At first, walking was hard, if not downright impossible. But just after a few steps it felt almost like second nature, I couldn’t explain it. I did not think I was getting used to it or anything, but it just felt natural I suppose. I couldn’t quite comprehend why this was. Was it due to the RPG-like things? I do remember something about progression, but I thought it would have to do with numbers, that's how RPGs work no? Although this one does not even have a character sheet...

 

I continued asking myself things as I walked through the rocks. The cave was atop a mountain, I had to descend through a rocky path, it was hard and it felt slightly painful to keep stepping on the burning-hot stone, but I felt like I had no other choice. I had to get down to normal ground one way or another. 

 

A few minutes of struggle went by and I was finally at the foot of the mountain, although now I was facing another problem. “It’s a forest…” Greenery everywhere, how was I supposed to know where to go? I made the stupid mistake of not paying attention when I descended, I did glance outside just before exiting, but I only saw a forest and that was it, there was a pretty substantial chance I made a mistake in some way or another. 

 

I sighed in defeat. However, the overwhelming feeling of failure did not last long as it was interrupted by the rustling of the greenery, it wasn't the wind, this one sounded unnatural and arrhythmic. 

 

The bushes started to move from afar. I decided to hide in a bush next to me with slight panic, I did not want to see that something that was causing the rustle. Or have something happen in general. 

 

“This is stupid, why are we coming to the mountains?!” A man exclaimed with annoyance. 

 

I could hear multiple footsteps coming my way, which made me a bit anxious, it did not help that I also heard metal clanking, almost as if they were wearing something akin to a keychain, but bigger. 

 

“Shut up, it’s our duty as soldiers of this nation! Do you want a dungeon break to happen next to town?!” Another man’s voice replied in rage.

“No…” Looks like there were only two people. 

 

They continued walking towards me. I felt tense and endangered, even if they just sounded like knights. I observed in the direction the sounds were coming as I hid in the foliage of my bushy friend. And at last, two men dressed in armor were coming in my direction, I could swear that even one of them was looking towards me. 

I felt that it was a terrible idea to approach them.

 

“Hey, what’s that?” I felt my heart stop, it was the person that was looking in my direction. I closed my eyes as the footsteps came closer, they stopped next to me. It was my end. "Hey look at this..." He was basically speaking right next to me. The man was not moving just judging from sound alone, then the other man started to approach. I was going to be found out... 

 

Tap, tap, tap...

 

Eh? The footsteps continued walking past me, in confusion I opened my eyes and tried getting an angle without moving the leaves but I couldn’t see much. I saw a foot go up, I guess they were going towards the cave. It was my chance to escape, but… what if they saw me? If they did it would be bad... Something tells me that. 

 

And so I made my choice, to stay inside the bush until they left the cave and left where they came from, that way I could escape. And maybe even follow them from far away to get to a town, to simply survive. With my perfect plan prepared, I waited. 

 

A few minutes went by and I heard the familiar metal clanking, although there was no talking. “Should we tell the army?” One of them asked.

“I don’t know… It seems like an outbreak, yet everything inside is dead…” 

 

“Maybe a freelancer took care of it?” 

“No, it’s impossible. No one comes this way… Also, what type of person could massacre so many beasts at once? Besides, we did hear the outbreak happen, as well as some unholy sounds during the night.” Eh… Were the unholy sounds me playing with my voice? No, that would be too much.

 

“Hmm, are you sure we did hear the outbreak.” 

“Someone reported the mountain shaking, and we also heard some other reports.” 

“What a problem.” They continued walking, I was confused, to say the least. 

 

I watched as they started going away, I did not want to alert them. But I still wanted to follow them. Now I just needed to exit the bush and follow them in silence. I moved my foot without a problem and stood up, my cloth got caught up on some twigs and I fell down on the floor.

 

“Ou…”

 

“Who’s there?!” I heard swords get unsheathed. 

“Eek…” I tried backing away as I grabbed the cloth to cover myself.

 

Both men stood there with visible confusion on their face as I backed into the wall of rock behind me. 

 

“A kin-kid…”

“It’s a kin-girl…” 

 

They both commented their reactions as I retreated with fear, I was going to get mistaken by a monster and get stabbed! I did not want to die such a painful death! Also, what did they mean by ‘kin’?! Speak in a language I can understand!

 

“Don’t kill me, please…” I muttered with hope, they both tilted their head. 

“Why would we kill you?” I looked at their swords with clear fear in my eyes, they quickly seemed to understand why I was so afraid. One of them hurriedly put his sword away and got closer to me, although I still felt endangered for some reason. It was almost like an irrational fear. 

He looked at me from head to toe. “Hmm, well, why are you here? And looking like that for that matter.”

How was I supposed to answer that? “I don’t know, I just… woke up like this.” Perfectly done...

 

“I see, did you feel weird? Remember anything strange?” I shook my head.

His partner got closer in the meantime. “Damned traffickers, poor girl. She even lost her memories.” Eh? Isn’t that a quick assumption? “Come with us, we will help you, or at least try to.” I finally got a better look at the man’s face, he was middle-aged and seemed to have a golden smile.

Although I was still uneasy, he seemed to pick up on it and took a step back. 

 

“Sorry, you must be confused.” He awkwardly retracted his hand. “You see, a group of malicious criminals has been on the run for months, we keep finding their victims without memory or recollection of what happened. So, please. Trust in us…” His smile was bitter as he awkwardly extended his hand once again.

 

I could tell, he did not have any malicious intent, although I had no idea why I could tell such a thing. And so, I grabbed his arm and he helped me to get up. Albeit it was hard to also keep myself covered. I at least knew you had to cover yourself regardless of gender...

 

What was I doing, anyway? Being scared of some armored men when I am no monster, I mean, being warry doesn’t hurt, but feeling like you are going to get killed, that was stupid of me… 

 

“Do you remember your name?” 

I thought for a second, but ultimately it didn’t matter. “Leah… It’s Leah…” 

“I see, never heard such a name before. Not on a catkin at least.” He absentmindedly commented. 

“Well, let us go.” The other guy suggested, for some reason they didn’t introduce themselves to me. It seemed odd to me. 

 

“Um, what’s you guys’ name?” One of them gave me a weird look. The other seemed confused. 

“Us guards cannot say our name during duty, it’s supposed to remove individuality or something like that, not very familiar with it myself.” 

“I see…” Weird. 

"I don't know if it helps, but I am guard no. 39, and he is no. 40." He kindly explained and introduced himself, 39 was a kind person.

 

They guided me out of the forest and made me come along with them, they seemed taken aback from the fact that I had no clothing aside from a dirty cloth, but instead of perviness, all I saw from them was pity. 39 offered to take my hand, but I couldn’t really do it due to holding the cloth. I could’ve made a knot or something, but I did not think about it at the time. He was really kind. 

 

“So, Leah, does this route seem familiar?” Kind-guard asked. Using a number felt a bit inhumane. 

“No, never seen it before.” We were walking to the side of a dirt road that went around the mountain. 

 

“I see, that’s unfortunate. We will try to help you to get back on track or get your parents.” 

“That’d be great…” I said with bitterness. They were long dead after all… 

“Did I say something bad?”

 

I paused for a second. “Not at all, sorry I got distracted. I was just wondering what bones were you guys talking about. And also what you guys meant with the ‘kin’...” I changed topics. 

 

They both gave me a weird look. Silent-guard just pointed to his side of the head and made a gesture of touching something non-existent. I got curious by the way he was looking at me, and so I did the same. 

 

“Eh…” What was this fluffy thing sticking out of my head?! It felt odd, kind of like rubbing a cotton swab, it was soothing but a bit irritating. “What’s this?” I kept touching it, it felt weird and it was attached to me. 

“So she even forgot her race…” Ha? “I am sorry girl, but what you are touching are your ears.” Ehh… I stared at him in disbelief, but seeing his stone-face, I had no choice but to keep touching. 

 

I kept touching the fluffy things to the side of my head, they were indeed my ears… 

 

“Well, it seems like so… By the way, what was this about the dungeon thing?” I had already forgotten to ask about the bones. 

 

“A dungeon was reported there, and then there were reports suggesting a mass massacre, or a dungeon outbreak, we don’t know much about it since it happened last night.” Oh...

“Outbreak?” I mean, I heard them, but I had no idea what they meant by dungeon, let alone outbreak. 

 

“You don’t remember that either?” I shook my head. “Basically dungeons have monsters inside that if left unattended the dungeon collapses and lets all the monsters out. It’s our job to protect the people after all, including you as well. Which makes me wonder why were you there in the first place.” Ah. I suppose I can understand that, but.

 

“Eh, well, I don’t know why I was there…" But something tells me... "More importantly, the dungeon did not collapse did it?”

“That’s the problem…” Oh… “Well, don’t worry about it, it’s our job to take care of that, not yours.” 

 

“I see…” I thought for a second before looking somewhere else. “Hey, what’s that?” I asked as we approached the town, I mean, I knew it was a town. 

 

“That’s Arlesh, a small town and where we are going.” Oh, I mean, I did not see what part of it was small. I mean it did not have walls, but the stone fence it had seemed sparkly clean, it even had a small building outside the gates. One floor and did not seem to have more than three windows. 

 

“Well, we need to get you back into the town system after all.”

“System?” Didn’t I just lose citizenship earlier?

“Well, we need to get you sheets and other things that have your personal information.” He sighed. “I guess you don’t know what I mean by personal, it means your titles, achievement and your classification.” Ah… 

 

“I think I am fine…” The last thing I wanted was for people to see my stupid titles...

“Now now, we need to know that, for your own safety. There are titles with negative effects, also, we need to know your classification in order to place you correctly.” Ha… “Well, there are also unique abilities but those are rare, so most people don’t have any.” Oh, god. 

 

“And if something bad were to show up, what would happen?” 

“Hmm, a lot of things can happen, but most of them are nothing that affects the process, everyone has done bad things to some extent, so they don’t matter that much.” 

I sighed in relief, although I still couldn’t completely relax. 

 

“Oh, we are here.” Before I realized it, we stood in front of the gates, and just outside was the building, it was an outpost. The other guard left and I was left to be taken care of by kind-guard. He had been really nice to me throughout the whole day... Maybe...

 

“By the way, what does degraded mean?” He paused for a second. 

“Well, if you have that it would be problematic since you don’t get protection from the city, and among other things. But then you’d have to resort to doing freelance work, or you know. The type of people that are not affiliated with any nation.”

“Oh.” 

“Why do you ask, could it be?” Lie or not lie, well they will know either way, so…

“The word popped in my head, maybe I am remembering things.” 

“That’s good, although maybe not a great word to recall…” Ha… Well, they will know, when it happens I can feign ignorance...  

 

The guard returned. “She is approved.” 

 

“Well let’s go.” He grabbed my hand and smiled, I smiled as well. 

 

It was going to be fun… Although, I hope nothing bad happens…