acquired staff into my bag, I put both my hands on the star creature and immediately lifted it by my chest. It was lighter than I imagined; it was almost as if I was carrying nothing at all!

"On it!" She replied, while visually conjuring a magic circle from under her feet.

"By the bestowed power of frost, lend us thy mobility! [Icy Wind]!" Aria chanted loudly.

The magic circle spread out to reach where I stood. I felt lighter all of a sudden. She cast a "movement speed buff". Ironic to the whole cold physics: slow movement from the cold.

In no time, we immediately started running. We ran towards the plains meadow. But even with the distance and time we covered, the guards were horrifically gaining on us.

All of a sudden, Starflake woke up, fluttering its cute eyes open up at me. For the lack of better terms, I guess the same words would be how we're going to refer to it. At this time, we were able to reach the desert territory beyond the small meadow.

"Rururu- ruu?" Starflake muttered and seemed confused.

"Sorry if we interrupted your nap but as weird as things could get, we're being chased down by a samurai fleet right now!" I responded while running.

Starflake suddenly planted its back onto my belly, grew a size (yes… grew three times the size of its current), and made a revolting, regurgitating sound…

I didn't like the sound of that…

"Wait- w-what're you doing?!" I asked from the rush but ultimately failed to prepare myself for what's to happen.

The second after the sounds had stopped for that moment, Starflake suddenly spewed a large amount of its glowing rainbow goop in the opposite direction. Its force was so strong (not that I had much weight myself) that it was able to lift both of us in the air. Kind of like a rocket, but instead of an exhaust and a rocket-- I get a star creature… that pukes by THAT much.

"This is normal… this is normal… this is normal…"

None of these made any sense but I kept trying to remind myself that it was a fantasy world I’m living with. Not the best impression as always, and I'll still have to complain someway.

"THIS IS NORMAAAAAAAAAL! AHHHHHHH!!" I finally let out my pent-up frustrations by screaming this out while we both were suspended mid-air and traveling forward.

"I'll cover you! Just uhh, direct the star creature to wherever it should be facing-- it's just straight ahead!" Aria shouted while visibly conjuring another ice magic circle. "Wrath of ice, subdue our enemies! [Enchanted Icy Fury]!"

She then leaped gracefully into the air, turned around to face these enemies, and with her arms thrown in front of her, she directed a magic circle to spawn right under the feet of these samurai, and summoned a severely violent blizzard.

She looked cool while she was doing it… (eh, eh?~ I'm sorry.)

The guards that were chasing us suddenly stopped in their tracks and simply retreated. Aria chuckled in a carefree manner after realizing that just one of her spells pushed them back by that much. Even still,

"Pff- some ‘samurai’ they were."

I then turned my attention back to the direction Starflake was going. I screamed hard when I instinctively steered ourselves away from a random desert spire.

We were a little unstable at first but I somehow managed to keep it steady after a few seconds. We must still be traveling for several minutes, but this star still hasn't run out of its 'fuel'. I could already notice the borders of Asparthens just up ahead.

"We're almost there! You're doing great so far!" Aria shouted again.

This time she was using her ice magic to glide through the sand. She seemed to be wearing a pair of ice skates; a slender blade of ice under each of the soles of her shoes, leaving a thin sheet trail of ice wherever it passed.

Ice skating on sand. Mind blown.

Then something just occurred to me and I had to ask that-

"Uhmm… how do we get back down once we get there?", I raised my voice just enough to reach her.

She didn't respond. Maybe she didn't hear it. I turned away to look at her only to hear her shouting,

"Watch out!!"

By the time I turned my head to the front, I and this star creature were just mere seconds away from hitting an even bigger spire located exactly in the middle of the area between the desert and the town. Just precariously placed there for anyone careless enough to bump into it. For the second time, I was about to bump into an obstacle…

I unexpectedly managed to turn Starflake slightly to the left. We successfully missed that desert spire… but by doing so, we completely lost our balance mid-air, and crash-landed sooner than later.

Both of us came rolling from a bad landing on dense desert sand. Time seemed to move slowly with my scope on things. But in spite of that, I held onto Starflake tightly. Moments after we slowed down to a stop, I loosened my arms a bit to check over this star creature I was cuddling with. It seemed fine… For some reason, I felt half-numb, half-stingy all over my body. Something tells me that I would feel all of that in the morning… I stared up at the scorching sky, blinking and breathing slowly.

"Rururu…" Starflake said while digging itself onto my belly.

Seems like it was comforting me. But before I could respond positively, I felt a wet feeling spreading. I brought up my hands right over my face as my vision started failing me. The very last thing I saw was a blurry image of my hands stained by… something. I wasn't in the condition to complain or feel it, because after a few moments of my hearing also failing, I suddenly passed out.

. . .

"Woah! What the hell happened to both of ya!? A-an' what's up with the star thing!?"

I heard Clyde. His loud voice must've punched his way through my subconscious. Amazing… but at least I had a very brief realization that I didn't die from what just happened.

"Just… shut up-- we had a long day…" Aria muttered seriously.

I barely felt anything, but I was safe to assume she was carrying me. I passed out again and stayed down this time.

. . .

I found myself woken up and back at my room in the Adventurers' Guild house. Back in my casual sleeping attire, even. I slowly rose up to sit, minding a tingling shock of pain on my body. I honestly felt like I got battered after running a marathon-- which is an exaggeration because what I just said would be the death of me. I turned to pan my gaze across my entire room. I saw Starflake peacefully sleeping on one side of my bed, cutely snoring while it slept… some event I may or may not feel faintly familiar with.

It also seemed smaller compared to the first time I saw it. I just concluded that it can easily alter its size on will. Neat.

Just as I was about to plan on lying back down to consider resting again, someone cautiously came peeking through my slightly open door.

It was Aria.

Upon noticing that I was awake, she immediately went inside, closing the door with her back turned on it.

"H-hey…" Aria said to me, approaching with an unsure smile.

But before I could even respond with my customary "Oh hi-" statements, I instead suddenly replied with a painful groan after feeling a shock of pain from out of nowhere. That tingling pain just shocked my whole body and I felt hurt all over, but mostly on my back and my chest. My face reacted accordingly as I faced down, with my arms retreating to a defensive position.

"Don't move too much! You've recently received fatal injuries! I… almost even thought that… you wouldn't make it." She sadly said, while averting her gaze.

Apart from the brief shocks of pain, I felt rather fine in a second. Weird. But wait--

"… did she mention 'fatal'?"

"F-fatal? What do you mean?" I asked it straight from thought.

She sat down on my bed. She held my hand and stared down at my face, horrified.

"By the time I got to you, your… blood was grazed all over where you fell! You took wounds to your legs and arms, and even larger ones on your belly and your back, a lot of which with your skin peeled off! I-it was so hard not to look away… and you only passed out because you lost a lot of blood from that brutal crash."

I gasped, sending a hand onto my back and my belly, only to feel nothing coming from it that would make sense of what she just said.

"I didn't feel any of that to that extreme. I just felt… wet… as soon as I stopped moving from that bad landing. I assumed Starflake was still just not done vomiting. But you mentioned 'fatal', so how did I… not die??" I looked up at her asking with a worried expression yet also with an out-of-place curiosity.

"I can't say for certain but… what I can say, f-for now that is!- is that the truth may lie with Starflake? With the… ehrm… 'vomit"' it produces? As gross as it may sound for you, it's all I can assume to have healed those wounds so quickly. Theoretically, it saved you?- sooort of…" She replied reluctantly.

I didn't know how to make sense of that one either, so I looked at her blankly as a response.

"But I'm not saying that we should rely on using whatever it spews out for anything right now or anything like that at all! But hey, that's just a theory. A-a dumb theory!- from this random guild waitress. Ehehe… ehem! I… just came by to tell you what happened earlier and to check up on you, or something." She added with a nervous laugh.

Awkward silence inserts itself into the scene.

"Well, anyway… you've suffered so much already… again. Just rest up for now. I'll look forward to seeing you more once you've healed up a bit more." She said with a wink, hopping off my bed to stand up. "Oh I forgot that I didn't let you know I am an Ice wi- uhm… you already heard that one!" She added with an even more nervous laugh.

I tilted my head at her.

"You’ll look forward to seeing me..?" I asked.

Aria just simply smiled at me.

"If you must know, I won’t have a no for an answer. I’ll join your party!" She exclaimed cheerfully.

I stared at her with mild surprise, while still getting a grip of my sensible state of mind (which is probably why I wasn’t flustering like a nuclear reactor over that thought right there…)

"Aria…" I softly muttered.

"I'll be back in a few to bring you somewhere, but until then you should take it easy."

We gave each other a short hug, and then she went off and closed the door. I stared at her leaving, then after seeing that door close, I ended up staring at my lap, smiling a bit.

What? Her sentiment towards me a bit… too fast? Probably my fault for letting out my feelings from appreciation to attachment. But fortunately for me, I've got a good reason for that!

Try being alone in someplace you're not familiar with, and then you recently come to learn that out there, or maybe just in front of you, in a random, unfair world- someone cares about you. You didn’t have to do much to earn what they see you as… and because of that, you just can't help feeling clingy to them. Like you would be able to trust THAT much. Not letting them see your bad sides, and giving the best for them, until they… eventually, also think, do, and feel the same way. Clyde already showed that to me and I… I don't intend on failing him a second time…

Speaking of Clyde, there’s a small issue with how I personally trust people. My way seems like it's… the opposite, in some cases. I mean, I trusted them so much that I practically didn't put any of that actual trust on them at all! Being alone for so long made me conflicted and complicated when it should’ve all been so easy to accept help when offered.

In any case, Aria already felt my attachment growing (for some reason I'm not aware of), so she simply embraced it. I don't know if I can say the same for Clyde. Maybe that’s just the way I’m seeing it at least, but I’m yet to have times where he’s happy in my company. He at least deserves that…

To put things into simple terms, I like her, she likes me. Our feelings were truly mutual and we simply just got along… accidentally, or for reasons, I still am not aware of.

I can truly feel, at the bottom of my mellow heart, that this moment in my life here, in this unfair yet unknown world… has got to be one of the very few best treatments this fantasy world has offered me so far. That… my life has been leading to these feelings.

That stuff's probably pretty shallow, but look- I'm new to these, okay? I'm trying my hardest! (< Π <*)

Now that's all cleared up, I was left alone in my quiet room again. Oh! Sorry-- my bad. I was left alone with Starflake.