Waking up from my thoughts, I realized I was in a section of the city I never explored before. The streets were narrow and dirty. The smell was bad, a mix of unwashed skin and fur with some whiffs of rotten food. Some species were sitting on the ground, wearing old and decayed pieces of clothing, watching me with empty eyes that had lost all hope. Some of the oldest people were also coughing heavily as if on their last breath.
I was in the city's slums, a dark and dangerous area if any. The contrast with the rest of the city was so marked that it felt like a different world. Yet, it wasn't that surprising. There wasn't a single place in the world that didn't have destitute people. Geola, the never-sleeping city, full of rich merchants and foreigners, was no exception to the rule.
It wasn't my first time in such a place since visiting a slum was part of my curriculum, for some reason. It felt like our instructors were telling us that this was where we could end up if we didn't do good enough. The true objective, though, was something I learned much later. According to the Trader Union's saying, everything could be used. They had proven it once more with how they handled slums and slum dwellers.
As I turned another corner, I bumped into a small form, which soon revealed itself to be a child, two heads smaller than me.
"Sorry!"
After excusing himself, he swiftly ran past me, running away at high speed. I wasn't stupid and I knew what this child had tried to do. Unfortunately for him, not only was I easily able to feel his hand searching my body for a split second since I was at rank 4, but all my possessions were also kept in my storage. I had nothing on me except my clothes, which meant I was the worst possible target for a pickpocket like him.
I could have caught the kid but that would have been a mistake. Once again, I had to think about the long term. Plus, he only searched a small part of my body in his hurry and I was sure another pickpocket would try to pick up from where he left.
I continued to walk around, observing everything curiously while ignoring the terrible smell and dark looks of the people living there. I wondered if some of them would consider me a good prey to shake off since I had decent clothes and looked like a rank 0. I could certainly feel like some of the younger groups of species were having thoughts about me. Yet, they remained more prudent than I expected, maybe because they had been burned in the past with similar acts.
Still, no more than ten minutes later, I was proven right with my first assumption. Another kid bumped into me when I turned a corner, a young girl this time. Her swift hands searched a different part of my clothes and I could see a slight frown appear on her face as she still didn't find anything she could steal.
"Sorry!"
Right as she tried to escape, I caught the back of her dirty tunic, stopping her right on her track.
"One second, kid."
Her reaction was quite violent. She instantly trashed around while trying to escape my hold. I now had a better view of her. She had black fur and two small triangular ears on each side of her head. Her small body looked gaunt and malnourished, with patches of fur losing their shine here and there. She was barefooted, the rest of her clothes consisting of a dilapidated large tunic that she wore as a dress. Her long and thin tail was standing straight in furor as she glared at me with pure anger.
"Let go, old fart!"
I felt my eyebrows twitch at the appellation but tried to keep my cool.
"You should stop trying to pickpocket people. Something bad will happen to you one day."
"Shut up! Let go of me! Who are you to say that? You're just a lowly rank 0!"
This time, the corners of my mouth faltered a little.
"Ha… Haha. You're quite the lively one. Aren't you a rank 0 yourself?"
"I'm a lot younger than you! It's pathetic to still be rank 0 at your age! Let go already!"
She was getting more and more agitated physically, while I was getting agitated mentally. What a cheeky kid. Still, I had plans for the future. I took one of the fruits I just bought out of my storage and showed it to her.
"You tried to steal from me because you were hungry, right? Here, eat this."
She suddenly stopped thrashing around, looking at me with both surprise and distrust.
"Are you crazy, old fart? Do you think I'm stupid enough to eat something given by a suspicious guy like you?"
"Yeah? Look."
I bit into the fruit, which was the size of my palm and round with a red skin. The juices invaded my mouth and I tasted a fruit for the first time in a long while. It was called "apple", apparently. I swallowed the piece I had in my mouth and extended my hand with the rest of the fruit toward the girl.
"See? Just a normal apple."
She hesitated for a short moment and then hissed once more.
"Let go of me!"
I obeyed, this time, and I saw relief on her face. Still, she didn't immediately escape. She looked at me, the apple, and all around us. Then, she grabbed the fruit in a flash and instantly ran away from me.
"Wait! Take some of this too."
She stopped once more, unable to stop her curiosity. Seeing the bag of candies I now had in hand, she seemed unsure, giving me a piercing stare. Understanding her meaning, I popped one of the candies in my mouth and appreciated the sweet taste. The wild girl stayed in place for a couple more seconds before rushing to me again, stealing the whole bag from me, and fleeing away like the wind. I wanted her to only take some of the content and not the whole thing but that didn't matter.
Up until the end, there was no thanks and no gratefulness in her body language. However, that was fine. The encounter had gone as expected.