A Fluffy Friend

"Haaaa, haaaa, haaaa!"

'Run, run, run!'

That was the only desire and thought I had as my body groaned in protest from exhaustion, my lung feeling like they were burning. No matter how far I or how long I ran, I couldn't escape for what seemed like an eternity.

Tears formed in my eyes before slipping away as I ran.

"I just wanted to expwore the human's city, what did I do wwong?"

Regardless of my cries, I knew that I wouldn't end up in one piece if I was caught despite my young age.

So I kept running and running, trying to escape. But my luck appears to have run out, as I soon ended up at a dead-end.

Turning around, I faced my pursuers with fear paralyzing me. Towering over me, their dark figures looming closer and closer as they reached towards me with their giant hands.

'BIG SIS, HELP!'

Despite my plea for my sister to help, the giant hand approached closer and closer until I was enveloped in darkness.

"Ah!"

My eyes shot open as I gasped for air, unfamiliar sights and smells assaulting my senses.

*Ba-dump ba-dump, ba-dump ba-dump*

"Ha, ha, ha."

My heart was palpitating wildly as I took rapid breaths of air.

I shook my head in an attempt to shake off the sleepiness.

As my breathing and heart rate were calmed down, I tried to get up before realizing that I couldn't move my body.

"?!"

Panic ensued before I realized what I was wrapped in.

'A twoel?'

"Zzz…"

I twisted my head to look at the source of the sound.

"Hiiieeeeek!"

A human was sleeping right next me!

Startled, I tried to get up to run but my legs refused to do what I wanted.

Panic was starting to spread again within me before I slowly remembered what happened before I fainted.

Looking around, the room seemed to be what a normal human room would look like. At least, it didn't look like any of the rooms big sis described to me if I was caught by the bad guys.

While I was observing the room, I flinched when I noticed the human boy starting to wake up.

***

"Huaaaaah!"

Stretching while yawning, I sat up from my bed.

'That was a nice nap…'

As I was about to get up from the bed, I turned my attention back to the fox I had picked up from the streets.

The towel burrito I had wrapped her in was messily broken out of, while the fox in question was sleeping, or rather pretending to.

"Heh."

I was slightly amused as it reminded me of my younger siblings at the orphanage and how they would pretend to sleep after being caught up after curfew. You could always tell because of how tense their body and eyes were.

But then I remembered that she was probably still afraid of her new surroundings and sighed.

Giving her one gentle rub on her head, I then got up from the bed and into the main living room to get something from the fridge.

Opening the fridge door, there wasn't anything much except for some fruit and meat, but I didn't feel like spending a lot of effort to make my meal so I just pulled one out a frozen meal from the freezer.

The one I ended pulling out was chicken alfredo, which I then heated it up in the microwave. While I was doing so, I realized that the fox probably didn't have anything to eat in awhile and pulled out another of the frozen meal.

Going back to my bedroom with a hot bowl of chicken and a plate of noodles, I placed both of them on my desk before heading for the fox.

The fox's ears and nose were twitching from the aroma of the food (which I found cute) and I simply stated as gently as I could,

"I know you're awake. I'm not going to hurt you, here, I brought some food."

With mana essentially augmenting Earth's animals evolution, not only was there an increase of intelligence, but their dietary standards were essentially released from their restrictions. Now, while most mana animals and beasts ate food with mana to grow their strength, their stomachs could now handle regular human food.

No more dogs dying from chocolate, and certainly no foxes dying from chicken prepared for humans.

The fox slightly twitched from my words, not opening her eyes yet as she was probably deciding whether or not to accept my offer of a meal but I guess her hunger won out in the end.

Opening her eyes, she timidly peeked at me and the food on my desk before I heard a stomach growling.

Her ears dropped down while I thought I saw the fox express embarrassment on her face.

Chuckling at her reaction, I went over to her and picked her up as gently as I could, and brought her over to my desk.

Setting her down near the chicken, I waited for her to start eating but she simply stared at me with puppy eyes.

"What's wrong, do you want me to feed you?"

At my question, she gave me a slight nod for confirmation.

Wryly smiling a little, I held the bowl of chicken with my hand while the other fed her pieces of chicken, one piece at a time.

It didn't take long for the chicken to be completely eaten, and the fox still looked hungry.

"You sure are hungry."

Talking to myself, I watched the fox gobble up the last piece of chicken. After doing so, she looked at me as if waiting for more before seemingly realizing that there was no more chicken and briefly glanced at the noodles.

"You want more to eat?"

She nodded her head before quickly changing to a shake. It seems that she realized that I was planning to eat the noodles and didn't want to take my food.

I softly smiled at the fox's thoughtfulness.

"It's alright, I can just make more or get something else."

She looked at me hesitantly.

"It's fine, really."

Reassuring her, I held out a noodle for her to eat with a fork.

She hesitated for a moment before gingerly taking the noodle I offered her. Just like before, she went to town on the noodles like she did with the chicken.

Once she was finished eating, I wiped her face with a napkin before taking her back and tucking her in my bed.

After that, I made myself another frozen meal and ate that before coming back and sitting down at my desk.

Browsing the internet, I decided to start looking for solution for the most pressing issue.

Money.

In order to get stronger, I would need to buy all sorts of supplements as training could only get me so far. Not only were potions and pills that could make me stronger were expensive, so were most useful and powerful items.

I could do some stuff like stocks, but I don't really know how to use money online except for checking out on an online store. I could also sell some of the information I know about the potential future but that could potentially change what happens.

If possible, I didn't want to do anything that would change the future but just me being here probably is an issue already.

'Stocks it is I guess.'

Pulling up the search engine, I typed 'How to invest in stocks for dummies'.

After reading a couple articles, I more or less understood that I could just buy some and wait until the value of them and the company went higher. Then I could either sell the stocks or get paid via dividends.

'Hmm… it should still be happening right now…'

Around this time, the top blacksmith guild 'Mythical Forge' was having trouble due to other competitors. The guild was started by the hero, Hearth, whose speciality lies in blacksmithing and enchanting. But once she went missing after the war, the other blacksmith guilds started to slowly chip away at them until it was at its current state.

Now, the once prestigious guild was about to be disbanded due to numerous debts that piled on because of maintenance cost and fewer costumers over times.

'Mythical Forge', as the name suggests, works with metals that are extreme at the end of their spectrum, such as mythril, adamantium, orichalcum, and others. They usually handled big requests from other tops guilds and even the Alliance before one of the Big Three guilds wanted to buy their crafting methods.

Them denying the offer made caused the guild to support other competing blacksmith guilds and even resorting to underhanded methods such as threats and blackmail. This usually wouldn't be possible but without their Hero's protection, they couldn't put up a good fight with so many going after them.

That is, until the protagonist came in and wanted a weapon made by them. Coincidentally, the guild that was threatening and pressuring Mythical Forge to sell their crafting methods was one of the very same guilds that were responsible for his parent's death.

With a common enemy, they eventually were able to come to an agreement and were able to make the guilds back off thanks to the protagonist. The protagonist then received his own custom made sword and storage ring from the best blacksmith there that also had a stealth rune engraved on it so he could hide it when he went to the academy. The reason being that first year students couldn't have personal weapons on them.

'It's pretty cheap right now.'

Checking the web to make sure, the Mythical Forge indeed was facing problems, along other events.

Looking at their stock prices, they had recently dropped which is a good thing for me.

'Aaaannnd done."

After using a good chunk of my money to buy some of their stocks, I kept the rest for food and other things.

Putting the computer in sleep mode, I turned my attention back to the fox who seemed she was watching me for a bit.

Sitting next to her on the bed, I started talking.

"So, what are you going to do?"

She tilted her head at my question.

"I'm not going to abandon you if you want to stay with me, but going to attend an academy so I would be taking you with me."

Her ears perked up at the mention of an academy, which raised some suspicions but I kept them to myself.

"So, what do you say?"

She sat there for a moment, appearing to contemplate what I had said. But it didn't take long for her to stumble towards me and place a paw on top of my hand.

Seeing her response, I gently rubbed her head.

"If you're staying with me, then do you mind me giving you a name to call you by?"

The fox shook her head.

"Hmm… How about Maple, because of your fur?"

Maple thought for a moment before yipping in approval of the name given, apparently liking it.

Gently but suddenly pulling Maple closer, I held Maple in my arms while patting her.

She yelped out of surprise but calmed down when she realized I just wanted to hold her.

I think she wanted to get out of my grasp at first, but then let herself succumb to the petting.

We sat there for at least half an hour, enjoying each other's presence.

'Fluffy animals are nice…'