What comes next [Completed]

[Yukki Kazuto]

I started with asking the shopkeeper what he knew about the figure, and if there was anybody that he knew had a motive for sealing the items. He revealed to me what the items were in the first place: A handful of flashbang grenades, and a sword that the shopkeeper had created himself. He deemed it his masterpiece, the most proud moment of his life in the Omniverse. Not that he had known a life before the Omniverse that is.


He told me what information he knew about the figure that had broken into his shop. He said “It was in the middle of the night, and I heard a sound like a window breaking in my sleep. I live above the shop after all. When I came downstairs, I saw a figure breaking into my sword case. When I called out for them to stop, they turned towards me in a moment of panic. It was dark, and I couldn’t see their face clearly. All I saw was their unusually pale skin and that their hair was a brown color.” He rested his face in his hands, and began lightly sobbing.


He looked back up at me, his eyes slightly red, his face in a pleading expression. “Please, you have to get it back for me!” I reaffirmed him that I would find his missing items, and began my search as he went upstairs to his apartment above the store. I looked around the glass case that the sword had been in, and couldn’t find anything that could help me. I noticed that it looked as if the glass hadn’t been touched except to open it, and that instead the lock had been picked. It seemed as though the break in had been made possible with the use of a simple bump key, as the only mark on it was a slight dent on the face.


Moving to the window, It seemed as though it had been broken by having a rock thrown through it, and then the person punched or kicked the broken glass to make a hole big enough for them to get through. The hole wasn’t that large, only about four and a half feet in height, meaning that whoever broke in was most likely a child, or a really small human. That, or someone who could shrink.


Leaving the town, I began asking people around the street if they knew anything about the break in. Most people said they knew nothing about it, and continued on their way. I didn’t try to stop them. After all, I didn’t expect anyone to actually know anything, and if they did, I didn’t expect them to just tell some random guy that stopped them on the street. Ah, the difficulties of not being known at all and having no people to contact.  


After an hour and a half of asking people on the street if they knew anything, I was beginning to have people tell me before I said a word to them that they didn’t know anything. Apparently word had spread quickly that there was someone asking people about the break in on this particular street. Realizing that I was getting nowhere, I began to think of another way to get the information that I wanted. Racking my brains a bit, a few ideas came to mind.


After mentally debating the ideas, I came to a solid conclusion: The police could not help me. Not only would they most likely refuse to help me, they would probably lock me up for trying to be a vigilante, even though that’s not technically what I’m doing. Even on the off chance that they would help me, without the whole locking me up for being a vigilante thing, they would almost certainly take all the credit for the work and results of hunting this person down and finding them.


No, my best chance was to start asking around in bars and pubs. People will talk about a lot of things while under the influence, and bartender’s ears are always open. Sure, I already decided that the person was of a smaller size, but if they were working with someone else, then maybe that person would have accidently spilled something that would help me in my search. Whether it be a name, location, or some other piece of information that would be of some benefit.


This is one of the few situations that Costa de Sol’s economy being so heavily tourist dependant actually helped me out. Heading back towards the center of the town, I began looking out for a tour guide. If anyone knew where the bars were in this place it would be one of them.


It wasn’t easy trying to get through the city, as I still wasn’t entirely aware of my surroundings and how they worked with each other.  I’d only been in Costa de Sol about a week now, and I was only just beginning to feel confident walking without checking a map every few seconds. After a few minutes of wandering, and a wrong turn or two, I found my way to a man offering tours.


He seemed disappointed that I wasn’t willing to pay for a full tour, but was happy to tell me where the bars were once I gave him some of the money I had summoned a few days earlier. He even gave me another map of Costa de Sol that had all of the bars in Costa de Sol marked, along with other key locations, such as the party district, monuments, and the docks.


I thanked him for his time, and wished him well in his future endeavors as a tour guide. Taking another look at the map, I was slightly frightened by the sheer amount of red circles on the map, all representing a location that someone may or may not know some kind of information about someone who may or may not be the person I’m actually looking for.


Yeah… This was going to take a long time...