"Ah Kotori-sama please try this" Umi said holding up a small berry to Kotori's mouth
"No try this!" Layla said bringing a different fruit to Kotori's mouth.
Umi swatted the fruit that Layla was holding in her hand.
"Umi!" Layla said
Soon they began to quibble amongst themselves over who could hand feed Kotori.
Amelie was busy ignoring them and looking at all the different fruit on display.
Since the deal with Fawks was mostly finalized, they had a lot more time to explore the city and look around.
Currently, Kotori and her party were in a bazaar where produce from other nations was being sold. Kotori was busy looking for fish that she could eat raw with her rice
[Rice, Rice, Rice!] Kotori cheerfully chanted in her mind.
Both Layla and Umi seemed to be treating this like a date, Kotori was oblivious to this fact, lost in daydreams about rice.
Shu only sighed as he saw the behavior of both the women.
"Please restrain yourself in front of Kotori" he said.
Kotori and her party had no problem walking around the city like this. In fact, having Shu as a bodyguard was mostly pointless. One, because he had taken up the role without asking for Kotori and, and two because every single person in Kotori's party was enough to hold their own in a fight.
The port city of Flare was a safe city. There was a robust security system. With so many merchants around if the city was not safe there would be too many problems and it would be bad for business.
Despite being such a safe city, the city of Flare still had all the problems that other cities had namely, poverty.
It was one of the first things Kotori noticed when she was exploring and entering the city.
Quite a few people were sitting around in either alleyways or the streets.
There were also quite a few orphans. Many of them the disown children of brothels or orphaned sailor children whose fathers had died at sea and mothers of other causes.
There were several street urchins who would try and pickpocket you if you looked rich enough and had loose enough pockets.
So far nobody had tried to pickpocket Kotori yet. There were several of them eyeing Kotori and her tiara. It was easy to grab off Kotori's head and quickly run away.
Well, it wasn't like it was that easy. If they tried to swipe Hikari-chan they would instantly activate her defensive measure.
Kotori had told Hikari to be non-lethal so they would probably just be bound in metal just like the village boys who tried to bother Kotori.
One of the boys who was eying her tiara rushed her.
He jumped up into the air and tried to grab her tiara.
Hikari instantly responded by shooting several silver blobs that stopped the boy in his tracks.
The nearby passersby looked away. It was a scene that had played out many times. A desperate orphan boy tries to steal something off a relatively well-off-looking person hoping to pawn a large sell and live happy for a while.
Unfortunately, for this boy, he was not that lucky.
The boy gave her a defiant look and spat at her feet. Despite being bound and caught he had no intentions of apologizing. It would've looked more imposing if the boy was a little older but with his scrawny frame, it looked more like a child's poor attempt to show strength amidst fear.
[Why does this keep happening] Kotori thought
The boy reminded her of another bothersome boy in a different village.
[What was his name again? Raymond?]
Now, since Umi was technically nobility she could kill the boy right here and nobody would bat and eyes, but Kotori was not willing to lose karma for this.
The boy was scrawny looking as if he had not eaten in several days.
Kotori remembered the magic flour in her bag.
[It should be harmless enough to feed him right?]
She ordered Umi to pull out another flour sample. They had brought around 4 small sacks to the city and already gave two away.
She slipped a small piece of Hikari inside.
Kotori undid his bindings the bands of metal thinned and then loosened. Umi offered the boy the bag of flour.
He swiped the bag of flour eyeing them. The moment he felt like he was in the clear he ran away.
Kotori felt her karma rise.
She could feel a collective sigh from the crowd that was watching them. It seemed the orphans in this town have quite a bit of sympathy from the people.
Kotori felt a smug satisfaction at her attempt at philanthropy.
Still, she was curious as to why the boy would try something so risky, most of the other children kept their distance from Kotori and although they eyed her tiara all of them correctly guessed that trying to steal it was more trouble than it was worth.
She felt a faint trail of mana as Hikari's connection grew thin. If it grew too thin the piece of metal in the sack would revert to raw Manatanium.
For now, she decided to follow the trail.