七星影视

Zack wasn\'t stalking us around like a creep anymore, thankfully… well, you see, he used to stalk us around while we explored around the place with Aquarina.

He was always lurking around. Every time I spotted him, he would hide behind the trees as if he was afraid of even speaking.

Later on, I realized that he had social anxiety and had a very hard time socializing. Due to this, he was extremely shy and couldn\'t bring himself to speak with us. So instead, he followed us around, wishing to be our friends but never actually talking with us… then again, during those times, I got a bit scared and thought he was a rapist or something, so I tried to burn him down.

He ended up apologizing after I burned his hair a tiny bit, and ended up introducing himself with his name, Zack. During those times, I felt a bit sorry for being so rude with the poor boy, and tried to be more social with him. After all, I wouldn\'t mind having another friend, or so I thought back then.

But little Zack was always an annoying kid, and well, partially, his way of being was also my own fault and Aquarina\'s. Due to his shy nature, he had no idea how to talk, so he often bothered us, calling Aquarina a shrimp, while calling me a knife ear for whatever reason.

Well, I don\'t know why, but hat really angered me. So, every time he did that, I would kick his ass. But he somehow seemed to enjoy such a strange interaction, even though other times he felt a bit sad when I decided to ignore him.

Seriously, kids are so complex sometimes… it took me a while to realize that he actually seemed to like Aquarina, and wanted to catch her attention by being rude. Only then did I remember that kids sometimes do that, yeah… especially boys. To catch the attention of a girl, they act rude and insult her, or even bully her.

Was he trying to do this back then? Well, every time he tried something stupid, I cut it off short.

But now that I think about it, I should have been more supportive of him and tried to help him become more sociable.

Fortunately, in the end, that problem resolved itself. Although Aquarina still doesn\'t like him one bit, I\'m trying to make him our friend… after the incident with Hell where we almost died, he learned about it and became a bit sorrowful, apparently because we could have died without him even apologizing to us.

Since that time, after that, he ended up apologizing to us for being so rude, even going so far as to kneel before us. Of course, I told him not to do such an embarrassing thing.

Since then, we\'ve been bringing him around. Aquarina still doesn\'t like him, as I said previously, and she\'s very defensive… for some odd reason she doesn\'t even want him to even touch me.

Geez, this girl has become quite possessive… that\'s not good.

Right now, we\'re traversing the jungle surrounding the village, which was mostly a safe place where only little monsters crawled around.

Well, sometimes a panther or two would appear from time to time.

"S-So, Sylphy, how have you been?" asked Zack rather politely. His voice was often very rude and childish, so it was odd to hear him talk so eloquently.

"Been doing pretty good. I\'m actually getting pretty good with the blade, you know? I hunted down a big six-limbed lizard yesterday." I said in response.

"Y-You did what?!" Zack could not believe it.

"Obviously! Sylph is the daughter of the hero of the blazing blade, so of course she\'s amazing with it, fufu." Aquarina giggled, proud of my accomplishments as if they were her own.

"I-I see… it\'s amazing for a girl to be so strong… you\'ve been swinging the blade like you told me the other day?" Zack asked with eyes wide open. He was genuinely amazed.

"Yeah, yesterday I swung it around… 1600 times." I replied.

"W-What…?! I-I have to get my act together and train more… I can\'t lose to your blade then!" said Zack in response. His eyes suddenly blazed with motivation. I was glad I was able to motivate him.

"Hehe, you better train hard, kid, or you won\'t even be at my level," I told him rather cockily.

"Y-You\'ll see!" he said.

"Why do you even think you can even reach Sylphy\'s level? It\'s hopeless, you stupid untalented monkey!" said Aquarina, her tone somewhat aggressive. At her words, Zack suddenly grew a bit paler before falling into silence. Unlike other times when he fought back with words, he simply didn\'t answer her.

"Aquarina! Can you stop being so hostile with Zack?" I could not help but ask her with a sigh.

"Ah… w-well, I don\'t like him…" Aquarina replied.

"But you can\'t be so immature with the boy," I said, sighing yet again.

"B-But he\'s trying to steal you from me!" she refuted.

"Steal? Aquarina, I don\'t belong to you… we\'re friends but that doesn\'t mean… I\'m an object… i-is that how you see me?" I asked.

"I… I don\'t! I-I… S-Sorry… I didn\'t mean to say that…" she said soon after.

"…fine. Alright, let\'s make amends. You two don\'t fight, okay? I would gladly prefer if both of my friends could get along!" I said.

"No, it\'s fine… I\'ve said some awful things before without even thinking… I deserve to be treated like that," Zack said in response to my words.

"Don\'t become a martyr, Zack. You\'re just a kid. Kids make mistakes and do dumb stuff. It\'s part of growing up to realize they\'re wrong," I told him.

"Ah…"

"Oh…"

"What?" I asked.

"You really talk as if you\'re an adult…" Zack could not help but say.

"T-That\'s because Sylphy is very mature and cool, unlike you…" replied Aquarina.

"Fair, fair, I\'ll take that one as well… Aquarina, please, let\'s get along. I\'m seriously trying my hardest here," Zack said soon after with a sigh.

"Hmm… I-I\'ll think about it." responded Aquarina, furrowing her eyebrows. For some reason, she became very grumpy. This was a side of her I only saw with Zack by my side.

After Aquarina seemed to say that she\'ll think about becoming friendly with Zack, we reached an area of the jungle that wasn\'t mapped. With that, I took out my pen before beginning to map things around us.