When I heard this question, I couldn't help revealing a bitter smile.
This was the question that I had wanted to avoid the most, but this girl had asked it right away.
Still, I couldn't just say nothing, so I fixed the smile on my face and said, "We come from a far away place that's very remote, so it's not worth mentioning."
The girl looked at me for a bit before suddenly asking, "So where is it? How afar away is it? What is it called?"
I couldn't help being surprised when I was bombarded by these questions since normally, people would just leave things like this. But this girl was different where she didn't let up at all and kept asking me more questions.
So I just said, "It's not a well known place, so I don't think you'll know it even if I told you."
The girl didn't give up as she said, "Well you'll never know if you don't tell me."
The sides of my lips started to twitch when I heard this.
It seemed that this girl really didn't know how to take a hint and didn't know to stop asking questions.
But what Zwein didn't know was that she was doing it on purpose.
Still in the end, I said, "We were forced to leave because of extenuating circumstances, so there would be nothing to gain from telling you the name and the location."
Seeing the look on his face, the girl finally knew that she had gone too far, so she stopped asking questions.
Instead, she said, "Alright, then what are you doing in this city?"
I couldn't help revealing a bitter smile again when I heard her say this, but this time I didn't fall into her tempo and let her lead me on.
Instead, I said, "Don't you know that you have to answer a question before asking a question? Shouldn't you let me ask a question first before asking another question?"
The girl tilted her head as if she was thinking about it, but then she gave a nod and said, "Alright, what questions do you have for me? If I can answer them, I'll answer them."
I was surprised that she would actually agree to this.
In truth, I was trying to use this excuse as a way to stop her from asking more questions and to get her to leave us alone, but since she agreed to this…there was no reason not to take her up on this offer.
With how outgoing she seemed, she should know a fair bit about the city and the happenings in the city.
But before that…it was better to earn her trust.
So I asked, "What is your name?"
The girl looked at me with a confused look as if she couldn't understand that question since this was the last question that she had expected.
Seeing this look on her face, I knew that what I had suspected was true.
So I said, "We can't just keep talking without even knowing each other's names, right? At the very least, we should know how to address each other."
The girl thought about it before giving a nod and then saying, "My name's Ronnie. There's nothing fancy about it, so you can just call me Ronnie."
"Ronnie?" I repeated in a slightly confused voice.
Hearing this, the girl narrowed her eyes to look at me before saying, "What's wrong? Do you think that my name is strange?"
I hesitated for a second before giving an honest nod and saying, "I can't say that it's a common name that I've heard before. Or at least, it's not a common name that I've heard for a girl before, especially one as beautiful as you."
The girl still looked at me with those narrowed eyes, not being fazed by the compliment that I had slid in there at all.
After looking at me for a bit, she suddenly gave a shrug and said, "That's right, it's not a common name at all." Then she suddenly asked, "That's right, what's your name?"
I had been caught off guard by this, so I just answered in a daze, "Zwein, my name is Zwein."
After hearing this, she muttered to herself, "Your name is Zwein and you're calling my name strange. That really is like the pot calling the kettle black."
I couldn't help revealing a bitter smile when I heard this, but there was something else that caught my attention instead.
It was as if she had completely forgotten about how she had seemed offended just now as she suddenly agreed with me.
I couldn't help being caught off guard by this sudden change in her attitude, but I didn't have time to process this as she suddenly asked another question.
"What are you doing in this city? Why did you come here?" This was the same question that she had asked before, but there was a bit extra tacked onto the end this time.
I thought about it before saying, "We have some business to take care of in this city, but it's private matters so I can't really tell you what we're here for. I hope that you will not mind this."
As I said this, I even gave a slight bow to show how apologetic I was.
Ronnie looked at me with narrowed eyes for a bit before waving her hand and saying, "Alright, since it's private, I understand."
For a moment there, I had thought that she would ignore this and keep asking questions, but it seemed like that fear was unfounded…
No, it wasn't completely unfounded.
I had seen the look in her eyes that almost seemed like she was still about to ask something, but then she had caught herself at the last moment as if she had thought of something.
It seemed like there was something that had stopped her at the last second which I was grateful for.
So after giving a secret sigh of relief, I asked, "Has there been anything special going on in the city lately?"
That was what I wanted to find out from her.
She was someone who was outgoing and friendly with the people of the city, so there was no doubt that she would have heard some rumours from her.
Our task was to investigate traces of the demons in this city, so I had to find those traces in the first place.
Who better for that than a local of the city?
If I could get some information about the city, especially the interesting things that had happened in it, then there was no doubt that it would help me greatly with my investigation.
So even if I wasn't certain if I would get anything useful, I still took my chance and bit the bullet to ask this.
Ronnie tilted her head to think about it and she muttered, "Well, there's nothing really that special that I can think of."
When I heard this, I revealed a trace of disappointment in my eyes.
But then she said, "If you want something special, I can think of a few things that I've heard from the others."