The pleasant patter of the early birds woke the twin suns from their slumber, covering the dark skies of the dawn with their dim rays of light. Alongside the suns, Astolfo woke up with a start. He looked around himself with a sharp gaze before resting his palm on his chest and calming down. It had been six months since the last time he dreamed. Ever since receiving the curse of Teleios, the boy had been constantly facing situations of life and death.

Astolfo rubbed his eyes and slowly shuffled to the side of the bed. After visiting the explorer’s guild, he had a meal with Morris at the restaurant place and was brought back to the scary man’s home. Morris had threatened the boy in a foreign language to take the bed or lose his head and he gladly complied, at least he would like to think so.

Stretching his arms and waist, Astolfo stood up and yawned. The dim morning lights entered the room through the gaps in the curtain while Morris still laid asleep on the couch on the opposite end of the window. The boy slowly made his way towards the window and went behind the curtains, looking out at the cold and beautiful Vicino town.

The smile on his face faltered and his heart pounded against his chest. The language, money, people, there was nothing he had or knew in this place.

A continent.

He was a whole continent away from his home.

Ever since that day six months ago, when he faced the mantis monster and was handed the curse of Teleios by Astolfo, the only thought driving him forward was to go back home.

But now…

The distance was so great, so vast. Would his parents be alright? What about his siblings? Are they searching for him, did they even know he was alive? How could he go back and face them...?

A sudden sting on the tip of his finger jerked Astolfo out of his gloomy countenance. He lowered his gaze to see a red ant nibbling on his finger before climbing atop it. The boy slowly raised his arm closer to his eyes.

This red ant, he had seen it before. Back at his home, every time he dropped anything sweet on the floor, these ants would come in hordes from the Dalwich forest and take it all away.

The tiny little creature was shaking its head around. To it, just his finger must have been like stepping into a new world, yet it bravely stepped ahead to navigate through this new land as well. This small creature that would take days just cross a street was here in this whole new continent, moving ahead without hesitation.

Astolfo lifted his head and looked at the chirping birds flying playfully in the air. Sparrows, pigeons, crows, all of them were creatures he had seen back home. All of them were moving ahead with no hesitation.

Following one of the birds, the boy’s gaze fell on the two suns rising majestically from the eastern skies.

It was just two days ago that he was stuck in a cave with no end in sight. Stale old air flowed in the enclosed place, carrying the dirty smell of monsters. Whatever tried to soar down there would hit the ceiling and fall back down. In that dark place, there was no light of the suns, yet he continued onward.

And now, he was once again under the two suns he would gaze at each day. The same two suns were here in the sky, looking over the whole world. As the light of the suns escaped from the horizon, pushing away the dimness of dawn and covering it with a bright morning, Astolfo smiled.

“Maybe home is not that far away.”

**

Not long after, Morris woke up to find Astolfo performing sets of handstand push-ups in one corner of the room. The two had some toast laden with mixed fruit jam for breakfast and left for the explorer’s guild.

The early morning explorer guild was sight starkly different from the one late in the evening. The lamps and lights placed inside were unlit as the sun rays illuminated the inside of the exquisite establishment, covering it with a natural glow. Groups of people in full gear talked around or planned by the tables and shelves while some fiddled with the gears kept on the other side.

Astolfo looked around the guild once again as if it was his first time seeing the place. The sight of the little kid walking around while flailing his head from left to right made some onlookers giggle at him. When Morris saw people staring at the boy and turned to face him, he too couldn’t help but let out a smile that made everyone in the guild shut up and stopped Astolfo in his tracks.

His face was just too scary.

With a disappointed look, Morris shook his head and went up to the reception. Sitting at the desk with a listless look in her eyes, the elf with platinum blonde hair didn’t notice the man in front of her once again.

“Ahem. Miss,” Morris coughed to get her attention.

“…Yes?” Julie said without even looking at the two.

“Excuse me. I need to talk with the manager.”

“Manager?” Julie muttered and finally turned her head. Her eyes widened in surprise and she jumped off her seat with her long ears twitching rapidly. “A-a-ah yo-u… What can I do…”

Astolfo was slightly shocked when he saw that the receptionist was the same lady as yesterday and when he saw her acting so scared of Morris, he smirked triumphantly. Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice he was there in her fear, he was sure would have annoyed him if she did.

“The manager, please.”

Julie nodded with vigor. “Yes, yes… I’ll go call him!” She found an escape and jumped right on it. Without hesitating for a second, the elf receptionist dashed out of her seat. Soon, she returned behind the back of the old manager, carefully glancing at Morris.

“Oh, Morris. You are here.”

Seeing the manager act so friendly with him, Julie slightly eased up in front of Morris. Her gaze shifted away from his unfathomably terrifying countenance and towards the young boy standing next to him.

“Yes, manager. Are the preparations done?”

“Of course, I have prepared the guild card for him as well. Just need to get him to pour a bit of his mana and bond it. Here you are.” The old manager stretched out his hand and placed an envelope in front of Morris.

Her eyes almost popped out of their sockets as she recognized the long and messy red hair and the wide scar on the boy’s left eye. Julie hissed at Astolfo who had switched his attention back to the Explorer’s guild after seeing the old manager.

“Hm, alright. I’ll try to get him to do it.” Morris inspected the envelope for a second before placing it in his pockets.

“There’s another thing you have to look out for, boy. The apprentice system needs you to take him to explorations classified in the C-Rank or above.”

Astolfo finally noticed the hissing. He smirked at Julie and immediately started mimicking her interaction with Morris, fluttering his lips and twisting his body. Julie’s inquisitive eyes turned razor-sharp, if looks could kill, she would have murdered Astolfo three times over.

“Is that so…” Morris said with a sigh. “Well, it shouldn’t be too dangerous.”

Astolfo immediately started laughing at her threatening gaze but didn’t laugh loud enough to interrupt the conversation taking place next to him. Julie grit her teeth and pumped her eyebrows at him. At her gesture, Astolfo pointed at Morris and shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, boy, there have been reports of people finding a connection passage in the ruins here, why not check that out?”

“A connection passage? That sounds like a good idea one to start with… I’ll take that request.”

“Yeah, and while you don’t need it, why not read up on the protocol and data in the guild? Even if he can’t hear, it’s important to at least bring him to be near standards for a good exploration.” The manager said while looking at Astolfo.

‘Can’t hear,’ those words stood out to Julie. She stared at the boy with a skeptical gaze, her eyes seemed to ask him what they were on about. Astolfo tilted his head with a confused face. He didn’t understand whatever they said in the first place.

“You are right. I’ll do that.” Morris nodded at the manager’s words. He turned to Astolfo and gestured at him to follow along. “Hey, let’s go.”

Astolfo waved bye and followed behind Morris, completely ignoring the confused Julie.

**

Morris guided Astolfo to one of the many tables in the room and asked him to sit. He then went over to the shelves and scoured through the books and documents. The target of the exploration this time was the signature ruins of Vicino town and the fief as a whole, the Ruins of Bragi.

He picked out maps of the place made by different cartographers, records of monsters commonly found inside, some documents describing protocol in different situations, and lastly moved to the specialized data for the ruins collected and complied by scholarly explorers.

Morris put down everything on the table and pulled out the envelope the manager had given him. Tearing it open, he pulled out the apprentice identification card. He slid the card towards Astolfo and pulled out his own.

There were no names or associations of any kind mentioned on the cards, but there was quite a lot of difference between Astolfo’s and Morris’. From low scout, cartographer, vanguard to high scholars and wizards, the identification cards for each role were different. There were many reasons they did it this way, but the most important one was cost-effectiveness. By avoiding personalized identification cards for each and every member and updating it regularly, through magic or even physically, the explorer’s guild which had a branch in every town and city in the continent would be wasting a lot of money.

Morris lifted his identification in front of Astolfo and slowly started pouring his mana into it. Soon, a Turquoise glow encapsulated the card. Seeing the phenomena, Astolfo nervously nodded and tried to do the same thing. His mana flowed into the card without any resistance and within moments, the card started shining a golden hue. Morris nodded satisfactorily and put the card back in.

This was the most unique aspect of explorer guild cards that made them a great guarantor of identity even when such a large number of people used them. The guild cards had a simple formula etched into them that read a person’s mana signature, it would then only accept the mana of the first person who put their mana in it.

And so, Astolfo’s identity as an apprentice explorer guaranteed by the explorer’s guild was now set in stone no matter where he went. Next Morris pulled up the multiple maps and the documents on the monsters in the ruins and tried to explain them to the child.

For the next whole hour, Astolfo tried his best to internalize whatever he could understand from what the man had given him. When he saw the maps, his expression rapidly contorted and when he saw the detailed sketches of monsters, he smiled widely.

Morris observed the child resting his cheeks on his fist. There were many reasons he was doing this for this child that he hadn’t even known for a day. He had long been a person keen on helping others, from all his friends to the children in the orphanage, he had been a pillar of support for them all.

Unknowingly, seeing the people he helped become happy and smile had started to give him a lot of self-satisfaction, and his previously selfless actions stemming from a desire to help had completely changed into actions resulting from his selfishness. He helped people to feel better about himself.

Morris had long come to terms with this, in fact, he had reached a level of acceptance where he could openly admit it all to the people he had helped.

‘I healed you because it makes me feel better. I gave you food because it gives me satisfaction.’ Such words he was ready to say in a moment's notice.

Astolfo too helped for himself. Seeing a child who could not speak a word resorting to stealing and then fighting made him want to help him. Of course, there was also the fact that he was suspicious that he kept him close and did not send him to the orphanage.

A young child, barely in his teens, fighting off adults with chantless magic. It was surely a very rare and suspicious sight.

Morris was sure these were the reasons, but there was something else gnawing at his heart that made him want to help the little kid out no matter what. The large gash on his eyes, the scars all over his body that made him seem tattered, and the lonely eyes the boy held as he fought his friends in the pub. All those would pop into his mind again and again.

Even after coming to his room, the boy woke up with the suns and started tempering his body.

What kind of a rough life had he led? What had happened to make a child look like that? What had happened to make a child train himself like that?

If his help could make the child’s day a little better, he wanted to help him.

“Let’s go now. We should get to the ruins.”

After a long time, he felt that he was helping someone out without his selfishness.