VRMMORPG: Dragomancer Reborn

Having spent his childhood in an orphanage, Arthur didn\'t have a lot of friends. 

The children that lived at the orphanage weren\'t exactly from the right kind of homes, with most having been orphaned early at birth. This was the same case with Arthur, as his parents too had died when he was but just a toddler.

In fact, most of the children in the orphanage were thee same as Arthur having lost their parents in the same disastrous earthquake. On some level, this was something that connected them as well as something that gave them nightmares.

Of course, even in the gloominess of the orphanage, Arthur still had a few people that he liked and was friends with. 

The first was the matron of the orphanage who was basically nice to everyone. Her death was something that had been traumatizing for a lot of the children, but it was something that couldn\'t have been avoided at all. The Matron was already quite old when Arthur had joined as a toddler, and by the time he reached his early teens, she had passed away from old age.

The next person that Arthur liked was Doctor Furial. 

The man had a knack for entertaining children and his eccentricity was something that easily pulled the attention of children. His regular visits were something that all the children liked and looked forward to. His eventual departure was also something that brought down the morale of the children.

Overall, the children at the orphanage were all used to losing people and had started to have little hope in their own future. Perhaps only those that had managed to get adopted early on, or those that were good at studies were able to get through it all.

Arthur was someone who was unlucky in both departments and had thus ended up in his miserable condition. 

But even in all these hard times, Arthur did have a friend. 

When he saw the girl\'s striking grey eyes with purple flecks that looked like gemstones a set of memories came rushing back.

It was of the time when Arthur had been seven years old.

When the classes were not running in the orphanage or when they weren\'t doing chores, the children were free to spend their time as they wanted. It was only the older teens that looked into part time work as the rest simply played, studied, or fooled around. 

One of the common spots where they played was a park that was near the Orphanage. Arthur too visited this park to play often, but most of the time he would be alone.

His lone figure sat at the swing set, a hint of gloominess on his face. 

"Hey, why are you sitting alone?" A young girl asked.

Her shoulder length blonde hair bounced as she leaned forward.

"Huh?" Arthur looked up, to find a pair of vibrant eyes staring at him.

"Are you sick?" the girl asked seeing his confused look.

"Sick? No, I\'m not." Arthur quickly replied, seeing that she was talking to him.

"I see… I thought you were sitting here since you were feeling sick." The girl replied.

"No… I\'m fine." Arthur shook his head.

"Then why aren\'t you playing?" the girl asked curiously.

"I… Uhh… Just don\'t feel like playing." Arthur replied, not wanting to say the truth.

"Sure…" the young girl said, narrowing her gem like eyes. 

She glanced at the other kids that looked at them for a bit before hurriedly looking away.

"They\'re bullying you aren\'t they?" the girl asked having understood.

"N-no," Arthur replied. "They\'re just… Ignoring me." 

"Why\'s that?" the girl asked again.

"I don\'t know… they just do that sometimes," Arthur replied, confusing the young girl.

"They have no reason for that?" the girl asked, without stopping.

"They just do it… sometimes it\'s me, sometimes it\'s others." Arthur answered.

"Huh, so they\'re just good for nothing bullies." The girl quickly came to a conclusion.

"I don\'t know…" Arthur replied, not knowing why the girl was talking to him.

Usually, all the kids from the orphanage had an understanding and they would all ignore the one person they had decided on. If someone tried to go against that, they too would be ignored.

Thus, with the fear of being shunned, no one tried to go against that. Those that did have learned it pretty quickly.

Arthur though, had the misfortune of having done exactly that. He had talked to a child who was in the same situation as what he was in right now. It was seen by the others, and the ignoring hadn\'t stopped even now.

As for the child that Arthur had talked to, they too had joined the others in ignoring him.

"Hump! Come with me!" the young girl seemed to have thought of something and pulled Arthur\'s hand.

"Wha—" Arthur was taken aback, but couldn\'t help but be pulled along.

The girl was stronger than she looked, or it might just be Arthur that was rather scrawny.

"Where are we going?" Arthur asked.

"We\'ll go somewhere else to play!" the girl replied.

"Why… if you do that they will ignore you too." Arthur said frantically.

"Why should I care?" the girl scoffed.

"If they ignore you, no one will help you at the orphanage and you might have to do chores on your own," Arthur replied, thinking that the girl might be new.

It wasn\'t uncommon for new children to join the orphanage from time to time. At the very least, they would get one child every month. This month no one had arrived, thus Arthur thought that the girl might have been a new arrival.

"Orphanage? What?" Much to his surprise, the girl replied in confusion.

"The Orphanage… Wait! Are you not from the orphanage?" Arthur realized something.

"No." The girl shook her head.

"W-what… why were you at the park, then? It\'s where we, the children from the orphanage, play." Arthur replied, feeling confused.

The Orphanage wasn\'t exactly close to any houses and was distant from most residential areas. Thus, other children playing there didn\'t happen. While the park wasn\'t exclusively for the orphanage, it just so happened that there wasn\'t anyone other than them to use it.

Thus, seeing someone not from the orphanage was surprising to Arthur.

"Was I not supposed to be there?" the girl asked.

"N-no… nothing like that." Arthur couldn\'t recall there being any rule like that.

"Then there\'s no issue." The girl replied while continuing to pull Arthur along.

"Why were you there then if you\'re not from the Orphanage?" Arthur asked.

"Me… I\'m just there to pass the time while daddy works." The girl answered.

"Daddy? You have a dad, I see…" Arthur spoke, a hint of sorrow appearing on his face.

The girl didn\'t notice this though as her head was looking forward as she ran.

"Yeah! He\'s working nearby and I didn\'t want to stay alone at home, so I came with him." The girl explained.

"I see…" Arthur replied without thinking about his response.

Hearing the shift in his tone, the girl looked back, her eyes twinkling in confusion as she tilted her head.

"Anything wrong?" She asked.

"I…" Arthur didn\'t know how to express himself though.

He wasn\'t used to people talking to him like this, at least not children that were the same age as him. There were adults who would speak to him nicely like the matron, but it was not the same as a peer talking to them.

"I know what! Let\'s just play! It\'ll make you feel good." The girl said instead, seeing that Arthur wasn\'t feeling exactly good.

"Okay." Arthur decided to just go with the glow.

The two soon reached a small green hill that was at the back of the park. Not many came here, especially not the children, as they found it scary. But the girl didn\'t seem to be caring about that at all.

"Come chase me! You\'re IT!" She tagged Arthur before running.

"I… AHH!" Arthur noticed what happened and quickly ran after her.

Unknowingly, he had forgotten about his previous thoughts and was just engrossed in playing. With no one to interrupt them, they played for hours before the sun started to go down.

"Haa… HAA…" Arthur sat down against a tree, trying to catch his breath.

"You\'re slow." The young girl said.

"You\'re just too fast," Arthur replied, not feeling as awkward as before.

"Oh yeah! I almost forgot." The girl patted her head in realization. "What\'s your name?" she inquired.

"I\'m Arthur." 

"Hi Arthur! I\'m Stella!" The young girl replied with a smile. "Let\'s play again tomorrow!"

And just like that, a quick friendship was forged. Arthur and Stella continued to play after that. This lasted for a couple of years until finally, a familiar situation appeared. Arthur, who was used to abandonment, found getting abandoned again, this time by a friend.

Stella never returned to play.

The pain of it was enough for Arthur to forget about it over the years. But now that he saw her striking gemstone like eyes, he couldn\'t help but remember it all.

"Stella…" In the restaurant, Arthur muttered.