5 In The City 1

"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 flustered.

"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 bumpy 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 <Observe>...'

"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.

"A-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 <Observe>, 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."