Chapter 1: Quiet Guy.
Echo Village, a peaceful town inhabited by peaceful people.
"Like I said, it was a mistake to sell it to you!"
...Or at least that what my parents told me. I'm sure they didn't know Neil, the local animal trader.
"Hah! Some shopkeeper you are! I'll never buy animals from you again!"
And apparently, he is having yet another fight with one of his customers. Way to go Neil.
"That's fine by me! I'll never sell animals to someone like you again!"
This time, Neil seems to be extremely pissed at this customer. Someone I haven't seen before in my life, but then again, I'm new in town. Maybe, just maybe, this is a regular thing.
"Gah… what a waste of time this was." The man seemed to be quite angry as well, and I don't blame him. Neil can be quite the ogre sometimes. "Hey, out of my way! I'm leaving!"
My name is Henry; I'm the new owner of a farm Echo Village. I usually try to avoid any kind of conflict and try to get along with everyone. As Dunhill said, I have to befriend the villagers in here.
Neil stared at me with his blood-red eyes for at least thirty seconds. that felt like hours to me. Finally, he broke the awkward silence.
"Oh, it's you. What do you want?" There seemed to be a little bit of hurt in his voice, but of course, he was never going to admit it.
"What happened?" I'm both curious and worried about this whole situation. It wouldn't be the first time this week that a customer leaves Neil's house angry after arguing with him.
"This has nothing to do with you. Just leave me alone." Well, I was told that he was quite the character. He kind of hurt my feelings.
"…" I'm speechless, and couldn't possibly hide the fact that he made me somewhat upset.
"Don't make that face! You're acting like I was picking on you!" Even though he was trying to unleash his rage on anyone right now, he had the nerve to say that.
"I…" I think I'm about to cry. "I just wanted to know what happened and why that guy left angry…"
"Okay, okay. You win. You'll leave me alone if I tell you about it, right?" I think he feels guilty for almost making me cry. Could possibly have any human emotions? "That guy with the bad attitude who was in here before is a customer of mine." It makes sense, I think. "He came to complain about a cow I sold to him".
"Why would he complain about a cow you sold to him?" I ask immediately.
"You want to know why? It seems the cow I sold him got sick. He seems to think that I sold him a sickly cow on purpose. I asked him how he's been looking after the cow, and it turns out he's been treating it really badly. So it quickly descended into a fight. I mean, I was right, right? He's gone now, anyway, so everything's okay."
But… I can't help but to think about the poor cow. Did he…?
"What about the sick cow?" I asked somewhat concerned.
"Huh? What was that?" So he actually forgot to tell him about the sick cow. "Argh! You are right! I need to give some medicine to the poor thing or it'll be done for! How could I overlook that? Right, if I run, I can still make it. Hold on a sec, I'll be back soon!" He ran out as fast as he could. Even though he can be really mean to people and have an explosive temper, he knows his ways with animals, and he can be quite nice to them. There's no way he could possibly be a human being.
Some time passed, for some reason he asked me to wait for him at his place.
"Phew. I'm worn out!" He looks tired; sweaty as a guy can be, he still maintains his cool rock-star look. "What, you are still here?"
"What happened to the cow?" I believe I sounded a little bit too excited but I really wanted to know what happened.
"Huh? You want to know what happened? I took some animal medicine to him, that's what happened. I also gave him some advice on how to better look after the cow. It might not make a difference but at least I tried." He seemed relieved.
"Phew"
"What are you smiling for, eh?" He blushed vigorously "T-Thanks for that, anyway."
"Why?" I couldn't help myself but to ask. I wanted to see what he had to say about it.
"If-if you hadn't been here, I don't think I'd have given that poor cow a second thought. I was so angry!"
"No problem!" I gave him a huge smile. It made me really happy that he started to talk to me more than his usual ten words per day.
"Y-You've got work to do, too, right? Go on, get out of here! I'm busy too! See you later."
His face got red as it could get, he smiled shyly and waved goodbye.