“Mir! Mir! Oh, thank the heavens I looked everywhere for you.”

Not the forest apparently.

“Mom! Mom!” Mir began tearing up as he ran.

He was embraced by his mother a moment later. Chuu watched them silently bobbing in the air.

The sun was setting which meant that it was probably best to find a place to sleep. Thanks to the fact I had no money to my name I wouldn’t be able to pay for a room at an inn. Which meant that despite my prestige I would be sleeping outside.

At the moment I was trying to find a good resting place when something tugged at the bottom of my shirt. Chuu was still bobbing in the air so he wasn’t the guilty party.

“Mao, come on, we’re going home.”

“Won’t you join us for dinner?”

“I’m not hungry.” My stomach growled betraying me.

“Do you have a place to stay for the night?”

“Right there.”

Mir and his mother followed the direction I was pointing to, the look on their faces infuriated me. It said something like you poor soul, you’re going to sleep by the well.

I grumbled to myself as I made my way to my sleeping quarters for the night.

“Mao, my home's this way. Mom’s making stew.”

I waved Mir off. I still had my provisions from Granny Hana. Let me just check….my face fell flat.

“Which way did you say your house was?”

As Mir’s mother who had introduced herself as Maria, put the finishing touches on dinner, Mir blathered on about the town. According to the miniature chatterbox the town of Rockfell which was located in the Rockfell region which was a notably poor region, was a mining town.

The Rockfell mine had actually shut down not too recently thanks to rumors of ghosts. The workers claimed to hear the sounds of vengeful spirits. People screaming in terror. And stone faces or something.

The most notable case regarding the Rockfell mine was a group of bandits that tried to take over the mine harassing the townspeople for three days and three nights before suddenly vanishing without a trace. Not that I understood how that was a bad thing.

None of that really interested me since I was passing through. Although knowing that this was a poor town that no one seemed to pay attention to allowed me the comfort of knowing that if I happened to behave in let’s just say a “less than heroic manner” no one outside of this area would really care.

And if the important people didn’t care well then…I grinned devilishly at the idea.

By the time dinner was done and the table was set I began to get a better understanding of how Mir might have gotten lost in the forest. For one his mother placed the table settings strangely. Mir and his mother sat on one end of the table and I sat on the other yet she placed them at the head of the table and on the chairs closest to her on either side.

Mir wore a sullen look on his face when he watched his mother realize her mistake. It wasn’t just the table setting. At one point when I had cleared my plate Maria, Mir’s mother mistakenly called me Mar.

What was even more striking was the evidence of absence as if everywhere you looked something was missing. As an outsider I couldn’t begin to guess what it was.

“Mar…Mao. Mao your shirt is stained if you’d like I could give you one of my husband’s old shirts.”

Maria left before I could say, why would I want one of your husband’s dirty hand me downs?

Honestly, what would give this woman the idea that I Mao would want some old, used…

“Here it is.”

Worthle….OH! Shit! This is actually really cool. Ehem. The shirt was alright. Maria seemed a little too pleased when I took the black mandarin collared martial arts shirt from her.

“I bet you’ll look so handsome with it on.” Maria nodded strangely as she spoke.

She’s not saying to try it on now is she…oh no, she is. Well I do want to see how this looks. This has nothing to with her asking, obviously a demon lord does not bend to the whims of others so easily.

The shirt was nearly a perfect fit, when I tried moving my arms I noted a little stiffness. Hmm. I wonder.

“Wow. It looks so good on you. You look so much like Mar.”

The was a strange look on Maria’s face it was both melancholy and happy at the same time. As if she had got a glimpse of something long lost. The fact that Mir had the same look was when it finally donned on me. Which sucked too since I wanted to keep the shirt. When I tried to take it off Maria instead that I could keep it since her husband wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

There it is.

The rest of dinner was silent save for Chuu loudly remarking how good his food was. To shut him up I offered to cook Chuu for Mir and Maria but they declined mostly because they thought I was joking.

Not long after I was guided to Mir’s room to sleep, he would be sleeping in his mother’s room. Mir’s room was small with a handful of books open on a small desk. And a wardrobe to one side of the room. His bed was small, but surprisingly neat.

“Dibs on the bed, chuu. Mao can sleep on the floor.”

Ignoring Chuu I plopped myself on the bed.

“Moooovee. Moooove. Move.”

Chuu tried in vain to push me off apparently, he was serious about me sleeping on the floor. In the end Chuu fell asleep from exhaustion sleeping beside my head. I kept trying to move him away yet he returned until I relented allowing him to sleep next to me.

Sometime after I had fallen asleep I could hear a stranded scratching sound by the windowsill beside Mir’s bed.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

“Chuu…cut it out.”

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

A single eye opened it was Mir scratching at his windowsill. I watched him from my sleeping position for a moment he glanced in my direction seemingly unaware of the fact I was awake and then he walked off as if nothing had happened.

Well that was strange. What a weird kid. This is his room so he must have been sleep walking…was what I would have thought if I hadn’t caught a glimpse of Mir’s purple eyes a second ago.