“Oh, morning, Liz,” he replied. “You’re up early.”

“Well, not so much that. I barely slept.”

“Are you all right? Well, I suppose it’s strange to sleep well in an unfamiliar environment, especially since you’ve lost your memories.”

“Indeed. A lot happened, you see. But it’s okay now.” Liz confidently got off the bed and a fearless smirk spread across her features. “You’ll do as I say now, you see. With this, the slums will be ours.”

Zenos cocked his head in confusion.

Liz smugly pointed at the floor. “Kneel!”

Well.

About that.

Yeah.

After an awkward silence, Zenos tentatively spoke up. “Uhh...”

Liz’s eyes grew wide, and she pointed at the floor several more times. “Kneel! Kneel!”

“Liz?”

“Kneel! Kneel! Kneeeeeeeeel!!!”

“I mean, if you really want me to, I can kneel. Just...why?”

“Huh? What?” Liz mumbled, astonished. “Can you show me your hand for a second?”

“My hand?” Zenos echoed, holding out an open palm. His finger was perfectly fine.

Liz’s eyes widened further. “Um, where’s the wound?”

“The wound? Liz, are you okay? You’ve been talking nonsense...”

Perplexed, Liz stared at Zenos’s fingertip. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. I’m still confused, I think. I had a dream that you’d injured your finger...”

“What a weird dream. Don’t worry, though. I have the habit of instinctively casting a protective spell on myself whenever I feel any sort of impact.”

“What?”

“I mean, this whole area is in ruins, right? Thieves might break in and attack me, so just in case...” And Lily slept further in than he did, so he needed to act as a shield for her too.

Liz was just frozen in place, staring.

“Anyway,” Zenos continued cheerily, “today we go on a walk, like I promised. Hopefully you regain your memories soon.”

“Y-Yeah, hopefully,” she said with a nod and a subtle twitch of her lips.

***

“How about this area, Liz?” Zenos asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied.

After breakfast, Zenos had taken Liz outside to walk around the ruined city. Memory loss wasn’t something that could be cured with healing magic, of course. Since Liz had been found unconscious in the area, the goal was to try and stimulate her memory by having her look around. She seemed unusually subdued, but that was to be expected given her amnesia.

“Losing your memory must be so hard,” Lily, who’d tagged along, said, worried. “Liz, you mistook the bedroom for the bathroom last night, right? Are your recent memories fuzzy too?”

“Y-Yes, they are,” Liz replied with a somewhat sour expression.

The trio continued to slowly tour the area once devastated by a plague. Ruined buildings covered in ivy, decaying homes, overgrown graveyards—they walked past all manner of things, but not a soul in sight. Underneath the gentle morning sunlight, the weathered scenery stood out even more, as though it’d been left behind by time.

“How about it, Liz?” Zenos asked. “Anything come to mind?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t remember...”

“I see.” Zenos crossed his arms and hummed. “Maybe we should expand the scope of our tour.”

“Expand the scope?” Liz echoed.

“You were found in the ruined city, but that doesn’t necessarily mean this place is related to what happened to you. We should check out the nearby areas too.”

Zenos led the way, followed by the elf Lily and his childhood friend Liz. As they walked past the crooked buildings in the quiet stillness, the landscape around them gradually began to shift. Though the homes were similarly dilapidated, a diverse mix of races walked to and fro, and the air slowly filled with the buzz and vibrancy of activity.

“Ah, so by ‘nearby areas,’ you meant the slums,” Liz remarked.

Zenos nodded in response. The ruined city, where his clinic was located, was right next to the slums. He’d figured maybe Liz had wandered into the ruins from the slums, and so taking her there had seemed like a sensible next step.

“Hey there, doctor!” said a lizardman.

“Hey!” Zenos replied with a smile. “Doing good?”

“Oh! Doctor Zenos!” said a werewolf child.

“I hope you haven’t been running around as much. Try not to fall next time, yeah?” Zenos replied, playfully tapping the child’s head.

“Hey, doctor, two beauties today, huh? Doing anything fun?” a young orc man asked.

“We’re just taking a walk. A walk,” Zenos replied, waving a hand lightly.

The slums were bustling with people coming and going, mostly demi-humans, and voices from all over rose in greeting. Liz observed silently for a while as they stopped to chat every so often, then spoke up with a puzzled look. “Hey, Zenos?”

“Yes?”

“You seem very popular around here.”

“Well, I know quite a few faces around these parts.”