“Someone ran off with Timothy, my beloved steed and currently only and best friend in the entire world without exaggeration?”

He tucked his books under his arm and wore the identification crystal on his neck. Clothes, my missing best friend with mysterious abilities and steed, or food. Well, that's obvious right now.

“Hey, hello there mage girl? Did you see a pikeface run off somewhere?”

“Mage girl…?”

There was a girl with a mage hat eating with some people on the patio. She seemed the smallest and easiest to pick on, so I felt no fear.

I got a disgusted look from her friend for some reason but that was normal. Must be the blanket on me.

“Ah, you’re the homeless guy that just came here with that stunning Pilosa, I’ve never seen one with such a magnificent aura!”

“Pilosa…?”

“Oh, you probably know them as pikefaces, but thats just slang for hunters. Anyways, it was really amazing, there was this really interesting looking girl with long reddish brown hair, she did some crazy acrobatic move off of the patio and cast some crazy spell I’ve never seen on the Pilosa and mounted it and made it do a rearing start before it shot off. The guards freaked out and ran after them. It’s lucky no one got hurt, it was running full speed in the city but then it shot up to the rooftop! One jump too! Super amazing, I’ve never seen a Pilosa pull that off!”

Woah, she looked like she was enjoying it all over again. I checked the place that dour girl from before was sitting. It’s the squirrel tail girl from before for sure. I didn’t think she had that kind of energy.

“T-Thanks, do you have any idea about how I can track him down?”

“Save the Pilosa? Hey everyone lets go!”

It was almost like the idea had never even occured to her, maybe she was just waiting for someone to say it. I didn’t want to question them as the guy in corner looked like he was going to punch me.

She turned to her compatriots.

Her friend who gave me the look of disgust put her hand on the mage girls shoulder.

“Did you see his identification crystal that he’s wearing on his neck. He doesn’t have any money to pay you at all, plus look at his clothes. Lets leave it to the guards, if we chase after some super power Pilosa rampaging through the town we won’t make it out of town in time to complete the quest…”

Mage girl stared her down. She was her friend, but this wasn’t something she could back down on.

“I’m going.”

“A-Ah… good luck Slo, please hurry back okay? I’ll take care of Doru and the gear okay?

“I can’t let her go alone”

A well boned lanky type stood up, he was carrying a small thick gladius and picked up a shield.

He put his hand forward and grasped mine. A handshake for the first time in another world.

“I’m coming to protect Slo, my name is Arge. Let's get that Pilosa back.”

“N-nice to meet you Arge, I’m Cosimo.”

He looked like a real soldier, but I couldn’t call him too old. I was intimidated just by his stone faced look. Did he kill people before, no maybe this guy really does it for a living.  There was a short angry faced short fat burly type filling up the last seat clearly drunk. No one gave him a look as Slo and Arge gathered a few things quickly. The remaining girl waved off Slo with a worried look on her face. They seem like nice people.

“Let's head the alley over there, I need a clear place to cast my magic. Since it's that Pilosa, it should light up like a star the moment I cast the unique magic.”

We entered the alley and Arge motioned for to wait as Slo walked away and sat down on her legs. She took out her identification crystal. This one looked like a triangle. Three point star? What does that mean? I turned to the guy next to me.

“Hey nice to meet you Arge, I really didn’t expect this to happen or for you guys to actually help me out, I’m sorry about this.”

“Slo does what she wants. When I saw that Pilosa get snatched by that beautiful girl I knew it would end like this. I’m surprised she didn’t run off right then.”

“O-oh so she’s always like this? I hardly think that girl was beautiful though…”

Arge smirked. I didn’t think he could smile from the stone look on his face.

“I think you’re the type who has terrible taste in girls. Look at Slo, she’s tiny, loves animals, chases after them and basically hunts down poachers for a living. Completely irrational, but I can’t leave her alone. Do you know what that’s like?”

“Yeah, definitely. I was being a huge problem for her actually, I did everything for her.”

“So you’re the clingy type. Now listen here,” he clasped my shoulder and slid the gladius to my throat, “You be quiet and follow along, if you pull anything or I think Slo’s in danger or this is a setup, you’re done. I’ve got a few unique magics I can pull on you no matter who you heard from about my abilities they haven’t heard them all, ok?”

It’s my first time being threatened with death in another world. Hooray.

“H-hey, I don’t know what this is I just really want my best friend back. There’s no way I’d hurt the people helping me.”

“That’s good,” he casually withdrew the dagger, “Personally, I thought you were scum from the moment I saw you. Now I just think you’re an idiot. Don’t take it personally though, you want to survive in Aleppo you’ll need a friend or two.”

I just wanted to stay silent. Earlier he said something about hunting poachers, I have no idea what that means but that sounds like killing people. Did I just get myself involved with the worst type of person?

Slo bobbed up and twirled around with a grin.

“Hey! Its this way, they stopped!”

She shot forward and Arge caught up to her quickly and shot me a mean look. He was stony faced again, as I started running.  He slowed down just a bit so he was right behind my left shoulder with his weapon drawn. Of course I was lucky that I was quite athletic on earth and that transferred here somehow, but the spring in my step felt a lighter than before. Although I was breathing, it wasn’t as hard and a felt like some energy was bursting forth. It was surprising. I felt a slight pulse from my neck. It must be because of the identification crystal, maybe you can just call them do-everything crystals if they can do stuff like this. I can’t wait to read that book, Arge and Slo said something about unique magics, what are those? Why is everything tied into the crystal too, you’d think that would dangerous.

As we sprinted down the street I heard Slo panting a little but she was making good time. As I took in the vast size of the city we came upon a massive glittering blue river with multiple low bridges spanning over it carrying traffic. Some of the bridges were rather wide, so I got good look at the extremely low profile boats shuttering under the bridge. I could see their dark shapes under the water easily, it looked like a surfaced sub but it didn’t look natural at all. Slo jumped down onto a riverbank walkway and I saw huge arches forming a tunnel under the bridge. There was a string of glowing crystal lamps that gave it a gothic feeling with the ever present etchings on the walls. It was more of those image stories mixed with the usual nature decoration carved into the stone.

Arge called for a stop and Slo was catching her breath bent over.

“Awh, ahh, I’m tired. Pilosa, wait for me, I’ll save you.”

“She’s under the city? It’s not too far right, Slo?”

If Arge was concerned it didn’t show in his voice or face.

Slo caught her breath and held onto her crystal. I noticed that she had tied it to her palm and was blowing on it with both palms clasped together under her chin facing up. She had her eyes closed.

“‘Animal Detection’ is still working underground in a city, that Pilosa’s amazing. He’s not that far ahead. I heard you threatening this guy earlier can’t you let your guard down now? We don’t know how strong she is at all.”

“Hmph,” Arge took a look at me, “What’s your battle strength like? Even if you have a six point crystal you don’t look too weak at all. Even during the run when I was pacing myself you looked like you were enjoying the view. We’ll need a plan, and I’ll have to trust you this time.”

It wasn’t like I was useless after all. Even if I was cracked at the center and believed myself to be flawed as a person, I still put a lot of effort into training for my sister.

“I know hand to hand melee fighting, I need to get in close. If it's an attack, I can probably take it head on.”

Arge balked at that.

“You look tough but what are you, some kind of pugilist? I didn’t think someone could handle monsters like that, are you an enforcer from the underworld or something?”

“I’m just a farmer who practiced in my off time.”

“Wait, farmer, so you know ‘Cultivation’? That could help a lot…”

“Uh, okay sorry I just lied. I’m just a farmer’s son, I never learned farming.”

“So you’re an idiot who can punch people.”

It's too much trouble to clear this up, I want my superpowered anteater back as soon as possible. I grimaced.

“I am an idiot who can punch.”

Even if I believe myself to be flawed as a being from the start, that still hurt.

Arge noticed that.

“Hey, are you okay? It seems like you’re having a rough time right now, but let’s go into battle with a smile on our faces alright?”

The last time I saw a smile on your face you had a gladius to my throat and insulted my taste in girls though? You didn’t change your tone once while saying that and had a complete stone face voice and tone though?

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Slo had to speak up at this point.

“Come on, we don’t know how long she’ll keep the Pilosa there. There’s no way a Pilosa like that would be with a bad person… maybe.”

“Hey.”

I had my limits.

Arge began to lay out the plan.

“Anyways, you and I are going to rush in and try to hit her. She seems like she’s got some sort of acrobatic skill so those types always get cornered if you drive them near a wall or another opponent. Meanwhile, Slo will use her unique magic and stale magics to try to hit her while she’s airborne and force her to the ground. She seems to have some unique magic similar to mental magic, when I saw her use it outside the adventurer’s guild it looked really flashy, big red sigils and a giant magic circle and some strange phantom was hanging above her head. It’s a fast cast, so even if you need to hit the person target to get them out of the way to do immediately. Got it Cosimo, Slo?”

That was more for me.

“Alright, Arge, let’s take her on.”

Damn squirrel tail girl.

We crouched and sneaked towards a tunnel seperating from the underpass into several large rooms filled with giant cylinders. I heard a massive droning sound that was blocked out somehow in the main tunnel. Slo motioned for us to stop and moved to the back so Arge and I could charge forward first.

I quickly looped the crystal around my right palm like I saw Slo do and imagined channeling energy into it. If it was something like mana, I just needed to reverse the flow and- I felt it. The energy I felt pushing from the crystal flowed back out, and in the darkness I saw the crystal change to yellow. I clasped my hand into a fist and began to imagine like I was putting everything into it. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I was kind of out of options. I would have gone here if I was alone. Timothy told me he didn’t want to be enslaved again, and if that’s what that damn squirrel girl is doing, I’ll make sure I pay back that awesome taxi service. I grinned to myself and pushed the energy harder. I was waiting for Arge to make a move but he was pointing at my crystal. He didn’t say anything and just pointed and made a confused look on his face. I just shrugged. He looked like he was going to pull me back but I decided to run out. It wasn’t a good choice I was thinking as I ran and caught sight of squirrel tail girl napping peacefully on top of a sleeping Timothy. Surprised, I turned around and tried to stop Arge but he was already in full charge with gladius drawn and Slo was priming some magic as energy began gathering between her palms and a blue light surrounded her. I quickly turned and ran toward the Squirrel girl and watched as Arge mercilessly stabbed into her stomach.

It slid off. At the last second those lightless eyes of that girl opened and she twisted her body upward and propelled her self straight into the air from a sleeping posture. The gladius stabbed straight into Timothy’s body but it didn’t get far at all thanks to his armor like hair. He didn’t even wake up.

I got a good look at squirrel girl for the first time as she floated in the air. She spoke up in a surprisingly light and cheerful voice as light began to pool in her eyes.

“Dazzling the stage! Flutter! Curtain Open~!”

She dramatically flashed out her hands with red gloves that matched that tiny cape and her hair tossed about in the wind against the backstage of the giant cold white cylinders. Her squirrel tail hair flash upwards with her hand as she shouted out.

“Gobo Contract, First Open, Dancing Lily!”

A huge circle of light appeared behind her in the sky with seven long boxes levitating around in a fan covering the bottom end of the circle of light above her head. A open smile dazzling her face, floating in the air, it looked like she was dancing.

“Oh shit.”

Arge was upset by this.

Yeah, I know how he feels, this is really intimidating. But if it wasn’t for the situation, I think she just leveled up in my mind.

The first box to her leftmost cracked open and a roll of something slid out and unfurled into a circle. A bunch of lily shapes were cut into it, although it looked like steel it bent easily and shot up onto the circle of light about her head and started rotating.

“Hoarfrost Bubbler! Bombardment fire!”

I totally forgot about Slo but she let off a flurry of frosted over ice bubbles. They came into range of Squirrel tail girl and exploded sending shards of ice flying all over.

“Agh, it hurts it hurts!”

Small icicles stabbed into her and she grimaced and lost altitude.

“Dancing Lily, full effort now! Don’t let me down~”

I dashed forward putting all the strength I could muster in my legs to see if I could catch her while Arge put all his body into the gladius and prepared to throw it. Without saying anything, I saw a wave of energy gather behind his weapon and with a smooth motion he chucked into Squirrel tail girl like a spear. I felt some serious energy behind me but I was already rushing all my might. As I felt a shockwave and blast of heat throw me to the ground. Everywhere across the floor, huge Lily shaped burn marks were etched in the floor. It was random entirely. The blasts kept on happening so I scrambled across the ground to hide in Timothy’s flank. I kept feel the massive force of some kind of Lily patterned explosions, and just hoped Timothy’s magic fur would be good enough. Everything was burning and blowing up so I couldn’t see anything. As it stopped, I heard the ground sizzling from the residual heat. Almost all the ground was charred black. Slo got hit. I couldn’t see Arge either. He just wasn’t there. I hoped he got out of the blast.

To think some random people that just offered to help me today just died to help me find a friend. I was about to cry. Arge was dangerous but it seemed like he knew what he wanted out of life, and Slo trusted me when I looked like this. I noticed my hand and leg got hit, directly, but as I checked them and expected immense pain it only felt as painful as a sunburn. Even though the skin was blackened, it looked like soot. Suddenly, relief washed over me like a cool bucket of water, maybe Arge and Slo were fine too.

“Ugh, what was that! Ambush me in my sleep on top of my new ride under a bridge, I could have died twice if I didn’t dodge twice! You have no sense of entertainment, why does everyone always try to kill me when I steal their stuff.”

She was picking out the small icicles and groaning in pain. Luckily she can dodge with the side effect of her unique magic which allows flight. It doesn’t have the best speed though, since its not designed to actually be a flying spell anyways. It was close though, the Hoarfrost Bubbles that shattered icicles all over would have killed her instantly if the bubbles exploding didn’t scatter the other icicles. It was a flaw in Slo’s unique magic that wasn’t a problem if it got a direct hit, but Slo never thought of it that way. Then the girl remembered.

“Ah, wait a second, there were three of them. Curtain doesn’t close if all the actors can’t make call… hey, where are last guy? Its really rude to try to kill someone you know? She walked past Timothy, completely unaware that I managed to hide under his flank. With her back to me, I had to go for it. I wriggled out and shot upwards, putting all my strength into my hand and aiming straight for the back of her neck. I’m sorry, I wish we could have talked this out but-

“Ah-”

She turned and looked me in the eye with surprise as my fist slammed straight into her chin and she took it head on.

“Aaah! It’s spinning! The world is spinning!”

My punch felt really light for some reason. However, even a light tap on the chin can rattle someone’s brain really easily.

“I surrender! I surrender!”

She fell over onto her knees after trying to steady herself.

“Oh no I’ve got to tie her up or something, I can’t let her recover!”

I panicked looking for something but suddenly just decided to tackle her on the ground.

She looked flushed and dizzy and the light drained from her eyes. I head her wrists against the ground and tried to think of a way to handle this.

“Hey. Why’d you steal my Pilosa?”

I was looking her right in the face. It was really close but if I let her go she might pull out that crazy magic again.

She started to slur and drool. Not cute at all. You’ve leveled down, squirrel tail girl.

“Whas a fiolsa?”

“Uh, are you okay? I don’t think I hit you that hard…”

“Whas a fiolsa?”

“Um, its better know as a pikeface, the creature you stole.’

“Thas mae neu steed.”

It seemed like she was pulling it together a little. In my heart, I was rooting for her just a little. I feel awful about this but…

She may have seriously hurt Arge and Slo. I don’t know what to do if they aren’t alright, but I can’t leave this girl alone. Should I knock her out? No, I can’t do that.

“You see,” her tone was completely devoid of energy now, almost a monotone, “there was really awesome, what you said, Pilosa, and it was just lying there on the side of the road. I kept a close eye on it and I could tell it was deliberately placing itself out of the way of traffic. It was walking with some dumb looking kid who was wearing only a white sheet just like you. Woah, you’re real similar. So anyways he left it outside and I was like ‘thats a damn good Pilosa, he’s probably really smart. We could have a wonderful journey together and he could protect me from all the assassins and underworld people trying to kill me and stuff. We could run far, far away and we could live together in peace and happiness,” she looked like she had to add something but she stopped for a second and looked at me, “Who are you?”

“I’m Cosimo. I’m that guy with the white sheet as clothing who was walking with that Pilosa, he’s my friend so I came to get him back and got some unexpected help from some adventurer’s outside the guild. It looks like you hit them with some sort of wide area explosion attack, are they okay? I can’t see one of them anywhere and the other one passed out.”

“You’re awful calm for a guy who roped in some random people and almost got them dazzled by my gobo stage arts,” she looked a bit more serious as more light seemed to drain from her eyes, “It’s fine though, I won’t kill anyone if I don’t have to, even though so many want to kill me. Its not mutual ok? With all these men after me, it's kind of intimidating, but at least I’m popular~”

Is she joking? I’m starting to feel bad for her, maybe I should get off her. I don’t think she’s going to do anything bad right?

“If you want to kil- ah you got off me, that's good it was my first time having an almost naked man on top of me I thought it was over in more than one way.”

“Just don’t attack me again, here, take my hand.”

“What? Why?”

She was acting like I was going to do something and held her hands close to herself.

“So I can help you stand up?”

“Oh, uh, no thanks.” She pivoted her weight under her legs and stood up that way. Seems like she didn’t want to use her hands to help herself up, or touch me for that matter.

I watched as she backed away about half a meter after she got up.

I decided to ignore it.

“Hey Arge? Are you somewhere in here? I hope you’re not a corpse!”

“No way Cosimo the strength of Dancing Lily is that its a mental attack not a physical one, it makes you believe you got hurt so it's only really an illusion. However, if you get hit head on it can cause confusion. He probably just wandered off.”

I walked over to Slo and picked dragged her the nearby wall and checked her breathing. Seems she was sleeping.  

“How’d Slo go to sleep then? She doesn’t have any wounds. And-” I checked my arm, completely fine. “So it doesn’t seem to have a long effective time either.”

“It's a great power and is wonderful at distraction and causing mayhem, perfect for running and not dying to assassins. Oh, and she’s asleep because she was probably tired. Dancing Lily’s confusion can also cause people to give into immediate desires like eating that chocolate cake they want or having sex with an ugly girl or multi-level marketing.”

“That's… kind of scary.”

I had to ask about the spell she cast on Timothy.

“My Pilosa’s name is Timothy, he told me he didn’t want to become a slave to humans again, did you use some sort of magic to get him to escape with you?”

“Eh, that’s a secret really. But since I feel kinda close since you punched me really hard in the chin and it still hurts and I’m worried about the brain trauma,” she held her head, “so if you promise to keep it between the two of us and not hit me again I’ll tell you.”

“I need my friend back too.”

“Alright, alright, so you promise?”

“Yep.”

“Or I could just show you.”

“Wait, what?”

“‘Carpe Scaenam’!”

The light and seven boxes fanned out instantly, and dyed red. A huge circle like a spotlight appeared under her and light bathed her. She made a dramatic flourish and red light blurred out my vision.

=====

“Hehe, that was my last trick really. That's what you get for punching me in the chin. I’m sorry I’m not the type who likes to fight fair but really isn’t it the world's fault that I’m always in trouble. All the world’s a stage, and I’m a tragic actor on that stage.”

She wiped the blood leaking out of the side of her mouth and looked at it and sighed. Even though no one was there to listen, it was soliloquy self composed and acted out on the spot.

“Coming at me with a three on one with people my age too, it makes me feel alone and unpopular. That really cool guy almost got me with that unique magic where he turned that sword into a spear, that was scary. If it didn’t learn parry arts I would have died right then. It wonderful isn’t it, when I use ‘Carpe Scaenam’? Everyone stops and listens. Its their turn to be the audience. I can tell any assassin to go away after all and report back I died. You’re quite annoying, I couldn’t get too much information out of you and you’re really stinky, so how about you go take a bath and go home? Ah, sorry that was really rude but you did try to kill me and steal my new best friend. Animals, Monsters, I’ve never had them betray me before. ‘Carpe Scaenam’ is my favorite favorite spell I practice everyday of my life whether I eat or not, I won’t use it to do evil things. I just want the stage I’m on to be a nicer place, what's wrong with that.”

She smiled and closed her eyes as she imagined a wind blowing her squirrel tail hair.

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Then Arge stealth shield bashed her from behind and she hit her head on the ground knocking her out in an uncompromising position with her butt in the air.