"They passed from here. It seems like they're going to the forest out there," says the villager while pointing to the west where a small forest is located about where the bandits are.
I actually started searching with Lina for hints about where the bandits we're meant to catch are the next day. We have asked multiple people, and I suppose we got our answer now—they are in a small forest located to the west of Goldmere. They're popular in these areas and even a bit in the city. Also, this is my first time working with someone, and it's pretty good. Talking with her isn't really bad, but I try to keep my distance from her. I'm grateful she realizes that and keeps a distance between us. I'm lucky this is my first partner ever, but this is our only mission together, so we'll be nothing but past comrades after this.
We started exploring the forest, making sure not to leave any trace. We don't want them to know we're here. I'm surprised Lina can keep up with me, as we're traveling using mana on trees to not be noticeable. This place is small anyway, so we'll be done checking everything out before we get tired. I learned more about her in this small journey together, like how she got caught up in the incident of demons leaking, and that she's slightly older than me—she's 15, and I'm 13. She said her whole village got wiped out. That's miserable, yet she's still acting like nothing happened. She's really strong mentally, but when she told me that, I realized how much impact my failure in stopping Edward had on people. A lot of people lost their beloved ones because of my failure. That's a fact. If I was just a little stronger... I would've helped a lot of people live the happy life they deserved.
After just a couple of minutes, we were already seeing a lot of hints that people had passed through here not long ago—7 people, probably. So we decided to search more in the nearby area, and we found them. There is just the number of people we thought there would be. They're using their clothes to hide their faces, so I think this is our only chance for now. Lina started whispering to me:
"Hey, you're stronger than me and they don't know you, so go meet them. When they try getting closer to you, start attacking them. I was able to beat all of them before, but now they'll run the same moment they see you're dangerous. So if anyone runs away, I'll make sure to kill them."
A pretty reasonable plan. I nodded to her, and then she whispered again while having a sarcastic smile on her face:
"Try hiding that you want to kill them. I'd get scared even if I wasn't an enemy with that look of yours."
I sighed, and she apologized then said she was just kidding, adding that last comment was just useless. I don't like to be insulted anyway like any regular human being, and so we proceeded with our plan.
I went down from that tree and started walking toward them. I tried softening my expression as much as I could. They noticed me instantly, and then I asked one of them in a small, cute voice:
"Mister, do you know where the closest village is?"
"Oh! Yeah, I do. Also, you should know a cute girl like you shouldn't be going alone in a forest. Come with me, I'll take you somewhere safe," he said with a weird look on his face while trying to put his hand on my face.
What a disgusting human being. Screw this plan, I'm killing this motherfucker here and now. I got my sword out at the same moment his hand touched my face, cutting it. He screamed in pain just as he deserved. Then two of his comrades attacked me as well—one of them used an axe, and the other used smoke magic trying to choke me. What a decent power for an indecent human. I dodged that and attacked them with fire magic, burning their whole bodies. Lina was taking care of the other three, so I decided to come back to that disgusting fraud. As soon as I looked straight into his eyes, he started to get up on his feet to flee, but I cut his leg too when he got up. He started crying, begging me not to kill him. I don't care, and I won't care. I said to him:
"You're lucky I won't torture you before killing you."
And when I was finally going to end him, someone pushed me with all their might to the ground. I looked up and saw Lina. What is she doing?
"What the hell are you thinking about? I've been screaming, asking you continuously not to kill him. Do you know how bad it actually is to kill someone, even if they did bad things?"
What she was saying was true. I screwed up, and she had no choice but to stop me, giving the 4 remaining bandits the chance to escape. And for some reason, my body gave in. It's like it was ready to get punished for the bad thing it did. I don't know why, but I closed my eyes, ready for whatever Lina was going to do.
"But no problem, we can use these three ones we catch to get to the others. I understand why you did that, so there is no point in blaming you."
I don't understand. She could've hurt me as a punishment. She could've at least scolded me. Then why did she act so kindly to me? There isn't any bond between us. We're not family. We just knew each other a couple of hours ago. Then why—why is she so kind to me? I will never understand this girl.
We decided to tie down the three bandits we caught using a magical technique Lina knew, and then sleep. After all, the sun was setting, and searching in the dark would be just too dangerous. Or so we said in front of the bandits, as we purposely made the magical technique weak and then acted like we already fell asleep when we were actually awake just waiting for them to run away.
A couple of minutes later, we started hearing some footsteps. In the meantime, we got out of our tent to see the guy whom I heavily injured was still there. It looks like they abandoned him. Lina looked at him miserably and said:
"Oh, what a poor soul! It's obvious you're not so bad. You were forced, right? You needed money, right?"
"I don't think so. Now can I torture him?" I responded to her words.
"NO! What do you think we'll face if you killed him? He's still considered a member." I nodded, then started following the escaping guys after Lina strengthened the technique she used before. I don't really understand her kindness. She isn't someone who's so dumb that she thinks everything is just colors and rainbows. She knows how cruel life is, yet she's still kind—even to that disgusting bandit. The reason she stopped me wasn't mainly because of the impact of killing him, but as an act of mercy on him. I don't really understand. I don't even understand why I was just as kind as her in my first life too. It's something illogical yet still understands her viewpoint a bit.
After just some minutes of following their trail, we found all the remaining members. They are all hiding in a cave, which made trapping them an even easier task. So we entered it. It's tight, making it even better. They noticed us after a couple of minutes. They knew they had only one choice, and that was to fight. It looks like the boss of these people attacked me and the other healthy three attacked Lina. I guess he's pretty confident in his ability, as he is massive and very muscular and had a big sword as well. He tried slashing me, but I slashed back and ended up cutting his sword in two. it didn't have any mana in it, so this was easy. And before he could try anything else, I cut his hand and leg. Not a lot of people can match my swordsmanship, as it's above the level of most high-level grandmasters. Anyways, I noticed that Lina had already ended her fight with minimum damage to her enemies, just catching them in her technique, which looked like a blue rope that surrounds the victim's body. This looks like a pretty useful technique. Anyway, we got the criminals to join their disgusting companion, and just when I was going to sleep, Lina said to me, whispering:
"Wanna watch the sky tonight?"
"WAIT, is it today? Purple, right?" I said in surprise, and she nodded.
"Well then okay, I would like to," I responded to her earlier request.
So in general, this is related to how time works in this world. Each year here has 400 days, and each season has 100 days. So the months in this world are basically seasons. In the night between each season, the sky turns into a color that shows what season is coming. Purple represents winter, green represents spring, yellow for summer, and orange for autumn. The ordering between the seasons is the same as in my last world, and each year starts with autumn. Now winter is about to fully start. The thing I'm going to do starting now is follow the timing of this world. Ever since I was born here, I counted years using my old time system. From now on, I'll follow this world. After all, everything that happened before was just an opportunity for me to grow anyways, or that's how I wish to see it.
I laid down on the ground filled with grass next to Lina. We kept talking about random things for hours, something rare for me to do. And then, the sky coloring thing happened. It's like the sky didn't fully turn purple but got a bit of the color in it—the same as how the full moon affects the normal night sky but with a bit more effect. And as I'm enjoying this beautiful view, Lina said to me:
"Do you have any goal right now you want to achieve no matter what?"
"The thing I wanna do right now is find a certain person, but this person probably already got out of the continent. So I guess my current goal is to get out of Luthara."
"Hmm, and why is it that you want to find this certain person?"
"Um... I'll leave this story for another time. Now I think it's time to sleep," I said as I started getting up.
"No! That's not fair. I'm curious right now..." she protested, but before I went into the tent, she completed what she was saying but in a serious voice:
"Do you realize how much it costs to get out of the country?" I looked back at her and then said:
"No, but I got a lot of coins. I doubt it'll.."
"100 thousand gold coins."
I started walking towards her.
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what you heard. Going anywhere outside of the continent takes at least 100 thousand gold coins. The royal family wants to stop commoners from getting out of the country, so the way they'll make it sound fair is that it's 100 thousand gold coins."
"But... even nobles can't afford that..."
"Yeah, but they can take permission from the royal family, and they'll get out easily."
I'm shocked. Even with all the money I have, that is still nowhere near enough for me to get out. This would take a couple of years of working constantly on the most dangerous missions. And with the money he got from the demons, he can afford everything. So... I have no chance of catching up to him, I'm living in a delusion while he doesn't even care about me, if he wanted me to actually meet him, he would've gave me a way to follow him and.. No need to overthink it now, I'll confront him no matter what and then decide what to do.
"Don't worry. I'll help you get the money you need," she said while smiling warmly.
"Thanks for your help," I said after lowering my gaze. After all, I'm grateful to her.
"No need, that's what friends do anyway, right? They help each other out," she said with a gentle, soft voice.
"Yes," I said as I turned back to the tent to get some rest. After all, I don't believe this, and I don't want to believe it anyway.