"Rough night?" Cu unhelpfully added from above, sitting on a perch, as I shifted my unamused stare up to him. "Hey, I'm just asking."
"Just. Peachy." I huffed, inspecting the Kaleidogems in my hand, holding them up to the morning rays penetrating through the trees. "Root, you would've thought that spending a few nights outside would have already desensitized me to it. But one false hope of actually getting a bed, and all of that evaporates." I stretched on the forest floor, wincing as I feel my back cracking like a bunch of paper poppers.
"Skill issue." Cu shrugged, his shit eating grin beaming down at me. "If you were born in my time, you wouldn't have survived. Well, unless you were a noble or something."
"Well excuse me if I prefer the conveniences of modern times."
"What conveniences? All I see is that it made you weak."
"We can get food delivered to our door."
"So? Any lord could also tell a servant to do that."
"We get it within like, 20 minutes."
"... That's fucking bullshit."
"The benefits of Capitalism, I suppose."
Cu grumbled as I finally worked out the kinks in my shoulders. "So, what now?"
"Now? How the hell am I supposed to know? It's not like we could..." I trailed off, realising I was an absolute idiot.
"Hey, Master? You good?"
"No. I need you to beat the stupidity out of me."
"If you say so." Cu hoisted his spear, ready to beat me into the dirt.
"I DIDN'T MEAN LITERALLY!"
[LINE BREAK]
"A library? Seriously?" Cu stared at me, almost looking disappointed. "I thought you remembered, like, a secret cache of magecraft stuff or whatever."
"Well, this is better," I fired back, forcing him to carry a bunch of books. "Now we won't seem like ignorant country bumpkins from a backwater village." I toss two more into his arms. "Now help me read these."
"..."
"... Cu." I turned to him very slowly.
"... Ahem."
"... You can read, right?" My eyes were boring into his head.
"Well..." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"... Just go and sit down." I pinched the bridge of my nose.
"On it." With that, he immediately plopped the pile of books on a nearby empty table, and started twiddling his thumbs. Ignoring his slightly childish actions, I picked the first book from the pile that looked interesting. 'An Idiot's History Guide to Remnant: Vale', huh? Well, that's not insulting at all.
"Excuse me, gentlemen? May I sit here?" A portly man coughed, and stroked his, in my opinion, very well groomed moustache.
"Yeah, go ahead mate." Cu spoke before I could even get a word in. Not as if I was going to stop him from sitting here, but still. Rude.
"Thank you." Without any other words, got into the seat across from us and started flipping through a notebook he brought with him.
A few hours passed this way, with me occasionally closing a book and flicking through another one, Cu being an impatient child and drumming his fingers against the table, and the man scribbling something inside his notebook.
Well, at least for now, it was pretty peaceful.
[LINE BREAK]
"Cu, what the hell." I simply stare at the two figures slung on his shoulders. One with bright orange hair, and another with hair divided into pink, white, and brown. Reminding me of neapolitan ice cream, for some reason. "I sent you out to go get some food, and you went to go commit human trafficking?" Thank Akasha we're not in the public library anymore, but in some shady alleyway.
... That actually might be worse.
"... They tried to pickpocket me. Well, the shorter one did. I knocked her out. Then the orange one tried to hit me. So I knocked him out too."
"... And your first thought was to bring them with you?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Don't people get money for turning criminals in?" He scratches his head.
"Usually, yes. But I'm assuming that claiming money means filling out a form. Which means we probably need IDs. Something, we don't have." I deadpan.
"... Right..." He paused, before shrugging and dumping them on the ground. "So, what now?"
"... The food?"
"Oh, I knew I was forgetting something." ... This fucking idiot-
A/n:
Surprise?