Who Reincarnated Me?

CHAPTER III

The summer blaze burned my bare feet as I walked on the stone path. I was surrounded by thousands of busy shops, street performers, small homes, beggars, travellers, street animals etc. All the noise pollution they made only added to my irritation. The sun was right upon my head and my stomach was pleading for food. I sighed to myself as I realized I should have stayed in the palace as long as I could.

The smell of street food made my stomach growl with hunger. I looked down at it and patted, “I know it’s tough buddy, for me too”.

Soon enough, I found a man selling fish in a nearby place. I ran towards him in hopes that he would accept me as his assistant or something. Judging from his almost bald head with white hair coming out from near his ears and his wrinkly face, It seemed as if he was of old age. And the fact that he was wearing clothes which looked old and dirty, I also predicted that he was financially poor. I went there to ask him if he needed any help, because I am a very kind person who cannot watch a poor old man work on his own (and absolutely not because I was in need of money and food).

“No! I won’t take in more stomachs to fill! Go die by the ditch if you’re lazy enough to come beg from me!”, was the reply I got when I asked him if he needed any help. Highly disappointed, I swooped my head low and walked away from there. What a mean old douche bag to tell me off like that!

But I didn’t lose hope and continued walking, asking every person if they needed assistance in any form of task. Nobody agreed to take my help and some ignored, well one did but the job was to sew and I sucked at that so I was the one who had to turn down the offer in the situation.

Soon enough, it was time for dusk and the sun melted down the horizon. With sweat all over my body and an empty stomach, I sat below a tree. I huffed as my vision became a little hazy, after not drinking a drop of water the whole day and walking below a happy sun, I was tired and very dehydrated. I crouched up and put my face on my knees. The best to do was sleep, I thought. But it happened so that sleep wouldn’t want to come to me so easily. I tried to lull myself, closing my eyes and slowly moving front and back.

When it was time for the night, the city was once again lightened up and the busy crowds were filled once more. With all the noise, sleeping became harder for me so I just looked at the busy marketplace in front of me. I wanted to go ask for money or a job again but I was too tired and had lost hope. I continued to rock myself and hummed a little song. My belly started hurting like hell and a small headache introduced itself in the back of my head. My tiny feet almost had blisters walking all day long.

“Hey, aren’t you Christine?”, I heard a voice. I turned my head to the side a little and saw the boy from before. He came towards me and asked, “What the heck are you doing here? Didn’t you say you were going home?”. I sighed and looked ahead of me again, “I don’t have one”. He looked at me for a second and questioned, “You don’t belong here, do you?”. I looked at him and blinked twice. I replied, removing eye contact once again, “Yes, you are right”. He sat down near me and said as he picked up a rock from the ground, “Say, are you hungry?”. I nodded my head and said in a desperate voice, “very”. He stood up and looked at me, “So then let’s go eat something”. I looked at him and said, “If it was that easy, I would have eaten a long time ago”. A small smirk formed itself in his face as he said, “Oh but it is pretty easy”. I frowned and said, “What do you-“. Just then he clicked his fingers and poof! We were in the marketplace, right in front of a fancy looking hotel.

My eyes widened as I looked around with shock. “How did you-“, and yes you guessed it, I was cut off once again. He clicked his Finger again and we teleported once more, this time to inside the hotel. We were sitting face to face and he was holding the menu and one was kept on the table in front of me. “So, what do you want to order?” He asked as his eyes scanned the menu he was holding. I slowly picked up the second menu ahead of me and started reading. As I read, a thought entered my mind, ‘Why is he being so considerate towards a stranger? Well, that doesn’t matter because all I want to do right now is eat. Maybe he is just a really nice person, right? Anyways, god bless this young child!!

Soon, I picked a dish, which was just random because I knew I can eat anything I see when I am hungry. He ordered it and asked nothing for himself. He just looked at me as I ate the five dishes I ordered. I looked at him with a meat piece in my mouth and another in my chopsticks, “bhan bhun? (Want one?)” I asked with my mouth full and pointing my chopsticks towards him. He shook his head no and I simply shrugged and continued to munch down the food.

After the eating was done, I smiled with satisfaction and said, “Thank you very much, kind sir!”. He looked at me and stood up, “now, shall we go home?”. I gave him a dumbfounded look and asked, “Umm, which home again?”. He smirked and answered, “The palace of course”. I almost choked on my own saliva in that. There was no way I was going back to that hell and that Satan. (Hell referring to the palace and Satan referring to Claude).

But no other choice was there, I had to pay something for the food and with no money and anything in that matter, I agreed. But it was also a stroke of luck on my side, after all, I will get a place to stay, free food to eat and some enjoyable company. Just the demerit was that emperor.

So, in the end, I was taken to the palace as a secret. Well, not for long as the guards found out about it pretty quick since I was staying close to the palace in the boy’s chambers. Actually, we were caught right the next day while a guard caught me sniffing some flowers in the nearby garden. When heard by the boy, he facepalmed at my foolishness while I could only show a silly but scared smile. The boy was put at fault by the emperor to bring me here but he told the reason, which might be an excuse and I am not so sure of the truth, that I had very high mana, exceeding that of the present Obelian royal family which consisted of him himself and his only daughter. Well, after a while of begging, the emperor allowed me but with a few words which were, “I don’t really give a damn about what you do as long as it’s not harming me or Athanasia. If it is, though, I will also not give a damn about what people will think if I kill you myself”. He is quite bold with his words, I must say but I would rather like that than a sly king, careful and bitter with his tongue.

Also, a few things came to my discovery, 1st that the king, or the emperor’s name is Claude De Alger Obelia, which is quite weird for a ruler’s name since Claude means limping. And the 2nd information I collected is that the princess, who is Claude’s only daughter, goes by the name Athanasia De Alger Obelia. For the 3rd, I came to know that this boy is one of the main magicians of the empire and his name is Lucas.

Well, from all this information, I come to one solution; If I wish to live, I must stick to these powerful people and must watch my every step just so I do not displease them. The emperor seems quite a bold person so he must be fine but I have a bad feeling about this guy ‘Lucas’. Also, I have yet to meet the princess who usually stays in the Ruby palace, as I have been informed, and the emperor usually stays in the Imperial Palace.

My only goal now is to stay with these nobles and survive the best I could, I didn’t want to die again, that too without fulfilling anything, again. So, I will try my best and survive through all of this, just as if I am playing a game but if I lose, I die.