Chapter 3: Elle

It was at the break of dawn when he finally saw a gated made by steel bars and connected to a long brick wall on either side of it. If the signboard right in front of him didn't lie to him, he arrived at the small, growing city of Elle.

Lu paused in his tracks and asked, "Hey Esther, do you know what this is?" he showed the "0/8" mark on his wrist.

Esther skipped and hopped her way back to him, and looked at where Lu was staring. "I don't get it, what am I supposed to be looking at?"

"This", Lu pointed at the set of numbers, then quickly tried rubbing it off. Through this, he figured out that it wasn't written in ink because not even a small part of it would come off.

"Are you making fun of me?" Esther furrowed her eyebrows and looked into his eyes.

Lu shook his head. "No, I'm not. You really can't see it?"

Esther looked away, noticing the sincerity of his words. "My first friend is a crazy person! Uwaahh" Lu could feel tears about to fall even without seeing her face.

Panicked again, Lu tried to calm her down. "Hey, what do you know! Why don't we forget about it and move on, shall we?", he said and led the way, shaking off the previous topic.

Thankfully, the little naive girl just went along with it as if nothing happened a moment ago.

As he they drew closer to the city gates, Lu worried he was yet again going to be persectued for the color of his features.

Thinking of the same thing, Esther ran up to a small rock and tried to pick it up. However, it only phased right through her so instead she scratched her head and pointed at it. "Smash this and put it on your hair", she said. "Black hair bad, right?"

Lu summoned his feathers and sent their steely sharp heads to converge on the poor stone. He used the fine powder to cover the darkness of his strands and put a piece of the rock in his pocket for later. He felt the magnitude of having black hair and eyes when even a spirit fox girl knew about what it is. Then again it begged the question.

"You knew about it?" Lu asked.

Esther nodded cutely and smiled.

Lu raised his eyebrow, "Why did you want to be friends with me then?" he asked. He was about to add "Didn't your parents teach you about stranger danger" but retracted his tongue before it added any more due to how messed up it would be if he did, so he left it at that. Instead, he added after a long pause, "Don't you think it's bad?".

She shook her head. "I've heard your kind eats other humans, but I'm not a human, am I? I can't even pick up a rock".

Lu laughed a little, "I guess you're right" he said after, then looked at his hand and told himself in his thoughts.

Eats humans, huh.

Lu gained a little more understanding of the gravity of his situation even more, and thought of the old man he met even kinder, to be able talk to him up close despite his appearance. He was also releived that he didn't think of people when he was starving, which proves to himself that he isn't one of those "aurums".

Amidst his thoughts, a silly question presented itself in Lu's mind and he turned to Esther once more. "Wait, if you just go through things, how can you walk on the ground?"

Esther stared at him blankly and blinked twice. "Oh. That's because I float" she levitated and sat cross-legged on nothing mid-air.

Such disappointment had never taken over Lu's face before. "Then why do you even walk!?" he shouted.

"Oh come on, don't sweat the small stuff!" she said as she smiled playfully, hop-skipping her way away from him.

Lu sighed. Indeed, why she walks is no longer his major concern, he thought. What's important is to get to a functioning society to increase his chances of survival and conceal his colors, in his physical and mana forms.

Esther phased through the gates, "Now just pass through here and you'll be meeting her soon...", Esther said. After a few meters in and noticing that Lu isn't with her, she stopped and looked back, "Aren't you coming?".

"I am" Lu said.

Esther tilted her head, "What's wrong? Aren't you excited?" she asked.

"No, it's just that..." Lu pointed to the crisscrossed steel.

"You... don't like hard things?" Esther asked.

Lu winced and tried again. "No, I-"

Esther tilted her head the other way. "So you do like hard things, so much you can't get leave the gate?"

Lu took a deep breath to dispel his irritation from the dense creature. "No", He tapped on the gates using his index.

"You... like the sound?" she asked.

Lu supressed his angry shout and only a soft growl came out. He slammed his head on the iron bars to show Esther that he can't phase through and hoped she'd finally get it.

"Oh, you're ummm.... what do they call that again?" She looked up trying to remember a word. "Oh, an idiot!".

Lu had to hold in another scream while bashing his head multiple times, and fast. He wanted to shout how one of them wasn't very bright. However, it was hard to tell when he was the one hitting his skull with the gate for no better reason.

"Oii! Why are you causing a ruckus at such an early hour?" a man dressed in armor appeared. He was dressed in leather from mask to boots, holding a polearm like an underfunded militia in the medieval ages.

Lu apologized, "Sorry, I just thought I... umm.... arrived too early" he smiled innocently.

"Oh no~ I bet he's angry. Maybe because someone was smacking his own head on that hard thing there. Why would you even do that? I won't judge if that's your thing, but if you wanna tell me that's okay too" Esther teased.

Lu wanted to verbally scold his companion, but it would be unwise to speak to something that's not there, at least to most. He did his best to keep his irritation to himself and act cool as a vein almost popped in his head.

"What is your business here?" the man asked and unlocked a small part for him.

Lu entered, pat his clothes, and his head to check if it was still shaped the same, but not so much that he would shake off the powder on his hair. "I am in need of shelter. Is it okay if I live here?".

Lu didn't come to a town without a goal in mind. The black-haired woman is a mere bonus to him because he knew it was nigh impossible that it would be Leila, and his main objective is to find a functioning society where his chances of survival is increased exponentially. The first thing he wanted in this world is to live.

The man shrank his eyes to slits, carefully examining him from head to toe. He even walked around Lu in circles, observing him down to the last detail. He even got himself extremely close with eye contact, likely inspecting the darkness in his jetblack eyes. After he was satisfied, he shrugged.

"You will be asking that question in the town hall, not to me" he said then he returned to his seat inside a hut made of wood and gray stone bricks.

He took a step forth, and sunlight slowly revealed the appearance of the houses and other structures. He observes that the housing and other buildings were fashioned the same way the guard's hut did.

The architecture was different from the first city, but the materials used were pretty much the same. Gray stone bricks and whatever the stones didn't make up, wood did. Every building was unique yet also are themed in one and the same way.

Stone-laid paths extended through the streets, and well-tended grass swept through where there isn't a path.

The yellow lamps similar to lamp posts, were turned off one by one and people have started their day, coming out of their houses, opening their windows, shops, and whatnot. He noticed that there are no borders between houses, only a little space in between and another house erected beside it. Lu wondered if crime was actually existent in the city. Then again, he was reminded that if the governance is good, then there is no need for crime because it is only one in a billion that someone would want to commit a crime for the sake of it.

"Spacing out aren't we?" the little ghost girl grinned. "Come on, she's just over there" she pointed a finger at the higher parts of the town.

They climbed up to it and found a town square, with a beautiful statue fountain in the middle, people walking around, benches littered on the edges, and people spread like ants. Lu followed Esther to the middle, then started looking around him for a lady with black hair.

"Where is she?" Lu asked. His heart was beating miles per hour as he felt that he would see her anytime soon.

"Are you still an idiot? She's right in front of you" Esther giggled.

Lu focused on whatever he could see and scanned all the people in front of him but did not find even a hint of darkness anywhere. When he looked up, he was confused to see what he wanted to see, but not exactly.

An unmoving, lifeless lady on top of a stone-laid dome with liquid dripping from her hands, accumulating into the pool below her, joining the metal objects Esther said would be there.

"Huh" Lu breathed out. "Coins".