I will find you. And when I do... [D-rank Job - Solo]

"I will find you kids. And when I do... you all will be tickled until you cry."

Two hours earlier, Hero was making his round through East Forest as per his morning orders. The report that came along with it said to watch for children in the area, though Hero wasn't certain why children would be out in the forest where it could be dangerous. Regardless, he kept his eyes peeled in case the report was truthful. So far, the forest had seemed rather peaceful which was good for a couple different reasons, and that also meant children could potentially be out here somewhere playing games. Games, huh... he thought to himself. Hero had a disturbing childhood, one so disturbing that he subconsciously wiped the memory of where he was born. He could never truly forget, however. Every now and then, memories would come back to him in the form of brief flashes whenever he blinked or otherwise closed his eyes.

In the middle of his deep thoughts, he heard laughing nearby that was not deepened by age. Hero sighed and knew that he had to go check it out, despite wanting to simply follow the orders. On his way toward the laughter and other banter, there was a young girl who came out from behind a tree and walked up to the man.

"Are you a Rune Knight, mister? We need one more person in order to play tag. Wanna join us?"

He had a feeling. He somehow knew this was going to happen. It wasn't like Hero did not like children. He was actually quite fond of them. The problem was that he was in the middle of working and he did not want to get caught playing around. Sighing to himself, he looked down at the girl and smiled a little.

"Lead the way, little miss."

The girl jumped up and said yay a few times before leading the towering knight to the group of children who were getting ready to play tag. Yamamoto felt somewhat ashamed for not being able to turn down a child, and as he and the girl arrived at the group, the other children turned around and saw the giant that was Hero. The girl spoke then and told them he was going to help play tag since they wanted another person, and he could tell that they relaxed a bit. One of the boys walked up to me and smiles.

"So, mister! I'll explain the rules since we play tag a bit differently. Since we have you playing, we're going to change a few things. First, you'll be it and you have to tag everyone in order to win. Each time you tag someone, they will help you find others. But you still have to tag them for it to count. Second, in order for us to win, we have to put you on your back. Okay? Everyone gets a 5-second head start except her. Since she got you to join, she'll be your first helper."


A five second head start was really all they needed. After two hours, he only managed to tag eight of the ten kids. It was definitely a lot harder to get all the kids than he thought initially. Three attempts were made to get the man on his back and each time was progressively closer to success, but now that there were only two left, they lost the advantage of numbers. Eventually, though difficult, the kids managed to find the last two and I tagged them. Since I won anyway, I let them all try and take me down at once; it took them a few minutes but they did it. They ended up having a lot of fun and Hero did too surprisingly enough, thinking it was going to be more work than it was worth. Although, it was starting to get late, so he escorted the children back to the city before he continued his patrols. The kids waved to him as he walked away and he waved back without turning around. A smile was burned across his face.

It was another good day.

Word Count: 694