Stray

Chapter 1: Grey Parrot

Nemo Light had never been so embarrassed.

He knelt on one knee on the ground, desperately grasping the creature’s limbs that was strangling him with both his hands.
Unfortunately, the damn thing was too slippery, covered with blood and mucus of unknown origins.
He couldn’t grasp it firmly and could only bear the sharp pain from the back of his neck in despair.
That thing must have punctured a hole on the back of his neck and was desperately drilling in further.

He could clearly feel something sticking into his flesh and blood, entangling his spine.
The person who had caused this situation was kneeling next to him, equally as frantic, trying to tear the monster off as his face was riddled with panic and guilt.

The cause of this matter was very simple.

Roadside Town was adjacent to the Ash Mountain Range.
It was regarded as the closest human town from the entrance into the abyss.
Subordinate demons were as common in small towns as voles.
Occasionally, a few brainless intermediate demons would break into town causing the guards to ring the alarm that would alert the townsfolk to hide while they deal with them.
When the garrison vanquish them, everyone would slowly come back out, resuming their daily lives.
These attacks were occasional to the point that even an eight-year-old would try and grab more candy from the table under the premise that they were trying to hide as quickly as possible.
Because of this, no one felt any tension when these things happen.

Since the death of Old Light six years ago, the Light Orphanage still stands, but only in name.
The oldest, Nemo Light, gritted his teeth and raised the remaining cubs as he saw them being taken away one by one by passing mercenaries.
Finally, in this year, he was the only one left.

The moment when he heard the alarm bell ringing, he didn’t need to notify anyone.
The young man, Nemo Light, picked up his bag and a bird cage, then went out, heading leisurely towards the shelter near the forest.

Until he met this idiot who he didn’t know why he was running back.

The guy was running solemnly, completely unaware of what was chasing behind him… a highly decomposed human corpse that was on all fours.
It was twisted into a ball and following him silently like a spider.

Nemo’s scalp instantly exploded.

He wanted to warn the guy of what was chasing after him but before he could open his mouth, he saw something catapulted out from its body and rushed at the prey not far away.

In this moment, Nemo’s body moved before his brain had time to think.
He instantly swooped over and pushed the man away.
The other party was caught off guard and fell to the ground while Nemo himself avoid the fate of landing on his face.
However, he instinctively used his right hand to push himself up and found that he had sprained his wrist.

At this point, this small rescue had disgraced both sides.
The man was not small, but Nemo was able to knock him down easily.
Nemo awkwardly got up and patted the mud off his pants and realized the increasing pain in his wrist.

“Something attacked you just now.
It’s something you haven’t seen before,” He pointed to the corpse that was a few steps away with his left hand that was all sticky and explained to the hapless man, who was still sitting on the ground.
He couldn’t tell who the hapless man was as it was too dark.
“You…”

Suddenly something cold and sticky touched his neck that made him swallowed the rest of what he was about to say.
Then came a severe pain that went deep into his bones that almost made him cry.

He thought about how truly bad his luck was.

Growing up in such a dangerous place, Nemo thought that he was fully prepare for a “bad ending”; but he didn’t think death would come so soon.
He didn’t even have time to feel fear.
He opened his mouth to try and breathe but could only make strange sound.
He could feel warm blood gushing from the back of his neck.

Perhaps his psychological preparation wasn’t as good as he thought.
He struggled in a daze under this unknown attack, trying to hold onto a non-existent life-saving rope, like he was drowning while drunk.
 

“Spellcaster.”

However, the darkness of death did not come as scheduled, but the severe pain did not disappear.
A thin and joyful voice penetrated into Nemo’s ears.

“…You’re also a spellcaster!”

No, I’m really not.
Not even close. He thought in a daze.

“Make a wish, spellcaster,” The voice said, every word smelled of command.
The suffocating shackles finally loosened a bit, as Nemo struggled to take a breath of fresh air.
“I’ll give you a minute to think about—”

“…Can you go back from where you came from?” In less than three seconds, Nemo struggled to squeeze his wish from his throat, speaking with absolute sincerity and urgency from the bottom of his heart.

The voice was silent for a long time.

“No,” it said bluntly.

“What about ‘don’t kill me’?” Nemo quickly found his next wish.

“No,” the voice sounded a little angry this time.
“Either make a wish or I will kill you now.”

“Then how about wait for me to die of old age before killing—”

This time the voice ignored him and instead added more force around his throat.

“…Then I have no other wishes,” he spat out words a little dully.

“Procrastinating is useless,” the voice said.
“It’s impossible for humans to not have wishes.”

If it insisted on a wish, there was one, however it was destined to be unfulfilled.
Unfortunately, “the dead cannot come back to life” was the iron clad rule of this world.
Patrick Light, had long become old bones.
In terms of age, it was rare for someone to live that long in such a shithole like this.
Besides that, all his former family members have now had stable homes, so they could live comfortably until they reach adulthood.

Nemo Light has always believed that there was nothing wrong with living an ordinary life.
He wasn’t young, so he hadn’t had any youthful dreams for a while now.
When you don’t ask for them, you don’t have to worry about it.
This kind of story full of blood and fire will always take place in some other world, but he only hope to continue to be an insignificant ordinary person in a small town.

Now, he suddenly wanted to laugh a little, seeing as death was imminent and he didn’t even have a serious wish to delay some time.

“Okay… okay.” Finally, he sighed and stretched out his hand to catch the wrist of the original victim.
The man was still trying to help peel of this slippery unknown creature while turning to look at him from time to time.
It seems that this man didn’t hear the words of the creature from the way he was reacting.

Now, Nemo finally can clearly see who this unlucky fellow was.
It’s Oliver Ramon, the son of the innkeeper.
If he recalled, he’s just a few years younger than him.

“Stop pulling it Ramon.” Nemo scratched his hair irritably, trying to ignore the weird bitter taste in his mouth.
“Why are you running back into town?”

“My dad didn’t keep up.” Although he didn’t understand why Nemo had asked this suddenly, the young man answered honestly.
“He clearly told me…”

“Okay, take us to this guy’s father,” Nemo said.
“This is my wish.”

Oliver Ramon looked at him in confusion.

“Easy.” The voice replied, “You’re really stupid to waste such a pr