The next day arrived soon. As the sunlight shone through a window on the other side of the room, I got up and took my left arm out of the sling. Even though it hadn’t been anywhere near long enough for it to have healed, all it had been was dislocation.

In other words, it was perfectly fine except for the pain and the possibility of it dislocating again. But that’s fine with me. The pain is more than bearable, and I can’t feel safe in the slightest with one of my arms being unusable.

The issue isn’t with my arm, but with someone else having an issue with it.

“Shadow, put your sling back on!” As soon as he’d arrived and saw me without the sling, Coal started making a fuss about it. The annoying bastard.

What does it have to do with you anyway? It’s my body, my choices. …Maybe he wants me to be weaker so that I can’t resist him? Who knows, but since it was of no importance, I simply ignored it and began walking out.

He tried to stop me, but immediately fell back when I decided to force myself past him. Hah, don’t act like you care if my arm hurts, bastard Coal.

“Shadow, you…” I could hear him mumbling something behind me, but again, I don’t care.

The only things to do today are go out and see if I can slip the Blood Wall spell from Coal, try to bait out the Soul Sorcerer and deal with them, and… Well, that one needs to stay secret. I’m worried that if I think about it too much, my intentions might get noticed.

Without bothering with what Coal was doing, I began walking out. Shade thinks that the Soul Sorcerer is amongst the officials, and I agree - therefore, it should be easy to catch their attention as I leave.

But to make it even more likely, I need a slight commotion. Tsk, and Coal can actually be useful for something in that manner. After all, he’s the one who proposed this outing, so he’ll likely want to be in charge of where we go.

Normally, I’d want to be in control, but I’ll have to deal with it just this once.

And as expected, he wouldn’t just let me lead the way. Coal quickly caught up to me with a couple steps and took hold of my right shoulder before saying, “Shadow, I don’t think you know your way around this area, right? How about you let me lead the way?”

It took all of my self-control to stop me from attacking him. Who in Hell does this bastard think he is, that he can just touch me whenever he wants?

Even though I didn’t launch a Blood Spike or punch the annoying smile off his face, I didn’t hide the anger in my eyes as I glared at him. And thankfully, he’s at least tactful enough to notice that. But this still doesn’t seem like enough - and more importantly, I want to vent my anger. If I have to suppress it this entire time, I think I might kill him directly before any of my plans work out!

After thinking for a moment, I just decided to let my instincts take over. My foot lifted off the ground, and then my heel slammed down on the top of Coal’s foot.

While he tried to hide his grimace and shook his foot a couple times, I walked off.

Fuck, why is his foot so hard? I probably hurt myself more than I hurt him! I hadn’t meant to walk off, but there’s no way I’ll let him see that I hurt myself like an idiot.

A few people are looking this way, which is good. I waited only a couple steps away for Coal to recover and didn’t do anything this time. Coal checked that I would follow his lead, and then began leading the way towards a more bustling area.

Bustling was relative, of course. In contrast with its large size that was easily capable of holding ten thousand, Fortress City only has around two thousand people in it. The two biggest reasons were a lack of food, and that large regions had to be kept open for use by the Sun Army if they ever came here.

That’s why land is so limited for us, but it also means that the people of the city are spread across the entire thing. Other than there being more people closer to the center of the city, it was rare to see many people in one place.

Especially in the southern regions where the abandoned district was, and in which both I and Coal grew up. Suffice it to say, I’d never seen so many people in one place, not even during the aptitude ceremony nor in the vicinity of the examination grounds.

Red hair, green hair, blue, blonde, brown, and black hair; large splotches of color bobbed up and down as the crowd of people moved. Ugh, I’ve never seen so many people at once…

“!” I feel naked, like everyone is looking at me - even though they’re obviously not. Yet if I take one wrong step I’ll be swept along by the tide of the crowd. Due to my small size, I wouldn’t be able to resist, and I doubt that the people here would care.

My badge wasn’t on my robes right now, and although my robes alone were able to prove that I was at least a trainee Sorcerer who they wouldn’t dare offend… “!” Grey was too common a color for clothing, and I don’t think they’d notice at all.

Everything around me started to blur together; I wasn’t sure which way was forward or from which direction I’d come from…

“Shadow!” A voice shouted next to me, and I realized that my body was practically pressed against Coal’s due to the movements of the crowd.

Has he been shouting for my attention for a while now? When I looked up at his face, I saw some strange emotion in his eyes. It’s strange, because I don’t know what it is.

He asks me, “Are you alright?” This time, I really can’t lie to him or to myself.

So, I shook my head. There was something wrong with this crowd. …Or with me. But no matter what the reason was, I couldn’t stay here. It was suffocating, made my heart race, and caused my nerves to be on edge.

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It was a different type of terrifying than that of facing death. I don’t know…

Coal took my hand and kept me directly to his right. His body brushed against my arm and caused the pain to flare up occasionally, but it was fine. If anything, it helped stop me from becoming fully numbed by the situation.

As he brought me out of the crowd, Shade spoke up in my mind. That Soul Sorcerer is nearby, but… Shadow, you shouldn’t just let this happen.

I know that. Shade was obviously referring to me practically surrendering my every motion to Coal. It’s worried that I’m becoming dependent on him, which would get in the way of my plans. But Shade of all beings should know that I would never be dependent on anyone - not even if it was Flare.

I know what I’m doing. This isn’t being dependent, but just making use of him. Plus, it’s not like I can do anything in that crowd by myself…

As for the Soul Sorcerer, them having shown up is good. Thank God that I took that strange black thread from the Sorcerer I’d killed - Copper. It could be used to track me, but can also be used by Shade to determine if they’re nearby or not!

While I thought about my further plans, Coal finally managed to bring me out of the crowd into an alley headed south. I leaned with my back against the wall and closed my eyes. Hah, the sound of my deep breaths were probably even audible to him.

“Shadow, sorry about that. I didn’t know…” Coal started apologizing, but I looked at him and shook my head almost instantly. How could he be at fault when even I didn’t know that I was so bad with crowds?

I don’t know why I’m not blaming him this time. For some reason, he seems more sincere to me… How could that be - this is still the person who bullied me, who forced me to cut myself so that he could use my blood for spells instead of his own.

My mind feels strange… Whatever, I just need to focus on the plan.

I took two steps forward, but then stopped and thought about it. After turning to look at Coal, I offered out my right hand to him. He seemed to hesitate, but his hand was slightly outstretched still. So I simply took hold of it and began dragging him through the alley, towards the south.

Truly, I don’t care anymore if he notices my intentions. Something feels strange to me, and I just want to get this over with.

I don’t know why, but it’s taking Coal a while to react and do anything other than just be pulled along. At least he is going along with me, since I don’t think I have the strength to make him move. Other than my height, this is probably the only thing I actually dislike about being a girl.

And I can’t even do anything about it, since Shade says that physical strengthening through exercise or whatnot can increase yang. If I were to do it, I might lose my yin body, and I don’t want to take any risks with that, even though I have Steal Yin.

Though, I can’t help but feel the spell is contradictory. If yang is active and yin is passive, then why can you ‘steal yin’? Shouldn’t it be more like ‘absorb yin’ or something? If there’s a yang counterpart, is that one also ‘Steal Yang’, or is it also contradictory?

……My head is filled with random thoughts since I don’t want to focus on the fact that I took hold of Coal’s hand. Can you come to your senses already you bastard, so I don’t have to literally guide you along?

As if answering my prayers, Coal stopped moving. I’m annoyed that I almost fell because I wasn’t expecting to be stopped all of a sudden, but at least I won’t have to drag him anymore, right?

“Ah, sorry, I was just a bit surprised there.” He seems to be saying something, but I’m not really paying attention - this bastard won’t let go of my hand!

I tried pulling away a couple times and I’m sure that Coal noticed, but he didn’t let go and continued talking as if he knew nothing. “Where are we headed, by the way? This way leads to the abandoned district, but there’s nothing interesting there, is there?”

Despite his words, the way he’s looking at me shows that he already has an idea. Yes, I’m ‘leading him to where I’d found Dust’s corpse’. That was the story I was spinning, in case my third plan didn’t go… Well, according to plan.

As a response, I just shook my head and tried to kick his shin so he’d let go. He simply stepped to the side and then began walking forward slowly. “Well, there’s no need to rush, is there?”

Why does this bastard want to keep holding my hand so much? Is he worried that I’ll suddenly cast a spell or something? But I still have another hand for that!

As for his words, I guess they made sense. Of course, not like he knows, but by now it should be obvious to that Soul Sorcerer that I’m going to the clearing with Dust’s corpse. They’re almost certain to go ahead and set up an ambush, so not like I can get there too early, can I?

So, I simply walked at the same pace as Coal, listening - not - to him talking about various random things. It really doesn’t make sense to me; why is he acting so different now? What changed?

In the end, since there was nothing else to do while I took the lead through the abandoned district, I ended up asking Shade. Do you know why Coal is treating me so much differently now? There was only silence as a response.

Was Shade thinking, or is it just not able to answer? But after about a minute, its voice appeared in my head. Shadow, you might not believe me - and I could be wrong, but this is the only possibility that I can think of. Just make sure that you won’t react strangely when you hear my guess.

Alright. Its words were strange. What could Shade’s guess be, that even it is uncertain and is worried that I’ll react strangely?

I think… I think Coal is in love with you, Shadow.

What?! Hell, no wonder Shade told me to make sure not to react strangely. Even after freezing my expression, I still ended up stumbling and almost falling to the ground. Coal ended up catching me, but I immediately removed myself from his embrace.

Why, why do you say that, Shade? This bastard’s been bullying me for years! Hah, I thought it was bad enough that it seemed like he thought saving me was enough to overwrite his past mistreatment of me, but now he’s even in love with me? Yeah fucking right?!

No, Shade said it’s just a guess. It’s not certain that he is, but… Agh, when I think about how he’s been acting recently, it really does start to seem like it!

You can probably imagine why my guess is so. As for your own confusion, it’s possible that he didn’t think he was bullying you, perhaps? If it was visible right now, I imagine Shade would be shaking its head. I’m not that knowledgeable about matters of love, unfortunately, so I can’t say whether it makes sense or not.

He might’ve not thought he was bullying me…? If that’s true, then I’ll fucking kill him in the most brutal way imaginable.

Despite what was going on in my head, I still kept taking Coal through the maze-like area towards the clearing. I can determine how much I’ll torture him after I make use of him to deal with this Soul Sorcerer. And to that end…

We came to a stop next to a short wall. My voice was barely a whisper, “Dust, on other side.”

Coal’s eyes widened and he immediately tried to let go of my hand and went to climb the wall. But this time, I stopped him and shook my head. “Someone’s there.”

I’d already checked with Shade, and it confirmed that the Soul Sorcerer was nearby.

With the changes on his face, I can practically see his thought process. But eventually, he nodded at me. “Stick with me. I’ll protect you and try to give you a chance to use Blood Spike.”

Even though things surely would not go according to Coal’s plan, it didn’t matter, so I nodded. And with that, the two of us climbed over the wall into the clearing.