"Dahlia, be a dear and send this to the sugar grass pixies and have them forward it to Master Corvick." Collin ordered one of his escorts, the creature born of grass and twine nodded and happily took a letter from the bespectacled boy.
"Tulip, check the sentries deployed by Jija, if you can find any kind of magic stone inlaid there, steal it and give it to me. Do not, under any circumstances, engage any humans you might encounter." Collin ordered his other escort, "Oh, by the by, if you run into him, check on that young boy I eyed earlier. Don't interact with him, though, that's my job." Collin waved his hand and both escorts burst into a beautiful flurry of fragrant and colourful flowers.
This, in turn, urged Collin to cast a basic spell to clean up the mess that his summons made. He snapped his fingers and all the flowers were brought to life and assembled, forming a wonderful arrangement of colours and scents. Truly a spectacle for one's senses.
Collin hummed as he waved his hand around, effortlessly controlling the flowers. With this, he turned the arrangement of flora into two neat balls of colours, he brought out a potion from his bag and pulled out a clear, carbonated liquid from it. With a splash of this potion, the flowers immediately minimised and became small enough to fit into his bag.
"That cheap bastard can't ask for an allowance if I put the flower balls into my bag… Can he? God I really hope he doesn't end up breaking my sub-space pack. He still hasn't paid me back for the other one. 'Oh consider it a fee for being my apprentice.' BULLSHIT! You're just a cheap, broke, stingy old troll that can't even pay for his own meals! I even shouldered the debt you owe… who even drinks that much milk!?" Collin grumbled as he finished up paperwork on a candlelit desk by the inn's window. He cursed his master's name, he's become the unofficial wallet of the Alchemical Eternal and he knows it. He knew full well that the reason why his master wouldn't let him graduate wasn't because he wasn't ready yet, but because his master wouldn't have anyone to pass on his financial troubles to.
"I hope you choke on your fish Master Corvick… I can't believe I didn't notice he stole three gold from me… now I need to make a stop-over to Jija's royal capital to withdraw from the nearest Ignis Leos branch— FUCK! This was supposed to be a fast mission, I can't believe I'm going to have to go to that awful place. I swear when Sir Vale comes visiting again I'll tell him of Nathaniel's financial incompetence…" Collin muttered, he was extremely angry and frustrated, he should have seen it coming, he thought. His master had been very kind to him lately and has been trying to get him to buy a new batch of manuscripts; this, coupled with the fact that his wallet had been awfully light during his journey to the Jijian outskirts, should have alerted him of his master's schemes.
"I was saving for a small patch of land too…" He whined as he finished up writing a report. He put the quill down and stood up from his seat, did a couple stretches, and opened up a notebook he had placed on top of his work desk. "Such a handful…" He flipped through the notebook full of magical circles, sigils, and glyphs, looking for the perfect array to help him with his current task. Observing the little dianian boy he saw earlier.
He knew that the boy he eyed earlier today was a divorakk due to the mana the boy was giving off. Normally humans would only give off stale mana that they had passively absorbed from the environment, but divorakks were loved by mana, and therefore, always gave off an aura of colourful mana that could be considered an artwork.
He didn't know why exactly the boy was with spirits, so he wanted to spy on him a little more. Sure his summon, Tulip, would do a quick check on the boy, but he doubts that this would yield any good information. Which is why he is flipping through his notebook of arrays to try and find a creature he could use to surveillance on the brown-haired child. If he can't find one, then he'd have to resort to making one, so he meticulously scanned through the notebook, not wanting to waste any time and energy if he already had an array that he could use.
After going through his book, he found that there he didn't have a single array that he could use. He contemplated whether he should just communicate with the child directly, making a new array just for this mission would be inefficient and a massive waste of time and mana. With a groan, he stood up from his seat and decided to just communicate with the boy directly, making a new array would take him several hours. In those several hours he can work to gain the boy's trust and get valuable information. This was much more efficient than spying on him with summoned creatures.
He concluded that direct communication would be absolutely better in this case. It isn't like the child is some sort of scheming villain. Children love sweets, so he'll just stop by a local bakery and bribe the boy. Sugar buns were sold at two for three copper, he just needed to buy six to completely gain the boy's trust, he thought.
Sugar in this world could be harvested in the grass that people walk on, they just needed to uproot a patch of sweet grass that grew quite literally everywhere, boil it, and the resulting water turns into a very sweet molasses-like syrup; and unlike Earth's sugar, this world's sugar was very healthy, so there isn't that much problem with gorging yourself on sweets as they were filled with lots of healthy nutrients. Though, because of this, most preserved food (and food in general) were very sweet.
Collin decided to call it a night, he didn't think that the young divorakk boy would be out this late, so he'll just execute his plan tomorrow. He went over to the lit candle on the work desk and blew it out, and laid down on the moonlit bed, sleeping comfortably until the morning.
Collin woke up peacefully, a crown of flowers adorned his head and a patch of chamomiles bloomed all around him. He groaned, thinking about how much of a hassle cleaning all of this up is. He must have forgot to meet his daily mana quota yesterday and it ended up overflowing and manifesting his magic accidentally.
He got up and took off his clothing, stripping off the extravagant noble outfit in favour of his more casual garbs. He put on a long-sleeved white shirt, and dark maroon shorts that his master had given to him as a gift. On his head was a cute orange bucket hat that he had bought from an otherworlder from Tennenborough—a kingdom of divorakks in the western Isles where his master was the prince of—he also put on an earring shaped like a daisy that was given to him by his mother on his left ear. After all, he wants to present as male. Accessory placement was very important in divorakk culture, and can say a lot of things about an individual such as sex, gender, and romantic availability.
He put on a leather vest and walked out of the inn while picking out flower petals that were stuck on his hair. He walked through the streets of this Unnamed outskirts town and tried looking for the young dianian he was so curious about. He looked through the alleyways and inspected stands, stalls and shops.
This caused the townspeople to be sent into a panic, a duke's child was looking and inspecting the town. One wrong thing and they may lose whatever support the kingdom has spared for them, the town might be abundant in resources due to the natural landscape, but without the support of the kingdom then they might as well just be nothing more than bait for bandits. The town can't just rely on adventurers after all, sure they'd be able to fend off one or two bandit groups, but if the main head isn't captured and put to prison then the town's strength would be whittled down into nothingness. They couldn't haul off the bandit heads into a Jijian city or town either, there weren't any adventurers over the class of D in the town, and the journey to the nearest town took three days at least and they had to go through perilous forests full of monsters.
Collin unknowingly put the inhabitants of the town in an extremely tense mood. He kept walking until he got hungry, so he decided to rest for a while and buy food from some tavern that he was passing by. He was about to enter until he realized that to the eyes of the Jijian common folk he wasn't a divorakk, but a ten year old human boy, so he refrained from entering and went on his way to try and find a stall that sells food instead. After wandering around for a few minutes he found a stall that sold sugar buns and bought four.
He found a comfortable place to sit on and started munching on the buns that he bought. He started thinking deeper and tried to figure out where the boy would be.
Well, that would be the case if he didn't accidentally bump into the group of six. He looked up at the spirits, and the spirits stared back, they looked at Collin with curiosity—seeing the mana around him—as Clailip started loudly asking why they suddenly stopped.
"May the light of the sun shine evermore on these verdant lands of bountiful beauty." Collin said quietly, he looked at the two spirits that haven't taken human form and saw their particularly surprised looks. The other three, however, didn't seem to recognise the saying.
"A danzian?" Lawod communicated with telepathy. "What's a danzian doing here?" He asked.
"Official business, I'm here to escort any dianians that have escaped from the raid that Jija organised on the forest of Illusions. Now, I have a question for you too, why are five spirits taking a dianian child into a Jijian town?" Collin questioned the motives of the spirits. He knew the spirits didn't want to harm the boy, as one of them was carrying him gently in her arms and the boy didn't seem to be struggling and even seemed to be comfortable in the lady's arms.
"We're not exactly sure ourselves, though, we do know that we want to find more information about the raid." Simoy answered Collin's questions and the three started staring at each other.
"Are you…?" Simoy wanted to ask a question, but he didn't want to be insensitive.
"Yes." Collin deadpanned.
"Interesting. So that's why your mana- nevermind." Lawod rejected the thought and inspected Collin's mana more closely.
"Wow, okay, yeah, just completely ignore me. What happened??? I can't see anything." Clailip cried out, he was getting impatient, and he wanted to rip the blindfold off his face so bad. Fortunately he could control his urges fairly well. Still, he was imploding, he wanted to know why exactly they stopped walking.
"I think there's only one inn in this town. I'm assuming you six are most likely staying there, so visit my room later, it's situated at the very end of the first floor's hallway and it's the one on the right. Knock three times. I'll be going now, take care of the child. I still need to check if there are other dianian children I can help cross borders into Gaela. Take care." Collin hurriedly sent the telepathic message and went on his merry way, to the adventurer's guild. If there are any bounties for divorakk children. He knows that the Jija Kingdom won't stop looking for their lost goods, and will keep the bounties up for a minimum of three years before finally taking them down.
That is, of course, if the divorakk children weren't found still.
Collin knows how ruthless Jijian raids are, they don't stop until they've captured every single divorakk alive. And if one escapes then they hunt that escapee down even if they suffer losses. Of course they're not stupid enough to go bankrupt for a single divorakk. But the technological progress and comfort that the Jijian people all seek is powered by the mana and blood of countless captured divorakks.
Greed is such a terrible thing.
Collin stared at the human families that strolled through the town, the happy children and their tired, but happy parents. He felt jealousy bubble up inside of him, after all, he was around that dianian boy's age when he became an orphan and was sent to an orphanage situated in Gaela's capital. He missed his parents, and he longed for the touch of a loving mother. But he knows full well he can't bring back the dead, and only aims to get stronger and smarter as a way of honoring his parents.
"Damn it, Longing just leveled up. At this rate I'm going to hatch soon… it's at seven now. God I better not hatch on the way to Gaela, I can't put that child at risk." Collin muttered to himself as he arrived at the General Adventurer's guild. He stepped right in and was greeted by the loud sounds of people engaging in conversation and the beautiful music of bards. The atmosphere was lively and he could tell everyone here got along.
The sight was enough to make him homesick, he missed the Guild already, and he missed his squad. Well, he didn't miss one person, and that's his master, Nathaniel Corvick. He hoped that man would receive some sort of divine retribution while he was gone. Because if he was in charge of the punishment, he would be charged with murder.
Collin scanned through the mission and bounty boards and found that the bounties had been taken down.
Clailip truly was the only survivor.
