I walk through the sewers and reach the flop next to the kids’ place. When I get out, I immediately am assaulted with blinding light I once again forgot I see very little recently.

The few things I can make out when I glance at the alley with squinted eyes make me wary immediately.

First and foremost, three thugs standing just before the building the kids are in. Apart from that, a thin like a twig man lying on the ground a few meters ahead with thin streak of blood flowing from his mouth.

{Weak. The tallest slightly stronger than you, others weaker.} – Natria immediately announces. – {As long as you are careful, you should have no problems if they mean to fight.}

The tallest is referring to the guy in the center, seemingly the leader of the group. He is around a meter and eighty tall and rather muscular, though nothing you wouldn’t expect from a person living in slums. He is wearing worn-out clothes clothes, of better quality than usual you can find there though, and his longish black hair and messy beard along with sharp face and constant frown give him a dangerous feeling. To ordinary people, that is, not me. I got long used to things like that, not to mention my recent change made me much less fearful.

The other two are slightly shorter and less muscular, likely his underlings. They wear similar clothes and are just as much unkempt, one with bald head, slightly fatter with plump face, and second with short brown hair and long face, the smallest among the three.

Just as I go out of the sewers, the three look at me with mild surprise, but fortunately pay no attention to as I am covered with a brown cloak only my legs and part of my face are faintly visible under.

Welp, that complicates things a little. I thought I would just go in and see if Laura is inside, but with these guys it would be better not to do anything for now.

And with that said, the fact they are standing just in front of the door is suspicious enough not to just pretend they didn’t exist and mind my own business.

Just when I was thinking what to do not to attract their attention the leader did something I kind of expected, but still surprised me, and almost made rush and kick him away outright.

“Open the door! We have business with you!” – He banged at the door with strength that would majorly damage the building just next to this.

My mood immediately sours.

‘Who is inside?’ – I ask Natria.

{Five children, including Angelin. The rest I am not sure, but Laura is definitely outside, maybe out of the city even.}

‘I see.’

I wait a few seconds to see what intentions the men have, and my suspicions turn correct soon enough when the man bangs on the door once again and shouts:

“Open the door or I will break in! Don’t test my patience!”

As I narrow my eyes, the door slowly opens and I see pale-faced Angelin inside.

Oh. She was always like that. I dare bet she told the rest to hide and escape through the backdoor in the worst case while she stayed to stall for time and hopefully turn the situation around.

“What do you want?” – She asks in a small voice, almost trembling under the pressure.

The men laugh in scornful voices, then one of them, the skinny one, reaches out his hand to grab the girl. Without even looking at the result I bolt out from the place I was standing at and rush towards the group, trying not make noise and take them by surprise.

I watch as Angelin gets grabbed by shoulder and the man pulls her out of the building before she is able to react.

With staggering footsteps she barely manages not fall to the ground and her eyes widen when she looks at me. The next moment the man gets hit on his head by a spinning kick I somehow managed to perform and collapses with whites of his eyes showing.

As I land on the ground, Angelin gets pulled down by the arm of the falling man, but I grab her by hands and pull her up and away from the two men, who turn around and look at me with stupid expressions.

I pull her to my face and look her straight into wide open green eyes with one arm outstretched, grabbing her palm somehow with interlocking fingers, and another wrapped around her waist. With a wide smile on my side and face barely a few centimeters from hers, I say in a seductive voice:

“Been some time, princess. Leave the rest to me.”

Her face immediately flushes red despite the fight she still theoretically is in, and she turns her head aside, confirming that I diverted her attention from the danger to her.

Teasing her wasn’t among the objectives, but it still felt somehow fun to see her flustered face.

I get away from her slowly, loosening my grip and allowing her to stand on her own, then I turn my head towards the three men. Or rather two, since one is out of action.

“Who the hell are you, pipsqueak?” – The tall man awakens from his stupor and shouts angrily.

He is unable to see my face due to the hood, or otherwise he would be, most likely, prematurely happy instead of angry.

“To you, I can be the Grim Reaper, King’s order, God’s decree or a little girl, and your fate will be the same.” – I answer in a cute voice that makes the threat in my words sound less matching the current situation, yet not less true.

Damn, I almost cringed at that despite the fact I always wanted to say something like that. Never again.

The men, though, burst out laughing, but before they are able to mock me or give me an oh so merciful offer, I rush with speed not matching my stature towards the baldy.

His pupils constrict, but before he is able to react I kick him between legs with all my strength.

He lets out a painful grunt and collapses forward until I smash my knee into his solar plexus, hearing a small crack, and he passes out from the pain.

The leader of the group stops laughing and looks at me with wary gaze.

I gently touch the head of the baldy and feel his soul.

Yellowish-red, of slightly lower size than mine, twisting slightly at the edges.

Delicious.

I pull my hand and try to drag the Origin out with it, and I feel the soul and spirit collapsing into the Origin as it flows out and onto my palm.

As the man’s body slumps to the ground lifeless, I smile viciously, having completely abandoned my thoughts of sparing the men before I even noticed. Watching the man in the corner of my eye, I raise my head and drop the soul from my palm to my open mouth.

With an expression of ecstasy I feel the Origin getting absorbed into mine and my strength increasing slightly.

And I see the man, initially surprised by my age and beauty, standing rooted with pale face, likely not knowing what I did, but imagining countless possibilities and not even thinking I could be putting on a show, most likely getting stronger reaction from danger sense, which is a very common ability among hunters or criminals.

I close my mouth with a wide grin and whisper barely loud enough for him to hear:

“Delish.”

He shuddered and opened and closed his mouth rapidly a few times before shrieking in a shaking voice:

“D-DEMON! G-get away!”

He turned around and started running, tripping after barely few steps and with only immense fear preventing him from planting face first into ground.

I start running after him and catch up quickly due to his erratic movement. Just as he turns his head around to see where I am, his foot gets caught by mine and he slams into another foot rushing to meet his face with crazed with fear expression.

He swings his arms dizzily and desperately, but his effort becomes futile as I pull his Origin out with mild difficulty and his actions stop as if he lost consciousness, when in fact his whole life left him.

I absorb the soul and with wide, ecstatic smile turn around to look at the third man, still laying on the ground with no signs of waking up. I slowly walk towards him and suck out his life just like with the two previous men.

“Um, w-what did you do to them?” – I hear a frightened voice and turn my head to see Angelin with an expression being a mix of gratefulness, admiration and fear.

“I killed them. Painlessly.” – I say bluntly in a cold voice and she jolts lightly, but noticeably. – “I do believe this is much better than what you and the kids would end up in.”

“Um-“

“Wait a second.” – I stop her. – “Let’s take the corpses away first, we will talk later, okay?”

“Oh, okay.” – She finally moves from her place.

Within the next minute we search the three bodies for anything worth taking and find only a few bronze coins apart from the clothes they have on with the rest probably left where they lived. We take what can be anyhow useful to us and drag the corpses into the sewers they will not disturb anyone in. Along the way I also devour the third soul, almost as delicious as the previous two.

Within two minutes Angelin takes me into the building the kids live in and we sit as a group of six by the table. Me, Angelin, Helia, Yana, Rovio and Van, while Geil and Ned are out for some reason.

The kids are sitting obediently and not speaking despite their evident curiosity, a result of living in such conditions for most of their lives.

“So, um, why did you help us?” – Angelin asks after the introductions.

“I guess… I am indebted to Laura, so I will do my best not to let her pupils get harmed. Where is she, by the way? I wanted to meet her.”

“Laura left this morning and said she has business with the Hunter’s Guild. She said she will be back at noon, so she should be here soon.” – Helia says. She is the oldest of the girls by a thin margin, but is smaller than Angelin, with long, brown hair and baby face and unlike Angelin somewhat skilled in combat she could be said to be the leader of our small group along with Geil, the oldest of the boys.

“I see.”

“What about Neo? Do you know about him?” – Rovio asks, surprisingly on point. He is the youngest and smallest of the kids, barely seven years of age and a meter in height, but is considerably more mature than one would expect due to the fact he is a very rare beastkin. His race is called Flame Panther, with reddish hair, between mine and Laura’s, fluffy ears on top of his head and similar in color thin tail above his butt. He is also the most cheerful part of this group.

“Yeah, that’s why I want to see Laura. Nothing bad happened to him, so don’t worry. On the contrary, he got much stronger than before.”

“Huh?” – Yana asks with surprise in her eyes. – “Then what was he doing?”

She has long, silver hair and pale skin, and she is one of the two kids among us that is not fully a human. Well, now it is three. Anyway, she is a half-vampire with characteristic red eyes, pointed ears and longer fangs, but not a dhampire, and she doesn’t need to drink blood often, at most a liter or two each month. She is also very small, barely taller than Rovio despite being twelve years old, due to her slow growth, and she is the shy type of girl, but she likes to fight, likely because of her race.

“Sorry, I can’t tell you for now because it might inconvenience both Laura and Neo. I will probably tell you in a few weeks when all is done.” – I say apologetically.

“Okay.” – Yana answers.

“Um. What happened outside?” – Van finally asks after a moment of silence.

He is a human unlike Rovio and the youngest beside him, just nine years of age, probably the most childlike among us. He is also very small, with unique, dark blue hair and heterochromatic eyes, one blue and one purple.

I glance at Angelin only to see her raising her brows.

Well.

“There were three men with bad intentions. I took care of them and they won’t be coming back.”

The kids look at me with momentary surprise, reading between the lines, then Rovio asks probably what they are all wondering about:

“Um, how strong are you?”

“It depends. My body is not very strong, but I know a lot about fighting. I don’t want it to sound like boasting, but I could probably defeat each of you with ease.”

I recall the fight from before and remember how I intuitively targeted the men’ weak spots, such as solar plexus, and how I tripped the last one and perfectly kicked him in the face, and I can’t help but marvel at the instincts I have received from Natria. I am aware I basically did nothing to get them, but still it would be a waste not do use such a gift.

“So you beat these three men alone?” – Rovio asks once again for confirmation.

“Yes, it was a bit of luck, but I beat them alone.”

“Um, what did you do to them, by the way?” – Angelin asks in a slightly scared tone she is with moderate success suppressing.

I look at her for a while in silence and glance at the other four children.

“What do you see souls as?” – I finally speak.

“Huh?” – Angelin raises her voice in surprise at the seemingly random question. – “Soul is… the mind, um consciousness of a person, I think? I don’t know if souls exist, though, but I heard that there are Inquisitors who seem to have to do with them.”

“Hm, well, your answer is half-correct. What is generally referred to as soul can be divided into three parts, spirit, soul and Origin. I have a unique talent that allows me to pull out someone’s Origin and kill them, as long as I am strong enough, and this is what I did to them. Essentially it is no different from killing them using any other method.” – I answer, after which there is silence in the room.

Finally Angelin breaks the silence with a frightened voice. – “Um, that would be… animancy, right? Isn’t it illegal?”

‘Uh, would it? Technically I am not manipulating souls, but eating them.’

Animancy is a branch of magic related to mind and soul, and everything related to it that is remotely dangerous, especially necromancy that is considered part of animancy, is labeled as illegal by the Church. Common examples of barely legal magic in this category would be slavery contracts, and other contracts as well, soul sight or sense, allowing just to detect souls, or some spells used to transfer information.

{In broader sense what you are doing is definitely animancy, but if someone doesn’t know how you kill, you can as well label it as death aura.}

“I guess you could say it’s animancy, but I have very little control over my power. I can kill a person with it, but nothing else and only on contact. As for it being illegal… depends what you count as illegal. Also, tell me, would you say this is worse or better than killing with poison?”

Angelin opens her mouth and wants to say something, but closes it soon after and stays silent, and I understand her conflict well.

Someone righteous could very well say that killing with poison, or assassinating someone in general, is not honorable, is disgraceful or something. My method of killing would then be extremely vile as you have no way of defending before such attack. On the other hand you could say that it is much better to just rip out someone’s soul than poison him and cause him immense pain before death or torture someone.

“Let’s not think about it, okay?” – I say to ease the mood. – “Do you want something from me? If not, I would come when Laura gets back.”

“Could you stay until big sister comes?” – Helia says, but soon realizes the unreasonableness of her request and corrects herself. – “Um, could we talk a bit if you have time?”

“Well, I don’t mind. I am more or less free right now.” – I answer.

“More or less?”

“Well, I have a few things to do soon, but they are not urgent and I can easily spare a few hours. What do you want to ask?”

“Um, who are you? I mean, you are powerful for your age, quite like Yana, and you look just like a noble. And you are also so pretty!”