The girl held the knife tightly in both hands, which was her only source of security. Her dark green wide pants, which were so big that the legs even dragged on the ground, were fluttering because of her shaking legs.

It's clearly the identity of a robber.

But that uneasiness and fear are more like a tortured victim and seem to have no intimidation at all.

"Stop... give me the bread!"

The girl realized her shortcomings.

She tried hard to put on a ferocious look and pointed the sharp tip of the knife at Xu Xi, like a young animal baring its new teeth. At the same time, she shouted loudly, hysterically asking Xu Xi to stop approaching her.

Her eyes were full of desire, fixed firmly on the half-bitten white bread covered with teeth marks in Xu Xi's hand.

Can't help it.

A throat that has long been dry and without moisture.

He swallowed hard.

To be honest, the atmosphere on the scene was very strange, even dramatically weird and ridiculous.

In the early morning, the large steam engine in Allenson City was roaring. The vast and majestic steam covered the dome in a miraculous manner, and from time to time, the figure of a wizard flew through it.

In a remote alley where no one noticed, a half-demon girl of human-demon blood, holding an extremely ridiculous knife, tried to rob a prominent figure in Allenson City.

He claims to be an official mage to the outside world, but in fact he is a member of the elite mage Xu family.

Things like this.

Even less logical than the mythical epics sung by troubadours.

Even if we put aside Xu Xi's identity as a wizard, his physical fitness as an adult male alone can easily subdue this fragile demon girl.

However, the Xu family did not do so.

"Are you hungry?" Xu Xi did not cast any spell to punish the demon girl who was disrespectful to him, nor did he scold her harshly. He just looked at her calmly and asked.

The girl paused and nodded slightly.

"give."

Xu Xi tore off the bitten part of the top layer and handed the remaining bread to the girl. The girl did not catch it immediately, but looked at Xu Xi warily from a distance.

There was a flash of confusion and bewilderment in his eyes.

She seemed to have never thought that it would be so easy to get food.

step.

Two steps.

The girl moved her feet carefully, holding a knife in one hand and grabbing bread with the other, approaching Xu Xi little by little with an extremely cautious posture.

After grabbing the bread, he quickly fled back into the alley.

Sitting on a rotten wooden box in the corner of the alley.

My feet stepped into the yellow and greasy mud puddle.

Under Xu Xi's watchful eyes, he first took a small sip and tasted it. After confirming that there was no problem, he immediately swallowed it in big gulps.

…

"I heard that the organs of the real pure-blooded demons are extremely strong and can endure hunger for a year. In the past year, they have been able to survive normally relying only on magic power."

"Based on this, the half-demon race, which is a mixture of human and demon, should also have inherited some of the ability to endure hunger."

Look at the girl wolfing down the food.

Xu Xi shook his head.

He couldn't imagine how long this girl had been in exile, and what kind of experiences she had gone through to become so dirty and miserable with scars all over her body.

After a while, the demon girl finished the white bread in her hand.

She looked at Xu Xi again, or to be more precise, she stared at the bread crumbs with Xu Xi's bite marks on them, which he had just torn off with her lifeless eyes.

Only then.

When she saw the food, a hint of desire appeared in her eyes.

"Can you...give it to me...?"

Perhaps it was the act of giving food that improved her favorability a little, so the girl did not threaten with the knife this time, but asked with a stutter.

Unconsciously.

With a hint of flattery and begging.

The skinny body stood up from the rotten wooden box, and staggered towards Xu Xi on bare feet stepping on the mud and sand.

Wanted to grab the bread crumbs in Xu Xi's hand.

However--

Xu Xi ignored the girl and threw the bread crumbs into his mouth. Then, he left the alley without looking back, leaving the girl with a receding back.

"Why...why..."

The girl was stunned.

The eyes that had once sparkled with light turned dull and lifeless again.

He lost balance and fell to the ground, in the slippery and smelly alley. He felt pain and bright red blood flowed from his forehead.

The girl did not wail because she was used to it.

She did not stand up, but remained in the posture of having fallen, lost in the mud.

"Mom...did I do something wrong again..."

"mother……"

"Why is this happening... I'm so hungry... I'm so hungry, Mom..."

The feeling of hunger came again, and the fatal convulsions in the twisted abdomen were far more severe than the pain of the bleeding forehead, causing the girl to wail all of a sudden.

She curled up, holding her abdomen with both hands, and kept tossing and turning in the mud.

As if doing so would reduce the pain.

I want to cry, but that feeling has long been lost, completely destroyed by repeated despair.

In the end, he could only lie in the mud with a broken look, lifeless eyes, staring at the sky, quietly waiting for death to come.

If you die, you won't be hungry...

Such a simple thought flashed through her mind.

But at this moment, a sound of footsteps came from not far away, getting closer and closer until they arrived in front of the demon girl.

A warm and strong hand pulled the girl up. She saw that the owner of the hand was the young man from before. Not only did he come back, he also brought new bread.

"Eat it."

"I bit the bread before, so it's not clean. You can eat the new ones."

Xu Xi said.

He didn't care about the girl's stench or the mud dripping from her body.

He stretched out his hand and released level 5 life magic, using the huge life magic to heal the girl's wounds.

Then he helped the girl up from the ground.

Let her sit in a cleaner place to eat bread.

"..." The girl was confused the whole time and seemed unable to understand how the situation was developing.

Until Xu Xi handed the bread to her.

She finally reacted and started eating the bread mechanically, biting into it one bite after another.

A bag of bread was quickly destroyed.

Xu Xi used water magic again and summoned a large water ball to replenish the girl's water and clean the dirt on her body.

finally.

Xu Xi half-knelt down so that his eyes were level with the girl's.

Try to appear gentle.

In the stinking alley full of filth and chaos, where even rats don't want to live, I reached out my hand to the girl who was also flesh and blood and really existed.

Send a simple invitation like this:

"Come with me."

The girl, who had been as quiet as a doll, looked at Xu Xi with lifeless eyes. She was like a puppet being controlled by someone, without a trace of self on her face.

She still didn't understand what was happening, but there was an urge inside her to tell her.

So she did.

She slowly grasped the hand of the man in front of her.

"good……"

The voice trembles.