"Hey, Ruto?" Asuna probed cutely, while rubbing her now red eyes. It"s only natural, she had been crying a lot.Her blonde hair seemed to shine in the moonlight. We had been on the back of the carriage for a few days now, fortunately the driver fed us occasionally.
"Yeah?" I responded carefully. She was hurt the most when Nana tossed us aside, as Asuna hardly talked to Erin and I, and was attached greatly to Nana.
"C-can I sleep closer to you...? T-t-this hay doesn"t really keep me warm..." She looked at me with pleading eyes, their azure gleam grabbing my full attention.
"Eh, why not?" With a gentle smile, I motioned her towards me.
She broke out into a bright glowing smile as she cuddled up to me. I wrapped my arms around her, welcoming my dreams to wrap me in their embrace as well.
I will protect this smile.
**
The sun greeted us not long after. Erin ended up beating me to being the first awake.
"Morning Erin..." I mumbled as I strategically slipped away from the sleeping Asuna.
Erin rustled his light-brown hair, looking over at me with his jade green eyes and a teasing smile as he said, "You sure had an interesting pillow last night, didn"t cha"?"
"Ehehe..." I calmly laughed it off before noticing that the carriage wasn"t moving. Wait, there aren"t even trees around us. We... we are in a city?!
Erin must"ve noticed the confusion on my face as he informed me, "We got in the city about an hour ago. The driver said he didn"t have the heart to wake you two, but he had some business to attend to, so he told me the directions to the school and to take you guys there after you both wake up."
**
Now that we were in the city, Asuna began caring about how she looked. We had already walked a few blocks in the direction of the school when she began to get fl.u.s.tered.
"I-I-I don"t w-wanna look like this in front of other kids!" she whined adorably as her hair was sticking up due to the b.u.mpy carriage ride.
"We could use a change of clothes, a bath, and definitely a proper meal..."
"Alright, alright. I think I see a clothing store over there go pick somethings you like and then we can find a place to bathe- aaand she has already run over there. Can you find something for me while you watch her?" I sighed while tossing Erin most of the gold coins we had.
"I got it dude. Go look for a place to wash or something, then we can meet back here." Erin called out to me, as I had already started walking away.
I turned to nod in agreement, then went to where I had heard something interesting. Apparently, I had exceptional hearing. I could hear Nana back at the church from deep in the forest, so picking out something in a bustling city wasn"t too hard.
"Bet any amount, then put it in a cup! After that, I"ll shuffle the cups around, and if you choose correctly, I"ll triple it! Every time you choose correctly, I"ll multiply it by one more!" a narrow-faced weasel of a man called out on the street-side. It wasn"t hard to hear him, I even heard him from the carriage a few blocks down.
"This will be easy with u003cObserveu003e..."
"Hey, Old Man! I"ll play your game, here is 250 Gold Coins." I said as I ran up to him, placing the coins on the table.
A lot of people walking on the street gave me greedy glances, though most of them continued on their way except for a suspicious group of fiercely grinning men. If they try anything, I"ll have to find a way to deal with them.
"alright kid..." The "weasel" squirmed as he placed 10 of the coins in a cup and left the rest on the side of the table because they wouldn"t fit.
"He is actually quite talented with his hands. Unfortunately, he is playing against me."
The cups, 6 in total, darted around the table, as if they had legs of their own. It is basically a blur for any normal person, but with the eyes of a demi-human, I could barely keep track, and with u003cObserveu003e, I could close my eyes if I truly wanted to because a small pop-up would hover over the cup with my money in it.
As his hands came to a stop, he looked back at me with a toothy grin, "Heh, alright kid. Don"t cry if you lose all of that money."
*
"I think I went a little to far..." I guiltily thought to myself as I gazed at the seemingly hollow sh.e.l.l of the foaming weasel-man.
The weasel-man had tried a few tricks to con me out of my money during the short-time we had been playing the game, but I simply called him out on the tricks, earned an apology, and continued to get win after win. Eventually, I think the unrealistic situation became too much for the weasel-man as he began to practically foam at the mouth in anger and sorrow. Even the greedy group of men began to drool entire oceans as they gazed at the many large sacks of gold in my possession.
"If only I could store this easily-" I was interrupted by a message.
[Would you like to activate the spatial-storage skill u003cInventoryu003e for the first time? YES/NO]
"What?! I"ve had this type of skill the whole time... convenient. Whatever this s.p.a.ce is, will this really fit though?" I questioned as I decided [YES] in my mind.
Immediately, the wooden table that threatened to give way to the weight of the coins was relieved of the pressure.
[Gained : 500000000 Bronze (1000) -u003e 500000 Silver (100) -u003e 5000 Gold (10) -u003e 500 Platinum]
"Platinum? Wait, does this mean my u003cInventoryu003e can convert currency into forms of the same or different currencies?" I wondered.
The reason I asked myself this was because I was paid in Gold, but the system says it has been stored as Platinum, which is a conversion of 10G per platinum coin. Sure enough, I tested it real quickly by willing a platinum coin to appear in my hand, and it worked. It also worked when I tried to call out bronze, silver, and gold coins as well. This saves me from having to approach a bank and explain to them why a kid has so much money in the first place... Nana taught me well in economics.
"As for converting it into currencies of different countries, I"ll have to leave that for later because I have to figure out a way to get away from the group of greedy looking men, then find somewhere to wash up-"
As I was thinking about what to do next, and how I"d do it, a scream escaped from someone that saw me store the gold using the u003cInventoryu003e skill, "SPATIAL MAGIC?!" A crowd of shocked and skeptical people formed around me very fast... the perfect cover to slip away from the sight of the suspicious and greedy looking group of men.
**
[Erin"s POV : Just outside of a clothing store.]
"Whew." I exhaled as Asuna and I walked out of the store.
Asuna went all-out on buying clothes for us three, insisting, "We have to present ourselves well," and, "Ruto did give us ALL of this gold to buy clothes..." I tried to convince her not to, as two 5 year-olds using all of that gold to buy clothing would attract attention, but her stubbornness and innocence kept her from accepting that this may cause problems. I guess Ruto and I are pretty mature and independent for our age... uh-oh.
The first thing we see as Asuna and I walk out of the store is a large crowd of people screaming, "Spatial-Magic!", "He didn"t even use a magic-crystal, or a chant!" and, "It has to be the apostle of Laxyus, the G.o.d of Magic!" And the one person I see slipping out of, and away from, the crowd was Ruto. Ruto looked around, to make sure no one noticed him slipping out, then made his way quickly to Asuna and I.
"Hurry! Let"s get away form here..." He ushered us away.
"Huh, whats going on Ruto-" the adorably clueless Asuna tried to probe Ruto for questions, but she was met with a "SHHH, hurry!" from Ruto.
*
After a few minutes of running, Ruto stopped in front of us and signaled us to stop.
"Alright, we should be far enough away, so no one will recognize me here..." Ruto said this, then explained what had happened, "Although, I don"t know why they said it was Spatial-Magic... it was a skill."
Asuna looked on in blissful ignorance, but I... I don"t even have words for how I am feeling at the moment, "Spatial-Magic in and of itself is practically extinct, save for in magical artifacts, which are only possessed by rich n.o.ble families... The only "Modern" Spatial-Magic is the kind used by the ARCH MAGES a.s.sOCIATION! PEOPLE THAT CAN WIPE ENTIRE PROVINCES! And now, you are telling me you have skill that can replicate that kind of magic without mana cost, or with the help of a magic-crystal?" Ugh, I could feel a headache coming on.
Ruto nonchalantly responded with a nod, while Asuna held onto Ruto"s arm shaking. Ah... I probably shouldn"t have yelled, but the situation is ridiculous... and the only reason I know anything about this is because Nana would read to the loser of our sword fights books about magic, and I was usually the loser. Maybe she knew this would happen and that I"d have to keep Ruto from getting in deep trouble.