Chapter 58: The First of Us

We put two dummies in the coach box after getting some good distance between us and the city. Then, the four of us had a pleasant chat inside the cabin. Although Mine and Aral were formal and stiff in the beginning, the snacks and juice helped them loosen up over time.

We were making steady progress in our travels, and we crossed the border into the neighboring country without any weird run-ins. Instead of using the empty lots on the side of the road to take breaks or to camp out at night, we took the carriage off-road completely and went into areas that couldn’t be seen from the road at all.

If other travelers stopped at the same place as us, they would realize our group consisted only of kids. It was obvious what would happen if people found out there were only children in this rugged, military-looking carriage with our two high-quality horses. Even a relatively moral person could be tempted if a forgotten wallet was laid out in front of them. A criminal could be made out of someone who had no intention of committing a crime by laying out enticing bait.

I wanted to avoid anything like those malicious entrapment cases. That was why I couldn’t let anyone know about us outside of the members riding in our carriage. Whenever we entered a city, I put the carriage away and put saddles on Hang and Scary to ride in normally. Two expensive-looking horses and four kids were already enticing enough as-is, but we didn’t have to worry much as long as we headed straight for the local luxury inn and stayed there.

We just had to go somewhere secluded as soon as we left the city the next day and switch over to Panzer again. That way, anyone following us would walk right by without noticing us. We had used this method many times on our way here from the Kingdom of Balmore.

Then...

“This is the city where the first of us was sold.”

Yes, this was the place.

“The local lord wrote us a document that verifies our social standing, but that will be our last resort. Kinda like how they say, ‘A gun’s a last resort!’”

“How do you know such an old quote?!” Reiko asked, even though she clearly got the reference too!

“...Well, anyway, since we’re not from here, our local lord’s documents won’t necessarily have any effect. It’s just a piece of paper showing that a foreign aristocrat vouches for us. It’s not enough to absolve us if we’re ever suspected of being criminals, and it would just bring heat down on him if we used it as an attempt to get us out of trouble. A noble never wants to be in a position where another noble has some dirt on them. I don’t even know why he wrote it for us... This sort of document would only be effective within his own territory,” I said.

Reiko looked exasperated in response to my comment.

“He probably thought that a foreign aristocrat would try to use us as a tool for negotiations rather than killing us outright if we used this document in a pinch, without considering that he’d be put at a disadvantage. As an aristocrat and a lord, he’s a little...”

“Too naive!”

He must have prioritized our lives even with all that considered... It was foolish, but we didn’t dislike fools like him. So we didn’t want him to regret his choice, and we would never betray his trust.

“We’ll go with Plan A-3. If anything irregular happens, we’ll move on to the backup plan right away. If the backup plan can’t cover it, we’ll shift our main strategy. Worst-case scenario, we’ll blow everything up, rescue the targets, and flee in the opposite direction from where we came from to throw off anyone on our trail. Got it?”

“Roger that!”

“R-Raw-ja that!”

“Raw-jar...”

It would have been pointless to go in through the front and try to talk or negotiate our way out of this. Their paperwork claimed that the orphans were live-in apprentices with a few decades worth of salary paid upfront, and they were actual official documents. The manager of the orphanage and the local lord’s signatures were on it, so there was no way around that.

Since they already had the paperwork, I couldn’t imagine we’d convince them to just hand the kids over through negotiation. Maybe they would if we offered enough money, but these were evil merchants we were dealing with, and we looked like a group of kids. As soon as they found out we had money, they’d do their best to take it from us, or worse. Yeah...they could try to take advantage of us in all sorts of ways.

And even if this could all be resolved with money, I didn’t want to take that route. The price written on the paperwork was just for show, and it was probably much higher than the actual sum that the second owner of the orphanage had received. If they thought they could get money out of us, they would surely try to add all sorts of unreasonable fees.

If we agreed to that, they would just take that money and buy two or three more orphans somewhere else. So, we decided to learn from the past in order to prevent that. Yes, we would make full use of the same method Mine had used.

“Ellie...”

“Huh?” The ten-year-old girl who was stocking the storeroom thought she had heard someone calling her name, then shook her head.

“I thought I heard Mine calling for me...guess not. I got tricked into coming here, but I hope she’s doing well at the orphanage. I thought I could finally live a normal life after getting fostered, but I got caught up in this fraud that slipped through the screening. I can’t catch a break... I was hoping to spend the rest of my life repaying my new parents...” Ellie mused to herself.

“But I’m sure Uncle (the new director) won’t get tricked so often, so the other kids are probably living happily in their new homes. I’m gonna escape and go back to the orphanage as soon as I’m ready. I have to warn Uncle about the fraud right away... I can’t have them taking us lightly when we were trained and taught by Daddy.”

There was no one else in the storeroom, so she could talk to herself out loud without issues. It was only natural that she talked to herself often after working alone for so long. Of course, she made sure to keep her mouth shut whenever she heard the door open or saw light coming in.

“Well, I’ll have to lay low for a while. I’ll prepare carefully, then head to the orphanage. Then I’ll be together with everyone again...”

“Too bad, the orphanage is no more...”

“Gyaaaaaaaaa!!!”

Ellie immediately leapt backwards. There shouldn’t have been anywhere else around. She hadn’t heard the door open and there was no change in the light in the storeroom, so there was no way anyone had entered, either. And yet, those words had been whispered into her ear in the darkness. Ellie’s mind was filled not with fear, but with a sense of danger instead.

They heard me!!!

Ellie was already ten years old. She was certainly already aware of what could happen if a man snuck into this storeroom with no one else around. But right now, the fact that someone had heard her mumblings was a far bigger concern.

She narrowed her eyes in the dim storeroom, a wooden skewer that she had kept just in case she was attacked gripped tightly in her hands. Her stance was low, ready to pounce on any threat. There was no point in speaking now. It was either kill or be killed...

“Wait! Wait just a minute! It’s me, Ellie! Mine!”

“Mi...ne...?”

But even when she heard that panicked voice, Ellie didn’t relax from her fighting stance. Only an amateur would trust someone’s words without confirming their legitimacy. The original director of the orphanage had taught her that.

“Oh, for goodness sake... Lady Reiko, please dispel the magic!”

“There!”

Poof!

Three silhouettes appeared right beside Ellie.

“Mine!” Ellie exclaimed in a hushed tone, then jumped toward Mine in an embrace.

“Gyaaa!” Mine let out a rather unladylike scream and scrambled away. She couldn’t help it. Ellie still had the skewer gripped tightly in her hand, and it would have dug right into her if they went in for a hug...

“So, you were watching me all day yesterday and picked the best place to make contact with me?

“Yeah. Thanks to Lady Kaoru and Lady Reiko’s invisibility magic, we were able to watch you right out in the open.”

The reason we hadn’t shown ourselves immediately after confirming Ellie was alone in the storeroom was because we weren’t sure if she would instinctively attack any intruder nearby. Mine had repeatedly warned us that Ellie would definitely attack.

“Hmm... A mage, huh...”

Ellie was ten years old, making her a year older than Mine. Maybe it was because she had more common sense due to being older, or because she hadn’t seen magic other than the spell that made us invisible, or because she hadn’t sworn her loyalty to us for saving her like in Mine’s case, but she didn’t seem to fully trust what Mine was telling her.

“So, these two mages want to invite you to join us...”

“I don’t know...”

It seemed we couldn’t quite gain her trust... I figured she wouldn’t listen to us, but I thought Mine could convince her... It was too bad. If she wanted to stay where she was, it wasn’t as if we could force her out. Unfortunate, but we had no choice but to move on.

“Then...”

It looked like Mine hadn’t given up convincing her yet. I mean, Mine clearly wanted to help her friends, so it was no surprise that she wanted to persuade Ellie to join us. However, Reiko and I had no intention of forcing our salvation on those who didn’t want it. We would only extend our hand to those who sought help and took a step forward of their own volition.

Mine continued with her pitch.

“These two took us in in the middle of the night when we arrived looking like tattered pieces of garbage, gave us food, a bath, and a comfy bed to sleep in, then gave us jobs. They want you to come with us, but...”

“Of course I’d be happy to!”

What?!

She had hesitated because we had been presented as suspicious “mages,” but maybe she thought we were worth trusting as soon as she found out we extended a helping hand to orphans. Though, the fact that Mine vouched for us was also probably a big part of it...

“Then let’s run away together. You’ve been legally hired according to the paperwork, with your salary paid up front. Since it’s an official document, there’s no point trying to contest it head-on. But that only applies within this country,” Mine explained.

She continued, “Come back to our country, where those documents were already proven to have been forged by a criminal who abused his position; that culprit has already been punished. If anyone tries following you to get you back, we’ll arrest them as a part of a human trafficking organization on the spot. That means we win as soon as we make it home.”

“Ohh! But wait... Who’s this criminal you’re talking about?”

Mine looked rather grim as she responded to Ellie, who thought the culprit was just tricked by the owner of the company.

“It’s ‘Uncle’... The whole reason he wanted to take over the orphanage was so he could run his little scheme.”

“Wha...”

Ellie looked flabbergasted for a moment, then her expression filled with rage. Well, I certainly couldn’t blame her. According to Mine, the quality of life, starting with the food, had dropped drastically when the management changed, and the orphans had their work hours increased. Everyone assumed the orphanage was struggling and put in extra effort as a show of appreciation for Uncle. But now that Ellie knew the truth, no one could blame her for the anger that boiled up inside her as she realized it was all a scheme to embezzle money.

“Well, setting that aside for now...

“We’ll be fine as long as we escape back to the former orphanage!”

Mine was right. As I had explained earlier, we had no reason to worry as long as we could flee without getting caught in this jurisdiction. After all, the documents from the trading company had stated that the arrangement was an apprenticeship contract with up-front payment, but on the orphanage side—that is, the documents that the local lord had—claimed they were foster kids.

If an official objection was raised against a lord of a different territory, the truth of the matters would obviously be investigated officially. That meant that the lord of this territory would look into the trading company’s affairs, and it would quickly become evident whether a child had been taken in as a foster daughter or apprentice.

After all, employees, vendors going in and out, guests, and many others had surely seen them already. Even if they tried to silence all of the witnesses, someone would eventually spill the beans, whether it be because they couldn’t handle the guilt, couldn’t stand up to intense interrogation, or because a rival business owner made an offer for them to testify in exchange for a new job.

The reason our local lord couldn’t do anything about the situation was because he couldn’t investigate a company based in another country. It would have caused a huge problem if he had made a complaint to another lord without any hard evidence. Of course, it would be a different story if the other lord made the first move. Our lord could then demand that proof be provided and force the other lord to conduct a thorough investigation into the trading company.

Rather, even before registering a complaint, the lord here would definitely look into whether the company owner’s claims were true or not. You couldn’t just make complaints about an aristocrat from another country and then admit that you were wrong afterward. Not only would your reputation be completely ruined, but it would be big enough of a blunder that you might end up being summoned to the royal palace.

And even if the company owner was in the right, he might ignore the issue just to avoid dealing with it. That was why it was highly unlikely that the company owner would register a formal complaint through the local lord here. But what if one of his goons appeared at Little Silver to demand we hand over their escaped foster daughter, you ask? That won’t happen. It wouldn’t be strange for some of their employees to come for her if she had been an apprentice who ran away.

But it wouldn’t make sense for employees to come get the owner’s “foster daughter” rather than the owner himself or his wife. And regardless of whether it was an employee or the owner himself, they would be detained as soon as they stepped foot in our territory to make any such demands.

The second orphanage director had already been exposed and punished for his crimes in our territory. If his accomplices came strolling up to us, they’d be arrested immediately. Although it would be difficult for us to march into another country to make those accusations against them, the local lord could use his authority to punish a criminal who was captured within his own domain. It didn’t matter where that culprit came from originally. That was why he absolutely wasn’t going to show up. That is, unless he was extremely stupid.

“We’ll come back for you tonight.”

“Huh?”

Why did she look so surprised? Maybe she assumed we were going to take her away right now...?

“If we took you now, they’d notice you were missing right away. Don’t you think we could buy more time if you slipped out in the middle of the night?”

“T-True...”

Maybe Ellie was just inherently clever, or otherwise the original director had trained her well, because she nodded her understanding right away.

“Okay then, keep working as if nothing happened. We’ll come back once everyone’s sound asleep, so gather up your stuff and get ready. Oh, and don’t worry if you have a lot of stuff. You can bring everything with you, no problem.”

No matter how much stuff she had, we could jam it all into the Item Box without issue.

“All I have is some change of clothes. I could hold it all in one hand.”

That was no surprise. It wasn’t as if she would have souvenirs from a school trip, ornaments, or wooden carvings of bears lying around... She obviously wouldn’t have things like photo albums full of pictures with her family, either...

“So, where should I wait for you?”

We couldn’t have her wandering around at night with all her stuff and risk her getting spotted by the guards or the employees.

“You can stay in your room.”

“What...? But I live in a six-person room. The others...”

“Don’t worry! Remember what Reiko and I are?”

“Mages...”

“That’s right. So, we’ll see you later!”

I signaled Reiko, who was standing around looking bored with nothing to do, and she activated her invisibility magic. We then took Mine gently by the hand and made our way out of the storeroom. We had slipped in beside Ellie when we entered, but we let ourselves out through the door on the way out, so she saw it open and close even though she couldn’t see us.

“Sorry for the wait!”

Ellie started as Reiko suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The young girl was sitting wide-awake in the dark even after the tallow candle had gone out and the other five girls in her room had fallen asleep. The thought of what was about to happen had obliterated all traces of sleepiness from her mind, and she didn’t want to wake up the others by getting up from a sleeping position. Not to mention, she couldn’t change into her sleepwear, and lying down in her work clothes would have looked rather suspicious, so she didn’t have any other choice.

Ellie wasn’t suspicious that it was just Reiko who had appeared, even though she had stayed in the back without saying much during their encounter in the storeroom earlier in the day. The reason was quite obvious. It would have been completely foolish for a big group of kids to show up when they were planning to sneak out in the middle of the night. Ellie was also bright enough to figure that the other “mage” who had done a lot of explaining earlier was staying back to keep the other two kids safe.

“Okay, let’s...”

Reiko began talking at her usual volume, then Ellie covered her mouth with both hands in a panic and gestured for her to stay quiet.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m using magic to muffle sounds, so they won’t be able to hear our voices or any noise we make.”

“Ah!”

What an incredible mage!

Ellie wanted to shout it out, but she had gone through too much already to take Reiko’s word for it and raise her voice just because she had been told that the others couldn’t hear her.

“Let’s go!”

“Good work!” I said, nodding.

Reiko returned with Ellie to the empty lot where I was waiting with Mine, Aral, Hang, and Scary. It seemed they hadn’t run into any issues, judging by the thumbs up she flashed me. This wasn’t a bustling street in a big city back on Earth, so there was no one around this late at night.

I still looked around to make sure there was no one there, just in case. Seeing that there wasn’t, I decided to give Ellie a little show to play up my role as a mage.

“I summon the Goddess’s carriage!”

Poof!

“Wooow!!!”

Good, they look surprised...

Invisibility magic didn’t quite look impressive enough to wow anyone, so I thought it would be better to give them a little show of magical prowess here. I didn’t want them freezing up in shock when it counted later on.

“Okay, all aboard, everyone!”

“...She just called it the Goddess’s carriage.”

“Yeah, she did...”

“Hm? Did you say something, Aral, Mine?”

“No, nothing!” they replied in unison.

“Oh? Then hurry up and hop on!”

“Got it!”

We decided not to expose the crimes of the company owner in this city, per Ellie’s request. There were many normal employees working at the trading company, and she didn’t want their lives to be ruined by taking action against the business. Although some of them had treated her harshly, she cared more about those who had shown her kindness. They thought Ellie had been sold off by her parents, and supposedly, it was rather common for children in such a position to face some bullying. As such, she didn’t want to cause any trouble for the others.

So foolish...

Of course, Reiko and I didn’t dislike fools like her. Still, the company owner might have sent a search team to bring Ellie back if we fled without doing anything. That was why we left a letter behind.

It listed out the details of their illegal trafficking operation, the one disguised as adopting orphan children, as well as the fact that the former director of the orphanage had been captured and punished. It also included a warning that anyone involved in this ordeal would be arrested and punished as soon as they stepped foot into a neighboring country, and that the documents they had given the orphanage side were already in the hands of our local lord. The letter was secured to the owner’s work desk with the blade of a knife so it wouldn’t get blown away by the wind...

Then, we were off to the next town to see the second child.

Off we go!

And so, we arrived at the city where the third child was. Yes, the “third” one. We had already rescued the second child, Fria. It pretty much went the same as when we picked up Ellie, so we can skip over that part.

Here in this city, we were planning on rescuing the last child, a seven-year-old girl named Lucy. We intended to get a room at an inn first, then visit the trading company that took her in to do some scouting from the outside first. Or so I thought...

What...is this?

I had left the kids with Reiko at the inn so I could take a look at the company in question. They still should have been open at this hour, and it wasn’t a holiday, but their shop was closed. Someone had written all over the doors and walls, with signs of trash having been thrown at them...

“Oh, that place has been closed for the last two days.”

“Huh?”

Some middle-aged man that happened to be walking by stopped to explain when he saw me standing there blankly.

“I heard they took in an orphan as a foster child, but they actually paid the orphanage several decades worth of salary upfront to make her work as an apprentice without compensating her. That girl put fliers up all over the city exposing the whole thing, and she even took a bunch of contracts and memorandums from their safe and destroyed them all.” the middle-aged man said.

He continued, with a certain degree of relish, “It was pure chaos. The rumors spread like wildfire because of those fliers, and the local lord had no choice but to take action. Once things were set in motion, they couldn’t stop it even by bribing the lower-level city officials. I’ll bet the bigwigs had no choice but to do something about it.”

The local lord had to save face, and he couldn’t afford to let word of this incident reach His Majesty the King’s ears. If it’s true that these folks used trickery to get some kids from another country, this could end up being an international conflict. The owner of the company and his head clerks didn’t get taken away by the guards, but they were dragged straight to the local lord’s manor, so those guys are probably done for...” he finally concluded.

“Whaaaaaat?!”

I was at a complete loss for words.

That mad lass...

She had used the same exact method as Mine. The teachings of the original owner of the orphanage had been passed down far too powerfully.

...Just who the heck was that guy?! No, that’s not what’s important right now!

“U-Um, where is that child now...?” I asked.

“I heard she’s gone missing. But the thing is...”

“Yes?”

“I heard that the owner of the business asked a gang to capture the girl before he got dragged away. During his questioning, he admitted that he said to find her ‘dead or alive’...”

“Whaaat?! Wait, why do you know so much, old man...?” I asked.

“O-Old man?”

The man’s shoulders drooped at my slip of the tongue. But now wasn’t the time to worry about that!

“How reliable is that information?!”

That was the most important part.

“Why are you so worked up about it...?”

He looked exasperated as he asked, but ended up explaining anyway.

“...I’m off today, but I’m on her side...”

So he was an officer, or working for the local lord! That meant his information was almost completely reliable. I did wonder about confidentiality, but this was probably all public already, or otherwise within the confines of what he was allowed to tell me. He didn’t seem like the type to blab out secrets like an idiot, so he must have talked to me out of kindness after seeing me stare at the shop. He must have figured that anyone from the city would have already known the details, and I was standing frozen at the state of the shop after coming here from another city...

Well, that was exactly what happened. But there was no time to waste! I stuck my hand into my bag, and...

Potion with the same flavor, fragrance, and alcohol content as expensive brandy, except it’s good for you and comes out in a fancy-looking bottle!

“Thanks for telling me so much, mister! This is for you! It’s luxury alcohol made in my city. Hope you enjoy it. See ya!”

I pushed the bottle into his arms, acting a bit more excited than usual, then got out of there. I heard him saying that he couldn’t accept it from behind me, but I ignored him. There was no time to deal with that right now.