Nem stayed for a while in front of the busy factory, completely immersed in his thoughts. He knew he shouldn't be surprised that he didn't get his analysis right the first time. After all, there was only so much he knew about this world.
Still, it felt weird for him to be wrong this way, as he was used to being right when he really tried. No matter how much he looked like a child, he was an adult inside, and his habits had taken root inside him. For Nem before his death, success was normal, expected. He was a top student after all, and people always expected things out of him, even after he had shut himself in his room for years, he didn't stop being himself. He simply lost his drive and illusions.
Now, here he was, no even managing to figure out what was his mission about, or if this city had some kind of great plot he didn't know about.
Suddenly, he thought of a good friend he once had. It was the only friend he would sometimes think of in a good way after he became a shut-in. They had known each other for years and were both very good students so it was a given that they would grow close at some point.
In the first year of high school, it went very nicely for Nem, but he had noticed that his friend seemed somewhat tired. He still had the same results as before, but he seemed dispirited and unsatisfied. At that point, even if he was still a self-centered adolescent, Nem had still asked him what was wrong and he remembered this discussion very clearly.
His friend had answered him with a question.
"Hey, let me ask you something... Do you think I'm smart ?" The adolescent boy had smiled at this point.
"Hell no, man you're dumb as a brick." Nem had answered while laughing, and his friend had chuckled as well. For Nem, he definitely wouldn't stop joking around just because a discussion might be serious.
"No, I mean really !" His friend had slowly calmed down his laughter. "I'll answer myself : I'm not. In fact, I think I'm rather dull-minded, the only reason I do well at school is that I had a nice enough head start thanks to my parents and my socio-economical background."
Nem had stood there and continued to joke around. "Socio-economical background ? Wow, spoken like a true dull-minded person !"
This time, his friend had only smiled. "Anyways, you aren't like that. You're really different from me, really smart, you would still be the same even if you didn't go to school at all. It's really admirable, so don't screw it up alright ?"
"You can't stop me, I'll screw it up if I want to, and I'll do it well."
Actually, Nem didn't believe he was that awesome. Even at that point when he just started high school, he had noticed that he was simply above average in most of what he did without being truly out of the norm. It was true that he had quite an active mind and wasn't lazy, but he was far from being an overachiever either. As proof of that, there was the fact that he didn't do anything notable in his whole life.
In the end, this was the last time they spoke. After that day, his friend had moved out to a faraway city and didn't keep in touch. In the end, Nem never knew what had happened to his friend, just like most people he had met. He never found out if what he said was just a passing thought of adolescence or became a life-long conviction, and he never will.
Contrarily to most protagonists of such stories of being stranded in another world, Nem didn't have the slightest hope of "going back home". He was dead there after all. Very thoroughly dead.
Right there, in front of this factory in a completely different world and plagued with a pathological distrust towards other people and a deep fear of boredom, Nem thought back at this discussion.
'Looks like I did find a way to screw everything up in an incredible way after all.'
Feeling oddly cheered up by the memory, Nem turned away from the fence and headed in a completely different direction. It was the direction indicated by Pat in the morning, the building where Lunhart's orphans slept in relative safety.
He didn't know the complete location, but Nem believed that he just had to find a child roughly in this area and ask nicely. Sure, this didn't have anything to do with his plan to find out more about the situation he was in, but he happened to have some free time.
Strolling into the streets like this, Nem had a strange feeling. It was because he didn't have any idea what he was planning on doing. After all, if a child like him could figure out the way to solve the problems of this entire city, things would be a bit too simple. Even though he was not really a child, he was roughly equivalent to one in this world, both in knowledge and power.
In a way, he didn't even have a proper reason to even attempt to help them. In his original world, Nem had never gone on his way to go help starving children in Africa, nor was he sheltering homeless people in his home. Most people wouldn't, because they were too struggling to live their lives in their own way, and Nem never really questioned it too much.
Even now that he did, experienced it right before his eyes and even assumed the very identity of the starving child to a certain extent, Nem didn't feel particularly shaken morally. The only reason he even considered helping was because of his proximity with the problem and the fact that he had unknowingly gotten quite soft concerning children without parents.
Perhaps it was because his time passed in the monastery or he saw himself in them. After all, even though he could probably beat up most adults now that he had trained so much and become a Cursed, he still felt like a helpless child stranded in an unfamiliar world with only himself to rely on. Like him, the orphans could only count on themselves, and those who survived probably developed some kind of trust issues.
At this moment, Nem felt that his new identity was actually quite fitting.
After a while, Nem started to spot more and more children. They were rather discreet and seemed fearful of adults even when they were together, which actually didn't happen very often. Despite being in the same situation, it seemed like they had trouble trusting each other and Nem didn't find it surprising at all, only unfortunate.
'If they are so many like Pat said this morning, that means they wouldn't need to fear that much if they were united... Still, they're just kids, maybe it's a bit too much to ask. '
Nem became immersed in his thoughts again.
In the end, that afternoon, Nem didn't really do anything except observing and going to steal some food when he was hungry again.
He had watched the orphans live and struggle, mainly while resting in a place hidden from the blazing sun. He didn't think about much and didn't even try to hide himself from view, so a few children had spotted him and even tried to interact with him. A little girl, probably around his age, even asked him if anything was wrong in a worried tone, perhaps because of his lethargic inactivity.
Every time this happened, Nem answered briefly that he was resting, and the little girl's concern felt so out of place that he almost burst into laughter. Still, he managed to hold it in since she probably would have thought he was mocking her.
It had really been a while since he rested like this, even if it wasn't exactly comfortable to lie around in the city surrounded by people. He was looking forward to the night, and not just to sleep.
The conclusion he had arrived at while observing the city orphans was that they should be someone behind the 'safe space' when children could sleep. After all, they didn't seem to able to take an entire building for themselves and keep it hidden, and even if they were, they probably wouldn't share it with everyone.
This is because of this observation that Nem guessed that there was an adult helping the children here, at least providing them a bit of protection. His goal was to meet with that person, figure out if he could help and also make sure that they didn't have bad intentions.
Nem definitely wouldn't neglect the possibility that someone was doing that to regroup the children and make it easier to kidnap or harm them in any way. In fact, this was one of his first thoughts when he heard about this place.
As the sun started to fall and bask the city of Lunhart in orange light, Nem yawned, stretched and selected a random orphan who didn't look too worried to follow.
The kid's name was Tio and Nem had watched him talk with others and pickpocket a passerby at the same time, which was pretty impressive.
'If it's such a veteran orphan, the chances of him sleeping at this safe place are very high.'