Knight Shine looked over to his two students and sighed a sigh of relief.

“A knight? What brings you here?”, asked the principal.

“I could sense you guys breaking the rules from far away, actually I could actually smell it.”, replied Shine.

“What rules might you be referring to?”

“Well, for starters... two knights beating up two children, that doesn’t seem very fair...”

“Oh! Ignore them, they’re just being taught a lesson.”

“...and slavery!”

The principal frowned.

One of the Duke’s knights chimed in and spoke, "Whose knight might you be?”

“The Baron’s”, replied Shine.

The principal hurriedly walked over toward the knights and spoke to them, “Recently, the Baron has become a thorn to the Duke. This might also be a good chance to take care of him...”

“It’s only one knight”, replied one of the knights.

“Two knights versus one knight... I wonder who’ll win?”, said the other.

“Just because I said it’s my time to shine doesn’t mean no one else is going to shine...”, replied Shine.

Hundreds of royal guards came rushing in.

“It’s time for them to shine too.”, said Shine while smirking.

One of the royal guards came forward and spoke, “This orphanage is under accusation of slavery. As it is known by royal decree, slavery has been banned from the start of this kingdom and will remain banned till the end of this kingdom.”

“S..Sl...Slavery?”, said the principal.

“We do n...no such..t..thing”, he continued.

“Then you’d have no problem letting these fine gentlemen search your orphanage?”, replied Shine.

“Just consider this to be a checkup.”, said the royal guard.

The principal was out of words, he couldn’t help but look down.

“We cannot allow you to do that”, exclaimed the knights of the Duke.

“You guys do realize that you’re practically accepting the charges against you?”, said Orph barely being able to stand up. He went over to Eric and gave his sword back to him as he helped Eric stand up.

“No...! I can’t let it end like this!”, thought the principal to himself.

“You people do realize how strong the Duke’s reach is, don’t you?”, asked the principal.

“He is the second strongest man, after the emperor himself!”, he exclaimed while putting both of his hands above trying to make a grand gesture.

“Oh, he’s in custody.”, replied Shine.

“What?’

“Custody. Slavery is a big crime. Not even the duke is safe from accusations against him and well, the Baron has a lot of money.”

Shine then looked at the two knights and continued, “Do you want to fight 100 royal guards and me at the same time? While they’re knight cadets who failed to become true knights, their strength is not to be trifled with. Especially with a number like this.”

The knights hesitated.

Shine noticed their hesitation and added, "Give up, without the Duke you all are not even knights anymore. Maybe you’ll receive less punishment.”

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

The knights understood how helpless they were and gave up, they moved aside and let the royal guard search the orphanage.

The principal clasped his hands and sat down on the floor, mumbling, “It’s over” over and over again.

The other orphanage employees gave themselves up, while some tried to make a run for it. However, they were soon caught by the royal guard.

Orph came over to Shine and spoke, “How’d you find out about this?”

“A shiny orb came over and told us all about it.”, replied Shine.

“He had some trouble convincing the Baron but thankfully, the Baron likes to take risks.”, he added.

Eric awkwardly laughed.

“Was this your plan?”, asked Orph.

Eric nodded and gave a faint smile.

An orb of light suddenly came in front of them. It went towards Emma and transformed.

Bk held Emma up and asked her if she was alright.

Emma nodded.

Orph took Eric, who was still in his arms and went toward them.

“I have to thank you. Thank you for saving our lives and for putting an end to this orphanage...”, said Orph.

He looked toward Eric and continued, "I... I have to thank you as well, this plan of yours really saved us...”

Eric didn’t say anything, he just smiled and nodded in return.

“Wait, why didn’t you come in along with the royal guards?”, asked Eric while looking at Bk.

“I’m not a fan of fighting”, he replied.

“Thanks to a certain someone”, he added while looking back at Eric.

Some time passed and the royal guards found evidence of slavery and forms of human trafficking inside the orphanage.

Eric got news about Orph’s friends and asked where he was.

“He went towards that way.”, said one of the royal guards.

Eric went where he thought Orph was, only to find him near a cliff.

“What are you doing?”, asked Eric.

“Nothing... just reminiscing.”, replied Orph.

Eric didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. He thought about whether he should, considering how Orph was behaving and what they went through today.

He gulped and decided to just through with it.

Eric spoke and decided to tell Orph about his friends.

“They don’t know where they are... the records just show them being sold to some bandits... we do not know where those bandits are...”, said Eric.

“Oh.”, replied Orph.

“That’s fine, I knew that something like thing happened when I heard they were turned into slaves”, he added on.

They stood there for a while, not speaking to each other. Orph stared at the sky until he decided that it was enough and walked back. Eric followed him.

They soon reached the Orphanage.

The royal guard had escorted all the employees out to question them more and the children to another place.

Orph went inside the orphanage. He found it was empty, with signs of broken vases everywhere. He walked over the halls; he went into all of the rooms. The kitchen, the bathroom, the places where he spent eight years of his life at. He wouldn’t call them good times, especially not knowing how the rest of the people he defeated to become a knight cadet got treated.

After spending his time there, he went outside. Eric was still following him.

He touched the outer walls of the orphanage and recalled a memory.

A memory about his last day here, his first day as a knight cadet...

The orphans he spent time with, all of the children came out to say their farewell to him. The principal watched all of this from above his office window.

“Hey, this is probably the last time we’ll ever speak.”, said John.

“You guys are going somewhere?”, asked Orph.

“Going? More like being sent away.”, replied Anage annoyingly.

“Where?”, asked Orph.

“We don’t know yet... Probably to the Duke’s mansion to work as a servant there...”, replied John.

“But know this, this isn’t your fault. Someone had to win this.”, John continued.

Anage showed dislike to John’s statement and went to stand alone, separately from all of them.

“Leave him be”, said John.

“He’s just angry he didn’t win.”, he continued.

Orph looked over him sadly.

“Become the best knight there is... all of our failures are riding with you!”, John exclaimed.

"There's no pressure.", John smiled and bumped his fist into Orph.

The other children there nodded in agreement.

Orph smiled.

He later found out through his sources about a child named Anage being killed by monsters while trying to escape.

He felt sad back then, understanding why he did it but still cursing why he had to do it.

Orph thought to himself, looking back this was probably his strongest memory, and all of the new information he got makes it even stronger.

“What if Anage wasn’t killed by monsters?”

“Is John even alive?”

“What about the others?”

All these thoughts kept coming to his mind.

Soon, his hands turned red. It started exuding heat and Orph was still touching the orphanage.

Soon the whole Orphanage burned down and got destroyed.