‘What is with all these people getting on my nerves today,’ Raze thought as he looked at the woman by his side. She hadn’t even turned her head after he said those words and was completely ignoring him. ‘Is everyone in this world like this or what, and I thought Alterian was bad.’
“Wait, I want that item,” Raze called out, but he didn’t know what to do next. He had no coins; all he had were his words, and he wasn’t exactly the best speaker when it came to this situation.
“Young man, are you going to pay me or what?” The shopkeeper asked.
“I was hoping… I could maybe do some jobs and work for it,” Raze said with a smile on his face.
She immediately turned to the girl and held out her hand, to which the other person proceeded to hand the coins over, pulling them out from a rather odd purse. It looked like an obese round bird, that when squeezed, its yellow beak would open up.
After the coins were handed over, the black earring was now in Charlotte’s possession, in a nice small square-shaped box.
“Wait!” Raze called out. Now that the earring was in her possession, he could only hope to do to her what he originally planned to do with the shopkeeper. “I need that earring; it’s a present for my sister, and she said that I needed to get that exact one.”
Charlotte proceeded to look at Raze in the face for a few seconds before a smirk appeared.
“What did you say to me before, no one takes my things?” Charlotte repeated. “Well, it appears that this belongs to me, and no one takes my things!”
Just as she had finished her sentence, a small kid around eight years old reached out and pulled at her purse that was by her side, snatching it off from her belt and immediately ran through the crowds of people.
It was clearly one of the beggar children, the same type that Raze had seen when he first had appeared here.
“My money!” Charlotte shouted, with her hand reaching out, but no one cared. The kid was fast and swift, and even she knew that it would be impossible to catch him. But for Raze, he saw an opportunity.
“If I get you your purse back, will you give me that earring?” Raze asked.
Charlotte looked at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘Does this idiot really think he can catch a kid like that? If he could do something like that, then he should at least be able to have 10 coppers on him, right?’
Regardless, she thought that it might be best for her to humor him.
“Alright fine, just go ahead and…” Raze had already started running after the kid, away from her sight, when she finished her last words. “Try.”
She had seen him running relatively fast, through the crowds of people, avoiding them. It was quite the sight to see, and even Raze was impressed with himself. Where people’s footsteps would be, their bodies, he could predict it all, and he could see the kid continuing to run through the crowd, spinning around, and he was slowly starting to catch up.
While swiftly avoiding people, Raze could see himself getting closer and closer to the kid; he was nearly there, until someone had walked dead straight ahead of him, crossing his path to go over to the food stall.
“Move!” Raze shouted; he was running too fast to avoid a collision.
Hearing the words, the youngster, cloaked in dark red clothing, turned to see the white-haired boy.
“I said, move out of the way!” Raze shouted as he shoved the young man touching his shoulder and pushed him to the side.
During the chase, Raze didn’t realize how much adrenaline was running through his body and the fact that he was even powering his steps with a bit of Qi. He had used Qi on the bystander, causing them to be thrown right into the stall.
The young man had crashed into the food stall, breaking it apart, while liquid from the cooking pots spilled on top of him.
“ARGHH!” the man screamed in pain from the hot food, and quickly jumped up and down trying to get as much food off of him as quickly as possible.
“That white-haired b*stard, does he want to die!” The young man shouted. “Who was it? I’ll make sure he gets 10 times the payback for this.”
Filled with anger, steam was almost coming out from his ears, but there was one feature that he remembered, and that was the white hair.
‘Wait a second, white hair? Haven’t I seen him before?’
After the small incident that Raze was blissfully unaware he had created, he had managed to catch up to the kid, lifting him up by the back of his shirt and snatching the purse out of his hands.
“Sorry kid, I know you’re only doing this to survive; you’re not at fault,” Raze said. He knew the kid would run off as soon as he put him down, for fear that he would hand him over to someone from the clan.
So instead, with one hand, Raze flicked a silver coin in the air; the kid almost on instinct managed to catch it.
“Take that and feed yourself,” Raze said. “And next time, try going after the fat ones. They won’t be able to run after you, and they sure have enough money to feed themselves.”
With those words of wisdom passed along, Raze let go of the kid who immediately ran off.
Looking behind him, Raze had noticed that there was a commotion going on. ‘Did I push someone?’ Raze looked at his hand. ‘I think I did; it might be best to go the long way round.’
With this in mind, Raze decided to take a different route on his way back to where he last was. With the purse in his hand, the thought of just taking it with him had come up, but he wanted the earring.
There weren’t going to be many chances to get an item like that, but money in the future would be easy to get, especially if he found a way to sell the power stones. It didn’t take long for him to find the girl still waiting. Raze waved the bag in the air in front of her with a smug smile on his face.
“I had no clue that you were a Pagna warrior,” Charlotte said. “I’ve never met one that was so poor before.”
“How did you know I was a warrior?” He asked.
“You can tell just from what you did then. You move far faster than the others; are you with the Red Brigade Clan then?” She asked while attempting to take her purse back, but Raze pulled away just in time, and held his hand out.
She quickly knew what he wanted and placed the box with the earring inside in his hand, exchanging items with each other.
“I’m not with any Clan,” Raze answered, which was the truth.
“What the, there’s less money in here; did you steal some!” Charlotte shouted.
“No,” Raze answered. “I gave some to that kid so he could eat for the day. You seemed to have enough to fill your stomach and a few more, so why not let that kid not suffer for a moment.”
Charlotte closed her purse and let out a sigh, as she placed it under her hat on the top of her head this time.
“If I wanted to, I could have just taken the whole thing and left; I have no reason to lie,” Raze continued. 𝒩𝒪𝐕𝔩xt.𝗰𝒐𝓂
“It’s rare to meet a wanderer, but then again, that might be the reason why you’re so poor. We could use someone like you. If you need some work, then head over to a pawn shop called Rock Cliff,” Charlotte said, turning around and heading in a completely different direction from Raze.
‘Wait, the pawn shop! Isn’t that the same pawn that I… Well, it might be best to avoid her completely then. But why would she be in the pawn shop? Is she with the other two? Just who is she?’ Raze thought.
Now that she was gone though, Raze had a large smile on his face, as he flicked a silver coin in the air. ‘I’m just charging some tax for my services, that’s all, and you had to be punished a little for taking my item.’