“Water. I need water.” I whisper to myself.

A week ago, I entered this desert to search for an ancient relict with a band of mercenaries. It’s not that I needed them to guard me, I just needed them to waste my time with joke and such.

This place is just a normal desert, not the land of no man. But, apparently beast and monster also lives here.

I thought this would become another easy journey, but three days ago a pair of monsters were fighting over territory and our caravan got dragged into it. Unfortunately, all of them died and I’m the only survivor. I couldn’t care less with them, but the monsters destroyed all of our food and water supply. And now, I’m wandering in the middle of the desert. Hoping to find some water.

“Oh, God, I fucking hate you. Why can’t I cast any magic?”

I look at my right hand. A blue and red stripe ring on my middle finger is a mana storage ring. An empty mana ring. Unfortunately, this ring is just a low class mana ring. I got it when I was five as a birthday present. It’s not that I didn’t have any money to buy a high class mana ring, it’s just nobody has it.

In this world, it’s pretty rare for someone to be born without any affinity toward magic. And I’m one of those rare people. If I can get this ancient relict this time, I will be able to create a high class mana ring.

In the distance, I see rocks. A lot of rocks. But as the distance get closer, I can see it’s not rocks. What I see is a lot of white clay houses. A typical house to be found in the desert.

I hurry to the village but not much people is visible. Maybe because it’s midday and it’s hot as hell out here? I pass few houses and I found some house that looks bigger than any other house. I can hear a loud noise is coming from it and some long-legged lizard is tied outside of it.

It must be a bar, or something like that.

~badump~

I fall on my face right after I enter the place.

All the noise I heard before has disappeared. I roll my body so I can see the ceiling.

“Wa, Wa,”

I can feel the stare is stabbing me from every direction. I guess they’re expecting something disastrous to happen like “Help. Our caravan is under attack and I need a help”.

“Water.”

As I finish my word, the loud noise instantly come back to the place. It seems they’ve lost interest in me.

“Ah, mister, are you alright?”

I hear a faint voice. I don’t know. Is it the voice which is already faint or I’m losing my hearing?

“Water” I beg one more time.

“Here mister, have a drink.”

I can feel a cold water flow into my mouth. Filling my dry throat. It feels so nice. I’m alive, again.

“Get lost mix-kid!”

“Ah”

Suddenly, I can feel my face is being splashed by water. It seems the water that previously poured into my mouth had spilled all over my face.

“Ahh, so refreshing.”

I sit and look at the kid in my left. A blue haired girl in some rag clothes. She has the same eyes color as her hair. I inspect her carefully and see a long hairy pointy ears pop out from her short hair. Other than that, a small fang on her teeth and a short furry tail.

But for me, the most important thing is a cute little girl is right in front of me.

“How cute…”

I simply hug her all to myself. Ah, I just love little kids. The innocent face and the inability to protect themselves makes you want to protect them. Even if I’m not a father, I’m pretty fond of little kid. No, pretty fond is an understatement. I love them, totally.

I hug her and spin her around. Then, I take her to the closest empty seats as fast as a bullet and just looking at her.

“Hey, little girl, what’s your name? Where do you live?”

“A, a, Mister,”

“Yeah?” I tilt my head. Responding to her.

“Hey!” A hand lands on my right shoulder. As I look into my right, I see a big woman with your usual barkeeper outfit. “What do you think you’re doing to one of my waitresses, huh?”

Crap, I can see a black aura is coming from her. She’s so scary in so many levels.

“I, I’d like to order something.” I stutter.

She raises her eyebrow. “Huh? Do you have money with you?”

I put a small grin on my face.

I touch my ring in my right pinky finger with my left hand. It’s not the mana ring, it’s a different ring. As I touch it, a small air in front of me is distorted. I put my hand in it and took a little leather bag.

“Is this enough?” I open the leather bag and show her a fist of pure shiny silver.

In a blink of an eye, the leather bag has already moved to her hand, and she’s counting it. “Ah yes. Of course. You can even take a room and this little girl to serve you for a few days.”

The black aura from before suddenly vanishes and changes into sparkling light around her. Judging by her words, it seems like this place is also an inn.

“Good. Then, I’ll take any food you can serve for now and a lot of drinks. Bring me all of it.”

“Just a moment, sir.” The big woman shout in the direction of the kitchen. “Girls, get every available food on table 8.”

A lot of food and drinks is being served in front of me. After three days with no food and no water, I can’t hold my droll any longer.

“Thanks for the food.”

I gulp all the food and the drink. At this moment, I can say I am the very embodiment of gluttony, and I can feel the whole place is stabbing me with their stare. I don’t give a shit. I got all of this food and drink in front of me.

“Ah, mister, would you like some company?”

I look into my left and see a woman in the same age as me, twenties, is sitting beside me. She’s wearing a dancer outfit which practically the same as undergarment and showing her breast towards me.

“Fuck off! I don’t want any old hag like you.”

“Old, old hag?”

She’s pissed and walks away from my table.

I stop for a moment and look at the little girl in front of me. Her mouth is drooling like a river. When she notices I look at her drool, she wipes and tries to hide it. She must be thinking it’s embarrassing. Looking at her shy face is so soothing.

“Eat up little girl. I’m paying for you for the next few days so you need to eat something too.”

“Al, alright.”

I look at her closely. Her hand is trembling. I look toward the kitchen and I see a lot of teenage human girl is staring sharply at her.

I see, so that’s how it is.

“Hey, little girl.”

“Ye, yes sir?” She’s surprised and take her hand back.

“What’s your name?”

“Ah, Erfia.”

“Erfia, eat and drink to your heart content. I need you in my room, you hear me?”

~sqiusshhhh~

I can hear a lot of people spurt their drink at the same time.

“Ah, in, in your room, mister?” Erfia’s face became red.

“Yeah, so eat and drink to your heart content. I can see you’re not eating enough. I need you to recover your energy as much as possible. You’ll need it.”

“O, okay, then.”

At that instant moment, she chows down a lot of food down to her mouth. On the outside, it looks like that we’re having an eating contest right now.

It’s going just like that for some moment until finally some people decide to join my banquet.

“Hey, it seems you have a lot of money, why don’t you share some with us?” one of those people is opening their filthy mouth.

“Be gone! I don’t have any time to spare on little shit like you people.”

“Little shit, huh?”

Blarr.

At the spur of the moment, the table in front of me has already been split in two by some axe. I take Erfia to my left shoulder and some food in my right hand.

“Seriously?” I yell while chewing some food.

“You better give us all of your money or you’ll be the next one.”

I put Erfia down. She’s not disturbed at all by this. She’s still eating and eating.

Looking at her stuffing her mouth even though it’s already full is pretty cute in its own way.

I took a battle stance with some bone in my right hand and so does the people around me with their weapon.

“NO FIGHTING IN MY PLACE!”

Suddenly, a man flies towards the man that just split the table and take him down.

I drop my jaw and just stand in awe. I look toward the direction the man coming from and I can see the big woman from before with her black aura filling the whole room.

Her black aura is sending a shivering chill towards me. It seems not only for me, all the people in this room can feel it. All of them are sweating a lot and turning pale. Only Erfia is not affected and keep eating.

“Shit, I thought she’s out shopping.” One of the people that surrounds me yell.

“YOU LITTLE SHIT! YOU FIGHT AT MY PLACE AND YOU WON’T GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE!”

In that instant, all the people that previously surrounded me get back to their own seat and have a normal conversation with their own group like nothing ever happened.