Pig the man up, I start to freak out, “Crap I need money if I am going to feed him. Maybe he has some on him?”

  Cheg his body, I see the man has a bag of s on him, “This should be good enough.” Pig up Anto as well, I run into the streets looking for food vendors, seeing one I ruo it at full speed. Dropping the bag of s in front of the vendor I say, “Give me as much as this buy, throw in some water as well.”

  Frightehe woman says, “Ok!” After that, she hands me heaps of food.

  Sitting down with the man I feed him, as much as he handle.

  Mung away beside me, Anto says, “This is delicious!”

  That brat has fotten all the trouble he just caused me; I will have to make up some punishment for him ter.

  After a little while the man who looked shrivelled up has now returo looking like a normal human being. He looks to be around the same age as Cyrus, his skin is like Iancu’s just a lot lighter, his hair is gold with some b it, and he has piergs throughout his left ear.

  Poking at his face I say, “You're just as beautiful as Cyrus.”

  Wait a sed, two hair colours! Immediately I open his closed eyes ahat his eye colour is crimson, he also has heavy bags under both of them. Sighing I say, “Looks like I am not cursed.”

  “Good m!”

  Looking down at the head of the man on my p, I see he is awake. “Good m.”

  Surprised the man says, “You’re no fun, I thought you would get shocked and freak out.”

  “I was waiting for you to get up, idiot.”

  Sitting up beside me the man says, “You must have saved me, thank you for that.”

  “It was no problem, but sorry I had to spend your moo get food.”

  “No problem, there is er use of mohan keeping yourself alive.”

  “That’s all well and good but I have a question; from the amount of food we were able to get with your money I would say you are quite affluent, so how did you end up in this shape?”

  “Well you see, this m I woke up to go for a walk, and then I quickly colpsed from exhaustion. You see the st time I slept was, during the Rasartine war I believe.”

  “Your jokes aren’t funny, that happened five years ago.” Getting up I say, “Well since you are doing well I will head off, take care and make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

  Pig up Anto I walk away, but behihe man says, “Let's just hope I don’t end up like the orphans of ciel zéro.”

  Stopping in my tracks, I say, “Did you say ciel zéro?” Turning around I grab the man’s hand I say, “You mean the orphans whraciously blessed with Lady Fléau glorious presence, from the masterpiece book Eternity of Hope?”

  With his face lighting up he says, “Who else would I be talking about except eous queen.”

  Φ Holding hands Orb and the man beside him start to freak out, so I ask, “What are you two talking about?”

  “We are only talking about the main character of the greatest book put into fi, Lady Fléau from Eternity of Hope!”

  “She is the greatest woman to ever exist!”

  Turning to me, Orb says, “Eternity of hope stars the daughter of the most affluent Duke in the kingdom of Marxxs. It is the story of how she uses her brains ay to get all the things she wants.”

  “Which she rightfully deserves!”

  fused, I ask, “What is so great about this dy?”

  “There are too many things to name, but a good start would be when her father wao spend money on orphans instead of her. She used her smarts to start a mini-war in the area and all of those stupid orphans died, and when her father fronted her about it, she just put on her most i smile and was able to cleverly dodge all bme.”

  The man beside Orb says, “There was also the time when the man she most retly wao have got engaged. So, she drugged his fiancé during a ball and pletely ruined her social standing, so their families could no let married.”

  “You really know your stuff.”

  “So, do you, I hought I would meet someoh such crity.”

  “Me too, I use to read the book all the time when Capti was busy.”

  “I used to spend all my time reading about the story of our perfect protagonist. Our viliness really is the greatest, her fake smile, her ruthless as, her stogs, and her hungry eyes.”

  “Such a creature deserves everything in the world, and she would have got it if only that bitch did.”

  Suddenly the air around the both of them ges as, Orb says, “She was so close to maniputing the prio bee her husband, but then that mistake of existehe false protagonist Angelica had to appear.”

  “Usiupid genuine smile and her demonic pure innoce, she vinced all the men iory including the priainst oddess, and it ended up with Lady Fléau execution.”

  “Then that devil had the gall to not only cry at Fléau execution but to put off her marriage to the prince right after. Fléau worked hard to get to where she is, and that idiot who couldn’t even t to a million just lucked out and got what Lady Fléau always wanted. I swear, I will never five her.”

  “Doesn’t Fléau sound like the vilin?”

  “You ck crity Anto. The authht say she is the antagonist, but all true readers know she is the protagonist.”

  Grabbing Orb's shoulder the man beside him cries and says, “I hought I would ever meet another human being with susight, to think you would uand the truth of the story.”

  Turning and giving him a hug Orb says, “You must be my long-lost brother.”

  “I feel the same way!”

  Am I the weird one?

  Φ As I tio chat to my new brother about my goddess I see a little girl, youhan Anto run into his leg.

  Looking down, he says, “Raqiue, what's wrong with you?”

  With tears in her eyes, she says, “Papa went out for his hourly drink, but he hasn’t e back yet I am worried.”

  “Doesn’t Yamal usually drink at the edge of the city?”

  Hearing this I freeze up, wasn’t the man I stole clothes from at the city's edge?

  Looking at me, the little girl says, “Your clothes look familiar, have we met before?”

  With a deadpan face, I say, “There is no ce we have ever met.”

  My brother says, “It is probably just a sequence Raqiue. But anyway, I have a good idea where he may be, so I will go look for him.”

  “Thank you!”

  As I let out a sigh of relief, I start to think about my few steps. Now that their looking for the people we robbed we have to hurry up before we are found out.

  Suddenly I am picked up and pced on the shoulder of my brother, “What are you doing?”

  “No way am I going to part with my blood brother already.”

  This is bad, I o get back to work and far away from all of this. Jumping on my shoulders, Anto says, “Giddy up my precious steed!”

  Anto, have you fotten what we are here for! Looking down I say, “Are you sure about this, I think me and Anto here will just be dead weight.”

  Tilting his head up at me the man says, “Doesn’t this remind you of when Lady Fléau was executed? Not, a single person rushed to her side when she most. When I read that all I could do was cry and promise to always head to the side of the i, don’t you feel the same?”

  With tears trig down my face I say, “I do!”

  “Now the's head off.” With me on his shoulder and with Anto on mine we run off at full speed.

  Moving through the crowd of people I notice how quick this man is and more astonishingly how precise his movements are, even with me and Anto on top of him his bance hasn’t slipped even a little bit and he is easily making his way through the crowd.

  As we keep running the man says, “Over there is our oldest library alongside it is probably the oldest library in history.”

  “And to our left are the grand churches which have stood for thousands of years.”

  Suddenly stopping I look down and ask, “Is something the problem?”

  “It seems the rabbits have e to town.”

  In front of me, I see a huge wave of rabbits jumping through the town and they all short of look simir to the one which saved us, except they ck the purple tattoos it had and have two horns on their heads.

  As they hop around, I see them take objects from people, but the people iion look rather happy and some of them are even wishing thanks. “What’s going on?”

  “Those are the wonderbeast Almiraj, from the draiti. A long time ago one of them te hear and started to procreate, so its children all e through every now and then.”

  As the rabbits take stuff from us, he says, “The rabbits protect us from the other animals and wonderbeasts attag us and iurn, they take some of our objects, an equivalent exge.”

  “What do they even do with them?”

  “Apparently they built this shrine in the desert and they pray to it all the time.”

  “I wouldn’t want my stuff used in whatever satanic ritual they are cooking up!”

  Jumping towards us one of the rabbits knocks Anto off of me and then starts to take his food.

  “That’s mine!” Anto says as he tries to take it back.

  But then the rabbit kicks him iomag him far away, then it hops off with his food.

  Running over to Anto, my brother says, “Are you ok!”

  With tears and snot running down his fato says, “They stole my stuff again!”

  Getting off the man’s shoulders I pito up, f him I say, “It will be all right, there is no way you will be robbed by a rabbit a third time.”

  “If you're still hungry Anto I knoce with some delicious food close by.”

  With all his sadness fading Anto says, “Really!”

  “All you have to do is follow me.”

  After a little bit of walking, we eventually end up at where my brother told us about. “Here you go Anto.”

  Looking at what he gave Anto with wonder I say, “What is this!”

  “It is a special fried dish made from the wonderbeast Tahajalmud. The golden shell grinded up is used to add a special fvour to the rice, while the Tahajalmud meat is cooked in a particur way t out all its fvour.”

  “Aren’t wonderbeasts really toxic!”

  “Usually, but if you have a chef skilled enough to cook them properly it isn’t an issue at all. Nasir family over here has been cooking wonderbeasts so long that if they were a try they would be older than all the others on Terrafide.”

  Nasir says, “My family has perfected tless dishes using Wonderbeasts and other animals. Here is some Jackal jerky.”

  Taking the jerky, I bite into it then I feel fvour fill my mouth, “What the hell is this it is so tasty. But it is also short of spicy, that ’t be I am not feeling any pain.”

  “That is a special meat made from the Aized Jackal horn.”

  “The lighting wonderbeast?”

  “The lighting produced from the horn activates your taste reaking you able to taste all the fvours of the food more, and it even ihe feeling of spiess on your tohout causing pain.”

  My brother says, “On that he Jackal isn’t actually a wonderbeast.”

  “Ehh, but it shoots lighting?”

  “The animals around here are slightly cursed, so they do weird stuff such as that.”

  “Wait, should I be eating something with a curse on it?”

  “It will be alright, just eat up.”

  Taking another bite out of the jerky, I scream, “DELICIOUS!”