Arc 2 - Chapter 1: The Hero Archetype (1/4)

"Don't look at me... Don't look at me..."

A human boy and a little girl with cat ears were walking down the street, attracting all eyes. Unfortunately, the reason people were looking at them was not because they were so cute that they both wanted to be kissed, but because they looked dirty enough to be thrown in the garbage can.

"These are the stains of my sin."

Yu was about to cry. He would rather people saw him naked than like this. His hands trembled and he bit his lip because he looked like a dirty person in the eyes of others. His gaze was focused on the ground. He was too ashamed to lift his head.

"If only the sun hadn't risen," Yu mumbled his meaningless wish. If it hadn't dawned, he wouldn't have found anyone to buy his phone and they would have continued to walk around with no money.

Night had never been in this part of the city. In the daylight the city was bustling with life, people was coming out of everywhere. Perhaps Yu was walking in the most crowded part of the city.

He wanted to look up and look around carefully, but the fear of meeting someone's eyes prevented him from looking up. He walked briskly, eager to find a place where they could clean up. The last time he had felt this kind of stress was when he was taking an exam in elementary school.

"Don't look at me, assholes..."

Anger began to replace shame. It was surprising that he had never been stopped and questioned by a policeman.

He actually understood people staring at him. On a normal day, if Yu saw a filthy person like him walking down the street, he would turn and take one look and then curse and accuse him of being uncivilized. Now the fact that he was that person hurt his ego.

Out of the corner of his eye, he looked at the little girl and saw that she was also uncomfortable, but she was ignoring people's stares because there was more pain in her heart.

"Even though I'm the reason she's upset, look at the things I think. I hate myself."

People stepped out of the way to let Yu and Neko pass, so as not to touch them as they came at them. Others covered their noses or even created an exaggerated distance between them.

"There's an inn there," Neko looked up briefly and gestured to a large building.

"How do you know?"

"It's written on the signboard."

"Oh, uh, yeah," he looked up to where Neko was pointing and saw a three-story building, bigger than most of the buildings they had seen.

There was a huge sign on the building and Yu couldn't read what it said. "It doesn't look difficult to learn, it reminds me of the Latin alphabet." The writing on the sign looked a bit like runic, a bit like Cyrillic and mostly like the Latin alphabet.

The door to the inn was open and as the two of them entered, first a few eyes, then all the eyes in the hall turned on them. Yu clenched his fist when he noticed the eyes.

"It would be nice if they all died."

They were staring in disgust, covering their noses. Yu could take it, but when he saw a pair of pitying eyes, he felt the urge to beat someone up.

"This is not a dump, come out you assholes!" A large bald man sitting at one of the tables stopped eating and after finishing his drink in one gulp, he stood up and threw the wooden cup in his hand at Yu.

Before the cup hit Yu, Neko raised a hand and surrounded them with a wall of wind. The cup hit the magical wall and the wind blew it to pieces and scattered it around.

"F-fuck..." The man was astonished to see the cup he had thrown shatter in the air. 

"Low lifestyle, there are other ways to commit suicide." There was no emotion in Neko's voice, but it was enough to put him in his place. If Neko hadn't had a bad day she probably wouldn't have let him sit as if nothing had happened.

"She protected me." Yu didn't think he would be protected.

"O~kay, what's going on here?"

A blonde elf came running up and greeted Neko and Yu with a terrible expression on her face. It was of course the sight of Yu and Neko that made the cheeks of the elf's beautiful face harden and her forehead wrinkle.

"How can I help you?"

"We want a room with a bathroom." Although he had always been careful with his money and avoided unnecessary expenses, he would keep the room as long as it had a bathroom, no matter how she priced it.

"Nightly or weekly?"

"Monthly."

They might have to stay in Rolderhelm for at least a month while Yu acclimatized to the world and found a plan for their future.

"The ones with baths are for one person, I only have two of them left. Together they are worth twelve gold pieces, including food."

"I said whatever the price was, but this seems a bit much."

He had made fifty gold coins for selling his phone, which was normally twelve gold coins. When Yu realized he was being ripped off, he convinced the seller to raise the price by showing off the different features of the phone.

"How much does it cost if it's one room but we are eating for two?"

"We're in no position to bargain!" Neko punched Yu's arm. "And why should I stay in the same room with an asshole like you? You'll get me a separate room."

"Sorry, twelve gold coins is too expensive." Perhaps by the city's price standards, ten gold coins might have been a reasonable price, but not by the standards of Yu's wallet.

"Get two rooms!"

"I'm sorry, I apologize." He didn't want to run out of money later. "How much for one room?"

"The price of a single room is four gold pieces, and if you buy food for two, it's eight gold pieces," said the elf in the shuffle.

Yu turned his back to the onlookers, but there were onlookers in front of him, so he brought Neko in front of him and took out eight gold coins from his gold pouch.

"T-thank you..." the elf had a bittersweet smile on his face. When Yu put the coins in her hand, she looked as if she would never use that hand again. "What is your name?"

"Yu Valarfin."

"You can enter the room on the top floor with the number twenty-four on the door." The elf handed Yu one of the keys hanging on the wall behind the reception desk. "We'll carry the hot water this time."

"Thank you."

As Yu and Neko climbed the stairs, the elf behind them began to scold the man who had thrown the glass at Yu.

"Come in," said Neko. 

When they reached the third floor, Yu stopped and looked at the symbols carved on the doors of the rooms on the floor. They must have been numbers, but they meant nothing to Yu.

"What are you waiting for, idiot, come on, move." Neko was getting annoyed at Yu's stopping and waiting.

"Which one is number twenty-four?"

He didn't know where to go. "I should have remembered the symbol where the woman took the key." Again something he didn't want to happen had happened, he had seemed ignorant to Neko. "But she would have found out sooner or later."

"Look, you can't be illiterate, can you? You can't be that ignorant? You're making our situation hopeless, who am I going on the road with?"

Yu liked it when Neko used the word 'we', but he was also angry at being insulted.

"I just don't know the alphabet of this country."

"Then what are you doing here? ARE YOU HERE TO BE A NUISANCE TO US!"

When Neko raised her voice, Yu stepped back and his back hit the railing of the stairs. If he hadn't caught the railing with his hand at the last moment, he would have lost his balance and fallen down the stairs.

Yu had disliked people shouting at him since he was little. When someone yelled at him, instead of getting angry, he felt sad and hesitated to speak. This was because of a few adults who gave him a hard time when he was little.

Of course, it was Neko's superhuman strength that scared him now, rather than the bad memories of his past. It made Yu feel even more inferior that a child could scare him like that.

"Half a day ago I was looking in the mirror and saying how great I was, and now look at me."

One day was enough to change people.

"I just don't know!"

If he let the girl get on top, it could create a subordinate-superior relationship that he would never be able to break. When he realized this, he thought it might help to raise his voice a little.

Neko was frightened when Yu suddenly raised his voice. It was not Yu she was afraid of, but the reaction she had not expected. Since Yu had suddenly frightened her, she clenched her fist and prepared to hit Yu.

"Which room is ours? Show us so we can wash up."

Neko relaxed her clenched fist in frustration. "That one," she led the way, stopping in front of the door in the center of the hallway.

"Don't ever raise your voice to me again, stupid human."

"Okay."