Why is everyone talking to me?
"Knock knock" I hear someone knocking on my door.
I finish putting on my jacket and allow them into my room.
"Hey, Akari?"
Ah, It looks like it's Marissa tonight. I wonder what it's about tonight. Well not really.
"Need something?"
Marissa takes a seat on a chair in my room next to my window.
"I won't comment on your activities as that's your own decision but I will inquire about your activities with Mara."
I raise an eyebrow at this as it's different from what she normally talks about. I'm also surprised that she found out about me and Mara but I guess Mara just told her.
"You haven't been doing anything concerning magic have you?" She says.
Oh, I get it. Never mind I guess. I should have known. Everything with this person always has something to do with magic or whatever.
"Na nothing like that"
Normally I would jump at the opportunity to learn more about magic.
"I see…"
I mean who other than this self-proclaimed expert magic wielder?
"I mean you could just teach it to me, couldn't you?"
She must be teaching Ren so why wouldn't I want to?
"Ha, you really are funny like I've said before. I've already seen what Ren can do if I teach you anything I would regret the consequences. You could always get your magic subdued anytime you want though" She says with a smile.
But when It comes to it my views and her views are quite opposite.
"Wow look at the time It looks like you better head out soon, the sun might set soon."
With that Marissa gets up with a sigh. She then leaves my room without saying anything else.
If she keeps that up I might accidentally mistake her name for a witch.
Welp with that over. All I do now is wait a bit until I hear everyone leave. After that, I wait until the sun sets and I head out.
Which takes slightly longer than normal since there are a bunch of random objects on the floor. What on earth is half of this stuff? Why is it all lying around? If this is what Ren is using my money for I might have to rethink my financial investments.
But before I can make any more humorous economic jokes the cat girl that had been sitting down in a chair gets up.
I guess she must be serious about this whole thing. Hmm, but her face would say otherwise.
"You ok?" I ask
"Well, we never did figure out how I was going to leave."
I was about to ask her how she managed to get out at night the first time I met her but stopped myself. I'll just fix the problem instead of listening to it for 10 minutes.
"What's stopping you?"
She pulls out her residential card.
It was this re-'" I take it from her.
I examine the card-looking thing. I had assumed it was made out of plastic but the material was much rougher. Not like it mattered, it doesn't stop me from doing what I want to.
After finding a small shiny part on the card I carefully take it out. It tries to stay in the card but I was eventually able to take it out with some struggle.
"As easy as it always is," I say as I hand the card to her.
"Wha-? It's like good, good?"
"Yea that's normally what they use."
I try to walk past her casually but she stops me.
"I thought Marissa said you or Ren never got one of these."
"We didn't or at the least, we didn't get one from your town."
"Does that mean you got one at..umm?"
"Yup ours was a bit different but they're used for the same thing."
"I see…"
Mara stands there for a few moments doing nothing. I almost think we're going to have a part two of what happened the other day but Mara suddenly shakes her head.
"In that case, let's go then". She says as she drags me out the door.
I almost thought our walk through the allies would be silent but not soon after Mara starts asking questions.
"So this will work right?"
"Yup"
"But I can still do whatever I want"
"Yup"
Mara looks at me with an annoyed expression after my second reply. She must be getting annoyed with my basic replies but it's kind of her fault for talking to me in the first place.
Finally, we walked out the gate to the town, or at least I thought we did. I look behind me to see Mara standing at the gate. Is she scared?
"You're really sure right?" she says hesitantly.
"Really really"
After standing there for a moment Mara takes a step outside the gate then a big step then a… Run?!
"Ummf" I let out as I get basically tackled.
Thankfully I regain my footing and don't fall.
"So when do we start?"
Start? Start what? At least give me a sec to recover from this attack. Ok, what did we come here for? Magic? No, that's her thing? Slimes? Slimes!
I get free of the monstrous hold I had been in and confidently walk farther from the town in the slime field. And for a second I take in the scenery.
Once again like many times before I find myself in the chilling cold of the night. A light breeze makes the short grass flow in its direction. The color is shallowed out in the darkness being a dark gray instead of green.
The moon was absent from the scene tonight but that didn't stop the stars from filling the skies beautifully. The slow hills allowed people to look pretty far off until they were stopped by the human eye.
Once again I stood in this spot like I had many times before…
Strength 85
Speed 114+6
Defense 56
Intelligence 72
Quick learner(Rank E) Advanced Appraisal(Rank E) Stealth(Rank F)
"Akari?"
I turn around and see a normal-looking cat girl.
Don't look at my title by the way.
"This is the spot, sorry for spacing out like that. It might look like a normal field but I guess that's why people say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover."
"Judge a book by its cover? Why do you and your sister always say the weirdest things? Marissa said you came from far away but now I'm getting curious."
"I guess it is"
"Huh?"
"The place me and Ren came from probably is pretty far away Or maybe it's not who knows."
"You know I've never heard of a place called Earth before."
"Yup makes sense. Thinking bout it I probably know a lot more than you."
"Huh?! What's that supposed to mean?"
"Don't take it as an attack it's just a difference in where we come from"
I let Mara be confused for a while as I don't have the energy to explain it all to her. I stop on top of a small hill in the field and wait for Mara. Once she's right next to me I gesture to a spot and make her stand there.
"Ok just wait here for a sec."
"Umm ok?"
I take a few steps back off of the small incline and give her a thumbs-up once I reach my spot. I take a seat on the ground. Hmm, maybe she might need some advice.
"They're weak but don't let them swarm you!"
In return, she turns her head questionably and looks like she's about to ask something when a slime jumps on her.
Cool still got that timing down to a t. Now, where is~?
Looking around for a few seconds I spot a slime coming right at me.
"Hey what's up Kira?"
My slime buddy not having a mouth only jiggles at me probably trying to reply. He then slightly jumps into my lap.
I tell Kira about all the new things that have happened lately and even show him a fireball. It of course didn't get shot off but instead slowly fizzled out in my hand. He acted extremely scared however and took a little bit for him to get used to it.
He also acted weird when I pointed out Mara. I'm not really sure how to put it. I guess he's just not used to other people yet.
After a bit of playing around with Kira and watching Mara, I wait until the first 'wave' is over. I had been planning to step in if anything became too hard for her but she didn't even use any magic. I guess they are just slimes after all.
"Welp that's the first wave down," I say as I pick up loose slime gems.
"First?" Mara says breathing heavily.
"Don't worry you got a bit until the next wave comes."
"But what about the slimes over there and what about the slime on your shoulder." She says as she points out the slimes far away from us and the one way too close.
"Those ones will only run away from you and this one is my friend, Kira"
"Uh, ha."
"In any case, you're ready for the second part of your training."
Mara gives a hesitant nod but a nod nonetheless.
"Cool, just show me your gem."
"Gem?"
Her reply is kinda scary but after showing the back of my hand to show my gem it looks like she realized something. She rolls up her sleeve to reveal a bracelet with a gem in it. Kinda strange that it's not embedded but rather an accessory but whatever.
I take the slime gem and put it into her gem. At first, I was scared her gem was really an accessory but thankfully after a few moments, it starts to glow and consume the slime gem.
"Make sure to do that for a bit. It'll stop working after a while though."
"Woh." She says as she looks at her bracelet.
After doing that I put Kira down on a stump and make sure Mara realized that that's where Kira is. I then head into the forest to do my job for the night. Mara of course wouldn't let me leave without asking way too many questions but I was able to slip away from her.
Sneaking through the forest I check my quest status on finding that village. I feel like I've searched so far in this forest already but I guess not. I get deeper and deeper into the forest until I get to the point where I haven't explored before.
The deeper I get into the forest the stronger and bigger the goblins become so I try to be cautious. My track through the forests takes a bit but I finally reached a point I feel satisfied with sadly not finding the village.
However, that's until I hear some strange noises coming from a bit farther within. Curious, I decided to go a bit farther and good thing I did because once I took a few more steps and moved a bush out of the way.
<"Quest complete, Quest Updated">
I had found the village. Finally!
<" Requirements met reward received">
Reward? Does it mean something changed in my stat panel?
Strength 85
Speed 114+6
Defense 56
Intelligence 72
Quick learner(Rank E) Advanced Appraisal(Rank E) Stealth(Rank F) Mana Consume(Rank C)
Dang, I thought when my pl hit 500 I would have gone up in rank but seeing as I don't really know what either of those means I guess I can't really complain about anything.
Now, what's different? A new skill called? Mana what? I click on the skill to try and figure out more about it.
Big help.
Welp With this done I guess it's time for me to head back. I'll make sure to test out this new skill later and figure out what my new quest is. I just want to make sure everything is still fine between those two.
Thankfully when I return They are both indeed fine. Mara looks a bit tired and Kira doesn't seem to have moved. So I make sure to pack everything up and leave. I say my goodbyes to Kira and me and Mara walk into town.
This time she leaves me halfway from my house and we part ways. Now that I think about it I'm not really sure where her home is. I had always assumed she lived with the witch, I mean Marissa.
Hmm?
I move behind a wall and activate sneak. Peeking down the alleyway to my right is a person. My fear first got to me and I thought it was a guard or that old guy.
But thankfully the more I looked the more I realized that was impossible. The person was a bit shorter than the average person and seemed to have long hair. I eventually realized it was a girl when she started angrily talking to herself.
She almost acted a bit like Ren but uhh, more annoying? I'm just wondering how she can walk around so casually. Did she figure out how to remove the tracker?
Wait a minute is she staring at me? She had stopped talking at some point and must have been looking at me. I'm not too sure when. Isn't the skill sneak supposed to work?
Well, she's not doing anything, she's just kinda stopped walking and is looking at my spot where I was looking at her.
I guess I'll just walk past her? It's not like I want to be standing here and since she already saw me it would be rude to just run away. Right? Is that how it works?
Either way, I decided to step into the alley with the teenage girl in it. I decided to not look at her and almost didn't even acknowledge her. She is most likely more scared than me so I make sure I'm as far right in the alley. Basically touching the wall.
As I walk closer I notice a few things. One, it's definitely not Ren though she does look like someone Ren would hang out with. Same age, style, etc. Two she doesn't look scared exactly but is more looking at me questionably and three-
"Hey."
WHY IS SHE SPEAKING TO ME?!
I turn my head to look at her. I had almost walked past her so we were now side to side.
"Ya know anything about a Fugitive that's selling illegal crystals?"
I shake my head.
"I thought so whatever, just get out of here." She says as she casually walks down the alley.
Taking her words to heart I went back home immediately.
Funny enough that's where I met another teenage girl. This time It's actually Ren.
"Oh, sup Ren, " I say, thanking god that It's actually someone I know.