Φ After leaving Orb, I walk around looking for the Medie shop. While walking around, I repeat the same thing in my head: do your best. After a while, I stop and realise I don’t remember how I got here.

  Freaking out, I try to retrace my steps till I am somewhere familiar, but it is to no avail. So decided to go up and ask someone for dires.

  “Umm, Hel-l-l-llo.”

  “Hello.”

  “D-D-Do you know where the inn with the little fox-x-x-x’s is.”

  The man then looks as if he is thinking and then gives me a set of dires. That went well. I was able to do something to get out of my situation, this is good. So I followed the man’s dires and arrived at the wrong inn.

  Remembering what Zashiki said, I realised the fox spirits should be normal everywhere. I used the wrong spirit when asking for dires.

  As I walk away from the false inn, more lost than before, I start to feel sick. There are so many people all around me. Some are youhan me, and they don’t look nearly as i as me. With my sick feeling stantly increasing, I walk to an alley and kneel down. While in this alley, I feel like I am about to start g. I failed my mission, got sick, and now I am g, “I ’t ge.”

  “You sure are beautiful,” I hear a voice from behind me.

  Turning around, I see someoh a veil on their head with long hair. I try to make out what the person’s face looks like, but the more I stare, the more it seems obscure. However, I tell that she is female by her void build.

  “Sorry, I saw you are walking into this alley about to cry, so I decided to follow. Are you ok?”

  Trying to think of something to say, I stumble over my words stantly aually tears fall from my eyes due to ay. While I cry, I try to stop the tears saying, “S-S-S-S-Sorry f-f-f-for th-h-h-his.”

  Putting her hand on her face, she says “Somehow, you’re even more beautiful when you cry. To think I got to see something this nice so early in the day. I already tell today is going to be a lucky day”. Standing up, she says to me, “Looking at you, I am going to guess what’s wrong with you is that you’re lost.”

  Staring up at her in shock, I say, “Yesh,” with tears still falling.

  “I got it right that was just a guess. Today is a lucky day.” Pulling me up from the floor, she says, “Well, if that is your problem, I one hundred per t help you,” grabbing my hand, we running into the street until we rea area with a giant bnk sheet of paper.

  “Where have you taken m-m-m-m-me?”

  “You uand in a sed.” Looking at the bnk sheet of paper, the woman says, “Gaki chizu tell us where he came from.” The white piece of paper suddenly starts glowing blue and has white markings. Looking closer at the form, it has turned into a map.”

  “The crybaby over there came from here, and you are currently here,” the map says as it makes a marker on the inn locations.

  “So that’s the path you should take.”

  “I pass-s-sed by this map tless times, but I never noticed this. I a-a-a-am pathetic.”

  “Wait, you did.” Looking over at the map, she says, “Gaki, it is your job to tell lost people where to go. What were you doing?”

  “It is just so funny to see people like him have a breakdown after being lost.”

  With eyes full e, she says, “That’s the behaviour I expect from a minus. Maybe you o be exorcised.”

  “Sorry mam, I won’t ever do such a thing again.”

  “I am just twenty-two years old. Do I look like someone you should be calling mam?”

  “Sorry,” The Gaki says, frightened.

  “Even the plus spirits in this city have been being mgressive. What the hell is going on?” Looking over at me, she says, “Now, you should be able to get home.”

  Panig, I try to tell her something, but I keep stumbling over my words. But as I tio freak out, she rubs my head and says, “You slow down. I am in no rush.”

  Calming my nerves, I say, “D-D-D-DO, you know, anywhere I buy medie.”

  “Oh yeah, I happen to know where the best shop in the whole city is,” so grabbing me by the hand, she leads me to the shop.

  As we walk, I say, “Sorry for being so pathetic. I am a failure of an adult.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on yourself? Nobody’s perfect”

  “I know that, but I am below average. I know people who are seven years my younger who are above me in every way. Even though you and I are the same age, I feel pletely inferior to you as an adult. I am just pathetic.”

  “That’s how it may look to you, but I am a retively immature person to people close to me. I might be called a brat for my age. All people are patheti some way that others see clearly or not. Whether you’re an adult or a child, we are all just trying to be our ideal selves.

  So, it doesn’t matter when you reach your ideal but the fact that you get it eventually. A me tell you, the fact that you verbally speak how you feel about yourself makes you a lot more mature than me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You turn the whole stuttering thing on and off.”

  Realising that I had stopped stuttering, I said, “I do-o-don’t know why it just doesn’t happe-n-n-n sometimes.”

  “Well, looks like we’re here. This is the shop you’re looking for. Just go up and talk to them. The owner is quite friendly but a little bit greedy.”

  “H-H-H-How I repay you?”

  “I already told you seeing such a nice face was repayment enough, and helping people enjoy being in my try is a nice bonus.” She then has an expression as if she thought of something. “But if you want to repay me, telling me your name would be nice.”

  “M-M-M-My name is Cyrus.”

  “Mine is Muneko. But shhh, kept that a secret between both of us.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  Muneko walks away from me waving, while saying, “If you need more help, find me. Bye!”

  “Bye.”

  A little bit earlier

  Φ Ever since leaving Cyrus, I have been running around looking for any signs of the Gozens, but it is all to no avail. I have no idea where they could be. I have run around most of this city. I even climbed the buildings to see if I could spot anything. I even tried asking spirits, but they all seemed to just run away with the mention of that name.

  I hope Cyrus is havier luck than me. While walking through the city defeated, I see two members of the twin stars walk out of the forest. You know, a walk through the forest sounds ght now. So, following the passage they came through, I started walking into the woods.

  How wonderful it is. I feel at home surrounded by nature. All that is missing is a ridiculous amount of snow, but I fix that; using my legacy, I create snow all arouhis feels like Fimbulwinter minus the golden tree and predasaurs trying to kill me.

  Walking through the forest, I say, “Nothing bring me down now,” but after looking over in the distance, I see the person with the fox mask carrying a basket.

  The fox-masked person sees me and stops in pce. “Oh, how I have been waiting for this moment,” I say as I lunge forward with my lega. As I approach the fox mask, he throws the basket high into the air and dodges my initial attack. Landing on my left arm, I use my right oo create ice to freeze the person, but using their three tails they break my ice apart. Then I get hit with one of their tails which sends me back. He then catches the basket.

  Regaining my footing from the blow, I lu him again, and like before, they throw their basket into the air, but this time he es at me as well. While arriving at him with a knee, he dodges underh it and manoeuvres himself from my back to the top of my head in seds. While holding on to my hair, he gives me a ko the face.

  I try to use my right hand to freeze him, but he then moves his body over my head while still holding my hair. I feel him turn up there as if he is preparing to knee me iemple. Using my legay hair, I try to freeze his hand, but he jumps off to my right side.

  Moving in close, I enter an exge with him. As I try to hit him, with minimal movements, he dodges even when I throw my ito the equation. We tinue like this until I get a little irritated, but at the moment I do, he gives me an elbow to the stomach, which sends me back slightly, then using his right leg he goes for an axe kick. I barely react fast enough and stop it. But therength in his leg increases so much that it breaks through my guard, hits me, and leaves me in a small crater on the ground. He then moves away to catch the basket as it is about to reach the ground.

  After catg it, he stretches his tails to grab a tree brand pulls his body up to it. While sitting oree branch, the he says in an unnatural voice, “Unless you wao keep kig your ass, you should leave, weakling. I hope you remember my words, trash.” Then he jumps away on the branches

  Ahan ever, I get up then jump on top of the trees to give chase. While trying to close the distance, he uses his tail to ward me off. Uo get close, I stop on one branch.

  Back when I was fighting Porto, I was uo out speed him, which almost led to my loss, so I spent some time thinking how I could get faster without spirit arts, and I came to a clusion.

  So, using my legay feet right before I jump off the branch, I create a rge amount of densed snoropel me forward at high speeds. I move so fast that I tackle the fox boy out of the sky and nd on the ground.

  Looking up, I see we’re in front of a run-down old house, something much smaller and bnd than anything I have seen around Higashinagisa-shi, but ign that, I pin the boy down to the ground and say, “If you want to have such a big mouth you should at least say those mean things to my face.” After saying this I pull the mask off of his face.

  Φ After leaving Muneko, I walked into the shop and talked to the shop owner; an old man. I expio him the situation with the toxins.

  “From how you expihe symptoms, I am not sure what you're dealing with.”

  Taking off some of my clothes, I show him the skin and say, “You check me to have a be-e-e-etter idea.”

  Unsurprised by the fact I am a dragon he examines me and says, “Ok, I have an idea of what will work. But I must order it, which will take a few days.”

  “R-R-R-Really, thank you so much.”

  “Keep your thanks. What I am giving you will only help those with little exposure. Any human who has had whatever is on you run throughout their body will die without a doubt. This stuff will only prolong their lives.”

  With a sad expression, I say, “I see. But still, th-h-h-ank you for this”.

  “Whatever, now for payment.”

  “O-O-O-Oh yeah,” I say while reag hastily into the bag. Money is still so weird to me. Why do humans pay for things? Why aren’t items free like bae? Taking what I believe is a small sum of cash, I y it oable in front of the old man, who has a surprised look on his face. “Is i-i-i-it not enough?”

  “No, it’s fihe man says as he quickly grabs the lupas. It looks like I didn’t embarrass myself, good work.

  While preparing to leave, I see people walk out of the back of the shop with designs in their eyes. They say “Thank you,” when stepping out of the shop.

  “Hopefully, you won’t e again,” the old man says as they leave.

  Before I go, I ask the man, “hat was that design in their eyes.”

  “It’s a soul marker. It is very popur with kids despite them not knowing anything about its history.”

  “What is that, c-c- you tell me?”

  Scratg his head, he says, “I guess I’m not doing anything else. Ok, back thousands of years ago, when the world was a whole lot worse than it is today, people used to travel to fiile nd due to stant droughts and fear of raiders. This meant lots of families had to split up, so soul markers were ied.

  Soul markers are like tattoos on your soul. When two people with the same soul marker meet, a unique mark will appear on their right eye. By doing this, if a family was forced to split up due to circumstances, as long as they had a soul marker and passed it down, if their desdants ever meet again, they would immediately know they are family.”

  That must be what shines in my and Orb’s eyes, but it doesn’t show up all the time when we see each other, “I believe m-m-m-me and my friend have one, but it doesn’t show up all the time. Why would that be?”

  As the old man sits there and thinks about my question, a woman walks out of the bad says, “Father, please don’t burst a blood vessel thinking about this,” turning to me, she asks “, Are you and the friends iion legacies.”

  “Um, yes, we both a-a-a-are.”

  “First, you shouldn’t be admitting that so easily.”

  I put my hands over my mouth when she says this.

  “Sed, since your both have legacies, the reason the marker appears is that both yacies are family members.”

  “F-F-F-Family.”

  “Yes, what are the ces that you both already have legacies, but your they are from the same family? I believe that is what we call fate.”

  Φ When I take the fox mask off, I see the face of the person iion is that of a girl with gold and pink hair with indigo and white eyes, and she has a star symbol in her right eye, just like Cyrus and me.