The following morning, I was out of the temple and on my way to nowhere in particular. I was just walking. The little girl was paddling along beside me. she was wearing her simple long white dress and a pair of black small boots. Slick, the water lizard, was resting on top of her head as usual.

After I had woken up and gotten dressed, I headed downstairs with the intention to skip breakfast and go for a little stroll. I wasn’t planning to bring anyone with me. I just wanted to clear my head. The events of the previous morning with the widow makers were still fresh in my mind. So many people had died trying to rescue the farmers from the six-legged monsters. I almost dyed again. I was just planning on taking a walk around the quiet parts of town. But then I locked eyes with the little girl who had just finished eating her breakfast. And after rushing up to me and wrapping me in a small hug, she demanded to come along with me.

Unlike the last time I went on a stroll through town with Lumia, we weren’t going sightseeing this time around. We were heading in the direction opposite from most of the houses and establishments. We were heading into a small patch of forest, a place I was told only contained the occasional birds, rodents, and other small animals. Just as long as we avoided moving deeper into the forest, then we were going to be safe.

We finally reached a small clearing with a few trees surrounding the area. “E! E! E!” The little girl suddenly said in excitement, pointing at something in front of us. I followed her gaze and discovered she was pointing at a nearby sun fruit tree. Although this one wasn’t as big as the one back at the cabin, it still possessed plenty of ripe sun fruits hanging from the branches.

The little girl then looked up at me expectedly, as if waiting for my permission. “Be careful.” I said, and she did not spare another second.

She immediately took off running towards the tree, with Slick still resting atop her head. And just like at the cabin, she leapt into the air an instant later, gracefully moving upwards until she got to the top most part of the tree, where she proceeded to pluck a few of the fruits and clutched them tightly to her chest. However, unlike the last time at the cabin where she had a nearby body of water to break her fall, there was no lake here. So, the second gravity took over and her momentum began pulling her back down towards the ground, I instantly sprang into action.

I rushed forward with the intention of catching her before she hit the ground. But there was no need. As she fell, she was somehow able to slow her descent and cushion her fall by forming a gust of wind around herself. Then as gracefully as she leapt into the air, she came back down.

“E!” She was now standing in front of me and holding up a sun fruit for me to take.

“Alright,” I said, accepting the sun fruit from her. “You young lady, will have to show me how you do that some time.” The little girl smiled at my remark, then gestured for a spot under the tree where we could sit. And after situating ourselves beneath the sun tree and finishing our fruits, the little girl got up to chase after a butterfly she had been staring at the entire time she was eating, while I remain seated with my back resting on the tree.

“You know, you will eventually have to give her a name.” my AI companion said from within the insides of my head, while I watch the little girl as she kept trying to catch the butterfly. She would go in for a closer look, only for it to then fly off at the last minute before she could reach out her hand to hold its wings. “I’m sure she’s tired of people referring to her as Hey and Little girl all the time.” Rachel said. “So, why don’t you go ahead and give her a proper name.”

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I agreed with what Rachel was saying, but it felt like it wasn’t my place. We didn’t know if the little girl already had a name given to her by her biological parents. We didn’t know where she was from, or what she was doing all alone outside the cabin in the forest where I found her. We had assumed she was from town since it was the closest place to the cabin. But according to Lumia, nobody here knew who she was.

Rachel had suggested that maybe the recked horse carriage we saw on the main road leading to town had something to do with where the little girl might have come from, and I also agreed with that. But as it was, I wasn’t in the condition to go back out there. At least not yet.

I was fairly certain the wreckage might have been caused by a widow maker or some other monster in the surrounding area. Going out there to investigate meant I was most likely going to end up running into something I was going to have to fight. With my health only at 68% and my body still very much healing, there was no way I was going to last long in a fight with a monster much stronger than me. I will eventually have to go back out there to find answers in order to help the little girl, but for the time being, I needed to get stronger.

“Rachel.” I said to my AI companion as I sat up straight. “Where in town can I go to level up and get stronger?”

“Processing…”

As I waited for a reply, I looked around a bit and found Slick being chased down a tree by two other regular lizards. I didn’t even realize he had left his usual spot sitting on top the little girl’s head. He jumped down the rest of the way and continued to fire on all cylinders as he made his way to where the little girl was on her knees and still focused on catching her butterfly. He startled her as he jumped on her back and rushed up her neck to sit on her head. The commotion that followed caused the butterfly to fly off and for the two lizards chasing Slick to turn back.

“Eee!” the girl said as she looked up and complained at the water lizard on her head, for causing her butterfly to get away. But Slick’s plan had worked. The two other lizards had stopped their pursuit the moment they saw he was with the girl and had returned back to the trees. And for the rest of the morning, Slick did not climb off the little girl’s head.

By the time we left the small patch of forest and were making our way back to the temple, the time was quickly approaching midafternoon. The little girl had tired herself out from running around all morning so I was now giving her a piggy back ride. Slick was perched on the right side of my shoulder, basking in the afternoon sun despite the fact it was causing his silver smooth skin to crack in certain parts. I made a mental note to drop him in his bowl of water as soon as we got back so he could rehydrate.

I was utilizing the moment of quiet to go over the list of places Rachel had provided when I asked for a place I could go to level up and get stronger. They had appeared as an unordered list of names in the corner of my vision.

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Slayer’s forest.

Slayer’s dungeon.

Goblin fortress.

Goblin dungeon.

Widow makers nest.

Cursed castle.

Hell’s portal 1.

Hell’s portal 2.

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there were other info provided for each of the places, but I also noticed that some of the places like the cursed castle and the goblin fortress had quests attached to them as well.

When we finally got back to the temple, I passed the still sleepy little girl over to one of the junior healer girls who promptly took her upstairs for an afternoon nap. Slick had also followed along on the girl’s shoulder, and I had kindly asked her to put him in his bowl of water when she gets up to the room.

I looked around a bit as I made my way back out of the temple, hoping to see a certain someone with wavy black hair and snowy white skin. But she must have head out already. I summoned some of the money out of my inventory and used it to buy a whole bunch of temporary healing potions from one of the shops just outside the temple gates. After purchasing, I absorbed all of the potion bottles back into my inventory and began making my way further away from the temple.

“Rachel, among the list of places you provided for me to level up, which of them is closest to my current location?”

“The cursed castle.” Rachel replied almost instantaneously, pulling up a transparent blue map in the corner of my vision. “This is the place.” she said, marking the spot with a purple dot.

“Alright,” I said, “Let’s go find ourselves a horse then.”