A certain little elf shows up to help Fio in his search?
Enjoy!
“Heey!”
The small girl rushed through the sand with light steps that swung her pigtails back and forth. Her feet were protected from the sand by bright orange boots, and her body was draped in a shaded mantle made for the desert.
Those weren't the only measures she had taken - a spell had been cast so that clean air always circulated inside the mantle.
“Now then...”
She picked up the staff that had hit the huge scorpion in the head—which had bounced off into the sand—, and scowled at the fleeing animal.
“Bad boy!”
Without warning, she scolded it like one would a child, which made the scorpion shrink.
“No matter how little food you have, attacking people is a no-no!”
The admonished animal shook its claws. Somehow, the girl and the huge scorpion seemed to understand each other.
“Eh? Is that so? Hm~... But, if you kill humans, other humans will try to kill you. You’re fine with that?”
“Ukii! Ki-ki-kii, u-ki!”
An animal's cries abruptly rose from beneath the girl’s mantle.
“Lou, I can’t do that.”
As she replied, a small monkey covered in pink fur popped out of the mantle's collar.
“Killing creatures without eating them...”
The girl sent a sad look towards the scorpion.
“Captain said so, didn’t she? Killing for fun is a bad thing to do, you’ll only get killed yourself.“
The animal backed down, dejected.
“U-kii! Kiki?”
“Well, what are we going to do with this girl?”
She looked at the fainted Fio, as he lied on his back.
“Let’s take her, Lou. She’ll die if we leave her like that.”
Making up her mind, she picked him up and carried him on her back.
“I hope we can be friends when she wakes up.”
***
A cool breeze in his hair.
Fio woke up, feeling the heat drain from his flushed body.
“Where... am I?”
Vivid green jumped into his eyes, the wasteland of the desert nowhere in sight.
He pinched his cheeks.
[Ow.]
Having to resort to such a cliché action brought a wry smile to his face.
“At least, it seems I’m not in Heaven.”
He slowly raised his head, causing a piece of cloth to fall off his forehead.
[It seems someone has been nursing me. So it wasn’t a hallucination?]
He looked all around himself, trying to find the girl his age that had defeated the huge scorpion.
On the other side of the small forest, he could see sand dunes, rising like a huge mountain range. If he listened carefully, he could make out the faint sound of running water; apparently he had ended up in one of the oases scattered through the desert.
"If I had known I was near somewhere like this, I would have waited until nightfall."
Grumbling, he pushed his way through the weeds of the undergrowth, walking towards the source of water.
It wasn't really a vast oasis. Rather, it was pretty small: only a fresh pond that didn’t evaporate and some vegetation growing around it. The only animals seemed to be bugs; there weren't even any small birds.
Before long, Fio arrived at the edge of the small pond, and treaded carefully, checking the water’s edge.
“So it’s spring water?”
Clear water spread on top of the sand, like a shallow coast.
“Hm?”
Something caught his attention: a colorful piece of cloth was hanging on the branch of a tree on the side of the pond.
Cautiously, he snuck over to the bright clothing. Bracelets and legplates covered in orange fabric, and a similarly-colored miniskirt.
To all appearances, they were girl’s clothes.
[Where’s the girl who was wearing these?
Wait, huh?]
As he checked the clothes, something struck him as odd. Among the clothes left behind, there was no underwear.
“She’s bathing with them on?”
“Ah! You woke up!”
“Hiah!”
An unexpected voice behind him made Fio let go of the clothes in a fluster.
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