Satoshi woke up early in the morning and flew to the forest to relieve himself. He found a lake, and after driving away any dangerous creatures, took a comfortable bath.

“Oh yeahhhh… That feels good..”

Using his ability underwater would not have been possible, so he did not submerge himself and instead used quick blasts of air to shower himself. He also washed his clothes and used his ability for quick dry.

“Is it just me or I use this power more for utility than anything else?”

Flying back to the city, he once again looked around now that there was light. From the height he was travelling at, he couldn’t figure out the smaller details but the habitation did seem to extend far into the distance. The castle was the only thing he could perceive clearly for its humongous size. It was marvellously built, laterally symmetric. Twelve towers taller than the castle itself surrounded it in an equally spaced fashion. It was made of some kind of brown stone that didn’t reflect a lot of light. It was a wonder Satoshi was able to see it in the night with its dull dark colour.

“I’ll go there someday.”

What was the point of a second life if he couldn’t do as he pleased? It would become the same as his previous and there was no way in hell or heaven he was going to let that happen.

“At least I’ve gotten comfortable with this wind ability of mine.”

Satoshi was flying at the speed of an aeroplane from his previous life.

“The most limiting factor to speed is air resistance. And I OWN air-resistance! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA……”

Satoshi laughed into the cold morning sky all the way back to the city.

---------------

Having gotten some nice and heavy breakfast from random shops, he once again made his way to look around the place. All manner of animal people were opening their shops with wooden hangings outside. The hangings always consisted of two things, a symbol and a small script; assumably the name of the shop. Unable to read the script, Satoshi tried to figure out the shop’s characteristics from the symbol. Most of them did not make sense to him, like animals or clouds or volcano or some other random ass picture that he couldn’t even associate an English word with. But some did make sense to him, like a bowl and spoon for an eatery and a sword and shield for weapons shop. He tried going into the weapons shop but couldn’t really find any weapon that would be useful to him in combat. He simply bought off a small knife for utility sake and moved on.

He came to another shop that had a bird on the hanging, but he was still able to tell that this was a clothes shop from the window. This was the first shop that he had encountered that had a transparent glass and it was an expensive shop; clear from the interior visible through the glass and the tough-looking beastman on the outside. There was no way Satoshi was going in a place where he might have to remove his hood and just moved on, uninterested. He did attempt to block the guard’s breathing for a second just to see if he could and the result made him merry, leaving a confused looking guard behind.

---------------

Overall Satoshi’s day was fruitful as he got to see a whole lot of the market area and determined that their culture wouldn’t be hard to get used to. He had kept his detection ability up at all times to get extra information and keep wary of suspicious people like the catkin the previous day. He did once find some kind of thievery going on behind some shops in the back alley but he ignored it. He also sensed some beast-people inside the buildings having sex like animals..

(Pun intended.)

But again didn’t really care and moved on. It did, however, tell him where some inns were. Maybe he would check them out at some point, but for now, he was content with sleeping in the open.

He had reached the residence area. The number of people to see here were multitudes less than the market area. This area was quiet and beastkins here were mostly making their way back home, tired from a day’s worth of job. He tried to extend his influence into the houses to figure out something but couldn’t perceive anything that caught his interest. The houses were similar in architecture with two floors. Sometimes he would hear the sounds of children from the houses but no pets.

(Lol, that would’ve been interesting.)

He spent a while more just wandering about before retiring for the night.

----------------

Two more days passed in a similar way without any major incident. Satoshi was slowly getting used to the place and making his way through the streets and people. He did go to a shop and bought off useful stuff like a bag, soap and a weird kind of toothbrush. He also managed to steal a walking aid off a sleeping old man from the slums.

Now, on an expedition into the market area with the walking aid, he encountered an interesting setup. With his detection ability, he sensed in one of the back alleys, two thugs lying in wait to grab an unassuming weak beastkin. He first thought of going in himself to say hi but then he noticed a cheerful girl who’d just bought off some fruits.

----------------

A young ferretgirl of about 20 handed over eight small copper coins to the fruit vendor, waved a hearty ‘thank you’ and started walking.

(I’ve bought besas and lekas. I think these should last us for tomorrow.)

She stopped in front of a vegetable vendor, looked around for a bit and asked a few prices.

(Hmm.. I think it’ll be better if I buy some tomorrow. The neighbours gave us some fresh nanbains in the morning from their back garden. I will prepare those tonight.)

The girl decided against buying anything from the vegetable vendor and once again started walking.

A robed man with a walking stick entered her sight for his unusual appearance but before she had any time to make an opinion of him..

*cough cough*

The girl coughed a bit as she felt her breathing unnaturally weaken.

(Oh no. I don’t want to get sick! I should hurry home and drink some hot tea!)

With a renewed determination, she picked up her pace.

*plop*

“Hey missy! Your besa!”

A passerby called her out pointing to the ground behind her. She turned around to find one of the red-green fruits to have fallen out and slowly roll down in the alley.

“Ah, thank you!”

She shouted out to the random passerby and hurried after the naughty fruit that kept slowly rolling on into the darkness even without a downward slope.

“Wait!”

She called out to the lone besa rolling about as if it had a mind of its own right before..

“Gotcha!”

All of a sudden, she felt a shadow move from her side right before it caught her from behind and covered her mouth to prevent her from being able to scream.

“MMMMM!!! MMMM!!”

(What’s going on!? Let go of me!)

The girl tried to scream but to no avail. The strong hands, one around her waist and the other around her mouth pulled her behind a building where the people on the streets couldn’t see her.

“Hehe, nice handling Yojaan..”

A small ugly looking ratkin appeared in front of her. The ferretgirl struggled in the arms of her captor, trying to use her nails to harm the arms grabbing her to no avail.

“Don’t bother girl. I’m a pangolin. There’s nothing your little claws can do against my scales.”

A voice came into the girl’s left ear making her panic more and struggle. Suddenly, a knife thrust in front of her, stopping before her eyes.

“Hehe, better.”

The pimpled ratkin held the knife in front of her eyes, his expression full of glee as his victim followed the dreaded object with her eyes.

“Hehe, cooperate if you don' want hurt.”

(Oh my god.. Please no…)

Tears started to roll out of her eyes, as she helplessly watched the armed ratkin come closer.

“We’ll show you a good time.”

The pangolin-man said into her ear and licked her face and neck with his long tongue. At the same time, the ratkin lifted up her gown and started to feel her legs with his hairy hands.

(Someone.. please.. save me...)

Seeing her struggles becoming less and less, the pangolin man’s arm on her waist moved up grabbing her ample breasts as his long tongue caressed her neck and back. The girl’s body shivered as she felt the disgusting sensation of the slippery tongue move across her flesh. The ratkin started poking her legs with the knife, enjoying her short yelps with his characteristic ‘hehe’.

*tick*

“Huh, what’s that?”

*tick*

Both the assaulter’s stopped as they heard the rhythmic sound of wood hitting against the ground.

*tick*

The sound seemed to be coming from the alley.

“Someone’s coming.”

*tick*

The girl’s ears perked up as she heard the pangolin-man’s words.

“MMMM!! MMMM!!”

*tick*

She started thrashing, trying to make as much sound as possible.

(I’m here! Please save me!)

“Tch. Shut up!”

The pangolin-man, annoyed, hit her in the stomach with his hard scales, bringing a stop to her struggles.

(Ughh.. that hurts….)

*tick*

She had the urge to vomit but the hand covering her mouth prevented her from doing so as she swallowed the rising bile back into her stomach.

“Hold her Yojaan. I deal this.”

“You think you can do it?”

The pangolin-man had doubts on his partner’s ability to deal with unknown entity but he had no choice as he had to hold the girl down.

“Hehe, trust.”

(Please……)

The girl silently wept, praying for whoever it was to save her.

--------------

*tick*

Satoshi made loud sounds as he walked with the stolen walking aid. He wanted to make this as dramatic as possible, so he had waited, constantly feeling the situation with his ability.

He knew that one of the thugs was holding down the girl and the other was ready to pounce on him the moment he would come into view.

(Come get me!)

Satoshi grinned under the hood as he barely came into the waiting assailant’s sight prompting him to rush out early with a harder footing. The ratkin took the bait as he saw the man with the walking stick to be an easy target and jumped on the robed man while swinging his knife.

Satoshi easily dodged but made it look like he had struggled. The ratkin shouted something at him and jumped again. Satoshi dodged towards the side where the other assailant and the girl would come into view. The other assailant had scaled arms and was clearly the more dangerous of the two. He was holding the girl down while holding her mouth.

(Kidnapper’s rule uno, don’t let the target scream for help.)

Satoshi dodged another swing narrowly using large movements. The ratkin was slowly getting irritated as his attacks weren’t landing on this evidently handicapped and amateurish opponent. Fed up, he leapt onto his enemy to bring him down with his entire body weight.

(Noob.)

Satoshi brought down his walking stick on the incoming ratkin’s head and with some crafty use of air, pushed the ratkin down at the ground bursting his lungs at the same time, instantly killing him. It looked like the ratkin had fallen down and due to the attack on the head, had fainted. Satoshi himself pretended to fall over with unbalanced footing, revealing an only leg under the robe. He used just enough air cushion to prevent any injuries but still make it look like an untrained individual’s fall.

He heard the other man shouting some things at him but..

(I don’t understand anything, you jackass!)

Satoshi slowly got up, pretending some pained expression on his unhooded face.

(Kidnapper’s rule number two. If the girl’s saviour arrives, take the girl as a hostage and threaten to kill her.)

“Listen up motherfucker.”

The two people in front of him, including the captive girl, stared at him with wide eyes at being revealed a human.

“I know you don’t understand whatever I’m saying but I went through some effort arranging this scene, so you better not fuck it up okay?”

Hearing the unknown language, the pangolin-man recovered out of his stupor of seeing a human and started speaking something of his own.

“Raga ut ikdal ok anachab tahach iah, hot loobh aaj! Alag abad agnug aksi! Gabh el idehjang!”

“Did you not hear me? I can’t understand you, asshole!”

Satoshi had been slowly limiting the man’s air intake. Hence, when he suddenly blocked off his breathing, the man staggered. Satoshi used a burst of wind to rush forward and struck a punch on his face.

(Uhh.. the things one has to do to look good in front of a girl.)

As the man separated from the girl, Satoshi used another burst of wind to blow him away and using the momentum, caught onto the girl tightly, protecting her in his arms and fell over.

(Fuck that hurts!)

He couldn’t properly cushion his fall since the girl was on the bottom side and would have realised the anomaly with the wind. As a consequence, Satoshi’s arms and elbows took a heavy brunt of the fall, distorting his face in pain.

“You better be worth all this pain...”, he whispered into the girl’s ear.

He heard the girl say something back to him in a broken voice.

“Uggghh…”

Grudging in real pain, he got up and got the girl up. Now that he finally had a chance to look at the girl closely, she was average looking, a face you could come across anywhere. She had brown hair and brown eyes, the edges of her face were slightly furred in white and hence were hard to notice unless at an extremely close distance. She had small ears at the top of her head and her face was currently full of tears and snot. She grabbed onto his robe and forgetting that he was a human, started sobbing silently. Satoshi took full advantage of the situation and hugged the girl to his chest, caressing her hair.

He had planned for another go-at-it with the scaled guy for theatrics, but considering the situation, decided to silently choke the other thug to death.