The night sky was twinkling with stars by the time I started to head back to the secondary staff housing. It had taken longer than I'd expected to navigate the unfamiliar area even with the map I'd followed to get to the [Blue Sky Inn], much less find a food stall to order some food from. In the end, I'd decided to go with meat skewers from a stall I'd found run by a nice enough middle-aged man wearing a bandana.

As I carried the meat skewers in a large disposable bag made of a cruder, paper-like material, I looked at the rainbow lights on the tops of the lamp posts around me as I walked off to the side of the mostly abandoned streets. However, the longer I walked, the emptier and quieter the streets got until eventually I was alone in the eery silence of a dark night.

As the blue lights on me changed to orange, then red, and purple, I looked at the sky and marveled at the sight. The moon here looked bigger than it was on earth, the silver light brighter. The stars were also brighter, and on clear nights like this you could see that they shone with all sorts of colors like the lights of the street lamps. It was... well, it was mesmerizing in its own way.

Spotting a nearby bench, I figured taking a few minutes to relax would be fine and sat down on it heavily, resting my tired legs. It was a slightly broken bench that rocked slightly as I sat on it due to a broken leg, but there was a brick under that break as a makeshift fix so it wasn't anything too bad.

That was when an odd sense of drowsiness overcame me. I tried to resist, but unable to I slumped down against the bench as my head fell down and my eyes closed.

"Help! Please!"

The same dream before, the same memory. The only difference was that this didn't feel like a dream or a memory at all, it felt like I was living it. My mind was conscious, that of my present self, but no matter what I tried to move it was like I was trapped. Unwillingly, my eyes looked at the pooling blood before me. I couldn't even shut them.

A normal life

The kind of thing people love and hate.

I spent so long striving for that "normal life," thinking that it would fix me after what had happened. I'd gotten it, eventually, but of course things weren't that simple.

A normal life.

Good grades, good resume.

All smiles.

You try to convince yourself that that's enough, that it's the answer. That you weren't wrong to wish for it so desperately, but in reality it's meaningless.

It's not normal that anybody really wants, it's meaning. And for me, without those people in the world in any place other than my memories, I was meaningless.

It was simple enough when I'd realized it. And so instead of searching for normal, I searched for what was missing in the best way I'd found how...

My wide, fearful eyes were forced to continue looking up higher and higher towards the pooling blood. I remembered this moment, knew what to expect, but that didn't make it any easier  as my eyes drifted towards it.

The knife.

I'd looked into all sorts of weapons trainings of course. I'd learned to wield a longsword and a katana, even purchased them online and kept them in my bag.

Same was true for nunchucks and bows and arrows. Over time, I learned that I preferred using my fists to any weapons, but that wasn't a huge deal. There were times when using weapons were necessary.

However, there was one weapon I hadn't been able to get myself to train. Simply picking it up made me feel itchy, in fact I was surprised that I was even able to pick it up when the time had come that I'd needed to. On some level, I'd been scared I wouldn't be able to. I was grateful I'd gone against my own expectations.

The knife.

The weapon that caused this, threw my life into disarray.

It was the root of my new philosophy, the golden rule. Due unto others as they do unto you. Cheesy, I know, just like in all those webnovels. But it was undeniable that it was effective.

I couldn't stop everything, of course. Couldn't right every wrong, nor did I need to. Not everything good was right or vice versa. Hell, half the time I wasn't good.

However, it was simple enough. If somebody hurt somebody I cared about, I would hurt them just as bad. No, worse. If I saw something truly evil happening before me, I would stop it.

If I saw somebody that was on the verge of losing their meaning like I had, I would save them.

It was simple.

"Help!"

I heard a cry, but it wasn't from my childhood self or my present self. However, oddly enough, it wasn't something I'd heard with my ears either. However, it was full of desperation, and I opened my eyes.

Two men turned onto the street I was on, the clear image of thugs. Big and bald, with tattoos of a skull and crossbones on their left arms. between them was a small girl that they dragged along, a girl who was completely silent even as they roughly jostled her around. I couldn't see anything specific about her as her figure was obscured by the large figures of the two thugs, but something inside of me felt... odd. Almost instinctively, I activated [Concealment] before they could catch sight of me. Luckily, it seemed like the black cloak on the dark night had stopped them from catching sight of me initially.

"Hey, you sure we should be doing this? If [Reaper] finds out we're the ones who took the girl and sold her off, we're dead."

"You an idiot? She won't find out. [Reaper's] gonna get us all killed if she tries to sell the girl at the auction anyway. We have a better chance of fooling [Reaper] than surviving getting hunted down by [The Predators]."

"Shit, shit, shit. This is all too big for me, dude."

"Calm down, calm down. [Reaper] forced us into this position. She knew it was a clear rule you don't sell slaves at a [Predator] auction, don't know how she thought she'd get away with it..."

"...You sure about this?"

The two thugs that looked virtually identical were passing by me now, still not noticing me under the shadows of the night. With no lamp post close by, it would've been hard to see me in my dark cloak even without [Concealment] being active.

"Yeah, the buyer's already set to meet us two blocks over. The fake body we put in the cell will make her think the girl's dead. Nothing to worry about."

As the figures continued by, the girl sandwiched between them came into my sight. At that moment, I immediately resolved to end this.

Small blue horns peaked out from her forehead from her shoulder-length black hair, identifying her as a demi-human. Large violet eyes filled with a mix of fear and resignation trembled as they slid over me, not even sticking. How would they know to, though? They weren't even able to see me.

However, there was one thing that was certain from just a glance: they were screaming, searching for help from anybody that would listen. However, there was nobody there as far as she could see.

Bruises and bloody cuts littered her small, trembling body as she walked, her clothing nothing but rags. She didn't even have shoes, and it seemed like all she had to wear even at night was the equivalent of a potato sack.

Around her neck was a small, thin collar.

She was weak, beaten, scared, tired, and on the verge of breaking.

As for me, this made me angry.

I immediately set to work. Though I couldn't tell their statuses, I had found a use for the [Sherlock and Moriarty] skill when it came to judging people. It seemed like If I activated the skill while analyzing a person, I could get a vague reading of their strength relative to mine.

I moved silently, picking up a discarded meat skewer stick from the sidewalk as I moved. I analyzed them simultaneously, finding that each of them were weaker than me stat-wise individually. Of course, i felt like in all likelihood I could take them individually, but attacking head on probably wouldn't be a good idea. If anything, it would put the girl at risk.

I had to think, and think fast.

My brain quickly formulated a plan as I reached down and picked up the brick that had been propping up one of the bench's legs, careful not to let it make sound.

I had an idea now, but I would have to act quickly.

As for the name of this operation, it took barely a second to think of one thanks to my many years watching anime. Though it wasn't the most creative name, it was fitting in my opinion.

It was time to begin Operation Loli Rescue.