Boss

Once they jumped to the city, Sigma saw a lot of people walking around with no apparent purpose, and others were sitting on piles of rubbles while looking dead in their eyes. It looked like they had given up, and they had no reason to live.

Sigma ignored most of them and just kept looking at anyone that looked like Saria. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone who had anything close to red hair.

Eventually, they reached an area where some buildings were still standing, and they found people selling some things like weapons, food, and clothes. Sigma wondered what was the point of money when they barely could survive, but then he noticed that Ed grabbed some stones from his pockets, and they were glowing blue. They seemed to have some magical properties.

"What are those?" Sigma asked.

"You are joking, right?" Sabrina asked since Ed went to trade the stones. "Those are magic stones that we gathered from monsters… we can use them to power some relics. For example, the blacksmiths and the old lady use them to keep his furnace going and to make her crops grow faster. Food created using the magic stones is also rich and makes animals grow faster for meat."

"I see… by the way, why is she always hiding behind you when I look at you?" Sigma asked.

"Eclair is bad with the eyes of strangers… so try to be a bit understanding," Sabrina said.

"Ah, sure…" Sigma said while thinking that such a girl was really a pain in the ass to deal with.

"Let's head to our base. We need to tell the others what we learned," Ed declared once he brought some veggies and chunks of meat. "What are you going to do, Sigma? We are going to help you as much as we can, but the more people you meet, the more chances you will have to find clues about the girl you are looking for, right?"

"... I suppose so," Sigma said while furrowing his eyebrows since it was clear that Ed wanted to make him get involved with the business of that city.

While Sigma didn't have any sense of urgency to help strangers, he felt that ignoring everything would only come to bite him in the back later… helping and being helped probably was his best option. Even more so when he needed to learn more about the world.

"How many more cities are out there?" Sigma asked when they resumed their walk.

"What are we aware of? Around six, we can't tell if there are more since we can only travel without risking too much in a certain area," Ed explained. "We heard some disturbing rumors that most areas were overtaken by monsters and that demons created their own societies as well… still, this continent is relatively small, so the area should be limited."

Sigma wanted to know about the dimensions of that small continent and if there were others… if he didn't find Saria there, he would have to keep going, after all. Now that he thought about it, aside from the fact that she was the key to his lost memories, Sigma realized that he truly wanted to find her. When considering that he might not even recover his memories, he still felt compelled to find her. They probably were siblings or at least cousins…

Eventually, the group reached a relatively tall and large building that also had a massive entrance. Sigma found some armed people in front of it talking with each other, they nodded when they looked at Ed and his sisters, and then they frowned when they saw the stranger that was Sigma.

The group entered the building and found a large hall with some stairs at the end of it. Still, they stopped in the middle of it since a brown-haired woman was lying down there wearing some light armor while playing with some knives. It was quite something since she was using only one hand to throw three knives and rotate in the air. During that, she even yawned.

"Boss, we have returned," Ed said, and then he bowed.

Sigma noticed that the faces of Eclair and Sabrina had become tense, and they kept their heads down. Sigma expected that much, but it seemed that they left the city without permission for one reason or the other.

"... It seems that you all found someone unexpected, or was it the other way around?" The brown-haired woman asked.

The brown-haired woman had shoulder length wavy hair and seemed a bit older than Ed. Despite that, she looked way more experienced than him. To the point that she could read the situation as if it was an open book..

"Are you going to give me the report of your reckless activities?" The brown-haired woman asked.

Ed nodded, and then he began to explain. Sigma decided to pay attention as well since he only knew a part of their history. Apparently, some of their friends were captured in an unexpected area, and they went to search for them, only to find that a lot of bandit groups and demons were pretty close to their territory. They avoided most of them, but when they tried to return to alert of the danger, they were surrounded.

Ed didn't hide anything about what happened and that Sigma found and helped them. She got a bit pissed at their stupidity, but then she looked curious once she heard about Sigma.

"Sigma… that is a weird name," the brown-haired woman furrowed her eyebrows and said. "My name is Rose, and I can't say that I have ever met a redhead woman before."