The next day went similar to the previous one, except Marie told me to not leave the other kids behind and to not ignore them... Someone snitched on me.

Because of that, i didn't run. Well, i already have the fishing spear, so that saves a lot of time. I also have a kitchen knife and a relatively big wooden bucket Marie allowed me to borrow.

“Hey, Leo.” Calls Emma. “How come you know how to make this stuff and use it?” Emma is somewhat tomboyish and is the only girl with short hair among the three.

“I saw a fisherman doing it and imitated him.” I answer. “There’s lots of things you can make with just plants, rocks and dirt.” Nobody's born knowing how to smelt ores after all… It doesn’t count when it’s otherworldly knowledge, you know?

“Don’t you want us to show you around town?” Asks Dave. He’s kind of a leader for the group since he’s the oldest aside from Olivia, who goes along with the flow most of the time.

“I do, but not now. I want us to be able to have meat in every meal, and for that, not only do i need to catch a lot of fish, i also need to smoke them to keep them preserved.” Smoking isn’t very complicated, but needs time, so i have to take what i need back to the orphanage and do it there.

“Can you teach us?” Asks Archie. He seems like a worrywart. The other boy is Carl who seems to be permanently in a daze.

“Sure.” Don’t want to do everything myself after all.

That day also i caught a bunch of fish, but this time i removed their innards right away.

I also grabbed the necessary wood and leaves so that i can start smoking the fish tomorrow. I couldn’t carry everything all by myself of course, so i had the other kids help, with all seven of us together we could carry a lot of stuff.

Marie is surprised again by the amount of stuff we are carrying, but not that much since i told her what i wanted to do when i borrowed the bucket that is filled with sea water. The fish we aren’t going to be used today are left in sea water to suck in the salt for tomorrow.

Then next day before we leave, i teach the other kids how to start smoking things. The basics of it is to cook the meat using smoke instead of fire, so you need to keep the fish away from the fire with a grill like structure made with sticks and strings, burn something that produces a lot of smoke like leaves and wood chips, and cover everything up in leaves so that most of the smoke stays inside.

Aunt Marie is taking care of the fire while we go out to get more wood. There’s firewood back in the orphanage but it’s better not to waste it.

When we get back I teach them how to make strings, since with those you can make a lot of the more primitive stuff. Including the fun to use sling and the fishing spear.

We played with slings while taking care of the fire for the rest of the day. The smoked fish ended up well.

The next day we fished as a group and I taught them that the fish is closer than it seems. They seemed to notice i can do it abnormally fast, but it’s nothing that can’t be explained with skill.

We smoked the fish again the next day, and we finally have surplus so that i don’t need to fish every day.

So on the next couple of afternoons we went out to play like normal kids.

The other kids showed me places to play, places with interesting things and places where they go and do chores to get some pocket money, like sweeping the floor or waxing one thing or another.

The town we are in is on the coast of a big island near the Sylvian peninsula, so there is always one ship or another passing by. It is one of the few places where children are disappearing and I’m pretty sure there are some spies other than me spread around here.

While we walk around town I keep my senses enhanced and stealthily cast detection spells to see if i detect any signs of the kidnappers or even monsters, but as expected, i get nothing. While we don’t know much about the culprits, we know they work slowly and carefully.

I hope I don’t have to stay here for too long, I want to try making airplanes…

~~

The days passed with us switching between getting fish and going out to play, and soon i had already spent half a year here.

“So rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper and paper beats rock? That last one doesn’t make any sense.” Says Emma with her brows furrowed.

“I see.” Says Archie. “Rock must be a metaphor for might and paper must be a metaphor for knowledge. And knowledge is superior to might, therefore-” Sometimes Archie thinks too much.

“Scissors?” Asks the taciturn Mia, interrupting him.

“... Agression?” Answers Archie, now unsure.

“Wouldn’t paper beat rock just because it’s the only one left?” Suggests Carl, who i found out isn’t always in a daze but always relaxed.

“No way, Carl. That’s dumb.” Answers Archie.

“Hey! Don’t call Carl that! He’s just a little slow!” Complains Dave.

“C-calm down, guys, it’s just a game, let’s hear Leo to the end.” Mediates Olivia. Everyone turns back to me.

Oh right, i was teaching them rock-paper-scissors. *Ahem* “Well, the game is normally used to decide something between two people in a fair way, but we can also add something to it to make it a fun game by itself.”

“Like what?” Asks Dave.

“Like making the loser do something funny, like imitating an animal or a person, or make a funny face until he wins a match, punishments like that.” I say.

When she heard ‘punishments’, Mia’s eyes seemed to shine for a moment… Why did i just get a shiver?

And with that we started playing.

Dave never accepts his losses.

Archie keeps delaying the match to try and rationalize what his opponent’s next move is.

Carl doesn’t do the punishments properly.

Olivia never accepts her victories.

Emma is actually very normal.

And Mia… How come someone so cruel always wins? I payed attention, but she isn’t using mana at all, and when i tried to read her surface emotions all i got was schadenfreude...

~~

Finally some danger popped up! The detection spells i had set up to last for the entire night picked up on an intruder. Airplanes here i come.

Multiple intruders arrived in our shared bedroom. I didn’t expect eight kidnappers at once, but maybe it’s related to how they never leave any clues?

I pretended to sleep while paying attention to the intruders, I kept a disruption bolt ready just in case. But i needn’t worry, the target fell straight into my trap and tried to make me breathe something, probably a chemical similar to chloroform to knock me out.

Of course, as a designated bait i was prepared for that, I only pretended to struggle for a second before pretending to go unconscious. All the while, using magic to protect me from being affected by whatever that was.

Uh-oh. The other intruders are moving onto the other kids, this doesn’t match my target’s modus operandi, but they are doing the same they did to me onto the others, so there’s no immediate danger as long as Marie doesn’t wake up.

I let out an internal sigh of relief as we leave without waking up Marie. I feel a little bad for not interfering before we are being kidnapped, but this is what i came here for.

If the others were being killed, i wouldn’t mind failing the mission, but in this situation i’d rather not.

These kidnappers are clearly trained in stealth, but they aren't doing anything that would make them untrackable like the kidnapper i’m after. So is it a different group of criminals? Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?

We move away from the orphanage for a short distance and get into a few carriages. Okay, once again, not the target’s modus operandi, carriages draw too much attention in the middle of the night.

During the ride i don’t hear anything useful, only some “Well, that part is over.” “Yeah.” kind of thing.

The carriages drive to the coast and load us inside a cage on a ship together with other kids. What a mess, there is no way they haven’t been noticed.

After a couple more kids are dropped off the ship sets sail, altogether, there are 15 kids here including me. I keep trying to gather information and i catch a somewhat useful conversation going on.

“Who could have known? The old man was right, no one on our tail.” Says man A.

“I still don’t like this job, what does he need so many kids for anyway? I say we get out of this country before things come crashing down, i could bet my left hand that they’re going to start a manhunt to find us.”

“Tone down that paranoia of yours, by the time they start hunting we’ll be enjoying drinks-”

And so on.

I’m so glad i slept with my camouflage cloak despite the weird looks i was getting.

Okay, i have a few theories for what’s going on, but i can save the theorizing for later, let’s set some priorities straight.

Survival. If i die, there is nothing i can do, everything goes to waste. The other kids survival and escape. Simply because i don’t want to live with that guilt on me. It’s not rare for mages to reach 150, you know? That’s a long time to have guilt trips. Capture and interrogate ‘the old man’. If that’s impossible, killing him should help too. Capture or kill these hired kidnappers. I doubt they know much, but if i can’t interrogate the old man, these guys will do too.

That seems good enough. Even if the old man might be more important than the kids when thinking on a grand scale, I don’t really mind.

I keep using a large variety of detection spells to see if i can find out where we are headed. All nice and stealthy of course.

From what i see, we seem to be heading away from the coast towards the south, and together with two more distant ships, we are heading towards two anchored ships in the middle of the sea, one large and one small.

Now, the decision i need to make is: Do i stay pretending to be asleep or do i try to escape in order to move more freely?

These hired hands aren’t paying attention to us… To hell with it, I don’t know what awaits us, so i need the freedom if i want to deal with the unexpected. I doubt they even counted how many kids they have here.

I activate my camouflage and slowly unlock the cage with magic and slip away from it before locking it again.

Now, from how these guys were acting, they are probably going to dump the kids on the ones who hired them and scamper away. I put down some tracking sigils like the one responsible for my disguise, i spread them amongst the men and the ship.

Now i wait.

~~

We are anchoring near the awaiting ships, smaller boats are moving the kids over, they are all still unconscious. I hold onto the outside of the boat to move with them.

Like I suspected, no one seemed to notice i’m missing, if they had I would need to use mind magic to stun them before sneaking back in. That’s one less hassle.

By now i doubt the inquisition’s higher ups aren’t tracking me down using my disguise sigil, so two out of my four objectives should be accomplished in a matter of time.

Arriving on the bigger ship, i climb up it’s side and scout out the situation. Instantly i spot three old hooded people ordering the hired hands around. Two old women and a single old man.

Well, fuck. The man and one of the women have somewhat sharp teeth. I can’t see their eyes because of the hoods, but I guess those suspicions of corruption aren’t just suspicions anymore.

They seem to just be putting the kids in cages again, so no immediate threat.

While they are doing their thing i look around the rest of the big ship, nothing special, no more kids aside from the ones arriving right now, not even a crew. So i switch to the small one. The two are connected by a really long plank.

Oh boy, where to start on the small one? It’s like someone put a sign up that says ‘demonic ritual site, please make some sacrifices here’ on the entrance to the cargo hold (the place inside the ship where you store stuff). There’s blood drawings everywhere, even the ceiling. They even have a goat’s head on an altar!

I use a detection spell to check on the outside, still moving kids between ships, who told you to grab so many kids? Greedy bastards.

If that’s the case, let’s scour this place for some info on forbidden magic. I don’t recognize any of these symbols they used, maybe it will help sabotage them later.

Conveniently those old cultists left an old book nearby with plenty of details on the ritual. As one would expect from old cultists, it’s a youth stealing ritual, but the methods are completely different from any kind of magic i know.

Yeah, I can’t learn much in such a short time, but i did find a few symbols that seem to determine the direction of the flow of ‘lifeforce’(whatever that is). So i switch the direction so that the sacrifice steals the youth from the sacrificer, this way one of the cultists might accidentally commit suicide.

But now that i think about it, should i really risk it? Even putting a kid on the sacrifice part of the-

*CRASH*

Some loud noises from outside. I keep my calm and slowly use a detection spell. The old cultists are killing the hired hands. Yeah, I should have expected those greedy bastards to do that.

But this is a perfect opportunity!

Quickly I grab all the books and diaries on the ship and put them on a bag, slowly i move back to the big ship, while leaving a couple tracking sigils on my way, and put the bag on a out of the way room.

When the old cultists think they have won will be my moment to strike. They can’t kill so many men without wasting a lot of mana.

The big ship and its surroundings are a scene straight out of a action movie, i’m watching while holding onto the outside of the ship. The hired hands are using strengthening magic to jump between the ships, the boats and the old cultists’ ship while the cultists shoot them down one by one with spells, one of the ships is already sinking. I wonder why the hired hands don’t just run away?

Oops, one of the cultists was hit by an enchanted arrow. I bet it’s poisonous too, if she doesn’t treat that quickly, she’ll die. For now, she’s out of combat.

Talk about biting more than one can chew. The other cultists are still doing well, but from time to time they get small wounds from someone throwing their weapon before they die.

The cultists still win in the end though.

When they turn to heal the poisoned one i strike at their backs with two overcharged disruption bolts. No, i’m not trying to capture them alive, i need to mess up their mana if i want to kill them properly and if i use fire burst i’ll get low on mana.

At this close a distance, of course both bolts hit. I cast two heavy water spears while they are stunned. Water may not seem to have much offensive might, but with enough pressure it can fuck shit up.

As i launch the two spears the wounded one tries to send a fire bomb at me, so i instinctively turn one of the spears to hit the fire bomb.

‘Well shit, that was a lot of mana on that fire bomb.’ is my last thought as i fell unconscious due to the bone-cracking shockwave.