The old man looked at Eto with fear in his eyes, and Eto suddenly realized what Veronica meant by keeping quiet.

'Don't worry, I'm not a bad guy,' he quickly said with a grin on his face that exposed how uncomfortable he was. Veronica was afraid that they had blown it but the old man seemed calmed down.

'I believe you, you don't seem like the bad type,' he said and the little girl laughed hard. 'Right grandpa. Eto is not a bad guy,' she said and she squeezed and pulled Eto’s cheeks.

'Would you cut that out?' he mumbled and it made the old man laugh.

'Veronica sighed, grateful that Eto had helped himself out of this situation. She tried to focus on eating again while the rest calmed down.

'I'm so sorry. We now know your name but you don't know ours,' the man said.

'My name is Vieli and this is my granddaughter's name,' but the little girl jumped in and screamed 'Odila.'

'Lovely to meet you. My name is Veronica and that is Eto, of course,' she said and she pointed to him. The three of them noticed he had already taken a third bowl of soup and was devouring it like an animal who had not eaten in days.

'Easy, there is more,' Vieli said, trying to calm him down and Eto looked at him with a grateful face.

'I'm sorry to ask but you were telling us about Ased?' Veronica asked, remembering the name Vieli mentioned.

Both Odilia and Vieli started to look worried.

'Ased is a Nieve giant who came one day, attacking the town with his star shard power.'

Veronica saw the man taking a quick glance at Eto but he soon looked away.

'He came to this town, searching for a man but when nobody wanted to tell where the man was, he froze the town, and took refuge in the castle up the mountain. Everyday the town gets more and more frozen. Some houses are already completely frozen in and soon the whole town and its folk will be completely frozen and imprisoned with nowhere to go. He gave us the opportunity to free the town if we gave him the man he was searching for but nobody is a traitor in these parts.'

Stolen story; please report.

Eto finished his soup and put his bowl down. He had listened to the story of Vieli.

'Who was he searching for?' Eto asked and both Vieli and Odilia said together 'professor Hawk.'

'Hmm' Veronica said quietly. 'And calling in the soldiers of the worlds? Telling them about the situation?' but Vieli shook his head.

'We believe that Ased has a contact within the soldiers. One who keeps a blind eye to port Perdita. All radio contact we try to other planets has been cut. We can only receive information by the transmitter I built not so long ago. That's why we know about the attack on Borner. It was one of the few messages we received.’

'And escaping?' Veronica suggested, not wanting to believe that nothing was possible.

'Everybody is afraid Ased will get you when you try to escape. He is always watching from the castle. We tried reaching other towns on Capgelu but everybody is afraid that Ased will get them if they tried to help us.'

Veronica didn't say anything. She just couldn’t believe these people could do nothing and others turned a blind eye to Port Perdita.

It was quiet for a few moments before Eto started talking again.

'And giving the man he wants?' he asked but Vieli started laughing.

'Giving the professor is the same as bowing down to criminals. We are not like that in Port Perdita,' Vieli said and Eto suddenly realized that he could remember a few lessons he had from his grandpa.

'A holy knight should always be there to help people. They don't give in to the crimes and temptations of criminals,' were the words that echoed through his mind.

The rest started to finish their soup before Vieli started to ask some questions.

'I hope you weren't hurt during the attack of Generation Zero?' he asked, looking at Veronica and Eto if maybe they were hurt.

Veronica did briefly think about her parents but she shook her head. She didn’t want to involve people in her problems.

'We got away in time,' and the man showed a relieved face.

'So, what are you gonna do now?' Odilia asked, now she was sitting calm.

``We have to find someone who can help us with our transport, or help us to,'' but Eto was having trouble with the name he wanted to mention.

'Etoile,' Veronica said to finish Eto's sentence.

'We are trying to get to Etoile but we only have the cargo ship and no money,' she quickly said, feeling guilty while looking at the soup they just had. They had nothing to give for the food they have been given.

'Hmm,' Vieli said. He closed his eyes while thinking.

'Even with enough money, it's still gonna be a problem to get someone to help you.'

'Why is that?' Eto asked and Vieli opened his eyes to look at him.

'The one who can fix your ship is the same professor who Ased is looking for. We know where he is but he is frozen in and we have no idea how to reach him.'