Amelia

'Damn you Pass,' Mark thought as he looked at the person in front of him.

It hadn't taken very long for him to find a person he could ask about were the capital city of Heaven's Wind(Wind Nation) was. His conundrum, however, was the gender of the person in front of him.

Although there was nothing wrong with being a female, it didn't stop his trauma from haunting him whenever he met one. He had plan to pass around the female, and look for somebody else, but life didn't go his way.

[Hidden condition found,] Pass said in such a tone that Mark could swear Pass was mocking him.

Comfort the betrayed female

Reward: unlocks the hidden benefit when the mission is completed.

Failure: The dimension's hatred

"What!? There are penalties for failure!?" Mark now wanted to question whether Pass actually wanted him to survive. Pass didn't answer him, so Mark was left to himself to determine what the 'dimension's hatred' was. It didn't sound good, but neither did the requirements to complete the hidden condition.

Looking at it from Mark's point of view he had two option. The first, death by the female. The second, an unknown death caused by the dimension. The unknown had a way of making anything scarier, so he chose the first.

She could be considered beautiful. Beauty was, after all, subjection to a person's opinion. In Mark's opinion she was beautiful, though he had only remembered one other female's appearance, which he wished to forget.

She had scarlet red, shiny long hair that went down to her midsection, ruby red eyes, thin eyebrows, a small nose, and pristine white skin. Her clothing was a long sleeved white and red shirt that had ruffly waves on the sleeves, and black pants. Most of her skin was covered by her cloths, only her face was revealed.

From afar, she looked as though she was in deep thought with her head bowed down. When he was only three meters away, she finally looked up. Nothing was said after she looked up, silence remained. She had her eyes on his, and his eyes where focused on hers. Mark didn't know what to say to comfort someone, so he hoped she would just get over her betrayal, which was mentioned in the mission description, though he knew from personal experience that it wasn't that easy.

"You look like you need more help than I," the woman said.

The words went unnoticed because Mark was still focused on trying to figure out how to comfort someone. He figured he should start with what he's most familiar with, so he tried to ask a question.

"W-w-wha-what h-ha-happened?" His voice was shaky because of his inherent fear of females. Getting the words out didn't help, instead his fear and anxiousness increased.

She could tell he was scared of here, but she couldn't understand why. From what she could see, it seemed as though he had a fear of women. Guessing that made her more sure that he had probably been through something similar to what she was going through.

"I was betrayed by my trusted allies," her voice contained both sadness and anger. She probably decided to confide in him because he seemed similar to her.

Mark nodded his head calmly, contrary to his shaky voice from earlier. He seemed like he could truly understood what it felt like, the red haired girl thought. She was right, as betrayal was one of the things that Mark had encountered more than once in his previous dimension. Without Mark realizing it, his voice spread out, this time much calmer than the time before.

"It must have hurt. Like ripping a piece of warmth from your heart and then using it to stab yourself," Mark thought back to his parents, friends, and even strangers. All of them had betrayed him, at least in his opinion.

His parents left him, what he thought were friends only wanted something from him, and several stranger put Mark in danger for small personal benefits. Although many situation of betrayal could be written with two different sides to the story, Mark had only had access to one side his entire life. No one bothered to try and explain if they had another reason for the betrayal, and they might not have.

She could tell he was talking from personal experience, and she did indeed feel that way when her allies betrayed her, but she didn't think it hurt as much as it did for the boy in front of her. She had only none her allies for a few days, but she thought she had bonded with them.

"I'm Amelia, Amelia Winter," she, Amelia, told Mark. She felt like she could become friends with him, even after having just been betrayed. To her, his eyes held far too much pain to be trying to inflict pain on others, so there was no way he would harm her.

The mission wasn't completed, so Mark still had to think of how to console her. He shared his knowledge on betrayal naturally, but it didn't make the pain she felt heal. When she said her name, it seemed to numb his mind and he ended up repeating himself, though this time not a stutter.

"What happened?" Mark noticed his calmness this time, and was greatly surprised. when was the last time he could properly talk to a female?

Amelia took that as a sign to further explain the betrayal of her allies, "They stole something from me. It was something very important, the entire reason I was headed toward Heaven's Wind. They were probably paid to steal it by one of my enemies."

Mark didn't care why she was upset. He continued on with his goal, "W-wh-what n-now?" His words returned to the previous stutter. Before he was focused on his past, but now he was once again focusing on her.

Ignoring his stutter, she said, "I'll still go the Heaven's Wind, I'm not strong enough to get my item back yet. Heaven's Wind is the best place I can go to gain more power right now."

She must've gotten her will back while she was saying that, because his hidden mission was finished. He didn't get anything right now, It would only appear after he finished the main mission. His goal accomplished, he was ready to leave as soon as possible, so he only had to ask her the direction of the capital of Heaven's Wind.

He turned and face away from her, to extinguish some of his fear, and asked, "W-Where's the direction of H-Heaven's Wind's c-capital?" He's speech was better than before, he thought.

"Shouldn't you answer some of my questions first?" Their was a little annoyance and anger, but mostly teasing when she spoke. Mark didn't understand teasing, so he just nodded his head weakly. Answering some of her questions shouldn't be too hard if he could leave afterwards.

With his nod of confirmation, she started her questioning, "Where you betrayed? Or was it something else? Did somebody hurt you?" She stood their for several minutes, but Mark refused to answer. "If you refuse to answer my questions, then why should I answer yours!?" She wasn't upset, she just wanted Mark to answer. "*Sigh* Then tell me why you want to know were the capital of Heaven's Wind is."

"Safety," Mark said quietly.

"Hmm, then you can just follow me on my way there," Amelia said, but Mark shook his head. She wanted to see if he really wouldn't follow, so she started walking.

'Can you point me in the direction of someone else, male,' Mark said in his mind to Pass.

[No, you'll just have to follow her] Pass said, disregarding Mark's request. His Mana continued to point at Amelia.

'Anything but that, please,' Mark requested Pass. His request was ignored again, so he could only begrudgingly follow after Amelia.

Amelia looked behind her shoulder and smirked, 'Looks like you still ended up following me in the end.' She was planning on using their traveling time together as a way to learn about Mark's past. His past interested her and having a traveling buddy was better than going alone.

.........

On their journey for the past week, Mark stayed a minimum of fifteen meters away from Amelia. No matter how much she tried to get him to talk, he would just stay silent. It was annoying her, but there was nothing she could do to change it.

By what she remembered, the journey to the capital of Heaven's Wind, Ventus, still had more than a month to go. They would need to enter a trade city to find a trade caravan, before they could continue their journey. Without a trade caravan, the journey could take upwards of four months.

The city she was looking for was currently just ahead of them. The city looked similar to the one Mark had seen before, but this one's walls weren't hidden in an illusion, and most people were allowed to enter.

Now Amelia needed to take Mark inside and find a trade caravan. This should be relatively simple, and one of the easier parts of the journey, she thought. She would sadly realize that her luck must have gotten worse as soon as she left her home.