He stared out of the window, overlooking the three planets from his room, he couldn't think of anything besides the incident that brought him here.

Once, he wanted to be seen as a hero, but more than anything, he just wanted to see everyone happy.
It pained him to see otherwise, and so, he worked his hardest to prevent others from feeling pain.

Stupid, He thought.
Thinking of that now was pointless.
But even so, he couldn't stop his mind from thinking.
In the current situation, that would be impossible.

He, yet again, found himself responsible for another.

It seemed he was fated to play the role of a "guardian" to the end.

Was it fate? Or curse.

His previous partner, although naive, was still a reliable person who made his job easier.

It was only when she was gone that he realized how much he relied on her.
And any accomplishments he achieved up till then, he attributed them to her.

Somehow, he can't imagine Emilia being the same.
Compared to his previous partner, she seemed to be the exact opposite.
Meaning, she would only bring him more trouble.

And to make things more complicated, there was that ancient, Mika.

Emilia was quick to pass it off as a delusion along with their adventure in the RELIC site.
He understood shrugging off the ancient since he wanted to do the same.
After all, he knew better than anyone that he can't be a hero.

But there was no denying a fact that both of them seemed to remember...

"I died. I really died!"

He unconsciously gritted his teeth. His body burns up at the thought.
There's no reason he should have been brought back.
Out of the millions of people to die, why was he saved?
The one who couldn't care less about their own life.

She said it was because Emilia wished for it that the Ancient was able to save him.
But that only confused him and infuriated him even more.

"Why?"

What makes him worthy of being saved? The question repeated.

Even in his time as a 'hero', he could never save even a single person.

"What a selfish wish." He muttered those words without thinking.
He didn't know if they directed were towards him, or the girl who seems to think only of herself.

But it made his laugh sadly.

(Days later)

[Mission Failed]

Is what would be their report if they reported on open missions.
They're much more relaxed than official assignments or client requests.
They were mostly using them to get accustomed to the fighting and working as a team.

It being their 4th time out, it's safe to say there was no progress in adapting to their situation.

Lazily, Cyruss lied back in his seat as they returned to Little Wing.

Ring!

The visiphone rang behind him from where his partner was.

"Blech. This isn't going to be good news." Emilia softly complained under her breath as she took the call.
Though he hadn't turned around, he heard the muffled complaints from his seat.
He pictured his partner half-heartedly nodding along to the angry caller.

"Uh-huh... he told me he paid for his tab this month-
Well, that may be true, but- Okay, I understand. I'll give him the message."

The call ended, and she let out a long sigh.

He spun his chair around and asked.

"So, who was that for?"

"The boss, who else?" She turned her chair to face him.
"Half the calls we get are from bars trying to get him to pay up. It gets old really fast.
He says I don't work enough, but most days he's off in some bar by noon."

For some reason, he wanted to apologize but didn't know what for so he stayed silent.

"I'm not saying he has to work dawn to dusk, but he could put in an honest day's work every now and then. Some guardian, eh?"

The ship finally docked.

"Well, better head down to the office and give him the message."
She said with her head still hung as she moves painfully slow towards the transporter, like a prisoner before an execution.

Before reaching the exit, she stopped and turned back to him, her head still hung.

"You wouldn't mind coming with me to see the boss, would you?
...My stomach does flips just thinking about it."

From his point of view, she was shivering slightly, dreading what he assumed would be a common occurrence.
Probably because she already knew how this would go.

Saying yes would be like stepping into a battle he knows they couldn't win-
But looking at her helpless face, he found himself unable to refuse.

He sighed and answered with a soft smile.
"Sure."

Emilia raised her head and returned the smile,
"Thanks."

Even though she was still nervous, just having him beside her took some of the load off.
The two of them exited the ship and, from the atrium, proceeded towards the office area.

When they got there, the receptionist, the one who should be watching the entrance and welcoming visitors, had their attention elsewhere.
Curious, Emilia's eyes followed Chelsea's gaze to the television on the side of the room.

"After two years of construction, a ceremony was held last month to celebrate the completion of a new subspace generator on Parum."

It seemed she was watching a news broadcast.
No. That wasn't it. The look on her face seemed as if she were expecting something.
Cyruss raised a confused brow at the mention of a subspace generator.

"Natsume Shu, spokesperson for Inhelt Corporation and the genius behind subspace theory, was on hand to kick things off. He was joined by military officials and an endless parade of industry giants."

A proper looking man appeared on the screen.
He had white hair that made him look older than he was, but looking at him closely, he was probably in his 40's or 50's.

"Hopes are high that this new facility will lead to breakthroughs in subspace research.
If all goes well, manned subspace flight may just be around the corner.
This research could be the key to solving Gurhal's current natural resource problems."

The cheerful newscaster closed with her usual outro and...

"Zut Alors! The news is over already? How can this be?"

...Chelsea was a little upset.

"What's the deal?" Emilia asked the oddly fuming cast.

"They said nothing about Skyclad! After all the money we spend on the subspace program-out name should be in lights!"

"Y'know It won't do much to help business around here-we're just a subsidiary," Emilia replied with her usual pessimistic tone.
"-But we're not here to talk about PR. Is the boss around?"

"Monsieur Kraz was just saying he wanted to see the two of you. I see the news, and completely forget." Like a switch was flipped, Chelsea returned to her usual self as if nothing happened. In a way, it amazed Cyruss, who was silently watching a safe distance behind his partner.

"Don't worry about it. So he's inside, huh?"

"Since you're going to see him anyway, could you take him this?" Chelsea handed Emilia a small slip of paper.

"A receipt from... Red Velvet Lingerie, Dagora City? That doesn't sound like much of a business expense."

"The head office agrees with you. They will not reimburse it. Tell him it will be coming out of his own pocket." Chelsea said with a smile.
On the opposite end of the table, Emilia's face scrunched up.

"That dirty old-no wonder he can't afford to pay his bar tabs! What's he thinking?" She complained.

"Take it up with him. Complaints are not my department!"

Shaking off his confused expression Cyruss followed Emilia to the boss's office.
Emilia barged in the room with the receipt in hand.

"We need to talk- pew wee!"

The room was filled with the unbearable musty scent of alcohol.
Without a can in sight, the smell could have only been coming from the man himself.

"Are you drinking it or bathing in it?"

"Oh, there you are." He half-heartedly greeted.

"Don't 'there you are' me! You got another call from a bar asking you to pay up!
And would you care to explain this?" She flashed the piece of paper in his face.

"One of my receipts. What are you doing with that?"

"You didn't think they'd let you expense this, did you?
Have you drowned all of your common sense?"

"That's completely legit. You gotta lay the groundwork before you close the deal.
Now, if you don't mind, we have business to discuss." Kraz momentarily stared at them and smiled.
"Cheer up. It's the perfect job for the two of you. This is an urgent, top-of-the-action-item-list sort of job.
There's somebody we need to track down."

"A missing person search?"

This would be their first real job together, and something as important-sounding as this was enough to pique both of their interest.

"Who is it? A witness in a murder trial? Some corporate bigwig?"
Emilia's expectations seemed almost unreal, but her guesses were getting her partner excited.

"Not quite. It's someone I loaned money to a while back.
And you're going to collect."

At that moment, their hopes were dashed.

"Wait, this job's for you? Go find him yourself!"

"Just can it, you! Because someone here botched up a job at a certain relic site, we can't get any real work!"

"Well, when you put it that way…" Defeated. Emilia fell silent, and Kraz began to explain their assignment.

"Your target is one Wurley Kokov. Male beast, age fifty-one." Kraz placed the man's photo on the desk. "His ship's been sighted in the Crodog region of Moatoob. No city, no casinos... It's the last place I'd expect him to be."

The way Kraz put it, it seemed more like they were solving a mystery rather than going to collect a debt.

"If you know where he is, why don't you just find him yourself?" Emilia muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing! Nothing!" She turned to her partner.
"C'mon, let's get out of here before the fumes start getting to us!"

Saying this she quickly left.
But as Cyruss was about to leave...

"Can't believe they won't let me expense this-"
He turned around to see Kraz holding the receipt.
"And there are still three more comin'."

When he noticed Cyruss still standing in front of him, he hastily put the paper down and shouted.

"Hey, what're you lookin' at? Get to work!"

As he left, he decided it would be best to forget about what he heard.
His partner doesn't need to know about that.
After making preparations, they made their way to Moatoob.

"Where does he get off? Do we LOOK like his personal bill collectors to you?"

The mission took them to a broken looking forest, with tower-like rock formations surrounded by bottomless cliffs that looked like massive cracks on the planet.
They found a clearing where they could land.
It was the obvious place to land as there were several other ships already resting there.

They stepped out of their ships and looked around.
From the ground, the place looked like an endless forest with trees that towered over them.
You never would have guessed the cliffs were so nearby.

"How are we going to find Wurley out here...? Not that we should be doing Kraz's dirty work for him in the first place."
Emilia sulked. He didn't like it any more than her, but with his debt, he wasn't in the position to complain.
"As if expensing lingerie wasn't bad enough, now he's using the company to run errands. Someone needs to set him straight."

"I guess I'll have to give it a try sometime." He said with a half-hearted bitter tone.

"I won't stop you, but don't expect much. I've tried talking to him-it's like reasoning with a brick wall." She lowered her head, "I dunno... Maybe that's just because it was coming from me. If that's how it is, that's how it is. As far as Kraz is concerned, I'm only taking up space. I just want him to show me a little more respect. Is that so much to ask?"

A tear escaped her eye.
She was on the verge of crying.
She was crying, and he didn't know what to do.

"If that's what you want, why don't we just finish this mission?"
He said the first thing he thought of.

"You think that'll change his mind about me?"

He couldn't answer honestly, because he didn't know for sure.
But the effort couldn't hurt, and at the very least he couldn't call her lazy if she were working.

"I don't even like doing these investigations, much less fighting."
She brushed away the tears from her eyes.
That much was true, she was still a kid, without any sort of training, beyond failed practice missions.

As he expected, he was going to have to pick up her slack.
At least if he didn't want to see her cry.

"Sorry, got off on a little rant there.
If we don't track down this Wurley guy, we'll never hear the end of it."

"You-what are you doing here?"

A small figure appeared from behind one of the ships.
From a glance, one would mistake him for a child.
He stared at the two of them with suspicion.

"You don't look like the kind of people who go around visiting cultural heritage sites."

"We're looking for someone," Emilia explained plainly.
"Did something happen here? Why are there so many ships?"

"We just got here ourselves. We haven't had much time to look around. So far, it looks like we're the only people here."

"No luck, Tonio. This place is dead. You do any better?"
A girl of similar height ran up behind him. "Oh, you found someone."

"But not who we were expecting. They're here on their own manhunt."

"Who's that?" Emilia asked.

"I guess we skipped the introductions, huh? We're mercenaries. Name's Tonnio Rhima."

"And I'm Liina Rhima. My husband and I work together."

"We work for a company named Little Wing. I'm Emilia, and this is my partner."
Cyruss watches with a raised brow as his partner introduced them to the two beastlings.
"You're looking for someone too?"

"We were hired to patrol the heritage sites," Tonnio explained.

"Heritage site?"

Tonnio's face froze for a brief moment. He shook his head.
"Wait wait wait. You mean you came here without even knowing what this place was?"

"Lighten up, I'm new at this!" Emilia retorted. "If this is some kind of heritage site, where are all the tourists? There are certainly enough ships to go around..."

"You've got good instincts, at least."

Emilia smiled at the compliment.

"Something definitely feels wrong here." Liina moved the conversation along with an uneasy expression.
"The wildlife is acting strange, too. Out for blood. There must be something going on inside the site. I'm sure of it."

"We aren't going to figure out what it is standing around. The answers are in there."
Tonnio looked at the two of them with a grin. "We all seem to be headed the same way. Why not go together?"

As much as he would have liked to refuse.. He looked at Emilia.
He knew that Tonnio alone had more skill than the two of them combined,
and if the wildlife was in a bloodthirst, he couldn't trust himself to protect her alone.

He let out a sigh.
"Sure, All right,"

"All right, let's do this." Tonnio smiled.

"We should start by heading to the Kasch village. Maybe we'll find a clue to what's going on." Liina suggested.

"You know how to get there?" Emilia asked.

"The Kasch are nomads, but they leave markings so their friends can find where they've gone.
The marking are written in the Kasch language, but I've studied it. Follow the markings and we'll be there in no time."

Following Liina's advice, they went deeper into the forest in search of the Kasch village in search of answers.

"I wonder what these markings look like..." Emilia mumbled to herself.