For several days, Kasian had tried to grow closer to Rutina as advised.
After changing his perspective, Kasian could clearly realize that Rutina did not completely hate him.
But apart from that, until now, Kasian had been unable to find a single thing that felt like success.
Because whenever he tried to approach her even slightly, she would often run far away.
And yet, doing exactly as he had heard and simply grabbing her felt like something Kasian himself would not do.
“Haa…….”
Anyway, as for what such a Kasian was doing right now.
He had come out to the nearby city of Deuareudim to buy a few things needed from the market.
Alone.
Until now, whenever he had wandered around inside a city like this, he had always gone around with his master.
Hearing that he should go alone all of a sudden, Kasian felt slightly disappointed yet somewhat pleased at the same time.
Because it felt like he was now being recognized as no longer just a child who needed protection.
And he was handed a pocket full of silver and copper coins, and told that if money remained after shopping, he could spend some of it as he wished.
Together with instructions to return before the sun crossed beyond the horizon.
Kasian did not know for sure, but he wondered if this was what liberation felt like.
“Uh, so……. Thirty Fire Cactus fruits, and also three pieces of Desert Sheep hide, and also…….”
Carrying a backpack larger than his own body, Kasian wandered here and there through the market, and first bought the cactus fruits that happened to be right before his eyes.
And right there, he opened the entrance to put them into the backpack.
“……!!”
Startled out of his wits, he did not even put the fruits in and immediately closed the entrance.
The fruit vendor looked at Kasian as if to ask what was wrong, but Kasian had no time to care about such gazes.
Kasian first stuffed the fruits through the gap of the backpack entrance so that the inside could not be seen, then went straight into a deserted alley nearby.
And when he set the backpack down and slightly lifted the entrance.
“Qui?”
Among the cactus fruits, there was Rutina, tilting her head and looking up with eyes that said she did not know what was going on right now.
“Haa, now that I think about it, you sometimes went inside my backpack to sleep…….”
Usually she slept under the table in the room where Master and Iriana stayed, but occasionally she would go inside Kasian’s large backpack.
It must have been because the backpacks Master and Iriana carried were smaller than his, making it uncomfortable to move around inside them.
Kasian slightly reached out his hand, gesturing for her to stay quiet.
He did not know if Rutina understood, but she at least seemed to know that she should not come out right now.
Letting out a sigh, Kasian closed the backpack entrance and began wandering the market again.
He bought leather and put it in, as well as dried fish and ground grain flour, and though he did not know why it was needed, he also bought some sand-like substance contained in a bottle.
As the space inside the backpack gradually narrowed, Rutina made sounds as if she were uncomfortable, but it could not be helped.
It was because there were more things to buy than expected.
Since she was indeed having quite a hard time, meaning to cheer her up, he bought a fresh fish that seemed to have been caught nearby and fed it to her as a present.
“You eat well…….”
“Quit, qu…….”
Kasian could not help but find it amazing as he watched her swallow it whole without hardly chewing.
After buying all the items written on the paper like that, the money had decreased considerably, but there was still some to spare.
Above all, there was still plenty of time, enough that the sun was still past its zenith.
In a situation where he only needed to return before sunset, with so much laid out before him, there was no way he could go back now.
Since it had come to this, Kasian decided to look around here and there as he pleased.
First, he bought a yellow fruit he had kept his eyes on while wandering the market earlier and bit into it.
“Ah, it’s sweet!”
A sweetness he could almost never enjoy normally filled Kasian’s mouth.
The chewy texture that was elastic yet softly crumbled when bitten with his teeth was also interesting.
He did not particularly like sweet things, but since it was hard to taste such a thing except at times like this, he had to enjoy it while he could.
While eating, he occasionally remembered Rutina eating fruit as well, so he reached his hand behind his back and held the fruit out to Rutina through the gap in the backpack.
Then, he felt a slight vibration in his hand and heard a very small “Quieet” sound.
When he pulled his hand out, as expected, there remained a bite mark exactly the size of Rutina’s mouth.
“If only you were this obedient normally…….”
Kasian stuffed the remaining fruit into his mouth in one bite and continued wandering here and there.
At a place where many statues were gathered, for some reason he could also find a statue resembling a blacksmith named Kunroteu whom he had met last year.
He had not been much of a believer, but thinking he had wanted to go in at least once, he entered a church, looked around, and came out.
Even after that, quite a lot of time seemed to remain, so Kasian went deeper into the city.
Of course, it was not as if he went deep into some slum.
No matter what, Kasian did not want to enter such places.
Instead, the place Kasian wandered around could be called the border area of that slum.
The reason he had come all the way to such a place was purely because he was slightly curious about how other people lived.
He and Iriana had obtained the fortune of being taken in by a master, but he did not know what it was like for others.
As he was going along like that.
A young girl with short orange hair appeared from between the narrow alleyways.
She was shorter than Kasian, roughly about the same height as his master, and her body was emaciated.
Her clothes were ragged patches that could not be compared to Kasian’s own, and her hair was unkempt and messy.
“U-um, traveler brother! We need one more person here, can you help?”
The girl approached Kasian right away, grabbed his arm, and spoke.
Kasian worried for a very brief moment, then nodded at the thought that helping people was a good thing.
“Ah, this way, we need to lift something heavy but we’re short on people…….”
As Kasian followed the chattering girl deeper into the alley, a dilapidated house appeared at the end.
It looked as if some demolition work was going on.
As Kasian was led by the girl’s hand into the house…….
There was no one, nothing there.
It was only dark without any light at all.
“Hey, what in the world is this place…….”
The moment he opened his mouth to ask the girl, Kasian felt a threat almost instinctively and turned around.
“What!”
It was dark so he could not see well, but what entered Kasian’s vision was clearly something being swung.
The problem was that he had been careless and was not using any magic, so his body reacted too late.
―――Pwaack!!
A wooden club struck Kasian’s temple hard.
“Guah……!!”
Kasian let out a small scream and staggered.
Perhaps because he had been zapped with lightning day in and day out, he had more than enough tolerance for pain, but he could not stop his brain from shaking.
However, even while being suddenly ambushed, Kasian calmly reached behind his back to draw the staff there.
Only then did he remember that he had not brought his staff today, thinking it might get stolen.
“Damn it……!!!”
While Kasian could not respond in time, follow-up strikes rained down on his head.
“Urrk…….”
Kasian lost consciousness and collapsed just like that.
―――Quieet, Quiee!!
―――Look at this, it’s a winged lizard!
―――Move this one too, along with this guy. It’ll sell for a lot…….
Beyond his fading consciousness, Kasian could only see Rutina struggling while caught in a large hand and being dragged somewhere.
◇
“Urgh…….”
When Kasian opened his eyes again, it was no longer inside that dark building from before.
A cold floor was felt beneath his body, and through eyes whose focus had not fully returned yet, iron bars were visible.
Whenever he moved his hands, a clinking sound was heard, and when he raised his arm to check, handcuffs were fitted on his wrists.
When he looked down at his body, instead of the clothes he had been wearing, he had been changed into tattered rags.
Also, the backpack he had been carrying on his back was nowhere to be seen.
“What in the world is this situation…….”
As Kasian shook his head and raised his body, he soon realized that place was a prison filled with people.
Inside were mostly children around Kasian’s age; some were sniffling, and some sat still as if they did not even have the energy to do that.
Beyond the iron bars on the opposite side were people who generally looked older than those here, and beyond that too, it was only a little quieter compared to here but largely no different.
Without needing to think long, Kasian realized that this was a place that forcibly kidnapped people and made them into slaves.
He had foolishly been caught and dragged here by a method that only naive people would fall for.
No matter how careless he had been, to be taken down by mere muscle-bound riffraff from a back alley.
Kasian lowered his head in slight shame, but soon his head was filled with another thought.
Would Rutina be safe.
His memory was hazy, but the last thing he could clearly recall was Rutina struggling.
And to find that out.
He just had to check for himself.
When Kasian infused his body with mana, the handcuffs tore away like sheets of paper.
And, grabbing the iron bars with his hands, he forcibly spread them apart with strength.
The face of the guard watching from afar was dyed with astonishment.