“Don't look at me... Don't look at me...”

A human boy and a little girl with cat ears were walking down the street, attracting all eyes. Unfortunately, the reason people were looking at them was not because they were so cute that they both wanted to be kissed, but because they looked dirty enough to be thrown in the garbage can.

“These are the stains of my sin.”

Yu was about to cry. He would rather people saw him naked than like this. His hands trembled and he bit his lip because he looked like a dirty person in the eyes of others. His gaze was focused on the ground. He was too ashamed to lift his head.

“If only the sun hadn't risen,” Yu mumbled his meaningless wish. If it hadn't dawned, he wouldn't have found anyone to buy his phone and they would have continued to walk around with no money.

Night had never been in this part of the city. In the daylight the city was bustling with life, people was coming out of everywhere. Perhaps Yu was walking in the most crowded part of the city.

He wanted to look up and look around carefully, but the fear of meeting someone's eyes prevented him from looking up. He walked briskly, eager to find a place where they could clean up. The last time he had felt this kind of stress was when he was taking an exam in elementary school.

“Don't look at me, assholes...”

Anger began to replace shame. It was surprising that he had never been stopped and questioned by a policeman.

He actually understood people staring at him. On a normal day, if Yu saw a filthy person like him walking down the street, he would turn and take one look and then curse and accuse him of being uncivilized. Now the fact that he was that person hurt his ego.

Out of the corner of his eye, he looked at the little girl and saw that she was also uncomfortable, but she was ignoring people's stares because there was more pain in her heart.

“Even though I'm the reason she's upset, look at the things I think. I hate myself.”

People stepped out of the way to let Yu and Neko pass, so as not to touch them as they came at them. Others covered their noses or even created an exaggerated distance between them.

“There's an inn there,” Neko looked up briefly and gestured to a large building.

“How do you know?”

“It's written on the signboard.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he looked up to where Neko was pointing and saw a three-story building, bigger than most of the buildings they had seen.

There was a huge sign on the building and Yu couldn't read what it said. “It doesn't look difficult to learn, it reminds me of the Latin alphabet.” The writing on the sign looked a bit like runic, a bit like Cyrillic and mostly like the Latin alphabet.

The door to the inn was open and as the two of them entered, first a few eyes, then all the eyes in the hall turned on them. Yu clenched his fist when he noticed the eyes.

“It would be nice if they all died.”

They were staring in disgust, covering their noses. Yu could take it, but when he saw a pair of pitying eyes, he felt the urge to beat someone up.

“This is not a dump, come out you assholes!” A large bald man sitting at one of the tables stopped eating and after finishing his drink in one gulp, he stood up and threw the wooden cup in his hand at Yu.

Before the cup hit Yu, Neko raised a hand and surrounded them with a wall of wind. The cup hit the magical wall and the wind blew it to pieces and scattered it around.

“F-fuck...” The man was astonished to see the cup he had thrown shatter in the air.

“Low lifestyle, there are other ways to commit suicide.” There was no emotion in Neko's voice, but it was enough to put him in his place. If Neko hadn't had a bad day she probably wouldn't have let him sit as if nothing had happened.

“She protected me.” Yu didn't think he would be protected.

“O~kay, what's going on here?”

A blonde elf came running up and greeted Neko and Yu with a terrible expression on her face. It was of course the sight of Yu and Neko that made the cheeks of the elf's beautiful face harden and her forehead wrinkle.

“How can I help you?”

“We want a room with a bathroom.” Although he had always been careful with his money and avoided unnecessary expenses, he would keep the room as long as it had a bathroom, no matter how she priced it.

“Nightly or weekly?”

“Monthly.”

They might have to stay in Rolderhelm for at least a month while Yu acclimatized to the world and found a plan for their future.

“The ones with baths are for one person, I only have two of them left. Together they are worth twelve gold pieces, including food.”

“I said whatever the price was, but this seems a bit much.”

He had made fifty gold coins for selling his phone, which was normally twelve gold coins. When Yu realized he was being ripped off, he convinced the seller to raise the price by showing off the different features of the phone.

“How much does it cost if it's one room but we are eating for two?”

“We're in no position to bargain!” Neko punched Yu's arm. “And why should I stay in the same room with an asshole like you? You'll get me a separate room.”

“Sorry, twelve gold coins is too expensive.” Perhaps by the city's price standards, ten gold coins might have been a reasonable price, but not by the standards of Yu's wallet.

“Get two rooms!”

“I'm sorry, I apologize.” He didn't want to run out of money later. “How much for one room?”

“The price of a single room is four gold pieces, and if you buy food for two, it's eight gold pieces,” said the elf in the shuffle.

Yu turned his back to the onlookers, but there were onlookers in front of him, so he brought Neko in front of him and took out eight gold coins from his gold pouch.

“T-thank you...” the elf had a bittersweet smile on his face. When Yu put the coins in her hand, she looked as if she would never use that hand again. “What is your name?”

“Yu Valarfin.”

“You can enter the room on the top floor with the number twenty-four on the door.” The elf handed Yu one of the keys hanging on the wall behind the reception desk. “We'll carry the hot water this time.”

“Thank you.”

As Yu and Neko climbed the stairs, the elf behind them began to scold the man who had thrown the glass at Yu.

“Come in,” said Neko.

When they reached the third floor, Yu stopped and looked at the symbols carved on the doors of the rooms on the floor. They must have been numbers, but they meant nothing to Yu.

“What are you waiting for, idiot, come on, move.” Neko was getting annoyed at Yu's stopping and waiting.

“Which one is number twenty-four?”

He didn't know where to go. “I should have remembered the symbol where the woman took the key." Again something he didn't want to happen had happened, he had seemed ignorant to Neko. “But she would have found out sooner or later.”

“Look, you can't be illiterate, can you? You can't be that ignorant? You're making our situation hopeless, who am I going on the road with?”

Yu liked it when Neko used the word 'we', but he was also angry at being insulted.

“I just don't know the alphabet of this country.”

“Then what are you doing here? ARE YOU HERE TO BE A NUISANCE TO US!”

When Neko raised her voice, Yu stepped back and his back hit the railing of the stairs. If he hadn't caught the railing with his hand at the last moment, he would have lost his balance and fallen down the stairs.

Yu had disliked people shouting at him since he was little. When someone yelled at him, instead of getting angry, he felt sad and hesitated to speak. This was because of a few adults who gave him a hard time when he was little.

Of course, it was Neko's superhuman strength that scared him now, rather than the bad memories of his past. It made Yu feel even more inferior that a child could scare him like that.

“Half a day ago I was looking in the mirror and saying how great I was, and now look at me.”

One day was enough to change people.

“I just don't know!”

If he let the girl get on top, it could create a subordinate-superior relationship that he would never be able to break. When he realized this, he thought it might help to raise his voice a little.

Neko was frightened when Yu suddenly raised his voice. It was not Yu she was afraid of, but the reaction she had not expected. Since Yu had suddenly frightened her, she clenched her fist and prepared to hit Yu.

“Which room is ours? Show us so we can wash up.”

Neko relaxed her clenched fist in frustration. “That one,” she led the way, stopping in front of the door in the center of the hallway.

“Don't ever raise your voice to me again, stupid human.”

“Okay.”

***

They doubted that their room deserved four gold pieces a month. It was five and a half feet long and four feet wide. It was cramped, with a bed that could fit two people but was not big, a wooden bathtub, a small closet, a table, a chair and a full-length mirror. It was not ideal for two people to live in.

“I don't want to wash front of you, leave this place.”

“This is my room too, I paid for it. Okay, you're strong and all, but you can't kick me out of my own room.” Yu didn't want to obey. Neko had to understand that Yu had feelings too. “What's next? You sleep on the floor and say the bed is mine?”

“That's exactly what I'm going to say, stupid human.”

“Please, if we're going to be a team, we have to get over some things. Let me wash you.”

“No!”

Neko went back exaggeratedly and fell into the bathtub. The water splashed all the way down to Yu's sweatpants that he wore after washing.

“Are you okay?”

She might have hit her head and hurt herself, she spat out the water she had swallowed when Yu grabbed her and pulled her out of the tub.

“Idiot! I fell because of you!”

The sweetness he witnessed when he saw Neko's ears drooping down because they were wet, was so sweet it made his heart skip a beat.

“Didn't I tell you not to laugh!?”

Yu smiled without realizing it, but it was a pained smile because he was still sad.

"Come on, take off your clothes, they look like they can't be worn anymore."

He turned around to see Neko in the bathtub taking off her clothes. While she was taking off her dress, Yu took out a t-shirt with a cat girl character on it from his bag, it was a gift from his sister. "It's a good thing we didn't drop the bag, I wonder how we brought it with us from there."

He was going to give the T-shirt to Neko to wear because he had nothing else to put on her. "Our shoes are a mess too, but we'll wear them for now. Let's wash the underwear and put them in the window to dry as long as they can."

Yu had woken up in the afternoon when he was in his world and had been sleepless ever since. Since he was sleepy, he wanted to wash the clothes in a cursory way, let them dry and then go to sleep. After waking up, they could go shopping for new clothes.

"You wash your body while I wash your hair," Yu's hair was also dirty enough to disgust everyone, but it was shorter so it was easier to clean. Neko's hair was long, so the dried dirt wouldn't be as easy to clean as Yu's hair.

Neko surprisingly did not oppose Yu. Yu poured water over her head while Neko silently washed her arms.

“When did you get blood in your hair? Oh- When that clown-” He finished the sentence, realizing at the last moment that it would not be right to mention the person who killed her mother.

Neko had been watching from close by as Yu had savagely plunged the scythe into Sorrow, so the blood had splattered on her too. And because they had slept in the sun, the blood had dried into an ugly mess, which is why it was so hard to clean up.

“It feels very strange to wash her hair. The place where her ears should be is empty and she has big cat ears on the top of her head. Can I touch her ears?” Yu put his fingers to Neko's ears, “Wow, unsurprisingly it feels like cat ears.”

“They're not toys.” She slapped Yu's hand when she realized he was playing with her ears. “How do you know how to wash hair?”

“That's a stupid question, everyone knows how to wash hair.” He didn't understand the logic of the question, was there something difficult about washing hair that Yu didn't know? “My sisters used to let me do their hair sometimes, so I know enough to be a novice hairdresser.”

“Why didn't you stay with your sisters? It would have been better if you hadn't come here.”

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“They're dead.” If they were alive, Yu would not go through the door and would stay with them.

After receiving the answer, Neko became silent and didn't speak until she got out of the bathtub.

***

“You... You're a pervert. Why do you have my picture on this outfit?” Neko was wearing the T-shirt Yu had given her. On the white T-shirt was a little cat girl with white hair and red eyes, just like Neko.

“What a coincidence.”

“You fucking pervert! You've been after me all this time!?"”

“Don't exaggerate, Neko.” Her sister's motivation for buying the T-shirt was probably to see the shy Yu wearing it. “Come here, let me fix your hair.”

He would have to straighten it by hand because he didn't have combs, but it would have been better than leaving it messy.

“No need.”

“Come on.”

Like Yu, Neko was sleepy. Instead of arguing, the sleepy girl obeyed Yu. Yu had thought she would be hard to handle, but she had been docile since she got into the bathtub.

When she sat down on the bed, he dried her hair a little more with the towel and began to smooth it with his hand.

“As you have realized, I cannot read the script of this country.” Illiteracy was not something he could hide. He would ask Neko to teach him.

“The alphabet is the same in most parts of the world, are you from somewhere far away? Please don’t tell me you are from Ethalot. You disgusting bastard, I cannot live with a worthless bug.”

“No, I am not a bug or something. I am from a very faraway place…” If they were to act as partners, Yu would tell him about his past, but he put it off for now.

“Will you teach me?”

“Stupid human, you come to a country where you don't even speak the language.”

“I prefer you call me Yu, but stupid human sounds better than stupid creature.”

Yu had gone from creature to human in Neko's eyes. Maybe in time she would accept him as a friend.

“Don't try to win my sympathy, stupid human.” Neko's voice was as emotionless as if it belonged to a robot. “I'm going to teach you to read and write because I have to, so you'd better learn now before you waste my time.”

“Thank you.”

When he was in high school, he tried to learn the runic alphabet, wondering how long it would take him, and he did it in half an hour. If he spoke the same language as the people here and each letter of the alphabet corresponded to a sound, he could learn it in an hour or two.

“I don't know what country we are in.”

“Rolderhelm.” Neko quickly got used to Yu's ignorance and didn't even ask him what he was doing in a country whose name he didn't know. “But our home is in Mora. We came here because my mother wanted to improve herself.”

“I don't know anything about this world, you should teach me everything you know.”

“This world?”

Yu's choice of words confused Neko. She must have thought he was either completely ignorant or a lunatic.

“Yes.”

“You will right your wrong and give me back my mother! So I can teach you a thing or two.”

Neko believed that she was going to meet her mother again, or so she said with her tongue to convince herself.

Yu wanted to believe her too, but something inside him insisted that it was nonsense.

“Are you hungry?”

“I'm sleepy.”

“Me too, so let's go to sleep. When we wake up we can go buy new clothes, we can't walk around in these all the time.”

“Sleep on the floor, I want to sleep on the bed.”

As Yu had said before, Neko wanted him to lie on the floor

But Yu had been up all night, except for the few hours he had slept after escaping from Sigma Tower in the morning. All he wanted now was to lie down on a comfortable bed and fall asleep, and the bed was as comfortable as he wanted it to be. He didn't want to leave the bed and sleep on the floor.

“Since I'm the one paying for this place, the bed belongs to me and you can curl up in the corner like any other cat.”

“I am a sword fairy, a superior being. I should be cherished.”

“You can sleep in the corner of the bed if you want. If we get some more money, we'll look for a room for two with a bathtub in another inn.”

He didn't intend to get out of bed, if Neko wanted to sleep in the bed he would have to share it for now.

Yu put his arm under the pillow, stretched one leg out straight, curled the other leg and got into a face down sleeping position. This was the most comfortable sleeping position for him.

After closing his eyes, Yu felt someone reach out to him. It was Neko.

“Sleep well.”

Neko didn't answer him.

“I should treat her better.” Yu could understand Neko's pain. Yu had felt the same pain, he had watched helplessly. “I want to believe her, this is a magical place, I hope it's true." Turning back time or going back in time? Which was right? "But whatever happens, I can't leave her alone. Even if I've only known her for half a day, I have to take responsibility for what happened to her. Like a big brother... Or a father...”

As his thoughts continued, at some point Yu fell asleep.

***

“What's this, you stupid brat?”

She threw the sheet in Yu's face and Yu, not understanding what had happened, immediately started crying.

He didn't even know what his crime was, it all happened in an instant. The mother of the orphanage rushed in among the children, grabbed Yu by the collar and threw him into a corner.

“I'm sick of dealing with you.”

She lifted Yu, who was crying with his back against the wall, by the collar again and slapped him hard across the face.

“Stop crying!”

Children wouldn't stop crying when someone told them to stop, so Yu kept crying.

---

“Oh but...” He sat up on his elbows and looked out the window. The last rays of the sun were leaving the city.

“I should have seen it coming.”

For a long time he had a disturbed sleep pattern. He slept in the morning, woke up at night, ate breakfast when others had dinner, and ate dinner when others had breakfast.

Even when he set an alarm, he could only stay awake for a few hours, falling asleep again at the first opportunity. If he had to stay up all day, he could do so with difficulty, but as soon as he got home he would go to bed, wake up late at night and stay awake again until morning.

“Neko slept all day too. I hope she manages to sleep through the night, so I can ask her to wake me up in the morning.”

He could wake up somehow in the morning, but he didn't know how to keep himself awake for the rest of the day.

“Instead of thinking about future nights, let me think about tonight, what am I going to do? I don't want to walk the streets.” If he wanted to live, he had to make it a point to stay out of danger. “Let me spend the night learning to read and write.”

He wondered how he would live in a world without the internet. If he wanted to learn something, he would have to ask someone to teach him and he was not used to that. Even at school, instead of listening attentively to the lectures, he would go home and study the day's topics by looking them up on the internet.

“Neko, wake up.”

Neko had tried to stay as far away from Yu as possible while she slept. She had left a gap in the middle of the bed and curled up at the end of it. She looked like she was going to fall.

“I can't blame her for wanting to stay away from me. If I had a daughter, I wouldn't want her to be around a stranger, especially a man.” He remembered Neko's words. Her mother had no friends. “But now I'm the only one close to her, and technically she's the only one close to me, because I don't know anyone else.”

He called out again as he gently shook her shoulder to wake her up. If he continued to sleep, the time he stayed awake at night would be longer. Yu knew what happened when he couldn't sleep at night, when he stayed awake at night his mind was filled with negative thoughts, telling himself over and over again how hopeless his life was.

He didn't want Neko to go through the same thing.

The girl woke up mumbling and looked at Yu with glazed eyes. At that moment Yu began to wonder if he had done the right thing by waking her up, maybe Neko had been in a beautiful dream that she didn't want to wake up from and Yu had woken her up to the horrible reality.

“If the situation I'm in was a dream, would I want to wake up?”

“We need to eat,” Yu said.

The elven woman, had charged him including the food. Yu Valarfin could not rest until he had exploited a product or service he had paid for to the fullest.

“Do you want me to bring it here for you?”

“No need.”

He thought Neko would accept the offer, he was even sure that she would reply ‘well done, stupid human, you will serve me’.

She sat up in bed, stretched and looked out of the open window, the sun would soon disappear completely. She hadn't planned to sleep for so long either.

“Can't we go shopping for clothes?”

“No, it's tomorrow.”

In the world, shopkeepers usually closed their shops and went home before sunset. Here too, probably most shopkeepers would close their shops at sunset and the stalls in the market would be packed up.

“But the inn we were at charged for dinner, so it must be open at night.”

“In the Mora, everything closes at night.”

“But she charged us for dinner, and since it's in the evening, she should give us dinner in the evening.”

The room they stayed in was on the third floor of the inn and the other rooms, like theirs, were single rooms with bathtubs.

The inn did not exceed or fall short of Yu's expectations. It was a pleasant place, similar to the inns he had seen in anime, except that the rooms were small in size. A few landscape paintings were hung on the walls and there were pots on the floor. The plants were like those in his world.

The stairs were well maintained. Although they were made of wood, none of them creaked on the way down and the railings looked solid.

The place where the food was served had to be on the ground floor because it was full of tables. When they went downstairs it was hard to find a place to sit. Randomly turning his head and looking at the stairs, the elf saw them, the one who had given Yu the room.

“You look better,” elf approached and held out her hand.

Her appearance was as beautiful as Yu expected an elf to be. She had two long ears poking out of her long blonde hair, green eyes and smooth skin. A tender smile settled on her lips.

Women like her were hard to find in his world, but since they were in a fantasy universe, her body was also fantastically beautiful. The elf's height was equal to Yu's, her back was narrow, her breasts were large and her legs were long.

“My name is Lucia Leafera, I own this place.”

Lucia had an appearance that could be included in the ‘onee-san’ category in the world waifu literature. That was why Yu had called her 'elf sister' from the inside.

“Her hand is so fucking beautiful!”

Holding Lucia's hand brought out the dying teenager in Yu for a moment. Something told him that if he threw his brown hair in front of his eyes, this world would turn into a wonderful paradise.

“Yu Valarfin, this is Neko.”

“It's a bit...” Yu held up a finger to silence Lucia.

“Shh... Don't say that, she's sensitive about her name.”

When Yu said the same to Rie, Neko heard it and was angry that her name was being criticized.

“And Lucia also knows the meaning of the word 'neko'? I wouldn't even know if I didn't watch anime, so how do you know? Or is it that Turkish is not actually spoken here, but your words sound Turkish to my ears and my words sound in a different language to yours? If there is such a thing, it should be understood when writing. But the word is Japanese…”

If they spoke a different language, even if the spoken language was automatically translated in Yu's brain, it would have to be revealed when writing. If the spoken language was different and Yu's hands and eyes did not have an automatic translation system, he would not be able to learn to read and write.

“But I can't deny that she's right, how about we pick a human name to use during our mission?”

“I am a supreme being, a sword fairy. I don't need a human name, this name is good.” Neko was in a let's-get-out-of here mood.

“So be it.” He wasn't going to try to take away the name her mother had given her.

“But-” Lucia approached the two of them and brought her fingers to her lips. “You mustn't say in public that you are a sword fairy, and Mr. Valarfin, you mustn't try to give her a name before she accepts it. Fairies only accept the names they want.”

“Why do we have to hide the fact that she's a sword fairy? Are they racist?” He didn't know why people shouldn't know.

“So they don't steal it, of course.” Lucia whispered.

“Can I find out more about this?”

Since he was going to be with Neko, he would have to worry about what he had just heard.

He and Lucia sat at an empty table and ordered their food

***

Through their conversation, Yu learned that sword fairies are living beings, just as he had previously thought. They would make a deal with a user and turn into a powerful sword for the user they made a deal with.

He wanted to learn more about sword fairies, but that was the only information he got. Lucia stopped talking about sword fairies when the number of people inside increased and Yu was reluctant to talk about it any further, so the topic was dropped.

Neko had not turned into a sword for her mother in the Sigma Tower. There was a possibility that it had something to do with the nature of their opponents, but there was also a possibility that there was something wrong with Neko, and he suppressed his curiosity so as not to say more and upset her.

While deboning the fish in front of Neko, Yu had the opportunity to learn about Lucia. Lucia Leafera was a wealthy woman who owned three inns, one of which also served as an adventurer guild. Lucia was also one hundred and fifty-two years old.

“Speaking of age, Neko, how old are you?”

There were stereotypes about little girls in fantasy universes being four hundred years old, so maybe Neko would claim to be four hundred or a thousand years old.

Neko didn't answer.

“I turned nineteen today.”

“Happy birthday, Mr. Valarfin.” Lucia wished him a happy birthday with a big smile on her red lips.

“Are you a foreigner in Rolderhelm? You don't look like a merchant, I thought you were an adventurer from the way you looked this morning. They, too, sometimes come home in a terrible way.”

“We are not adventurers, I guess you could call us immigrants.”

Merchant, adventurer, traveler; Yu was none of these. He was just a stranger from an unknown world.

“So you're unemployed?” Lucia's judgmental look made Yu feel ashamed of himself.

“Don't look at me like that, it's not my fault.”

“We are the rich who are not yet rich, I prefer that.”

Yu had finished sorting Neko's fish while Lucia put her fingers to her lips and smiled politely. While Neko blew on the hot fish to cool it, Yu cleaned his own fingers, and it was his turn to clean his own fish.

“Everyone who comes to Rolderhelm says the same thing. Every merchant dreams of becoming rich, every adventurer dreams of becoming a famous hero. Others dream of getting rich in a shorter and easier way and turn to the casinos.”

Lucia listed the dreams of the people who came to Rolderhelm. What happened to them was next.

“Only a few merchants make the profits they dream of, and most go home with a pittance. Some unsuccessful merchants are forced to turn to adventuring to pay off their debts, and many adventurers find that their first mission is too much for them to continue in their profession. Gamblers, on the other hand, commonly end up as slaves.”

From what Lucia had told them, merchanting seemed to be the safest way of earning, but it would only earn the Yu enough money to keep themselves afloat and would require a long time if they wanted to make a big profit.

Adventuring was a source of income Yu was used to from stories, but its inherent dangers were enough to keep him away.

“Maybe you can become an adventurer with Neko's help, but you have to remember that it is a dangerous job. Most adventurers retire indefinitely for various reasons while still on their first mission, and it's not a profession usually chosen by fathers who want to take care of their daughters.”

“Don't talk nonsense about who fathered who, you stupid elf.”

“Oh, what a rude girl.”

Luica relented because Neko was a child, but not everyone would be as understanding as she was. Yu would have to warn Neko about her vulgar language, otherwise they might get in trouble for their behavior.

“Adventurism doesn't seem to suit us, I would like to make safer choices.”

Yu was still afraid of dying and would continue to be afraid. So he would stay away from dangerous things and if he had to do dangerous things, he would make survival his first priority.

“Hmm... What is the plan of the future rich to get rich?”

“My plan is making a plan for now.”

Not even knowing where he was, Yu had no idea what to do. He could turn to casinos or do small demonstrations, but he felt that these were not the right choices.

“What can I expect from the plan of someone who can't even read or write?”

“Don't say such things in public!” It made him angry to have his shortcomings pointed out to him in front of a beautiful woman he had just met. “You'll see, I'll learn overnight.”

Yu put a piece of the deboned fish in his mouth, and strangely, the food had no taste.

It wasn't that it was bad, Yu really couldn't taste the food he was eating.

“What's the matter? Don't you like the food?”

When she saw Yu's shocked face, the elven woman thought something was wrong.

“No, it's fine.” Not wanting to make a faux pas, Yu straightened his posture and pulled himself together. “I haven't eaten something like this in a long time.”

“Ah, I'm glad you like it.” Easily convinced of Yu's lie and flattered, he returned to the subject. “But you don't look illiterate either, you have the features of a high-ranking person.”

“I am, aren't I?” Yu smiled slightly. He was happy to be praised, but normally he would have given a more arrogant answer. “Of course I know how to read and write, I'm just unfamiliar with Rolderhelm's alphabet.”

“Uh-huh, I see.” Lucia nodded, crossing her arms behind her large breasts. “So you come from far away. I hope it’s not Ethalot or Brahatul. You had a bit Aram face.”

"I don’t know where there are." Yu's eyes fell on Lucia's breasts. Her breasts covered her arms.

Lucia lifted her hips a little from where she was sitting and brought her face closer to Yu's, gesturing for him to come closer. She could feel her breath as he moved closer to her.

“Her ears are very attractive.”

The elf's long, pointed ears poking out of her blonde hair revealed an interest Yu had never known existed.

“Did you come from Sigma Tower?” Lucia whispered.

“Can we... Can I be held responsible for the fire in the Sigma Tower?”

This question came to Lucia's mind before he could give an answer.

Yu and Neko walked the streets of the city with soot on them, and judging by their disheveled appearance, they could have been found in the burning tower in the morning, just as Lucia had done.

He couldn't explain what happened there, he couldn't convince people.

“I wonder what's going on out there,” Lucia whispered again as Yu thought of an answer.

“We got caught in the fire and escaped, that's all.”

“Bloods?”

“...”

Yu was going to leave it unanswered. Suddenly interrogated, he could not find lies to fabricate.

“We just... met the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Wrong people?”

Yu couldn't answer that either. He was silent because he thought she wouldn't believe his story.

“Even if you don't want to tell me, please report your experiences to the police station.”

“T-okay.” He could do that if he wasn't going to be charged with fire or any crime.

“Don't forget, please.”

Yu shook his head. He wanted to drop the subject right away.

“But are there less dangerous ways to make money than adventurism?”

“Arena fights may help you win a little bit, but it's gambling.”

“I don't know how to fight.”

Lucia covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. "Anyway, you're not going to fight, you're going to bet on the fighters. It's very popular in Rolderhelm, almost everyone has bet at least once or twice, but you shouldn't get too carried away, remember it's gambling."

“I'll keep that in mind, thank you.”

He still hadn't finished the food on his plate, and he didn't feel like eating any more food he couldn't taste. He saw that Neko hadn't eaten either. They both thought they were hungry, but after a few bites they had lost their appetite.

“The money I spent on food will be wasted.” He couldn't put another mouthful in his mouth.

“Can I ask you for some paper and pens for literacy?”

“Of course.”

It was clear that the night was going to be sleepless, and the best thing he could do right now was to use the free time to study.