Late at night, outside an old mansion in the city…

Straf exits the mansion through its back door, entering the snowed-over garden. He looks up at the roof extending outward behind him.

「Hup…」

Clack-clack…

Ceramic roof tiles clatter softly under his boots as he leaps onto it with a well-measured jump without removing his hands from his coat's pockets.

「…Man, maybe I should make a quick trip back for one of those beds.」

He mumbles to himself as he walks up to the top of the roof, where its slope splits both sides.

Straf lazily kicks some of the excess snow off and lies down on his back, placing his hands behind his head and looking around at what's in front of him.

A full moon is hanging in the sky to the east, shining onto the land with a relatively bright, pale light. The sky is remarkably starry, owing to the low light pollution of the rather muted lanterns hanging from rooftop to rooftop. The city workers seem to have abandoned their attempt at cleaning the massacre from yesterday, at least for now. Their effort, though valiant, remains woefully incomplete. The mansion is situated on a low hill in the city, providing Straf with good visibility despite the building itself being low.

There is a thick column of black smoke rising steadily into the air just the city. A large, bright flame lights its base.

Straf turns his eyes away, occupying himself with searching for space civilizations, trying to spot a megastructure around the stars long ago, and lazily watching barren planets' surfaces.

「So… Lily is one thing, but how long are you going to keep missing out?…」

He asks while staring at the sky with a tight-lipped grimace. He waits, and waits.

「…Tsk. Are you seriously going to just ignore me now? This thing where you pretend you're not listening is getting boring.」

With a click of his tongue, Straf spreads his arms.

《I'm busy… As usual. I don't know why you expect me to be there at your every call and beckon. You said it yourself, people die every day.》

Athea replies, albeit in a dismissive and sighful tone.

「Dead people can wait. You're seriously going to miss out on all these regionally-cliched treats because some guy died?」

Straf replies with a tight-lipped grimace, staring blankly at the starry sky with a bored gaze.

《I don't need to eat.》

Athea's voice echoes in in Straf's mind. He rolls his eyes.

「And I don't need to sleep. I still do, because it just feels good to turn my fucking brain off sometimes…」

He spreads his arms with his mouth aslant in a ridiculing grimace.

「…You were wowed by a fish on a stick roasted over a campfire. You're telling me you don't want to try anything else?」

《…You are a part of this world, I'm not. Something has to die so that you can continue living. A single fish can be chalked up to random fluctuations…》

Athea replies, speaking in a soft yet insistent voice.

《…I don't blame you, but you do not understand the timescale I'm dealing with. I can't live like you. More importantly… Are you sure you should be saying that in public?》

She asks as her booming voice takes on an inquisitive tone.

「What? I'm on a fucking roof.」

Puzzled, Straf narrows one eye at the sky, looking let and right along the snow-dusted roof tiles.

《I meant the restaurant with the wyrm… You are objectively right, people die every day. This is nothing new, especially here…》

She clarifies while Straf's mouth slants to the side.

《…But you're not going to curry yourself favor like that. Disregard for life and its loss is very macho as your world would put it, but you're in company of young women. And young men.》

Athea adds, still speaking in a soft voice, albeit verging on chiding.

「So? Am I supposed to fly around with a fluttering red cape and evaporate evildoers with eye lasers? When is it okay to stop? Am I murdering people by taking a break?」

Straf scoffs, briefly spreading his hands before returning them underneath his head.

《You misunderstand. You do what you want to do, but women are far more sensitive to death and violence than you are… Besides, that's not how you really feel, is it?》

She asks, and Straf's face gains a hint of annoyed bemusement.

「…What do you even know about me? You know how ironic it is for you to give me life lessons? You have a helmet with a peace button on it there, too?」

Staring at the sky and shrugging his shoulders with his mouth scrunched to the side, he asks.

《The more I watch you, the less and less, it seems… All I'm saying is that you don't need to act out a character…》

Athea's voice echoes in Straf's mind with a weary, sighful tone yet again.

《…There seems to be someone else who wants to talk with you.》

「Eh?…」

She adds, and Straf furrows his brows in mild confusion. He lifts his gaze up towards the slope facing the backyard. Stripe's upside-down face is staring at him with her golden eyes.

「Weird. It's not like I made a sound. How'd you sense me?…」

Stripe asks, furrowing her brows back at Straf as she approaches his side.

「I made an educated guess that you'd be unable to fall asleep unless I pet your head.」

He replies with his mouth mockingly tilted and a deadpan tone.

「Khhkk… What are you even doing up here? Are you a cat?…」

Grimacing, Stripe turns her gaze away. She briefly watches the black column of smoke rise into the sky before returning her eyes down to Straf.

Straf gains a very obviously tight-lipped grimace, and silently stares at her with a look in his eyes as if baffled by her audacity.

「…Shut up.」

Stripe adds, and sits down beside him just beyond the roof's rounded top.

「I didn't say anything.」

He informs Stripe, keeping his face still locked into a tight-lipped grimace.

「I know what you wanted to say, so just shut up… Good grief…」

She lets out a frustrated sigh and hugs her legs, turning her gaze to the rising smoke outside the city again. Straf lazily turns his bored eyes to it as well.

「…I know it's to avoid a plague, but they're not even going to bury them, huh?」

Stripe bitterly remarks after a moment of silence, then turns her attention down to the partially cleaned bloodstains down on the streets.

「Why do you even give a shit?」

Straf bluntly asks with a bored grimace on his face.

「Khkk!… 'Cause they had their lives! Families! Plans!」

Pointing her clawed finger at the column of smoke, she replies angrily with her voice raised just enough to not wake everyone.

「Everyone's got a plan until they get their face torn off… I'm asking why do you give a shit about them, personally… It's not like you were born here, right?」

Straf remarks, then nonchalantly turns his eyes to the starry sky with a shrug of his shoulders.

「Right… I was raised and trained here for most of my life. Not here, but the Eastern Kingdoms in general. I deem everyone here as my people…」

Stripe nods her hatted head, hugging her legs closer as she hides most of her face in her knees while she speaks.

「…I was actually assigned to what you could call my homeland before I came to your kingdom. The tribal territories, and the Beastman Polity…」

「The Beastman Polity?…」

Straf echoes with his cheek on his palm, and his brow curiously raised. Stripe briefly glances at him.

「It's a… Well… It's almost like the system you have now, but they elect the beastman king… Kind of. It's not a real king, but- Anyway, I'm getting distracted…」

Though struggling to find the right words, she tries to explain. Stripe then shakes her head with a frustrated grimace and returns to the original subject.

「…I was there, and that's where I felt… Truly alien, I guess?… I didn't have to hide my ears, I could show my tail… But I didn't feel at home at all…」

She says, lowering her face back down into her knees, staring down the roof towards the street.

「…I don't really feel at home anywhere. I'm not even sure I have a home. And now that I'm technically helping you…」

Stripe shrugs her shoulders. She turns her sullen, golden-eyed gaze to Straf's bored one.

「…Well, it is what it is. I'm unlucky my whole life, so maybe fate wanted me to never have a place to call home. Still, I was raised here, and I'm grateful for it.」

With a resigned and somewhat frustrated sigh, Stripe throws her arms up and straightens out, staring up at the starry sky with her mouth aslant.

「So, you just want to pay them back? That's why you're mad about it?」

Straf asks and turns his eyes to the column of smoke rising to the sky in Stripe's background.

「Yeah… Yeah, I guess. I guess it's just unforgivable for someone to harm people who were kind to me. That old man I told you about? He's the one who found me.」

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She nods her hatted head, turns her golden eyes to Straf, and shrugs with a light smile.

「When you were a kid?」

「Yeah. He was on an assignment in the beastman territories, before the Beastman Polity was even a thing. I made his job a lot easier, since he could just say that his wife died.」

Straf asks with his brows rising, and Stripe returns a nod with a gently amused smirk on her face as she looks back down onto the streets below.

「So… He's like your father?」

Tight-lipped and lying on his side, Straf asks. Stripe immediately begins to grimace heavily in response, slowly wiggling her head left and right as she thinks intensely.

「…Nnnooo, not reaaally…」

「Uncle?」

「…Nope.」

「…Grandfather?」

She replies with a shake of her head, to which Straf asks a different question, only to be met with the same kind of reply.

「Look, if I had to tell you about all my mother, father, grandmother and grandfather figures, we'd spend the whole night here. Let's just leave it at it's complicated, okay?」

With a tight-lipped grimace on her face, Stripe throws her hands up before crossing her arms, giving up on attempting to explain.

「Big family, huh?…」

Straf sarcastically remarks, returning his eyes to the night sky.

「…Yeah. That's why don't ask me stupid questions like that. There has to be something wrong with you if you don't get angry when innocent people get hurt.」

She lets out an amused scoff, then side-glances at Straf. She focuses her eyes on Straf's sheet of paper still glued onto his coat's front.

「What?」

He asks, noticing her stare.

「…What is that paper for, anyway?」

She points at the paper on his chest. His brows furrow as his eyes turn downward.

「Hm?… Ah, this shit. I forgot…」

Krrkkkk…

Dry glue crumbles away from one of Straf's buttons as he casually peels the sheet away from his chest. Though the glue didn't stick to his coat at all, it dried around one of the buttons.

Krkkrkr! Krrk! Krrkk!

Straf noisily crumples up the sheet into a ball, then throws it down onto the street with a lazy swing, much to Stripe's visibly disapproving grimace.

「…A reference to make all this stupid shit a little more anchored in reality through the contrasting use of irony.」

He explains as he sits up with a weary grunt.

「W- What?…」

With her arms crossed, Stripe furrows her brows in deep confusion as she tries lowers her head and tries to decipher Straf's meaning.

「You won't get it. There's only one person who can, and she doesn't feel like gracing me with her presence.」

Straf replies with a shrug as he stands up, then turns his slanted mouth up to the night sky. Stripe gets up as well.

「Who?…」

She asks, blinking her confused eyes at his bored face.

「Doesn't matter… Want me to pet you to sleep?」

Straf asks as his bored face gains a snide smirk.

「S- Stop making it sound dirty!…」

Stripe's face quickly flushes red as she turns around and climbs down the slope towards the mansion's enclosed backyard.

「If you want dirty petting…」

Lazily following her along with his hands in his pockets, Straf shrugs his shoulders.

「I don't want any petting! I'm fine! I cleared my head, I'll sleep on my own now!」

Blushing heavily, Stripe points her finger at Straf's amused face as she prepares to drop down, nearly yelling at him with her voice raised.

Clack!

Her wooden shoes clack loudly on the likewise wooden floor from beyond the roof's edge when jumps back down to the ground level.

「…Okay. I'm just saying.」

Straf nonchalantly spreads his hands with an amused smirk on his face, mostly speaking to himself now as he approaches the edge…

…

The next day, in the afternoon…

With sheets of paper in their hands, black-clothed men with round, likewise black conical hats jog from a place to place in small groups all around the city.

「…Have you seen this man?」

One of the black-shrouded men walks up to a city guard and asks, showing him a portrait of a man with very handsome, albeit also very exaggerated features.

The guard furrows his brows as he looks at the charcoal sketch, taking the paper sheet into his armored hand. He rubs his chin, thinking intensely.

「…I think I might have seen that guy yesterday? I only saw a glimpse of him, but I'm fairly sure it's the foreigner that helped with the demons.」

The man replies, and hands the portrait back to the man in black.

「He helped?…」

「…With the demons?」

The two men standing in front of the guard turn their confused eyes to each other, and echo his words back to him. The guard becomes a little troubled by their reaction and masked stares.

「Yeaaah… Listen, I don't know for sure if that's him, but that's the foreigner you're looking for, he helped a lot… Heard he spoke our language perfectly, too. Weird guy…」

He nods his helmeted head, rubbing his neck beneath the lobster tail-shaped length of plates covering it.

「…Is he wanted, or something? Is he a criminal?… If he's a small-time thief, surely he could be forgiven?」

The man asks while glancing at the two palace guards while one of them rolls up the paper portrait.

「Where did he go? When was the last time you saw him?」

The second palace guard asks in an urgent tone. The city guard immediately shakes his head.

「Can't tell you, I don't know. I last saw him cleaving through demons like they're made of butter. I was busy searching for survivors for the rest of the night…」

He replies while leaning onto his spear, and the guard's face becomes increasingly discomforted as his gaze becomes distant and unfocused.

「…There weren't that many, I tell you what.」

The guard adds with a light shake of his head, a piercing gaze directed at the two palace guards, and a greatly troubled grimace on his face.

The black-shrouded guards exchange another brief glances, then turn their eyes back to the spearman.

「…Thank you.」

The two bow, and the guard returns a bow as well, nodding his head as they depart down the bloodied street…

…

In the evening, on a road leading north…

Stripe, Straf, and the rest are following a snowy road towards north. The road ahead forks into three, one leading through a valley, one through a snow-covered bamboo forest that begins some distance away, and the third curves away and seems to lead towards the coast far to the east. There is a quaint signpost pointing in each direction, including the group's as they approach.

「So… You said there's a city along each of these roads, yeah?」

Straf says to Stripe as he casually approaches the signpost.

「Yes…」

With a frustrated grimace on her head, she nods her woolly hat as she stops near it.

「So… Which city is the most fun?」

「Oh boy…」

Straf asks, and Stripe immediately rolls her eyes. Cycelia tilts her head, confused by her reaction. Lily only raises a singular brow with her arms crossed, but remains silent.

「…Over there is a fishing village. You can get some really tasty fish-based meals. It's cold now, so it doesn't sound that amazing, but in the summer that hits the spot.」

Stripe points down the road curving off to the side, turning her gaze to the bulk of the group with her mouth aslant as she explains.

「I know, right!? Those fish Lian caught were really something!」

Cycelia exclaims with a smile on her face, turning her emerald eyes to Lian's frigid expression.

「Yeah… They were good…」「They were alright…」「I liked the ice cream too…」

Will nods in agreement, adjusting his glasses. Greaves crosses his arms, while Alicia nods her head with a light, acknowledging smile towards Straf. He shrugs in response.

「Right… This road here leads further north, obviously, and there's a major trade route going through there. Usually you can get rare northern goods at their market…」

Stripe points the other way, towards the road leading down the valleys.

「…Though the route is mostly unused lately. Merchants are afraid to go through the Necromancer Kingdom with all the demon attacks.」

She adds with a shrug of her shoulders, and a little sigh, turning her golden gaze to Straf's face as he furrows his brows in surprise.

「Necromancer Kingdom? What the fuck?」

He asks, and exchanges confused glances with Will, Greaves, and Lily.

「Don't ask me, it's a mystery. It's too far north, and as far as I know, the undead there don't really attack you… Anyway…」

Stripe spreads her arms with her mouth heavily scrunched to the side as she replies, then extremely reluctantly points her finger to the central road with a large sigh.

「…This road leads to the city known as the most immoral, crime-ridden sewer of the land, known only for its rampant poverty, prostitution, and gambling dens-」

「Okay, we're going.」

Straf declares before Stripe can even finish, causing her to grit her teeth in frustration.

「…Of cooouurse!」

She shouts, throwing her arms up as she and the group follow Straf. Stripe shakes her head, grumbling to herself under her breath…