POV: Altair Oberon Lyrius

I put down the girl as carefully as I could on the rooftop and removed the cloth that had been stuffed in her mouth. As soon as I did she began coughing, a lot of spit and... another liquid came flying out. The cloth was wet, sticky and smelled as good as a fat man after a run.

"W-Who are you?" she asked, sounding quite shaky.

I looked at her. She gave off this disgusting feel that all humans gave off, I just couldn't understand how anyone would see any appeal in a human.

"I mean... the one who saved you, right? Or am I wrong about that?" I asked, talking quickly despite me being pretty calm, just seemed like something I wanted to do right now.

"What?"

"Yeah, yeah. Your parents hired me to get you out of wherever you were," I explained as I picked her back up.

"M-My parents... fina-" her words turned into a scream as I jumped to the next roof with her thrown over my shoulder.

'Any clue where they might be? Ira asked.

"Can't you sense them?" I asked out loud.

The girl didn't react, she was too busy screaming as I jumped from rooftop to rooftop without a goal.

'Neither they nor their bodyguards are mages so they don't really have enough passive mana output for me to sense where they are, I mean the only reason I could tell the girl was in there is that she's a mage,' Ira explained.

"Well well, seems like I should have asked. There go my four hundred silvers... oh no wait, I know where they are!" I said loudly as I turned around.

'What? How? Where?' Ira asked, sounding confused.

"Oh please, the only place a noble would stay in this shit hole is The Paradise," I said out loud.

The girl was still too busy screaming, earning us quite a lot of stares from the peasants below. As I jumped and listened to the girl's screams I began whistling some random, and most likely quite non-melodic, melody that just appeared in my head.

It was strange, since I had seen my death, rebirth, happy childhood and then the destruction of that happy childhood countless times in my sleep something had changed. I would often see things in the corner of my eye that couldn't be there. I would often hear people talking when there were no people near me, I would hear them laughing about things that I couldn't make out. Sometimes the voices were quite clear, they would insult me, tell me to just die already, to give up, that I would never succeed and on other days they would be almost indistinguishable from the wind that carried them. But I would always shrug it off, there were more important things now, I was about to finally see the man responsible for killing my family, my friends and my neighbours all those years ago. It could only be weeks maybe even only days until I could finally look him in the eyes. My heart pounded faster with anticipation.

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After ten minutes I had finally reached the place I wanted to be, The Paradise, the most expensive and luxurious tavern in the entire town. I jumped down from the roof and landed right in front of the door. After another slight twitch of my head, I kicked open the door and stepped inside. Heads turned and I heard screams. One look at my widened eyes and the smile on my face shut them all up. I walked up to the bar, the girl was still thrown over my shoulder.

"Where's the guy?" I asked.

"T-The guy? I-I don't know w-who you mean," the barkeeper said.

"Right... right... stupid me. The noble, that one, yes," I said, my left cheek twitching a little.

For some reason I had these twitches that I couldn't stop... or maybe I should call them nervous ticks? But I wasn't nervous...

A sudden scream pulled me away from my thoughts.

"Amalia!" a woman screamed from up the stairs to my left.

I turned my head and saw the noble with his wife and five bodyguards this time came running towards me.

"Oh by the seven, Amalia, we found you!" her father said.

I put her down so her parents could do their thing while I waited. The bodyguards kept their distance and I just yawned as I waited and waited and waited a few minutes longer. When I began to tap my foot on the ground the nobleman stood up, his wife following after with their crying daughter in her arms.

"I don't know how I can ever repay you," he said.

"Payment," I responded.

"Right of cou-" he began but his wife interrupted him.

She grabbed me at the highest possible location she could reach, somewhere around my chest, and tried to pull me down. I reluctantly looked into her blue eyes.

"What did they do to her!?" she asked loudly, a crazed look on her face.

"I dunno raped her, probably hit her and so on. I mean, how would I know?" I responded before I turned back to the husband and said: "Payment, now."

The wife fell to the floor along with her daughter while the man took out his pouch, and instead of giving me the agreed four hundred silvers he handed me the entire thing.

"That's about fifty golds, start a new life somewhere with the money or do whatever," he said before breaking out into tears.

Meanwhile, all the other guests looked at this awkward situation. I just shrugged, pocketed the money and threw the empty pouch on the ground before I just walked out of the establishment.

"What a bother," I said. "Oh right, you should probably leave, don't know if I got all of them! And don't tell anyone about me!" I yelled into the room as I left. "Gotta disappear for now," I whispered afterwards.

The wind suddenly got stronger for a bit, just as I stepped outside, and carried with it some voices, insulting me as usual.

"Shut it!" I yelled at the wind.

No answer, of course, there was no answer, there was never an answer and there would never be an answer. I jumped back up onto the rooftops and began looking around.

"Now where is that paladin... is he already here or not? Will he arrive later today or has he already left?" I said to myself.

I quickly began jumping from rooftop to rooftop towards the large central tower in the middle of town, from there one was able to even see outside the footprint-shaped crater the town was built in. On my way there I felt myself twitch a little, never enough for me to fall but it was distracting, to say the least. The wind was also picking up quite a bit, carrying voices with it.

"Die already you worthless worm!" I heard Martin's familiar voice say.

I heard Hannah laugh.

I heard Avil sigh.

I heard some gang members whistle...

...

...

...

It didn't stop, as if it was stuck in a loop inside my head. When I reached the tower I climbed up to the top, feeling quite stressed out. From up here, I could see the roads that led to the town and away from it. And there, in the distance, I could see something small. I enhanced my eyesight using wood elven magic and saw that it was a carriage, or rather five of them, all driving towards the city. They were pulled by what looked like giant dogs from this distance.

"Must be that paladin... good, good. He's close, means I won't have to wait for long... good," I said to myself as I leaned back, supporting myself with my arms as I looked up into the cloudy sky, whistling some non-melodic melody.

As I sat there I suddenly heard a loud sound, as if something had exploded and felt overwhelming pressure that was accompanied by the disgusting feel humans gave off. And along with that came a loud shout, a shout that echoed through the entire town.

"Crow!"