“Santi wake up wake up.” The first thing I hear every morning is several nudges from a child that should be dangerous.

“Abae let me get a little bit of sleep left.” I grumble. As much as I think I’m young I can’t compare to Abae when she’s like this.

“You promised me today that we’ll take a job somewhere far away this time.” She nudges me more.

“Aww fine fine I’ll get up already.” I get up from my bed and see Abae frolicking about in my room.

“Did you order our breakfast already Abae?” I ask her.

“Of course I did, I like the pancakes mister Bartender makes for me.”

“Are you sure you’re not getting sick of it yet? You’ve been eating pancakes every morning here for the past 2 months.”

“But pancakes are so delicious.” Abae stressed that last bit that her expression says it all.

“Okay okay then Abae but you gotta eat some bread and some meat on your body.” I advise her.

“Breakfast must be ready downstairs so let’s go down already.” She pulls my arms to her.

“Did you at least lock your room before leaving?”

“Wait I may have not.” We go out of my room as she fiddles the door next to me. After locking her room properly she goes downstairs as I follow her.

Arriving downstairs we see that our food is already laid out on the table we frequent lately. Guess that the bartender knows our preference at this point given the fact that Abae’s here for the past 2 months and keeps doing the same things. At the very least Abae is happy with the way things are going on at least lately.

We start eating our breakfast at this point as Abae enjoys every bite. Even the other people nearby are looking at this child eating a pancake. Uncomfortable as it is for me I can’t really just go away while Abae is here anyway. I start to ask her.

“So any plans on where to go for today?”

“I don’t know, I’m deciding if we should go to another city or to a village nearby.”

“Those aren’t bad choices but what kind of job do you wanna take?”

“Whatever they offer besides with our group we can take any kind right?”

“Can’t refute that but you know I don’t want to take something that’s ridiculously long for us to finish.”

“You’re way too picky for the jobs you take.”

“You know me I can’t just do one job for too long or I’ll risk going off somewhere in search of a large pack of Zokun.”

“But the experience of helping people.”

“Abae we talked about this before, there are some jobs I really don’t want to take no matter what.”

“So is this time the only exception that you’ll break that rule?”

“Yes because I promised you.”

“You’re such a kind person Santi.”

“Nah it’s to pay you with all the work you’ve helped us for over the past two months.”

“I mean after all that killing you guys made me do in the first place I earned that.”

“Killing a part of a pack by yourself is helpful if you ask me. Especially since when I do it alone everything I do is so intricate. Nowadays I just take it easy.”

“You were just taking it easy? It feels you’re going ham on those things the last time we fought.”

“Isn’t that normal when fighting?”

“I don’t know but judging from how you fight there’s this feeling where you put more effort than you should be in the first place.”

“That’s how I normally fight, you know.”

“It still baffles me.”

“Just get used to it, we’ll be together for awhile you know.”

She eats her breakfast vigorously. After a few minutes of eating she already finished her pancakes while I’m taking my time to eat my share. At this point she asks me.

“Can you please hurry up Santi? I’m eager to travel already at this point.”

“Just give me a minute or two and I’ll finish up her sheesh.”

“Hmmph” She says to me.

As soon as I finish, Abae stands up from her seat and pulls me from my seat. I say to her.

“Hold on for a second Abae, just let me get my bearings and we’ll go okay come on.”

“But I wanna go already.”

“Let go of me and we’ll go.” She immediately lets go of me and keeping my word I head for the door with her and be on our way to the guild.

Once outside she immediately walks cheerily with the same excitement she had earlier. Trying to keep up with her energy is draining if you ask me. As much as I prefer to go at my own pace and do whatever I want to, the topic is different if you have someone else with you, especially if they have more energy to spare in the first place.

“How is it that you’re brimming with energy everyday?” I ask her

“Isn’t it exciting to encounter and experience new things everyday?”

“Isn’t two months enough to calm you down?”

“Didn’t you know there’s always something interesting happening everyday like for example the binma are starting to get united lately?”

“Those guys? The warmongering tribes are uniting?”

“Well there are some rumors that have been reaching here lately. I thought you would be more observant than that.”

“I might have been out of focus lately.”

“Well today is a good day to warm up. You know loosen up, I mean we’re gonna travel farther than we should be in the first place.”

“Just get a good one for the three of us please.”

“Of course I will and besides you did a job for yourself a week ago right?”I nod to her.

“Then it’ll be fine, besides I don’t think any job will last a month or something right?”

“Those are rare unless you’re protecting something valuable.”

We keep talking like this on the way there sometimes we talk about the weeks before or something mundane like the weather and such. There are times when she would ask me something about my past like Prina but I change the topic immediately before I blurt out something accidentally.

Abae probably notices this and just leaves it alone but at one point she’ll definitely ask it again. Throughout our time together I just thought of her like a little sister seeing how she acts and the age gap between us I know she can handle herself but there are times where I let her do what she wants

Strolling like this is good once in a while. As we get to the guild Prina is already waiting for us inside. As she sees us, she then comments.

“You arrived later than usual.”

“It’s not like we’re gonna hunt some Zokun this time you know.” I reply to her.

“We’re gonna go far away this time.”Abae says.

“Well I probably should have expected that in the first place with Abae.” Prina says.

“Let’s get going then.” Abae says with excitement. She continues to trot around and goes to the job posting board alongside with the other mercenaries looking for work.

“Prina can you go with her for a sec and make sure she picks something reasonable for the three of us.” I request Prina.

“Yeah no worries Santi.”

She follows after Abae as I go to Sylia’s desk. If I’m going out for a couple of days with those two I think it might be best to tell Sylia about it just in case Veron asks me to do a job that might be important. Otherwise she might get worried about me and I won't hear the end of it for a couple of days.

I approach and she tells me.

“So what is it this time Santi? A hunting job? Or maybe a protection job?” She says with annoyance

“Hey what’s with the tone?” I ask her.

“I don’t know actually it just feels like you’re taking the same jobs over and over with them, I mean hunting jobs with variety is nice but after a while it just gets stale. That’s at least how I see it in my perspective judging from the other guys here.”

“Good news we’re not going to do that for today. Abae is picking a job for us right now and who knows what goes through her mind when picking one.” Her eyes lit up.

“For real?”

“Yeah I promised her back on our last job. I said to her. “Well Abae anything you want from me after this job, I’ll consider it to you like a gift or something.” And she went, ``How about we take another job somewhere far away this time.”

“I imagine that greatly surprised you.”

“I thought she might ask for a toy or a new book or something considering the age she is right now.”

“You’re going to be with her all the way right?’

“I plan to be the adult in the group from time to time.”

“Considering your age gap with Prina, I thought you let her be the adult this time.”

“In time in time. She’ll be able to do her own jobs in a few weeks from now I’ll tell you.”

“I’ll tell Veron that you’re going to be gone for a long while.”

“Yeah thanks that Sylia. I’m going to wait here until those two pick a job.”

“What do you think they’ll pick anyway?”

“No absolute idea, but knowing Abae she might pick something relatively fun for her.”

Sylia then goes back to doing her desk work while I just wait here and observe those two for now. They seem to be having fun picking a potential job, Abae picking something randomly and showing it to Prina while she probably just tells her how far away the job is. They just seem to be like a mother and a kid considering how small Abae is and the similarity of their getups with the both of them wearing hoods to cover their heads and faces.

A few minutes or so they pick a job and go over to me with Abae showing me the job that she picked. She then says.

“Here Santi how about this one?”

The job that she shows me, details as follows. Investigate what’s happening around a certain village called Calape. The villagers are hearing sounds throughout the day that they can’t distinguish and this disturbs them from their farmwork and have settled on setting a job for the mercenaries.

The place itself isn’t that far like going to another city but maybe around halfway at least. The sounds though can be debated to something in the woods or maybe some spirits that have wandered nearby. Sounds like a job perfect for Abae I guess considering she serves Defari directly. Something about the name of the village seems familiar but who knows I’ll let it happen when it comes to it.

“It looks good to me.” I say to them.

“Really?” Says Abae.

“Yeah we’ll take this job. It suits you.”

“See, I told you Santi will be okay with that” Prina says.

“I do wanna try something like this actually. Who knows it might evolve into something that involves the surroundings or maybe Winstow.”

“If I were you it’s better if we don’t get that kind of problem.” I complain.

“Can you at least let me fantasize for a moment? Besides at one point I might get involved with a country wide problem. Like one of the Zotan going down on this world for funsies and a group of heroes will go against him to make sure he doesn’t do that much damage.”

“At this day and age it’s kinda improbable for an evil god like that to come here and don’t expect that people will be annoyed for their disturbance.”

“You’ll have your moments Abae don’t worry.” Prina consoles Abae.

“Anyway just show it to Sylia here and I’ll wait for you outside. I already told her that we’re going to be for a while.”

“Okayyyyyyyyyy.” Abae replies.

I go outside of the guild house and just wait there silently as I could. Making sure that no one would notice me or my presence while waiting. I’m sure it’ll take a minute or two. Still preparing for this trip huh.

Maybe I’ll try to make Abae take the lead this time. But knowing where the place is it might take us a week or two to get there on foot while on horseback it might take a week at most. But knowing Abae she might like to enjoy traveling so we’re probably walking at this point. Then there’s some of our daily prayers whilst also travelling. But I think we’ll be fine on that point as long as we do it before night time comes.

Hmm I should prepare the food we’ll need for this journey as well, there’s Prina with her gluttonous body. I might need her to take most of the food she’ll be carrying. I don’t exactly remember if there are other settlements along the way so definitely gonna get my map for that and others if that isn’t enough.

What else to remember for this journey. Local Zokun in the area? I think I might need to get something for the rain as well. Man am I preparing too much, nah you can’t be too prepared for a trip at least besides bandits aren’t probably gonna ambush us on the way.

Hopefully they aren’t stupid enough to attack someone that feels dangerous. Although the prospect of the kid going with us might be tempting but anyone with a sense will never try in the first place.

They’re taking their sweet time in there. It shouldn’t be worrying since nothing that bad can happen to the both of them

After I’m alone with my thoughts for a few more minutes they come out with a different emotion like the atmosphere becomes gloomy for a bit. Once they notice me they brighten up for a bit and I ask them.

“Hey guys did something happen in there?”

“Nothing much Santi.” Prina replies.

“Well you guys took more time in the paperwork compared to the usual.”

“Don’t worry it’s nothing at all Santi.” Abae says.

“If Abae says so then it’ll be fine. Anyway we got to buy food and other stuff for the journey.”

“Here’s hoping I can pick the food I can eat.”

“You’ll have to use your own money if you want sweets Abae, anything else it’ll be on all of us.”

“Question Santi.” Prina tells me.

“Ask away.”

“How about the fact that I need to eat a lot during the journey?”

“You’re going to carry most of the food you’ll be eating.”

“Right makes sense. Why didn’t I think of that?” She tells herself.

“If anything else we should be walking towards the marketplace to get the food.”

Both of them nod as we trot away from the guild.

************************************************************************************************

At the end of the day after setting up camp at a field near the road. We’re cooking and are already waiting for the meal to be finished. Abae tells me.

“Santi thank you for giving me this chance for a trip.”

“Abae, you’re thanking me too much today, is something the matter?”

“No I’ll tell when it’s time.”

“Your choice then, it’s just that you too have been brooding a bit after you guys came out of the guild today.”

“We told you earlier Santi it’s nothing.” She didn’t make eye contact with me when she said that but I shouldn’t pressure it that much.

“For now I need to check if the stew is ready for us.”

I stand up and stir the pot a little bit to enhance the flavor. Stirring the pot I was suddenly hugged by Abae behind my back. Unlike the many times when she hugged this one feels more solemn like she’s mourning.

“I’m here for you Abae.” I tell her.

“No, I need to be there for you.” She replies.

I think nothing of it and wait for the stew to be finished and wake Prina up from her nap. She’s taking the first shift this evening and hopefully this stew is enough for all of us for tonight.