Starting Life From Zero: Far From Home

Chapter Twenty-One

Perched up atop the corner of a roof overlooking the archway and the main gate to the barracks, Peter could both stay out of sight and keep an eye out for Emilia's inevitable emergence from the building. He had been a bit too rambunctious and hadn't considered how frightening things like being thrown dozens of feet into the air could affect someone. Part of him often forgot how short a time she had known him and also how little she understood about his capabilities.

This world had all this magic and these people with fantastical powers, but he had yet to see anything else like him. The idea of Spider-Man would take some getting used to for her and the rest of the people he came across.

Peter turned to look off in the direction of the castle. This was as close to it as he had ever been, part of him had to wonder if he would see the inside of the place. One day, he assumed, when Emilia took the throne he could go in and out of the place as he pleased. Would he have even found a way home by then or would he be stuck here.

If Aunt May was here and he could assure that this world needed him...if Emilia needed him, would he mind being stuck here? Part of him knew it was crazy to think of a girl he had only known for a month like this. May had been big on telling him that he would get wrapped up in emotions that would feel like everything was dire and serious. The kind of things that he would look back on one day and realize hadn't been nearly as intense as he had thought.

He was still in the middle of all that and right now, at least, he felt that not treating all of this like it was something he really felt wouldn't be fair to the current him. That was if she even wanted anything with him besides a friend. She needed friends as there didn't seem to be many people she considered close to her like that.

Peter thought about that knight kissing her hand earlier and the immediate reaction he had to it—but that wasn't the way friends regarded each other. They didn't place each other on a pedestal like that, did they? It was the same with Lord Roswaal, he wasn't friends with Emilia or even her guardian really. He saw her as something else. Peter assumed that he wanted the prestige that came with being an early backer of the new ruler. With what he knew about the desire for power and the world that explanation made the most sense.

"...over. You wouldn't want us to mess up that pretty little face of yours?" Came a raspy voice that was oddly familiar.

"Give up everything you got!" There was another voice, this one lower and speaking at a much slower cadence.

Peter leapt to the next building, scampering over the roof on all fours to reach the building edge. He peered down into an alleyway to see three figures looming over a young woman in a red and black dress.

No need to do this sloppy, he webbed and awning and tested his weight on it. Using the strand of web, he lower himself down until he was just out of eye line of the woman and right behind her attackers.

"You should know better than to even hoist your lowly gazes in my general direction, gutter trash," the woman in the red and black dress spoke with a dignified and confident tone. The kind of tone someone had when they didn't expect to be shanked in an alleyway and robbed of all they had.

Even at a glance, Peter could tell that she was wealthy and probably of noble blood. He had yet to come across anyone dressed as finely as her. She opened a fan in front of her face and used it to brush aside a strawberry blonde flyway bang that had fallen on her cheek.

Peter lowered him self down just enough that the woman spotted him and gasped, her crimson eyes going wide.

The three would-be-muggers didn't have time to turn around before he spoke. "Really, the whole knights barracks is right there...wait, you three again?" Peter was stunned to find out that these three were the exact robbers that he had faced the first day he was in Lugnica.