81: Anguished Renegades

Anguished Renegades

Fortunately, I was able to buy the room directly in front of mine.1

Walking up the stairs to the second floor, I showed the girl where she would be staying, and her eyes seemed to get watery once again as she displayed her gratefulness to me with a barrage of thankful remarks. I simply waved them off, honestly not willing to accept most of it because it partly felt like something that I was obligated to do.

The poor thing had just gotten kicked out of her house by her own piece of shit father and she didn't even look old enough to have started puberty. I wasn't going to just leave her crying in the middle of a dirt road, mentally and emotionally broken from such an abusive youth.

Considering there was still dirt and grime all over her body, and the cheap inn didn't have any sort of washroom in any of the rooms themselves, I came up with a better idea than to have the girl walk outside and find some kind of well for a water source.

"Stay here for a minute, alright?" I said, leaving the girl in the middle of the hallway. She obediently nodded her head, waiting patiently for my return as I entered the room that I bought for myself. I paced around the room for a few seconds to make it seem like I was actually doing something, instead closing my eyes as the vivid image of my ring appeared.

This was my first time attempting to summon it on my right middle finger without actually materializing the physical representation of my transformative power.

A second later, I felt the familiar sensation of a ring around it, opening my eyes to inspect the item more closely. Finding it somewhat inconvenient and a little too flashy to do whenever I desired to use it, I decided trying to reform it's appearance would be a good idea.

Putting the thought into my mind and leaving it to randomly change by itself, I immediately saw a gradual conversion occur with the ring in real-time. It's size beginning to alter, the ring took on a more ethereal form in the shape of a white halo that floated above my head. Looking up at the unusual sight, I noticed that there was a dim glow emitting from it.

The way that it turned into a halo was very strange to me and I honestly wasn't sure whether I liked it or not. In my previous life, I had always considered myself to be an atheist, so the fact that it almost seemed to portray me like I was some kind of holy being didn't really sit right with me.

If I had to come up a reason for it that made the most sense to me, I would've said that God had something to do with it, and I was talking about the one that reincarnated me. They seemed to be quite fond of making my life even more confusing than it already was. However, for that reason alone, I decided not to mess with it anymore, leaving it to stay in the form of a white glowing halo hovering above my head.

A slight distortion in the air appeared a couple feet away from me, expanding until it was large enough to fit both of my hands inside. Leaning forward towards the rift, I asserted my current desires into the strange and largely unknown spatial manipulation ability that I stole from the Outlander, and made a bucket filled with clean water pop into existence. Grabbing ahold of it by the handle, I gently placed it on the wooden floor. Seconds later, I also created a small wooden basin out of nothing and did the same thing.

Both of them were then laid out in the middle of the room before I quickly dug through a decently-sized leather backpack that I brought along with me for a washcloth and a change of clothes, setting it on the side of the wooden basin.

"That should be enough..." I muttered to myself, closing the rift afterwards. Glancing up at the halo floating above my head, it hadn't lost it's dim glow or dissipated after I stopped using it, which caused me to make it so that I was the only one that could actually see the halo before walking back out into the hallway.

The little girl quickly pushed herself off of the wall that she had been leaning on while waiting for me to return, her eyes completely focused on mine, which just confirmed that she couldn't see what was currently above my head.

I made a pointing gesture behind me before stating, "Since you're clearly in need of a bath right now, I set one up for you inside of my room." in a quiet voice. There were other people trying to sleep in this building, after all, and I didn't want to accidentally wake them up.

Deciding not to point out the very obvious fact that this place shouldn't have any sort of washing privileges in the rooms, which was a thing mostly reserved for very expensive inn's that nobles frequently visited, she nodded her head before thanking me once again.

"When you're finished, just put your dirty clothes in a corner of the room. There's some clothes of mine in there that you can use until we get you a more fitting outfit tomorrow morning." I explained, rubbing the back of my head. "Sorry, but since I'm not a girl, I don't really have anything better to give you."

The girl stared at me in astonishment for a while, finding it incredibly difficult to understand why I was doing all of this for her. She decided to voice her internal question. "W-Why are you being so nice to me? You shouldn't even care about what I'm going through. The two of us just met a few hours ago."

Making a noise of disapproval, I crossed my arms in an opposing manner. "I disagree. While I don't care about the majority of people in the world and what they've got going on for themselves, that doesn't mean someone shouldn't be able to empathize with another about their struggles in everyday life." I huffed in mild irritation, raising an eyebrow towards the girl. As a way to disguise the fact that I was actually speaking about my previous life, I bent the truth a little so that it would better fit this one. "Here's a fact that you didn't know about me. I grew up without a father. He recklessly impregnated my mother and then just left her all alone to fend for herself, as well as an extra companion that she hadn't originally planned on having. Watching that man kick you to the curb without a care in the world... I was capable of empathizing with you because that's how I've felt about my father for my entire life. He was never there for me, instead just carelessly throwing me to the wolves like I wasn't even his progeny in the first place."

The hallway was filled with silence after I paused in my brief speech, the little girl standing in front of me with newfound tears silently rolling down her face. In the hopes of somewhat lightening the mood, I gave her a roguish smirk at the end. "That's why people like us have got to stick together. We're like an anguished flock of renegades, the family ever-expanding and acceptant of whoever no matter the background."

Before I could even blink, I felt something impact my chest and looked down to notice that it was the blonde-haired girl, crying even more now that the realization had dawned on her that she wasn't actually alone in the world.

Unbeknownst to me, there was a very faint smile on the little girl's face as she tightened her hold on my body. Returning the wholesome gesture, uncaring of the dirt now on my clothes, I wrapped my arms around her small body and gently pat her head until she calmed down enough to take a bath.

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The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed and put on my clothes, walking out the door a few minutes later. Scanning the area, an older man with a scruffy mid-length brown beard and nectarine shaded eyes exited his room down the hall as well, our eyes meeting for just a brief second before he descended the stairs.

Shrugging off the weird feeling I got from him, I gently knocked on the door to my companion's bedroom. On the other side of the wall, I heard a loud thud travel throughout the room, reminiscent of a person hitting the ground. A faint smile crawled onto my face as I thought about her clumsily falling off of her bed in surprise.

There was a moment of silence before my ears metaphorically perked up at the sound of her voice. "Ah! W-Who's there?" The girl said, most likely just now opening her eyes and still trying to fight off the enervated symptoms of waking up somewhat early in the morning.

"It's me. I'll be back soon with a suitable change of clothes for you."

Hearing a pair of footsteps getting closer to the door, I stepped a couple feet back before it opened just a tad bit to reveal her in my oversized attire, shyly peeking out of the side with a barely visible blush on her face. "O-Okay... I'll be waiting then."

Nodding with a sense of amusement in my red-slit eyes, I began walking towards the stairs while casually stretching my arms.

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Giving the required amount of money to the woman standing behind the table, I made my way out the door and into the streets of Murenfall Village. It was a warm and sunny day outside, just like yesterday, which was accompanied by a relaxing breeze that occasionally passed through to keep the residents feeling good.

Out of the corner of my eye, as I was on the way back to the inn, a small jewelry shop caught my attention. It didn't look like the items inside were of too good quality, nor did the exterior appear to be all that fancy, but I still went in simply out of curiosity for what they were trying to sell.

A wind chime announced my presence as I opened the door, earning me a polite greeting from the man and woman at the other side of the room, which I returned with a smile.

"Is there anything that either of us could help you with today, sir?" The man asked, arms comfortably resting behind his back. Shaking my head in the negative, I replied with a calm voice. "Nah, I'm just here to browse. I'll let you know if anything interests me though."

Finding that to be acceptable, he backed away to eagerly continue his earlier conversation with the woman that was cleaning a glass display case in a corner of the room.

Moving around all of the things currently out for sale, I picked a few of them up to examine, but none of them had actually seemed fit to give to... I suddenly palmed my face in exasperation which was directed at myself. The fact that I had forgotten to ask for the little girl's name just registered in my brain. Feeling incredibly ridiculous for having such a low IQ moment, I breathed out a tired sigh before sheepishly continuing to look for a surprise gift.

"For fucks sake..."

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"Ehhh?! I can't take this, it must've been really expensive!" The girl exclaimed in shock, glancing between me and the gift currently being presented to her with a panicked expression.

She had just changed into her new clothes, which I followed up with the piece of jewelry that I picked out from earlier. Her eyes had widened in surprise, not sure how to deal with it. When I stayed firm on the fact that I was truly giving it to her, she became emotional once again. Honestly, it was starting to become a normal thing with the type of character that she was.

"T-This is the first gift that anyone has ever given me..." She whispered, more to herself than me, but I still clearly heard it. That only served to increase my dislike for her father, but I made sure not to dwell on it for too long, not wanting to ruin the mood of the current situation.

The piece of jewelry was a multi-toned feather earring. Clearing my throat, I started to explain what it's secret purpose actually was, paraphrasing most of what had been explained to me by the owners of the store. "The earring is supposed to be somewhat of a last resort for whoever's wearing it. If you stab a person with the end of the feather, they'll be caught in an illusion. When they told me that as I was checking it out, I figured that it would be beneficial for you to have it."

"R-Really...?" She inquired, comically bringing it closer to her face as if there was a way to tell how it was possible. Honestly, I wasn't even sure exactly how, but it most likely had something to do with magic. That was the only logical solution that I could come up with.

"Thank you so much!"

Nodding my head, I eventually became a little sheepish, rubbing the back of my neck as I had just remembered something from earlier. "Ah... I have a question to ask you."

Turning to look up at me, she tilted her head in confusion. "Huh? What's the matter?" She inquired, noticing my facial expression. Breathing out a sigh, I awkwardly explained the situation. "W-Well, the two of us met yesterday, but I never remembered to ask for your name... I still don't know it."

Blinking once, and then twice, the girl seemed to realize that she didn't know my name either. It made the entire situation all the more awkward, a short period of silence occurring between us before I decided to start first. "...My name's Dante."

"Sara." She blurted out after a while, the two of us continuing to stand in the same place until a faint smile grew on each of our faces. It wasn't long after that we just randomly lost our composure, laughing uproariously as the awkward feeling in the air had turned comedic.

We spent the rest of the day in my room, talking about random subjects like our lives and what our goals were in the future. At the end of it all, the two of us felt like we knew just a little bit more about each other, and were content enough with that until the budding relationship grew stronger.

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