Part 1

As I was running out of this huge place in between a very narrow alleyway of cages full of human slaves, I saw two figures running toward me from a short distance.

“Hey cutie, what’s happening? We felt some vibration!”

Sylene, the lewd outfit wearing adventurer caught up to me first, before Alex, grabbed me and hugged me. Shoving me into her huge bosom, giving me barely any room to explain myself, or even breathe.

“Mhpphmrgg!”

Let me go!

“What’s happening, kid?”

Using the entire strength of my back, along with pushing against Sylene’s arms I managed to get off of her.

“My name is Reign, not kid. I found who I wanted to find, but the slave trader-“

Before I could finish explaining, the two groups of armoured guards who were trapped by the [Earth: Wall] earlier seemed to have broken through it, and now running toward behind me with great speed and noise.

The metal clanking forced Sylene and Alex to look behind me.

“The hell did you do?”

Alex frowned as he pinched my cheeks.

“Nothing~ Ow ow ow, don’t pinch me!”

“-Stop right there!”

“-Come back here!”

“-Don’t move!”

Shouts from down the cage alley sounded louder and louder as we stood. The guards were swiftly chasing after us.

Seeing this, Alex and Sylene grabbed me and ran.

“Aren’t those the Imperial knights? W-What the hell are the Royalty’s Imperial knights here?! I don’t know what you did, but we need to get the hell out of here! Why the hell am I getting in trouble because of a stupid kid! I don’t wanna spend 2 years of my life in a cell again! I swear I’ll throw you out once we’re outta here!”

They’re imperial knights? Damn… Aerich got into some deep stuff.

He loudly complained as he lumped me on his shoulder, running fast at full speed.

The human slaves watched with amusement as the Royal Knights chased us. Their boots clanked as they inched their way closer and closer to Alex.

Fortunately, we were near the end of the caged Alleyway, with the entrance just 30 meters in front of us.

“Yes! Almost out, once we’re out, you’re explaining to me what the hell happened. This is ridiculous, you’re such a fucking idiot. How did you piss off the Imperial Knights?”

“In front of you!”

Ignoring what Alex said, I pointed toward the entrance, where another set of guards, most likely the ones I had taken out earlier were standing.

They didn’t have any shields, and pieces of their armour were broken off.

It was definitely the guards I took out earlier with my Wind Mini Tornado.

Despite all of this, they still managed to follow some sort of order to block me from leaving.

“Uh oh~”

“Shit.”

Alex and Sylene stopped, he put me down. Both skilled and experienced adventurers faced both sides.

Now once again, pinned between two forces, I was surrounded again.

Catching up, the running Imperial Knights stopped, creating a large gap between us. Raising their shield more cautiously than before, anticipating some sort of magic attack.

They couldn’t see it before because of the Earth Wall, but I had cast a High-Class Tornado spell at the other group of Knights. From the commotion and the Earth Wall, so they got the sense that I used magic.

But when I turned over to look at the guards at the entrance, the ones affected by my spells the most, I could see some shivering just by the sheer weight of my gaze.

The spell must have been very traumatic.

The guards on the opposite side saw this and cautioned themselves even more.

From the group behind us, a figure who looked to be the commander stepped up, and spoke:

“With magnamious power of His Majesty Jircov, we order you hand over the child for illegal trespass, destruction of property, obstruction of duty, assault of Royalty’s Knights, Public Destruction, Business Obstruction and illegal use of magical spells.”

“Use of magical spells?”

With a suspicious expression, Alex turned to me and raised his brow.

I nodded, he seemed surprised by this.

“What do we do, Alex?”

Sylene tilted her head a tiny bit and whispered.

“…Well, my pride as a man refuses to turn in this stupid kid, but this is a losing battle. Imperial Knights are extremely strong, Class-B adventurers like us can’t even take one of them in a one-on-one battle. There’s no way to escape…”

Seeing as though Alex was slowly coming to a hopeless conclusion, I stepped up and walked a few steps in front of the entrance guards, the guards who had been decimated by me barely 10 minutes ago.

“Hey, what are you doing, come back!”

I ignored Alex, and raised my hand, going into a stance of casting a spell.

Reminded of the High-Class spell of the Mini Tornado from earlier, the knights tremblingly raised their weapons but didn’t run. It seems that with their buddies behind us, they’re able to maintain morale and motivation.

“[Fire: Fire ball].”

A simple Intermediate spell, and very common.

The only thing different about this, was the amount of mana I imbued into
it.

The more mana imbued into a spell, the stronger it got.

I gathered a lot of mana, and used it as fuel.

Seeing the fireball flame slowly forming, the sounds of metal swords and spears dropping clanged loudly as the Imperial Knights at the entrance with no anti-magic shields and holes in their anti-magic armour began to scream and shout, frozen in fear.

They made a break to the sides, jumping over each other and running.

“Pfft, I haven’t even fired it… Watching them do that is kinda fun.”

Despite being able to run wherever they wanted, they all stayed on the ground, separated but covering themselves up as they laid on the floor.

The constant fear and anxiety seemed to stun them.

I smiled inward as I saw them tremble by my every glance.

“Mm!”

One of the knights girly moaned as I pointed the Fire Ball toward him.

“P-Please.”

Another one.

“God…”

Another one.

“D-Dont-“

For some reason, I felt some elevated joy in my heart as I saw the fear in between the cracks of their helmets, and their twitchy and jerky reactions… I wonder why I was so scared before.

Alex and Sylene looked at me weirdly, it seemed like they were surprised.

“Little boy, I do not know how you acquired such power, but I order you to hand yourself in to the Empire’s Custody! You are an Imperial subject, know your place!”

The commander fearlessly shouted from behind.

I turned around.

“Like hell I will.”

From the size of the Fire Ball, it could instantly kill these Imperial Knights just in one go.

Yeah, let’s do it.

Let’s do- No.

“[Earth: Wall].”

Undoing my Fire Ball spell, I immediately cast an Earth Wall to separate us from the guards.

Seeing this opportunity, Alex grabbed me, and we all ran out of the slave trader tent.

Part 2

We ran and ran, until we were far away from the Slave Commercial District of this city and back outside of the Adventurer’s Guild.

Catching a breath, Alex leaned against a wall, while Sylene just stood there.

“Hey.”

Sylene crossed her arms, and glared at me with a serious expression.

“Yeah?”

I stood up straight, facing her with all my might. Prepared for her to get mad at me for not telling her about my magical prowess.

“I didn’t know you could cast magic like that! Isn’t that like, Intermediate- Tier? You look just barely ten though, how did you learn so quick?! Holy shit I’m so excited, where are your parents, are they some sort of nobles?”

She began to shake my shoulder and she barraged me with bullets of praise.

“W-Wai-“

“A kid magician? You Shoulda told us earlier, so what are you here for? Are you just wondering about? And what the hell did you do to piss off the guards?”

Alex, recovering from the run crossed his arms and turned to face me.

“Well, I’m looking for information about that noble…”

I shifted myself a bit as I touched my wand.

Oh damn, I had a wand this entire time and I never used it.

It seems like the power I had just with my hands was enough to deal with what come up to me that I didn’t think much about the wand, which is said to boost magical spell power.

“Why? Is it because of what you told us? He has your brother hostage?”

“That’s right. What can you tell me about him?”

“I have no obligation to tell yo-“

Alex snorted and looked away. But he was interrupted by the cheery Sylene.

“-Okay okay, so first, his name is Augustus Hoot Sin, you’ve already heard a bit about him from Alex, but let me tell you a bit more-“

So basically, what Sylene told me was that this Lord Hoot was an extremely wealthy Noble who climbed his ranks through trading alone. He had formed a huge company under his name which sold mostly human and demi-human slaves, it became so big that the Empire here incorporated him into their system.

That’s why there were Imperial knights with him, he was important to the economy, extremely wealthy and politically powerful.

While he wasn’t an adept magician, he used magic items he bought to a very professional degree, learning a lot in his travels before he became as well known as today.

There was no one in the Empire who didn’t know of his name, that’s why he was able to gather so many nobles for his auction in two days for Aerich.

I wonder why she’s telling me all of this, is she just a naive and nice person?

“Hey, shut the hell up Sylene. I was gonna make him pay for that information.”

“Charging a kid? You really are scum, get outta here.”

Sylene punched the back of Alex’s head.

“Um, Sylene.”

I called out to Sylene.

“Yes?”

“Can you show me where the Inn is again?”

…

After I quickly booked a room in the Inn I walked outside with Sylene, Alex decided to lay down in his own booked down as we went in earlier.

So it was only us two.

“So-uh, where are you from?”

We were walking pretty quietly, and it was awkward, so Sylene asked me that.

“…It’s hard to say.”

Not really, I just didn’t feel like it was safe to just tell random strangers personal information.

“Oh, complicated background? I guess that would explain your ability to cast strong magic at your age.”

“Yes.”

“I swear you could become a Class A Adventurer easily.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

From what I’ve heard, the adventurer’s system was pretty technical. Despite there being different countries, races, or continents, the adventurer’s guild was pretty much a universal company.

You could apply as an adventurer in the Human Continent, and take quests there, but if you were to suddenly go to the Beastmen Continent’s Adventurer’s guild, after a quick check-in, you were allowed to take quests and were seen as a fellow adventurer to the guild almost immediately.

It was all connected.

And adventurer’s were separated by rank: S, A, B, D, E, F.

A being the strongest and F being the weakest.

S, however, was held for the especially strong and talented people.

“What about you though, where are you from?”

“Well, uhmm~ I used to live all the way up in the Reigel Theocracy.”

The Reigel Theocracy.

An extremely religious and pro-human nation at the tip of the Human Continent. The trend of “As you go up, the more Demi-humans are hated” was created only because of the Reigel Theocracy.

Their religious doctrine is solely based on Human Superiority over other races, and especially dislikes any other race that’s not human, as set by their “Six Gods”.

Their religious belief is strong up in the Northern Human Continent but grows weaker and fainter as you go down south. Ultimately dying out near the southern continent, which is here.

I’ve heard the people up North were pretty annoying, and couldn’t stop preaching about the eradication of the Malignant race and the notions of Human Superiority.

But Sylene seems more open, and different from what I’ve heard about them.

But still, it was a surprise to see a resident from a Pro-human and anti-anything-not-human country move all the way down to a Demi-human and minorly malignant part of the Human Continent.

I wonder why she’s all the way down here.

“Are you just travelling around?”

“Boom, Bingo, Dingo Congo. Zaa-zing, that’s correct. What a good boy. And you seem to be extremely smart too, how cute.”

She roughly patted my head with a gleeful expression as we walked the streets.

“Ouch- Don’t do it so hard, actually, don’t pat my head at all!”

I threw her hands away, which was met with a tiny disappointed “Aw…”

“-Alex is actually my brother, we’re siblings who are gonna travel the world as Adventurers, we started like, 7 years ago. We’ve been staying in this city for about 5 months.”

“Ooo, why 5 months?-“

For the next 10 minutes, we had a blissful conversation.

Until we noticed something on the walls.

“…Is that?”

“-My face?”

A poster was stuck on the wall here, it had a sketched drawing of my face along with a: “Wanted by the Imperial Family, Reward 50 Gold Coins”.

It hasn’t even been a few hours, and I’m already on the wanted list.

Goes to show how influential Lord Noot, the strong Noble Merchant is.

Looking to my left, I saw the person who seemed to be the one planting these plant more on the walls beside this.

Crap, I need to find something to hide my identity.

A robe with a hood.

“Sylene, where’s the clothing store?”

“Follow me!”

Covering my face, I ran as I followed Sylene, noticing even more wanted posters in the direction I was going, and more people looking at it, along with three more planters.

All of this, the printing of the posters, the hiring of planters, the sketch of my face, all done in a few hours.

I heard the bell ring as we both entered a clothing store.

Safe from the potential gazes, I let out a huge sigh and began to browse.

“They’re hunting you, already.”

Sylene looked out of the window and noticed groups of guards holding the sketch of me, questioning people around.

“-You should leave the city.”

“I can’t… Not yet.”

I’m not leaving without Aerich.

“Oh right, your older brother, you’re saving him, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. And what are you even doing with me? You have no reason to help me at all. Don’t put yourself in danger, and leave me.”

Maybe it was her maternal pride as an adult, but I don’t get why she’s been following me around after all of that. There’s no reason for her to do this for me, there aren't any attachments between us, when is she going to leave?

“Hmm~ You’re right, normally I’d just throw you to your parents, but, it doesn’t look like you have any guardians taking care of you. And I technically have no reason to stay with you even now.”

“Then why?”

“It’s a personal reason.”

Personal reason?

I don’t get it.

Did someone take care of her when she was a kid just like she’s doing to me now?

“Well… Let’s just pick out a non-suspicious robe that can hide my face.”

I began to browse the robes and picked out a small black robe with a very large hood. It was also resistant to any physical damages such as slashing, stabbing and bludgeoning.

I tried it on and looked in the mirror.

"...Looks good, no one will be able to see my face." 

Sylene looked at me and smiled:

"Do you need me to pay that for you?" 

She waved some cash from her palm. 

"No, I have my own coins." 

Reached out to my pocket, and shook the bag of coins that were given to me by Lord Runo.

"Hah?- How do you have that many coins.? You're just a kid!" 

Come to think of it... I wonder what's happening at home. 

With my last memory, we were directly attacked and captured by those Tyrat Dogs, word should have come out that it happened, alerting Papa, Radyn and Lord Runo. With this, Papa would have probably launched a direct assault as soon as hearing about it to find both me and Aerich. 

Iwrys Fynn Tyrat would have been captured... The Tyrat House was given new leadership... Fynn House taken down... All under the eyes of the Royal Supreme Court, there's no way this could be hidden. And also the consolidation of the Osoric House's Supremacy as the strongest Noble House in the Kingdom. 

But most importantly, Papa must be so fricking upset, nervous and frustrated right now. 

Me, his own son, disappeared in the midst of all of this. Along with Aerich. 

Logically, search parties would be sent across all the cities of the Aorath Kingdom, and I'd be found within a week or two... ...But the Aorath Kingdom is up North of the Human Continent, and I've somehow found myself in the Aricoruth Empire, 2 years away down south from the Aorath Kingdom. 

It was up to me to take the initiative and return. 

After I rescue Aerich, it's gonna be a long journey up back to Papa. 

Let's rescue him as soon as possible, and make our way up back to Papa and Radyn. 

"How much for this?" 

I looked up to the man sitting at the counter, looking at me listlessly. 

"1 gold coin, 9 silvers and 4 coppers." 

"Here." 

I gave the man one silver coin. 

Seeing the initial silver, the man heaved a heavy sigh and scoffled, arching his back before using his finger to slide it back toward me.

"You're gonna need more tha- Eh? What?"

Seeing the engraving on the Silver Coin I passed, the man in the counter's eyes raised, his hands jerked to grab the coin for a closer look. 

"Eh?! An Aorath Coin? My bad my bad, this is well enough! Where did you find this, kid? Off the floor somewhere? Why do you even have it, I bet you stole it." 

He went through the cabinet to pull up some change. 

Compared to the coins here, Aorath Coins were much more valuable. And there were reasons for that. 

The most important being, the quality of metal. Even though both silvers were practically the same in material, the silver forged in the Aorath Kingdom just had higher quality in general. Along with this, the Aorath Kingdom was just an economic booming nation in the first place, anything from it was just more valuable compared to the nations surrounding them. 

"Here you go, there's your change." 

He slammed the coins on the counter. 

"That's wrong. I know you know that that's not the correct change." 

Despite the currency system's being completely different, I still read about it in a book in Lord Runo's Library, I didn't plan to memorize all the systems of coin when reading, but it just came to my mind naturally. 

I was able to convert the Kingdom's Currency into the Empire's Currency. 

And I can tell from this, that this wasn't the correct change. 

He was trying to scam me off 18 silver coins, and 5 copper coins. All those coins in the Empire's currency of course. 

"Yes, it is." 

The counterman was insistent on this scam. 

Maybe he thought that I was just a kid who was warned about this type of scam and that I was taught to say "No" as a precaution at first, and with perseverance, convince me that it was the correct change since I "Wouldn't have knowledge in this".

Too bad for him, I know my stuff. 

Sylene popped her head in, looked at the situation and ducked out saying:

"-My brain can't handle this level of Arithmetic." 

Leaving her aside, I glared directly at the counterman. 

"No it isn't, you're off by 18 silver coins and 5 copper coins. Don't try to scam me just because I'm a kid." 

"Tch, take your fucking change then, and leave." 

He grabbed the correct change, and slammed it on the counter. 

I took the coins, wore my hooded robe, and left with Sylene. 

Part 3 

"Excuse me, have you seen this kid." 

"No... I haven't." 

Sylene answered the guard as I hid behind a stool on the streets. 

Damn, they're really onto me.

I was still wearing my newly acquired black cloak, but they'd just asked me to remove my hood if I was there with Sylene, so I quickly hid as they were asking. 

Now that I was sorta safe from detection, it's time to properly gather information on this well-known noble. 

I'm not from this area, so I wouldn't know besides from what Sylene had told me. 

Wait... Isn't what Sylene told me good enough? She basically told me everything about the guy, and his fighting ability... Well, I still need to ask a little bit more for some clarity, and if there's anything else I need to know. 

But I can't ask too much, or I'll get suspicious. And the guards will find me. 

Looking toward me, I could already see guards with their eyes peeled. 

The safest place to go would be the adventurer's guild. 

Let's ask some people there...

Alrighty. 

After some hours of information gathering, Sylene returned home with Alex and I learnt some other stuff. 

Firstly, I got a map of where we are. And it's confirmed once again that we're in the Southern part of the Human Continent. Almost everyone there were adventurers of Class B or lower, but they clarified some information given to me by Sylene. 

They told me a lot about the Empire, and it's culture and traditions. Also some information regarding how to leave the city in a carriage and stuff. 

Useful stuff, of course, I either paid, or used sympathy for the information. 

When I asked about the huge tent in the middle of the city, the defenses and guards. 

I was told what wasn't new, Imperial Guards were protecting it and whatever. Also, Class-A adventurers were just hired to protect it for the next 2 nights. 

No doubt it's because of me and my attack. 

Now I had to do a night raid to rescue Aerich, fighting Imperial nights ALSO Class-A adventurers. There weren't many Class-A adventurer's here, but like 5 of them in one party who were hired. 

Naturally, I gathered info on them too. 

Right now, I'm laying in the bed of the Inn room I had rented earlier during the day. Closing my eyes, thinking about the situation. 

I don't have to launch the rescue mission today, but tomorrow or the night after is a huge must, and the limit. 

I already have extensive information on everything in there. Now all I have to do is plan my approach and execute it. 

Seeing the amount of protection that Noble has, I should just sneak in, disable the magic barrier and rescue Aerich. From there, if we're caught, fight our way out and get the hell out of that city. 

For tonight, let's just gather energy. 

I'll launch the rescue mission tomorrow night. 

I'll save you, Aerich.