Not to misunderstand Varzath’s decision to approach the noise, he did it out of curiosity, rather a burning desire to help the defenseless.

Still, as he turns a corner, Varzath is shocked to find a group of three boys, aged about fourteen or so, holding a struggling girl as a fourth one gradually approaches some sort of insect from her face.

The boys seem to be having fun; The girl, not so much.

Considering the only thing worse than a human child in Varzath’s book may be a human teenager, he’d have immediately turned on his heels and left, if not for the girl’s eyes shifting toward him, filled with hope which is quickly crushed once she realizes he’s not the help she had been praying for.

Well, his body is that of an eight-year-old boy, after all. Still, the disappointment in her expression… Does she think he can’t deal with a couple of teenage boys on his own? How insulting.

Hoping he won’t come to regret this, Varzath clears his throat, attracting the attention of the boys and causing them to jump, nearly freeing the girl as the one holding the insect allows their instrument of torture to escape.

“Fuck, Jael! It took us so long to get it!”

As all eyes present turn in his direction, Varzath smiles innocently. “Hail, friends. What are you playing? Can I play too?”

Looking at the boys’ expressions, one would think the insect run into their mouths, rather than scurrying away.

“Scram, brat, can’t you see we’re busy?” the taller of the boys, presumably Jael, says, making his best attempting at an intimidating expression.

Varzath has to stop himself from laughing out loud. Lords, he has seen better from stray cats before.

“Wait, Jael, what if he tells on us?” one the boys holding the girl, the one who has his hand against her mouth, says.

Jael grimaces. “He wouldn’t, would he?” he asks, locking his gaze against Varzath’s as he does so.

“Tell on you? Why would I? Aren’t you going to let me play?” Varzath retorts, cocking his head as he pretends confusion.

Any intelligent thug would’ve realized playtime is over by now.

There’s no evidence of their crime, and Varzath is playing the clueless eight-year-old as to give them a way to just walk it off.

C’mon, fellas, isn’t the correct course of action here obvious…?

Varzath curses silently as Jael begins to walk in his direction, determined-looking.

Stupid thugs then; Just great.

“…H-hey, what gives?”

“Jael?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just make sure he understands what will happen if he tells.”

Stepping back once while pretending to be scared, Varzath hides a hand at his back as he snaps his fingers twice, casting two buffs, one for strength, and one for speed; With his current mana, he should be able to hold these for a minute or so?

While Jael approaches, he considers how far he wants to take things. If he simply hits them, they might think they were caught by surprise, and seek revenge later…

Varzath cocks his head, dodging the boy’s hand as he tries to place it on him, then punches his stomach, hard enough to have him double over with a shocked look on his face, grabs his hair, and pushes, having him fall face first and ass up.

“…So, you wanted to play after all?” Varzath asks, feigning confusion as he shifts his gaze from the squirming boy on the ground to his friends. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Taking advantage of their momentary shock, the girl abruptly stomps over one of the boys’ foot, freeing herself as they curse loudly and try to grab her again, only to stumble over each other as she quickly turns a corner and disappears.

Varzath blinks. Did she just leave him to face them all on his own? Or did she assume he’d also take the chance to run away, as any scared eight-year-old would…?

Well, no matter, his buffs are about to run off.

By the time the boys turn toward him once more, certainly having decided to take their frustrations on the one who ruined their fun, Varzath’s fist is already flying toward the nearest stomach.

It doesn’t take long before they are running away themselves.

“F-fuck this! H-he’s c-crazy!”

“…Oh, you don’t want to play anymore?”

As they turn the corner and disappear in the opposite direction the girl run away to, Varzath deactivates his buffs and releases a small sigh of relief… It’d have been dangerous if he run out of mana in front of the enemy, and without a bed nearby.

He just hopes they won’t be stupid enough to pursue matters beyond this point…

“…W-what?”

Glancing over his shoulder, Varzath realizes the girl has returned, now carrying some sort of brick in her hands and panting heavily as she stares wide-eyed toward the empty passage previously occupied by the boys.

…Where did she even find that thing?

Varzath sighs. “Hey, put that away before you hurt yourself, or worse, someone else. Did nobody teach you not to play with dangerous things?”

The girl blinks. “Where… Where are they?”

Now that he has the time to take a good look, Varzath realizes her hair is black, shoulder-length, and messy, while her eyes are the color of a green leaf, and her skin a soft shade of yellow, almost resembling faint gold, but not quite. Nearly hidden by her hair, Varzath notices slightly pointy ears, denouncing her mixed heritage, if her skin and eyes weren’t enough of a clue already.

Huh. He didn’t know the orphanage harbored demi-humans. For a church institution, this is quite surprising…

Varzath shrugs. “After you left, they said something about being hungry. I guess they went to the hall…? By the way, if we don’t hurry, we’ll miss dinner.”

Damn it, spending so much of his mana made him hungry; If he also loses dinner for this, he’s never helping another donzel in distress ever again…

“W-wait!”

Paying the girl no mind, Varzath leaves in a hurry…

Luckily, the Sisters on charge of handling the food accept his excuse when he tells them he was helping Father Anders until a couple of minutes ago.

The fact Isaac is nearby to confirm his story somewhat helps.

As usual, Varzath sits to eat his food by himself. Though he is unable to nag an entire table, considering the hall is almost full, he still sits as far away from the next person as possible.

While munching on the stale food without paying much attention to its taste, Varzath pulls a small book from his pocket as he begins to flip through its content.

Unfortunately, the book is a stupid fairy-tail about an elf falling for a human princess, and as such, of little relevance to his mission.

Jael and his friends are nowhere to be seen, which means they must’ve decided to skip dinner after what happened, but the girl he saved does arrive a couple of minutes after him, sweeping her eyes across the place until they happen to land on top of him.

For a moment, she seems about to walk toward him, but then reconsiders it, heading toward the canteen instead.

Surprisingly enough, they actually give her food… Maybe they’re used to her arriving late, due to the bullying?

Not as surprising, she also sits to eat on her own.

Well, it’s none of his business.

Once he is done eating, Varzath heads straight to his dormitory, skipping the bath altogether.

Technically, if he was caught doing as much, he’d be punished, but having learned the Sisters’ habits by now, he’s able to expertly avoid them in order to reach his bed in record time.

The young children sleep away from the older ones, and their rooms are each big enough to hold a dozen bunk beds. Varzath’s room is no different, and his bunkbed is the last one, near the window, though a couple of persuasive words have had so the bed is only occupied by him.

Luckily, their room only has twenty occupants, so it isn’t a problem for him to monopolize one of the beds for himself…

First things first, Varzath checks the runes he drew on the floor beneath his bed, making sure they’re still functional and charged.

Then, nodding to himself, he hops on top of the lower bed, crosses his legs, and activates a strength buff.

After twenty seconds or so, Varzath feels his body drenched in sweat as his vision begins to swim. Still, he maintains the buff active for another ten seconds, until his head feels as though it is about to explode, before quickly releasing hold of it as he falls against his pillow, turns toward the wall, and closes his eyes, pretending to be asleep.

For many minutes more, his body continues to shake, and it’ll be an hour or so before his headache finally subsides. He won’t be able to actually fall asleep, or move, before then, and he feels filthy, but this much cannot be helped, considering he has to hide his training from the humans, or they’ll grow suspicious of him.

Like this, if he is ever found, he can pretend to be sick…

Strangely enough, training this way reminds Varzath of his time as a slave. Back then, Ig'droren was so arrogant she didn’t bother denying them access to mana… Then again, she had so many slaves, that it wouldn’t have been cheap, or easy, to keep all of them properly shackled all the time.

If not for Sonog, and his “assistants”, Varzath might’ve also struggled to outfit his Domain’s prisoners properly, even if he knew from experience how dangerous it could be to have them still able to use magic…

Varzath grimaces. Thinking about Hell always makes him worry about how the others are doing in his absence. For once, many of his memories of his time as a Demon Lord seem to have become inaccessible after his reincarnation, and his gut instinct tells him a large amount of time went by between there and now.

How much, exactly, he’ll have to wait to find out.

Above all, he can’t shake the feeling he’s been forgetting something important…

Eventually, Varzath is stirred from his thoughts by the arrival of Isaac and the others.

Their childish voices seem like needles thrusting straight into his brain, and he wants to tell them to shut up and go to sleep, but past attempts of doing as much have proven it more trouble than it is worth to try and force all nineteen of them to fall asleep earlier...

Once he’s finally out of this shithole, Varzath swears he’ll never approach another child ever again.

Whoever compared them to angels must’ve been out of their mind. Aren’t these creatures the very incarnations of demons?

Varzath’s relief only comes once Sister Leona finally arrives, ordering them to lie down and put out the candles. From now on, anyone caught still up will be punished…

If not the Sisters, or Father Anders, then by Varzath himself, for having disturbed his sleep…

At last, Varzath finally manages to drift to sleep, being exhausted enough to have a dreamless night.

As usual, he is awakened before first light by one of his runes, which sends a weak electric shock through his bed, and, cursing silently, Varzath begrudgingly forces his heavy eyelids to open as he inspects the silent room filled with sleeping children, making sure the rune did indeed to go off at the right time, and not earlier, which would’ve meant somebody approached his bed or casted a spell in the near vicinity of his room during the night.

Recharging the rune so it’ll go off at the same time tomorrow, or if somebody approaches his things while he is away, Varzath then heads toward the window after making sure none of the others are awake yet.

The window is locked from the outside, but a simple lockpick spell is enough to make it a usable gateway, and Varzath smiles mischievously as he climbs through, then locks the window again once outside, sitting against the parapet.

Since his room happens to be on the third floor of the orphanage’s main building, from here, Varzath is able to see some of the city beyond its walls, including the somewhat distant sea shore and port, ever active with fishing and cargo boats, which often stop here on their way to somewhere else.

Sometimes, if he’s lucky, the wind will be blowing in the right direction and he’ll be able to feel a bit of a sea breeze; It seems today is one of those days.

The sky is also clear, showcasing its stars and two moons…

Varzath often wondered, are those tiny points in the distance other Mortal Planes? Or something else entirely? Their current understanding of the Cosmos is based on several assumptions, some of which may not be true, after all.

Still, despite being mysterious, the view is beautiful, and he allows himself a couple of minutes to enjoy the sea breeze before finally climbing down.

The rooms are located at the back end of the orphanage, near where the children are allowed to play during late afternoon, and Varzath doesn’t have to walk far to find a quiet place out of view from any of the windows.

For a mage, rather than strength, speed and stamina are far more important; Maintaining yourself as a moving target at all times causes the opponent to waste precious mana, or, in the case of a melee opponent, forces them to have to give chase while dodging the spells thrown their way.

Taking as much into consideration, other than some light strength training, Varzath’s physical training consists mostly of building his stamina, his speed, and his reflexes.

Compared to fighting against Sunnazoth while his mind is already too exhausted to cast spells, training on his own at the beginning of the day is a light breeze, even if his human body does make it rather frustrating in terms of progress.

Although, in all fairness, he is still a child. Physical training should progress much faster once he grows older…

An hour or so into his training, Varzath realizes the sun is about to rise, which means some of the Sisters are already about, and the children are soon to rise.

Rather than heading back to his room, however, Varzath quickly heads toward the bathhouse, hoping he still has time to reach it without being caught…

Thankfully, the place is still empty by the time Varzath arrives, and he’s able to cast a quick cleaning spell over himself and his clothes by virtue of being away from praying eyes.

Being clean again makes Varzath release a small sigh of relief. Though, he felt his training wasn’t near as hard as he’d like to make it… With his schedule, there simply isn’t enough time to train properly, and he’s already cutting it close to being found out as it is…

Finding a way to sustain himself as an eight-year-old will be a pain, but he must leave this place soon, or his training will become stagnant…

The younger children are arriving, led by a couple of Sisters, Sister Leona included, as Varzath is about to leave (well, it’s more like he purposefully waited for them to arrive before leaving).

“Sisters,” he greets nonchalantly, “Fellow orphans.”

Sister Leona grimaces. “Sinclair, how many times must I warn you about coming down here on your own?”

The way she makes his name sound like a curse word must be some sort of talent…

Faking a defensive expression as he glances toward the other children briefly, Varzath shrugs. “I’m an early riser, and my blabber is always full in the morning. I can’t help it, Sister.”

Sister Leona, as a woman in her earlier forties, still has the makings of what Varzath would consider a beautiful adult female, despite her personality suggesting otherwise. If she wasn’t so often spoiling his fun, he might’ve considered growing closer to her during the past years.

Alas, she sees children as an easy ticket to never having to do anything herself, and Varzath sees himself as a former Demon Lord who possessed more servants than names he cared to remember.

“Still, you should’ve asked me before coming!”

“…I did. The Sister wouldn’t wake up, and so I decided against wetting my pants.”

The repressed laughter around them, some of which coming from the other Sisters, causes Sister Leona no blush. “Did… Did you really?”

Varzath nods. “Yes. May I please go now, Sister?”

“Yes, Sinclair, you may go,” another of the Sisters says, receiving a dirty look from Sister Leona in response.

What, was she planning on keeping him here forever?

“But no running inside!”

Lowering his pace to a fast walk, Varzath clicks his tongue. Well, there goes his plan to finish his training by running around throughout the day…

The good thing about having woken up earlier than everybody is being able to enjoy an empty, silent hall during breakfast, even if the food is still just as bland as always.

From there, morning classes follow, teaching the children to read and write, while sneaking in some casual religious brainwashing regarding the supremacy of humans, the purity of a Soul without sin, blah, blah, blah…

For Varzath, these are nothing but simple and pure torture, though he heard many of the children outside the orphanage often don’t get to learn how to write, so he supposes the others are at least taking something useful from the whole experience, brainwashing propaganda aside.

Varzath also heard some of the older kids get to go outside and practice a craft under a master throughout the day; fishing, wood-cutting, carpentry, smithing, or really, anything the city might need and pay for. Other than that, they have the option to join the Church itself, either in here, or Adall, the main continent, though one of them would need to demonstrate exceptional talent in order to be shipped there.

A rather sophisticated system, all things considered… Varzath wonders if Father Anders was the one to come up with it.

Well, for the young ones, once the torture is finally over, they have the chores around the orphanage to occupy themselves with. Carrying water, cleaning, cutting vegetables, washing, and so on…

And once they’re done with their assigned chores for the day, finally, they’re allowed some free time for themselves before dinner.

For Varzath, that usually means heading into the orphanage’s small library in search of useful information about Itera, his new home, and today is no different.

Sister Gracie, being who cares for the library and its contents, smiles as he makes his way through the door.

“Sinclair, you’re earlier today.”

Well, he can’t exactly tell her he used cleaning spells to rid himself of today’s chores earlier than usual.

“Sister,” he greets, flashing her a small smile of his own, “Anything new?”

She sighs playfully, then smiles apologetically. “As always, the same question. And as I always tell you, I’m afraid the orphanage’s budget is stretched thin as it is, and since you and Ena are the only ones to ever visit me of your own will…”

Ena? He thought he was the only one to come here. Well, no matter.

Varzath tries not to make his disappointment obvious. “I see. Thank you, Sister. Is it fine if I stay in to read today?”

She blinks. “I... I suppose there’s no problem… Did something happen?”

Containing a grimace, Varzath shakes his head. Putting Isaac and the others in their place is one thing, but after yesterday, he realized he doesn’t wish to worry Father Anders more than necessary.

And so, although he has come to quite enjoy reading under the sun during his time living as a human, he’ll sacrifice one of the few pleasures he still allows himself these days in virtue of maintaining the orphanage’s peace…

Be grateful, old man.

Choosing a book at random after returning the elf fairytale to its original shelf, Varzath heads to the back of the library and sits with his legs crossed on a corner hidden from the entrance as he begins to flip through his new book.

Surprise, surprise, another dumb fairytale; This time, about a siren who repented after having attracted hundreds of fishermen to their deaths.

“…How stupid. Everybody knows sirens are born killers who reveal in the slaughter of their prey. One of those things, repenting? Ridiculous...”

Varzath sighs. Yet more thrash…

His is considering whether or not to finish the book in spite of its questionable content, in the hopes it might provide at least some small piece of useful information, when a voice coming from the library’s entrance attracts his attention.

“Afternoon, Sister. Could I… Could I stay inside today? Please?”

“O-of course, darling. But Sinclair is already back there. Don’t worry, he’s a good kid.”

“…Thank you.”

Ena, he presumes?

Well, as long as she doesn’t bother his reading, he doesn’t mind sharing the space at the back of the library.

Absently taking notice of her footsteps growing gradually closer, Varzath returns to his book, having decided to finish it after all.

Amazingly enough, the story has managed to grab his attention, and he now wonders what will be of the repented siren, having gone against her own clan as she attempts to save her human lover…

That is, until a small noise prompts him to raise his gaze from his book.

Standing near the shelves’ end, is the girl from the previous day, frozen in place as she stares at him with a blank look on her face.

Varzath blinks; Well, he did think her voice sounded familiar a second ago…

“Hi,” Varzath greets absently, before lowering his gaze once more as he resumes his reading.

The girl’s shock doesn’t last long, and she is soon moving again, sitting by the other end of the small space with her legs crossed in a similar position to Varzath as she opens her own book and begins to flip through its pages.

However, it is obvious she’s still throwing sidelong glances in his direction ever so often, even as she pretends to be engrossed by the book in her hands…

Abruptly, Varzath curses out loud, causing the girl to jump slightly, nearly dropping her book as she releases a small yelp.

Paying her no mind, Varzath clenches his hair as he contains a strong urge to burn the piece of storytelling in front of him.

She dies?! All of that drama, and she dies at the end, sacrificing herself to save her worthless boyfriend?!

Their only kiss was a peck on the lips!

Groaning, Varzath allows himself to slide against the wall until he’s effectively lying on the floor, rather than sitting.

Just what exactly has he been doing these past eight years?

Wasting his time with chores?

Reading children's stories?

Listening to nuns when they tell him he shouldn’t run inside?

“I-is everything okay?”

“…I need to get out of this place.”

Only after the words have left his lips, does Varzath realizes he has spoken them out loud.