The weak

It felt as if long minutes had passed as we kept staring at each other.

"Uh... Is it wrong to be short at this age?", a confused expression drew up on her face.

Her question knocked me straight back to great mass, "What? N-No, not at all!", I chuckled, "It's just, you don't always see 19 year-olds as short as 4 or 5 feet tall."

I lied, the only reason why I still stood there looking at her face was the fact that there might've been other people who struggled to keep the balance between being a monster and a human.

Her tone reduced, "Oh..."

*Grrrrrr*

Fraisia flinched and hugged her belly, avoiding eye-contact, "I-I'm sorry."

"Haha, haven't you eate- uh", right at that moment, a sudden memory jolted my brain, "Food!! SHYZA!!"

"Huh?", Fraisia tilted her head.

"Food station!! Do you know where it is!!??", I placed my hands on her shoulders and began to shake her back and forth expecting a quick response.

"I-I-I'm getting d-dizzy."

"Oh Sorry", I fixed her back into shape, "The food station...", I smiled awkwardly.

She pointed towards the hallway behind me, "It's at the end of that hallway."

"Thanks!", I rushed towards the direction she gave.

"U-Uh, wait!", she stopped me in my tracks, "C-Can I-"

"Sure!", without wasting any more time, I grabbed her hand and ran towards the hallway.

Fraisia suddenly stopped the moment we were a few metres away from the station's doors.

"Fraisia?", I looked back.

She covered her eyes with her dark pink hair and wore on her hood, completely masking her face, "Let's go now..."

"She's trying to hide her face?", the doors opened on their own once we got inches closer.

The station was really huge, though they were called food stations they were really just huge halls where various types of food can be ordered depending on the ingredients available. Beneath the station, there were machines that cooked these foods faster than humans. So much so that humans in this era had lost the ability to cook.

Fraisia began to shake a bit after we entered the hall filled with lots of people at their tables.

"There's no need to be afraid.", I placed my hand on her shoulder, "Just walk closer and avoid eye contact."

She nodded and said under her breath, "Okay..."

We walked around a bit and finally found an empty table at the corner of the hall.

"There.", we sat down on opposite sides as the table came alive, bringing up a floating holographic panel.

"-MAY I HAVE YOUR ORDERS-"

"Go ahead, you can order first.", I smiled.

"Uh", she hesitated for a bit, "there's no need. I'm not hungry any more."

"Really.", I stared at her while thinking, "Why did she change her mind all of a sudden?"

"Why don't you order? You were really in a hurry to get food, right?", she said, instantly reminding me.

"Hm, alright. Ten large spicy furnel meat, packaged.", I ordered.

"T-Ten?", Fraisia spoke faintly but I was still able to hear.

"-UNDERSTOOD-", the panel disappeared.

"Now back to earlier, why didn't you defend yourself?", I inquired.

She kept silent for a while before speaking, "Well, when I'm out completely hidden by my cloak, people see me as part of the town's internal security personnel."

My eyes widened, "Woah, isn't that a big role you have?"

"I... may be part of them but I'm not allowed to do anything since my sync rate with their tech is extremely low.", she clenched her fists, "That's why my comrades call me useless."

"Those two girls are your comrades?"

"Y-Yes, they are. They do treat me nice when we're outside the control room though.", her fists loosened, "But, I can understand why they treat me this way... They're afraid of me, they're the only ones who know about this monster's existence but they haven't killed me because of that. They're not really bad."

"Heh, they enjoy seeing you suffer. That's enough enjoyment for them.", I smirked, "If they got rid of you, where would they find 'fun'? After all, you people barely allow stuff into this town."

"It doesn't matter... This is simply because of my weakness. The strong and the weak matter here a lot.", Fraisia gave a slight chuckle.

*KLANG!*

Just then, the sound of metals vibrated throughout the entire station.

"Hey punk! Would you watch where you're going!?", a fat ugly man stood before this scrawny young man.

"I-I'm very sorry.", the young man knelt down and began to pick his scraps.

"Oh no, Sorry isn't going to free you from punishment! Boys!!"

Two other bare-chested muscular men grabbed the young man.

"Entertain me.", the fatso gave a disgusting laugh.

The two men brutaly began beating the scrawny guy up.

"You're just gonna sit there? Aren't you security?", I made a move to get up but she held my hand.

"Please don't. A weak person like me can't do anything and if you interfere, you'll not only bring death to yourself but that innocent man too.", she tightened her grip, "Just let them finish with what they're doing. These things happen here all the time"

"Yeah, and leave someone who has a higher chance of dying in the hands of those two men? I don't think so.", I took off her hand, "And you're right about being weak, you don't even try to do anything at all."

"-DELIVERING PACKAGES-", two packaged foods came out from a tube which connected the table to the underground kitchen.

"Storage cube.", I placed one pack into the cube and pushed the other towards Fraisia, "Don't you dare refuse to eat.", I gave her a glare and then walked towards the so-called 'strong' morons.

"Oop, he started coughing out more blood. AHAHAHAHAHA!!", the ugly man took a bite of his meat as he watched the man get beaten, "That's what you get for bumping into me, kek."

"Hey UGLY BASTARD!!", all the attention immediately shifted to me.

"Huh?", the fat man snorted, "Who are you calling an ugly bastard?"

"Seriously? Who else in this entire station is as ugly as you?", I raised an eyebrow.

Gasps and little chattering began to emerge from the gathering crowd.

"How dare you!! Who do you think you are!!??", enraged, the ugly man threw his last piece of meat onto the ground.

"Boss, he's the rich foreigner everyone's been talking about.", one of his two men said to him.

"Hmm, rich foreigner you say...", he took a good look at me and then developed a greedy grin on his face, "Kek, in blindseye town we the privileged people have the right to get rid of meddling foreigners, but I'm willing to offer a proposal."

"Proposal?", the expression on my face already showed no interest.

"Yes", his grin got wider, "Pay me a large sum of money and I'll simply let this pass without giving a report to the town lord."

It took a while for me to fake my interest, "How much are we talking about?"

The ugly bastard rubbed his palms together greedily, "100M neurus."

"Hmm, I see...", I scratched my chin and nodded then gave a cold stare, "You can go to hell."

"Tch!", the man walked back, even more enraged, "I gave you a chance boy! KILL HIM!!!"

"Hold up.", I raised my right palm, "What about my proposal? If I win against your men, you'll provide the less privileged with a thousand neurus each month and if you win, I give you one billion neurus... sound good?"

The chattering in the background got even noisier. The ugly man looked back at his subordinates, confused and excited.

"It's perfect.", he grinned, "Make sure you give him a good beating."

"Yes boss.", the two men approached me as mechanical arms engulfed their arms.

"Okaaaaaay, number one!", I shouted in my head.

*WHAM!*

One of the two men lunged at me throwing a punch I was able to block with my arm.

"Heh.", the other appeared right behind me, bringing a low punch towards my back.

*SLAM!*

I now had both of them locked with my hands, "Hmm... strong but weak. I dunno, imma just label it as lame.", I twisted their arms, forcing them back.

"Ooooooh!", the crowd's excitement began to build up.

"Number one: Evaluation, check!", I cracked my knuckles and stretched my body till I heard and felt cracks all over. "Now for number two..", I smirked, ": Beat the living day lights outta some punks."