“Fucking disappear, you losers.” With a flick of her wrist, Ophelia sent numerous black-robed attackers flying in the air. Before they could even realize it, the black-robed figures were slammed against the ground as parts of the floor stretched out and wrapped themselves around them, sealing them in place.

Ophelia didn’t even spare them a glance as she let the latest three join the other attackers who had foolishly approached her. A terrifying scowl was pasted on her face, the visage of the gentle mother nowhere to be seen.

The attackers who could still groan and scream in pain all shut up when they saw her face. Ophelia was absolutely annoyed by the transpiring events. Alongside wiping the floor with the black-robed people, she was also using her psychokinesis to guide the people towards the portal and inspect the dome-like magic spell threatening this place.

Though her actions were a feat that would make high wizards fall from dizziness, they weren’t what had put her in a sour mood. She couldn’t find Astolfo anywhere. Every time she used her psychokinesis to peek inside the dome, the spell would suck away her mana at a rapid speed. This also made it troublesome to keep up her analysis magic to inspect the dome. At least she could tell that it was not a life-threatening spell and could continue to be discreet, but prolonged exposure to the dome and its miasma could prove fatal.

Having moved most of the people in the city to the portal, Ophelia breathed a sigh of relief and went towards the dome-like spell. Just as she got close to it, the dome abruptly halted in place. As she stopped to look, the sky got covered with lances and spears of pure mana and the composition of the dome’s magic formula changed rapidly. From an absorption-type [Superior] spell to a transferal type [Superior] spell.

“Interesting…” Ophelia said the analysis spells she had set out now were completely useless. Within moments, a large number of weapons in the sky had started to disappear much faster than they were made.

“Haha,” she let out a shy chuckle. “As expected of Vincent.”

Admiring the battle as she was, Ophelia’s mind never stopped. She had already begun tweaking the magic formulas of her analysis spell to inspect the dome. Much to her ire, though, the intensity of the mana emission increased by leaps and bounds and the dome started collapsing on itself. The caster had completely destroyed the initial spell in exchange for having more mana at their disposal.

Once again, weapons appeared in the sky. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even Ophelia had to widen her eyes at the unbelievable amount of raw mana this simple spell had collected. Though her constant use of psychokinesis and analysis spells was a contributor, this amount of mana was still too high to be a result of it.

“I should change my focus.” Ophelia had sent a number of stones infused with psychokinesis in search of her son inside the range of the dome and switched her spells from the dome to the weapons in the sky.

As her mana materialized in ethereal magic circles and started approaching the sky, Aelius’ glow brightened. She could only blink as the absurd number of weapons in the sky started fading away at an equally absurd rate. It didn’t even take a whole minute for the tens of thousands of mana weapons to merge with the dust.

“I was going to inspect those!” Ophelia stomped her feet in anger, but she was smiling quite fiercely. “Damned Vincent, taking them all down like that—”

Suddenly, her pupils narrowed and her heart cooled down like a bucket of ice was poured on her. Ophelia’s legs felt weak as she froze in place.

With her psychokinesis, she could see a young child head to toe in armor laying limp on the ground.

**

Vincent jumped over the roofs again. He extended his senses and found Ophelia at a place not so far away. Vigsius too was coming towards them.

Vincent jumped from the third floor of a building made to accommodate giants and landed on the ground without a sound. Parts of the buildings and street had shaved off and fallen on the ground, likely due to people firing off spells in a panic.

A few meters away, Ophelia stood still, her eyes glued to the armored boy on the ground. Vincent dropped the evil noble from his hand and slowly approached Ophelia.

“Hey, what happened?” Vincent asked as he slowly approached Ophelia. She didn’t say anything and continued staring at the fallen boy. He stepped up next to her and placed an arm on her shoulder.

Ophelia’s pursed lips trembled and her eyes quaked. Her fingers clenched the sides of her arms, the long nails digging deep into the skin. She tried to hide it, but her bated breaths and subdued made Vincent’s heart pound in pain.

Never had he seen Ophelia, the strongest person he had ever known, look so weak.

“Ophelia…” Vincent spoke softly. His hands slowly turned her towards him. “What happened…?”

“I-I- I put on a strong healing spell,” Ophelia stumbled over her words. Her weak voice trembled uncontrollably.

“And, I put a-a barrier spell too… T-this boy, Astolfo, both of them. H-how can this… it’s impossible.” Finally, like a broken dam, Ophelia’s eyes lost their hold and tears dripped down. She turned towards Vincent and clenched his collar with a light grip.

“T-the spell told me his location… but, but he’s nowhere. As-tolfo is gone. I can’t find him anywhere… Our son is gone…”

Vincent’s heart pounded in his chest with each second that passed. He was having a hard time processing things and the sight of his wife crying blanked his head out. Without a word, he pulled Ophelia into a tight embrace.

With her face against his chest, Vincent activated [Monochrome World] once again, and the world lost its color. The air, the ground, the streets, everything turned black and white and the universe unfolded in front of Vincent in its purest form. Mana, Aura, the very essence of the world revealed itself.

A white glow took over Vincent’s brown eyes as he shifted his gaze towards the boy lying limp on the floor.

Murky black blood coursed through the boy's veins, his mana assimilation as high as those of great wizards and mages. A half-demon child.

“Ophelia…” Vincent muttered, his hand softly stroking her hair. “It’s not your fault.”

“Wh-”

“This boy,” Vincent interrupted her. After a long breath, he continued with gritted teeth. “His soul… is missing. Someone took out his soul.”

For the second time of the day, Ophelia felt as if the ground was pulled away from her feet. Her eyes spread wide again as the dots seem to connect. Complex spells that she had never seen before, strong enough to nullify her abilities. A child with his soul pulled out, forbidden magic that one would never witness in hundred lifetimes. And lastly, Vincent and Ophelia Kirsche’s missing child.

“That god… is it…”

Vincent didn’t let Ophelia finish her thought as he hugged her tighter than before. “We could be wrong. Maybe it’s someone else and they haven’t gotten far. Let’s look for him first. Just in case.”

It was then that Vigsius had come up behind Ophelia. Still holding her in his arms, Vincent met his eyes with Vigsius who seemed to have heard a little of what was happening. The two old friends shared a determined nod.

‘Take care of the children,’ Vincent mouthed before leaving.

**

“Um then, Rick climbed up the beanstalk reached the kingdom of giants in the clouds. The giants were really pissed at the intruder because it was a place of pilgrimage and tried to fight Rick and take his weapons. But he wasn’t gonna give them up and rolled them all into bean seeds—”

“Just. Stop man.” Charlotte interrupted Truss. “I get that you are trying to help, but it's fine. We get it.”

Lying next to her on the large bed in their room, Luka nodded and echoed Charlotte’s words. At last, Truss stopped his stupid tale and let out a sigh. Just where had the mage found himself?

A low-level transport mage was sent to a vassal kingdom of the empire to transport one of the highest-ranked personnel in the empire. He thought the honor was too large for him until that very personnel spilled what the mission was about. The young mage did not care! It was beyond his abilities, and pay!

Then one thing led to another and now he was stuck babysitting these two kids in their early teens. He didn’t look it, but Truss was in his early thirties. Though young for humans who lived more than a hundred a fifty, he was still twice their age.

“Say, Charlotte… Will they find him?” Luka asked.

“That again!” Charlotte shot up from the bed and stared down at Luka. “If not now then later. We’ll surely find him. Do you get it?”

Without knowing what else to do, Luka smiled a wry smile and nodded his head. “Uh-hm, got it.”

What if they didn’t find him now then later were the very words Luka had told Charlotte to make her calm down a little, but now had to hear them back.

It had been two days since the incident in Essen. It was back then when Vigsius informed them that Astolfo had gone missing and that the kids’ parents were out looking for him. Truss was left in charge of looking after the kids who sobbed uncontrollably for the entirety of the first day.

Vigsius himself couldn’t stay with the kids for the whole time since he had to meet with the paladins sent by the theocracy and discuss the situation with them, but he made sure to check in on and comfort the kids every other hour.

Still, while he felt for them. Truss did not want to be here. There were only two reasons he didn’t run away. One, the person it all was connected to was none other than Vincent Kirsche. Low-level as he was, Truss was the fourth son of a family of mages and had heard his fair share of stories.

As for the second reason, he was a coward.

“Truss,“ Charlotte called out.

“Yes?”

“I am hungry,” she said. With gritted teeth, the magician smiled and stood up from his seat. It was fine, he could bring two kids some food, nothing bad in that.

“Hah, is he eating well?”

**

A few more days of sighs and cries passed and Vigsius had finally joined them full time when the door to the room swung open in the middle of the night.

The kids got up from their beds and saw their parents standing by the door. No words were exchanged as Ophelia wrapped the kids in a hug. Soon, all three broke out into tears and Vincent joined them with a tired face.

Truss and Vigsius went outside to leave the family alone.

It was only after a couple of hours passed did the kids and Ophelia tire enough to fall asleep. Having cried themselves to sleep, their faces were a mess while they were still in each other's embrace.

Vincent softly stroked their heads with a smile for a long time. At last, he got up and stepped outside himself. Vigsius and Truss were sitting on the ground not too far away when they saw him coming towards them.

A cold glare that sent shivers down their spines was pasted on Vincent’s face. It was a look that Vigsius hadn’t seen in fifteen years, no, it was much more intense than that.

“Vigsius…” Vincent stopped in front of the giant and stared him in the eye. “I’ll come back to the empire.”