On the ground, Aois says, “Thank you, I have already made their breakfast, all I need you to do is serve it in their bowls.”

Walking forward, I opened a compartment that Aois was pointing towards and took out a couple of bowls. There are only a few, so I guess these kids must reuse the bowls.

Taking one bowl, I serve food inside it then hand it to one of the kids with a smile, saying, “Here you go.”

The child gives me a confused look, then she throws the bowl of hot porridge right into my face causing me to roll around on the ground, and then she says, “THAT’S NOT MY BOWL!”

Getting up I scream, “It’s just a bowl, eat!”

“No, I don’t want to touch Malta bowl, she is yucky!”

“You’re yucky!” Malta says as the two start to fight.

“Stop being brats and just eat!”

“NO!” The children scream.

Aois says, “Sorry, but the kids refuse to eat from anything other than their own bowls!”

“But there are not even fifty here, so how could that be?”

“They tend to misplace them, so only they would know.”

“Are you serious?” As the kids start to make more ruckus I feel my motivation falls through the ground, but then I say, “If I can’t handle a bunch of small kids, how am I expected to handle a bunch of big kids.”

Moving closer to the kids, I bend down and say with my best smile, “Hey would you guys be able to tell me where you left your bowls.”

The kids stare at me and then they as a group, spit in my face. My anger heats up my body so much that the sweat evaporates, and I jump the little kids. “Don’t think because you are kids I won’t fight back!”

Φ As the young girl in front of him gets into an altercation Aois simply wonder to himself, will this be ok?

-Break-

To get the children to listen to her, the human girl had to battle each child in a game of their choosing and win to get the bowls, and then after she did this she had to follow the children's poor instructions and run all around the area to collect each child’s bowl.

After doing such an arduous task, the kids are all gathered around the large table eating and the human girl is slumped up over a wall looking like she is about to get sick.

Φ As Aois walks up to me, he says, “Are you ok?”

Turning to face him still exhausted, I say, “I am doing chipper.” And as I finish my sentence the contents of my stomach try to come up, but I am able to hold them down.

“How are you even able to handle these kids regularly.”

“I promise they aren’t usually this bad, but whenever they find an opportunity to have fun they never miss it.”

“Sounds like they need to be tied up and hung from the tallest building in the city.”

“Who would do that to a child?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Still I do hope you won’t be too harsh to the kids, along with the clothes on their backs those bowls are the only thing each of them owns, I do hope you understand how important they are to them?”

Sighing and slouching, I say, “I wish you didn’t tell me that, it makes it harder to be angry at them.”

“I hope it does.”

-Break-

Location: Prosúnfore

Φ Looking at the large crowd of people in front of me, I say, “What is this?”

“It is the weekend market, due to how the schedules of all the people within the country line up, there is always a big market around the end of the month when everyone is free.”

“I see why we had to leave Suzuka with the beetle brothers. But that begs the question, why would you come all the way out here to buy something? I don’t really think anything here would suit you.”

Dillion in a shy voice says, “This is around the time my father was born, and around the time of my parent's birthday, my brother gets sad so I thought of buying him something.”

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Rubbing Dillion's head, I say, “What a good bug you are.”

He smiles and then starts to run off energised.

Dillion's face looks like an ant, so when he smiles multiple parts of his face move around since he is a bug, and I can’t say anything other than it looks really gross, but I would never tell him that. “Wait up.”

-Break-

Location: Outer edge of Prosúnfore

Φ Sitting on a log with Aois, he speaks constantly as the kids play around a tree in front of all of us.

“And that’s about it all, do you have any questions?”

Looking at him like he is insane, I say, “HOW COULD I. You explained to me every detail about these kids' relationships and all the drama they have all gone through. I know all of their friendship, who has a crush on who, and who still holds grudges against them. It is too much!”

Fallen down on my back out of annoyance, I say, “Though it is impressive that you understand these kids that well, I struggle to do that myself with those I care about.”

Bluntly he says, “That just means you're lazy.”

“What a rude thing to say to someone who helps you, just so you know I try my best to memorize all of my loved ones' details, though it hasn’t worked at all.”

“Effort would be having the dedication to keep trying to find new methods that will allow you to remember those details and having the mental resilience to put up with how long it will take. You simply choose the easy technique of memorising which didn’t work for you and now beat yourself up about it, little dedication and little resilience.”

His words anger me, but I control myself and say, “I know someone who is able to memorise easily, so that isn’t a fair judgment.”

“That is merely a difference in flavour between two people, not quality, there is a method for you that allows you to accomplish the same thing. Hence my point still stands, You are lazy.”

Sitting up, I say, “You're mean.”

Rubbing my head, he says, “I know what I said wasn’t nice, but I truly don’t want a kind girl like you to waste time fixating on the wrong issues. So please take my words to heart, and be easier on yourself.”

“I see why those kids like you.”

“Aois!” One of the kids shouts as she runs over.

Getting up Aois says, “What is the issue.”

“We have a present for you.”

“Really,” He says delightedly.

“Yeah we have it for you here,” The girl says as she throws something at us.

As it hits Aois it explodes and from it pollen fills the air. Both Aois and I start to get incredibly congested and as I am dealing with my running nose I say, “YOU BRATS!”

Grabbing Aois, I move both of us out of the range of the pollen but both of us have to wait sometime until our eyes clear from the pollen and when it does I look and say, “All the kids are gone.”

Aois panicking says, “The weekend market is on today, they must have snuck off to attend it, I am going to go get them.”

Running forward, Aois trips and falls face first towards the ground and says, “Oww, my back.” On the floor, he lies as his back has given out yet again.

Angered, I say, “That’s the final straw, I am done playing nice!” Using my legacy I run into town.

-Break-

Arriving in the middle of the town, I am quickly overwhelmed as there are countless beastkin throughout the area. This place is already massive, but even with all of that space it is incredibly tightly packed,

“How am I going to find those brats?”

As if god hears my cries, I hear someone say, “Don’t break my things you brat.”

Looking in that direction, I see one of the kids running away, so I chase after them. But as I do the child notices me and using his tiny body he moves through spaces I can’t and escapes.

All of these kids are rather amazing physically, it seems them having parts of animals spliced into them isn’t for show. “But still I won’t lose.”

Throughout the town, I find the kids and chase them but each time I keep failing, and when I do the kids mock me from afar, or lead me into breaking things in other people's shops, which gets me yelled at.

Running out of breath, I fall to the ground both exhausted and utterly humiliated. “I can’t catch any of them no matter how much I try.”

From behind me, I hear Aois's voice say, “Are you ok Maple?”

“Yeah, I just can’t find them at all.”

Someone walking up to us says, “Aois, your kids are causing us problems again, they have been destroying a bunch of stuff as they run around like demons!”

Bowing Aois says, “I am sorry for this, please accept my apology.”

“If you can’t parent those kids you should have just left them on the street, you damn grave keeper.”

Standing up, I say, “Hey how dare yo-,” but I am cut off by Aois.

“Why would you let them speak to you like that?”

“My own failure brought this on, there is no more to this than that. These kids had nothing, so I thought of giving them something, a home, a family. But I can’t even take care of them myself and have to rely on others just to help me deal with them daily. Maple thank you for your help, but please let me deal with this from now on.”

As Aois walks away saddened, I walk behind him and hit him in his lower back which causes him to fall on his face.

“What was that for?”

“Did I not say I was going to help you, so just shut up and wait for me to help you, idiot!”

As Aois lies on the floor I start to move again. The kids are too energetic and have too much freedom of movement, so I won’t be able to catch them simply by chasing them.

If only I had Orb’s dexterity, I could easily have caught them. But right now I don’t so what can I do?

I have all of the information that Aois gave me about the kids and the little groups they have split into. I know of all of their interests and whose interests overlap with whom, so I could try and put all that information together in my head.

No, I doubt I could do something like that, and even if I did it would take too long and not guarantee results. But I don’t think the idea of trying to get into their heads is wrong.

Why? Why would they be running around for so long, if it is just to have fun and mess with me they have already accomplished that for almost two hours now.

And whenever they see me they run away and try to lose me instead of mocking me as I would expect them to, maybe those kids have a specific reason for being out here?

But what could that be, what is something all of those kids would care about? Stopping in my tracks, I say, “I have got it! Now it is time to act.”

As I turn to move I am hit by someone who was also walking and am knocked down to the ground, with a bunch of things the man was holding breaking as they fall.

Looking at the man he sort of looks like a toad, but not having any time to waste I start to run away.

Φ “Hey wait up,” I say to the girl who just ran into me. As she moves away, I say, “Dammit.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“Some of my mucus touched her skin, and if it isn’t removed, she could be poisoned. I need to do something.”

“I am pretty sure she is the girl who has been breaking everything today?”

“You’re right that is her!”

“So just leave her and let the poison stop her from being so annoying, it won’t kill her, just make her wish she wasn’t alive.”

Both of the men mind their own business as Maple goes on her way.