Oldest

After I packed my gear and gathered the two Qrells that I caught, I made my way back into town. A big [OHDA] sign appeared in the sky above the town gate. The forest that I was hunting in was only about five minutes away from town, but the sign always showed itself to anybody approaching the gate.

I haven't had the opportunity to travel to any other town, but I assume this effect happened everywhere.

I approached the local tanner who doubled as the town butcher on slow days.

"Ryuu! How goes the hunt today?" Pon, the tanner beamed.

As I arrived at his stall, I placed the two Qrells onto the sales bench. He looked over them and then back at me. He sighed as he shared my disappointment.

"Bad day again, I see..." Pon said as he grabbed the corpses and hung them on a hook behind him, "Sorry little man."

"Yeah, it's alright. Better than nothing." I said.

"That's true. You know me, I'll take anything I can get." Pon spoke as he grabbed something from a small sack on his hip. He placed two gold coins down on the sales bench.

He noticed how my mood shifted when I looked at a measly couple of coins and apologised, "I'm sorry, but it's part of our deal remember? One coin for Qrells."

I nodded weakly, "I know. It's just been so long since we've been able to eat meat at the orphanage."

"I mean, you can take the Qrells back if you want to try and get some meat off of it..." Pon offered.

I raised my hands in apology. "No! It's alright. They say that Qrell meat doesn't taste good at all. I'd rather us kids have the usual vegetable soup that we get."

I grabbed the two coins and bowed at Pon. "Thank you! It means a lot that you do business with us!"

As I started making my way to the farmer, I heard Pon's voice booming, "Wait!"

I turned and barely managed to catch the extra coin he flicked to me with my right hand. I bowed again and thanked him profusely. He waved my gratitude away and called out "Have a good night, and say hello to that old coot that looks after you!"

I grinned and waved goodbye.

I visited Farmer Zohei next and got my usual order of a small bag of potatoes and small vegetables. Just enough ingredients to make the vegetable soup to feed everybody at the orphanage.

It didn't take me too long to get back to the orphanage. An old building that was located near the outer edge of town. Officially, nobody owned the building after the original owners died but, during a national war effort that led to the deaths of many conscripted townspeople that created many orphans, the building became the unofficial place to look after the orphans. Ever since then, an elder volunteers to look after the children until they either get too old or get adopted into a family.

I could hear the laughter from some of the younger kids who were playing out the front of the property.

When they noticed me coming, they ran up to me.

"Ryuu's back!"

"Did you have a good day, Ryuu?"

"Once you're done cooking, do you want to play with us?"

I laughed at their enthusiasm and promised them that I would join them once I finished my chores.

As I walked up the stairs to the front door of the orphanage, I saw Obaa-san standing there, waiting for me.

Obaa-san is the current town elder who volunteered to look after the orphanage and the orphans. According to the other townspeople, she's been in that position the longest ever since the death of her children in the war.

"How did it go today, Ryuu?" Obaa-san asked.

My head dropped slightly, "Just enough for soup again tonight. I'm sorry." I said as I raised the bag of vegetables.

Obaa-san looked a little bit disappointed also, but as I gave her the bag of vegetables, I also took out the extra coin that Pon gave me. Her eyes lit up.

"To help with the taxes this month," I said, smiling kindly at her.

She smiled back at me and placed a hand gently on my shoulder.

"Thank you for looking out for us as best as you can."

She placed the coin in a pocket in her coat and as she turned around to go back inside, she said, "Don't worry about making the soup today. I may be old, but I can still do that. Go and play with the others."

"Thank you!" I exclaimed, but before I started running towards the kids out the front, I asked her one more question.

"Have you heard from Kei today?"

Obaa-san stopped in her tracks and her shoulders visibly slumped. She turned to me with an apologetic look, "I'm sorry, but we haven't received anything from him today."

She must have seen the disappointment on my face and added, "he's very busy with his job, you know? Hopefully, he'll reach out soon."

I nodded. She turned and disappeared inside the building.

Kei used to live at the orphanage with us, and when he turned eighteen, he left to follow the career Paradigm thought was best for him. That was two years ago. Ever since then, I've received nothing from him and that troubled me. We were practically brothers.

Don't get me wrong, all of us kids at the orphanage see ourselves as each other's siblings. But Kei and I were different than that. Closer. Nothing inappropriate, of course. He looked after me during my lowest times and rejoiced and supported me during my highest. We were related in every way - in every sense of the word - but blood.

At least that's what I thought.

Even though every time I find out that he hasn't written back I get hurt a little, I still believe that he will someday because without him, I probably won't still be alive today. So, I owe him that benefit of the doubt, at the very least, but it still hurts a little bit.

***

After shepherding the others (especially the youngest ones) to the baths, and ensuring that they do bathe, I went back to the room I shared with two other kids: Gorou and Saito. Both were resting on their respective beds.

I wrapped my arm in a bandage awkwardly as Gorou glanced my way.

"Hey Ryuu," he said.

"Yeah?"

"What happened to your arm again?" Gorou asked.

"I've told you what happened before." I calmly answered.

Saito listened into the conversation at this point and moved on his bed to rest on his stomach, facing mine and Gorou's direction.

"I've forgotten," Gorou said in the most unconvincing innocent voice I've ever heard.

This kid. He might be only ten years old, but he has developed a pretty troubling fascination with gory stories.

"You do know I don't like reliving what happened, right?" I sighed, shooting a glance at Saito to help me out. Saito scoffed and pretended to ignore me, leaving me high and dry.

"It's such a cool scar that you have though." Gorou pressed.

I paused with my bandaging and looked at the scar tissue that was poking out the top of the bandage, a part I hadn't covered yet, in the middle of my upper arm between my shoulder and elbow.

I sighed and I shifted my position to allow him to see it a bit better. The little bastard would just harass me until I told the story anyway. "I got this when I was about Taido's age..." I started.

Both Gorou and Saito inched closer as I started my tale, Gorou was pleased, while Saito was helplessly moved by his morbid curiosity. I don't think he's ever heard the story before since he was the newest kid to join the orphanage.

"One night, my house was attacked by a couple of bandits. I don't remember what happened too well, except for what I've been told by the doctor and neighbours. They managed to get to the house before my mother—"

I cleared my throat. The other kids understood what I had left out.

"Apparently, during the attack, I had stupidly run at one of the bandits..."

I paused.

"...and they swung a rusted sword at me to swat me away. They swung the sword at such an angle that it cut my arm, but because it was such a bad sword, it didn't cut cleanly through."

I shuddered at the little bits of memory that I could remember in the aftermath of the attack.

"The infection that I got from the rusted sword was so bad, they were surprised I survived the fever. And all that's left of that night is the scar that nearly goes all the way around my arm, see?" I twisted myself to show that the scar tissue nearly covered the whole arm.

Saito looked horrified.

"I heard that your arm was hanging on a thread." Gorou ecstatically said.

I frowned at him in disgust and when I looked back at Saito, he looked like he was going to throw up.

"Really Gorou? Do you want to clean up after Saito? It's nearly dinner time as well." I growled at him.

"Really Saito? You going to throw up?" Gorou teased.

"No..." Saito meekly said, covering his mouth.

"Gorou!" I snapped, "apologise to Saito for being so disgusting and go help Obaa-san with the table."

"What?"

"Go."

Gorou grumbled his annoyance under his breath and muttered a disingenuous apology to Saito. Before I could reprimand him, Saito accepted the apology and Gorou trudged out of the room.

After a moment of silence, as I continued to bandage my arm, Saito softly asked, "Is that true?"

The question took me by surprise, "is what true?"

Saito looked down at the ground and almost whispered, "What Gorou said."

"I'm not sure. Like I said, I can't remember what happened. All I can remember was the pain, and I was told that a healing mage from Shinobu City was hired to help out. That's why I can still sort of use my arm now, although it's a lot worse than it used to be." I flexed my left hand at Saito. "I can still hold stuff, but if I strain my arm, it hurts a lot still."

Saito was quiet for a while. He looked very pensive. When we heard Obaa-san call out that dinner was ready, he and I stood at the same time and he softly said, "I'm sorry that happened to you."

I gave him a sad smile and patted his shoulder. "What's done is done."

I squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, "bad things happen to everyone. All we can do is just keep going, you know?"

It wasn't the best thing to say, and I hoped that it still sounded kinda hopeful for Saito.

He looked at me with a weak smile and said, "I guess so," so softly it nearly broke my heart.

***

"Alright everyone, settle down," Obaa-san called out from the kitchen.

There were around eight of us at the orphanage currently, and we all had taken our seats at the table, waiting for her.

She walked carrying the 'soup pot', and when they saw that, the two youngest kids sighed in disappointment.

"Soup again?" Taido, the six-year-old groaned.

"We always have soup." Amana, his twin sister joined.

"Now now, at least it's something," Obaa-san said in a terse voice, "remember that Ryuu works hard every day to get us food for dinner."

Taido turned to me, "Can't you catch something better?"

That remark received a light smack from Obaa-san. "Rude."

If Taido had said this a year ago, it would have hurt my pride, but now it's all just like white noise. I know that they don't mean anything by it. I think they also know how hard hunting is for me with my left arm the way it is.

"This coming from a guy who is too scared to go to bed without leaving a candle lit through the night," Gorou teased Taido back. "If you think you can survive out there in the forest with all the big, scary animals, then you can do the hunting for everyone."

Taido opened his mouth to protest, but Obaa-san spoke first, "Okay, that's enough!"

Taido grumbled under his breath in defeat as some of the other kids sniggered. I patted his shoulder just so he knew that I wasn't bothered by what he said.

As soon as Obaa-san finished serving some soup for everyone, the kids started scooping up the soup with their spoons.

Obaa-san abruptly barked "Hey!"

Everybody jumped a little. She continued.

"What do we do before we eat?" Obaa-san asked.

The kids looked at each other before looking down at their laps in embarrassment.

"Give thanks?" Amana said quietly.

"Exactly. Now, how do we do that?" Obaa-san nodded at Amana.

"Thank you, Obaa-san. Thank you, Ryuu." The kids all say in not-really-near unison.

I chuckled as I grabbed my spoon and said "Thank you for the soup, Obaa-san."

***

That night, I lay on my bed quietly. My Status Window was up on display across the wall next to me. The moonlight seeped through the room's window.

Looking at the moon, I raised my left arm and reached out toward it. The moon looked so free up there in the clear night sky. Able to rest its gaze upon the whole world.

A twang of pain jolted its way down my arm and caused me to bring it down to rest on my chest. I looked at my Status Window and saw:

[ANALYSIS UPDATING...]

I usually do a final scan on my left arm before I go to sleep and my heart sank when I saw the number tick up to 33% after the scan finished.

I swiped away the Window and sighed. I turned on my right side, cradling my arm against my chest.

It was around past midnight now.

Happy birthday to me.

18 years old, the oldest in the orphanage.