This kid was unique from the others, his talent being obvious to Mash. He was the skinniest of the group, seeming surprisingly boney despite holding several empty skewers in his own hands. Though what had startled Mash was the mana he could feel in the kid. There were only two real ways for a person to have mana. Either a dedicated class or doing training as he had done in the past. Judging from the kid’s appearance, Mash guessed that it was the former. Scrutinizing the kid more, Mash noticed what he had missed earlier. His ears were narrower than normal, but not as long as an elf’s ears. At first, Mash thought that he might be a half-elf, but realized that his ears were cut, the shortness was not because of his race.

Mash considered what to do and chose to ask the kids about something else to give himself some time to think.

“What’s going on, why is everyone out tonight?”

When he first saw the streets, Mash thought it was a typical event, but the crowds had clearly looked like they were celebrating something. He guessed it was a festival but didn’t know for what. The kid who spoke earlier replied to his question.

“It’s for the heroes, there’s two more now.”

Mash could see what he meant now, realizing that today was a significant moment for the city. It seemed like his fight was going to lose out to Luke’s and the other hero, considering the literal festival that was being thrown in their honor. Thinking about it, Luke would probably be excited to see the celebrations. Plus, it would hopefully improve his mood since he looked like he was struggling. He was going to reply, and brag about knowing one of them, but stopped when the little girl spoke.

“Yeah, but you're stronger right?”

She never took her eyes off his, the stare was already creepy before, but now it was entering the realm of disturbing. The other thing her words made him realize, that it was likely that all three of the children had been in the arena during yesterday’s events. Rather than going back immediately, he spent a few minutes talking to the kids, learning of their situation. He talked a little about his abilities, and their classes, learning some interesting information. All three possessed rare classes, which was especially interesting considering their age. They talked about them excitedly, choosing not to hide anything about their skills either.

The elven child with the abundant mana actually had a class called manatouched, which granted him a skill to passively increase his mana beyond its limit. The interesting thing about his skill was that it simply grew past his maximum, while the actual max remained unchanged. It sounded powerful, and powerful beyond what a child should get. The girl who stared at him awkwardly, had a much more problematic class, one that told him that he would need to take them to his brother. She had the mutant class, and the skill she gained was changeable, which made her body more susceptible to change. The final boy had a class he knew about, but never heard of a child ever receiving it. He possessed the sinner class, and it gave him a skill called glutton, which made him immune to the negative effects of foods. From the skills and classes, Mash was building a rather horrific depiction of their situation.

The elven child with the abundant mana was called Gills, the middle kid who acted as a leader was known as Biggby, and the little girl with the strange stare was Liss. He learned that the kids were from a nearby orphanage and took advantage of the festival to eat some sweets. Apparently, the entire group was adept at sneaking out and did likewise frequently. They talked about random things, and they seemed to enjoy speaking to Mash. They kept asking him about how he fought, and he enjoyed bragging to the children. Mash avoided the topic of Gills’ ears as they were not something he knew how to deal with. He felt like it was wrong though and figured his brother would want to know.

Mash managed to convince the kids to follow him, by offering the ability to meet with his brother and Luke. They seemed very interested at that, although Biggby was the only one who spoke. Liss just kept staring at him, and he scratched the back of his neck as he lead them back to the house. These were some strange children, and he was essentially kidnapping them. He sighed at the thought as he noticed several people giving him weird looks, but they turned away when they met his inhuman eyes. Instead of worrying about that, he focused on how he would explain this to his siblings but couldn’t think of any way to avoid a lecture.

Within his mana territory, he could tell that the kids were whispering about something but continued to follow him anyways. Wondering what they thought was pointless. His mental stats were high enough now that he was smarter than most adults, even if he was a little immature, but that didn’t mean he had any chance of understanding the kids. Their situation was beyond anything he could relate to, and that was not even considering their strange conditions. At first, he wasn’t all that suspicious of their situation, but after seeing the kid’s ears, and the girl’s oddness, he decided that something was probably wrong with their orphanage.

Encounters like this reminded him of the World Carrier’s words, and the chaotic fate he predicted for Mash. It seemed like Mash was destined for some event or another every time he went out, and he couldn’t bring himself to ignore them as others might’ve. That was the difference he realized. Most people would ignore a group of strange children, or avoid random situations that presented to them, but he could never do that. It just felt wrong, and he wondered if that was his own thoughts or some influence that was placed on him. Priscilla indicated that she felt no influence but mentioned that she couldn’t be certain. He wasn’t sure either but hoped that he wouldn’t ignore interesting situations, otherwise that would make him a rather poor adventurer.

As he thought about the things he had planned, he realized that he was very much living a life of chaos but didn’t mind in the slightest and found himself sporting a grin at the thought. He made it to the back of the house, where he hopped over the wall earlier. This time he made a staircase so that the kids could follow him as well, but once they crossed into the yard, Mash was startled to see his brother and Alex with swords drawn. There were also several knights whom he hadn’t seen before, all looking quite alarmed until they recognized Mash.

“What’s wrong?”

Pulling his staircase over the wall, so that others couldn’t use it, he asked his brother what the panic was about. Although from Arthur’s exasperation, Mash had a pretty good guess and was quickly proven right.

“The alarms triggered from you bringing in uninvited guests.”

His brother’s tone was flat, but he didn’t sound panicked as he looked over the kids Mash brought. He simply raised an eyebrow at Mash. It was enough, and Mash started explaining what had happened. It hadn’t been more than an hour since he met the kids, but it took him a while to explain the story. His brother nodded along but didn’t actually say anything. Soon Luna and his friends were also outside, and his sister began checking the children’s condition. Mash didn’t know what he had expected, but he was glad to relieve himself of the burden. It's not that he didn’t want to know the rest of the story and investigate the orphanage, but he had too many things coming.

For one, he wanted to do well in the tournament. He also needed to complete his fights with the arena, the last of which would only happen once he got to the next rank. That was the last part of the deal he made with the Colosseum. He would come back and display his new abilities here once he got to his next class. Mash didn’t mind the deal but still wanted to accomplish the task quickly. In order to do that, he had planned on going to a dungeon the day after tomorrow.

Mash brought up this idea with the others and agreed that it would be a good idea. Rather than trying to clear the dungeon, they would simply kill monsters near the entrance. Some people did this, killing the same monster for years, but Mash wasn’t planning on doing that. The main reason for that was the diminishing returns provided by killing the same monsters. Easier fights would be less likely to raise a person’s level, but so would killing the same monster repeatedly. It was much easier and faster to level if you fought a wide variety of powerful monsters, but he would take what he could get while in the city.

Despite all of this, Mash did move closer to be able to hear what the kids were saying as they talked about the orphanage. Although once he got close, the little girl went silent and continued to stare at him oddly. Knowing that he shouldn’t feel so uncomfortable because of a kid's stare, he stood beside his brother to listen to the story.

“Father said my ears wouldn’t be good, and they needed to shorten them for me to get adopted.”

The words seemed to physically hurt Red, as her face contorted with rage. Luke looked equally displeased, and between the two of them were likely to burn the orphanage down. Jill seemed contemplative but asked something unexpected to the children.

“Liss, was it? Why do you keep staring at Mash?”

In the awkwardness of the stare, Mash had never bothered to actually ask why she was staring. He felt especially foolish as the girl seemed to be waiting for someone to ask.

“He, uh, smells like the candy mother always gives me.”

She spoke excitedly, looking at Mash again as if she expected him to give her the candy. Unsure of what to do, Mash pulled out some candy. He had the butler purchase some and always kept some within his storage. He might not have wanted to waste the space, but he realized that his space had grown with either his levels or mana and took advantage of the added space. The next best choice was his sugar cubes but found that candy worked better for his snacking. The little girl excitedly snatched up the candy and popped it into her mouth without thinking.

She didn’t seem as excited though, and her face twisted in confusion. There were several things that bothered Mash about the face. The first of which was the ways her eyes seemed to gloss over when she first put the candy in her mouth. The other thing that stood out was the poor state of her teeth, and he realized that all the children had similarly damaged teeth. Unsure of what he did, Mash decided to just ask the child.

“Is something wrong with the candy?”

She shook her head vehemently as if he would take it away despite it being in her mouth. Mash was going to say more, to try and get her to relax, but stopped when she started to answer him.

“These candies don’t tingle like the ones Mother gives us.”

Mash felt he understood a little of what the girl was getting at, and a glance at Jill and his brother told him that they came to the same conclusion. They were probably feeding the children a drug of sorts, and the children were probably affected by it. It did much to explain the strangeness of the three children, but not why Liss said it smelled like him. He wasn’t sure what to think but decided he would take an extra-long bath.

His siblings seemed content with taking care of the children for now, and Luna seemed like she would heal the three of them. It would deal with the physical problems, and he hoped that it could heal whatever the drugs did as well. Though, he saw the sadness in her eyes and guessed that she knew it wouldn’t. Before going to take that shower, Mash asked what his brother was planning. Mash wanted to see the end of the story, even if it meant missing the training tomorrow. Especially, since his brother informed him that he would be visiting the orphanage tomorrow morning. Mash decided that he would follow him, unable to resist the temptation of his curiosity.