ALICIA ASCALON ASHBORN

It did not look like I could make the kidnappers just give out the location of where the other captives were kept. Even if I used force and it turned out that they were just middlemen with no information and someone else was going to transport us. The entire plan would fail.

Not like I could do anything particularly useful with that kind of information, anyway.

So, it was best to infiltrate the enemy’s base as a spy.

Having no choice, I decided to drop my resistance act. Unfortunately, Stella would now too get caught up in it. But I was sure, once I would be there, I would be able to rescue everyone with my magic.

The moment, I surrendered and stopped showing any signs of resistance. The kidnappers laughed vivaciously.

“That’s the easiest catch I have ever got. Till now everyone would try to run and we would either break their legs or hit hard on their head for fun.” The kidnapper in front of me, reveals a heavy machete from under his rags. I pretended to look surprised and took a step back, even though I already knew about it being hidden with my eyes.

“But she doesn’t even look afraid. I can’t see what she might be planning to do beneath that mask.” The kidnapper trying to get behind us was still wary of me.

“Just shows how frail she really is. Must have had an easy life till now and is dumb enough to not understand her situation. I would hate to break her so quick.”

“Once we tie them up at the base and put the slave collars around her neck. No one can remain sane after the kind of horrible treatment they are going to suffer.”

“Can’t really argue with that. Hahaaa…” The kidnapper behind me takes out a rope and carefully approaches me.

So, they were experienced enough to not let their guard down until the work is done.

After tying Stella’s hands and mine, the kidnapper looked at my mask and approached it with his hands. I tried to pull away my face, not wanting to reveal it.

“So, you still resist. Why don’t we just let you keep that mask until we all see you cry there for entertainment.”

They then retrieved a cart from a different lane and placed us inside, concealing us with barrels. The entire rear of the carriage was now obscured, rendering us nearly invisible, resembling an ordinary luggage carriage to any outside observer.

They certainly were prepared. But fortunately, they were not that rough, maybe to keep us intact till delivered to the slave buyer or because I quickly gave up.

Once the cart started moving and the two kidnappers were in front of the cart with the reigns. I could finally catch my breath. It was still troublesome to keep my hands tied like this. But it was all part of the act and needed to look real.

All this time Stella did not cry but kept herself close to me.

“It’s going to be alright Stella. I am sure I will find a way to come back and then you can take me to the church tower again.”

“⸻I am sorry, big sister Alicia.” Stella's eyes were filled with tears as she apologizes.

“It’s not your fault. You were only helping me out. I'm confident that those kidnappers are sure to get it for making a little girl cry.”

From there, Stella did not try to look directly at me but stayed in my arms as I tried to comfort her.

The cart moved continuously without stopping. And because the ride became too bumpy, I guess we had taken the temporary road to the outside of the city and entered deep into the forest.

Once the wheels stopped and the sound of horses being detached from the cart was heard. I prepared myself to assess the situation. I asked Al to learn the number and position of the people in the vicinity and to make sure there was no one hidden from my eyes.

The voice of the cart being slowly unloaded of the barrels made Stella shiver. Once the final barrel was removed light came in and I was able to see the outside.

A dilapidated church building. That was the base of these kidnappers. Many other carts and loads of barrels were lined around. Guess there were multiple of them operating in the entire city at the same time.

I might have underestimated their scale of organization, but it doesn’t change the fact that I was here to do.

The two kidnappers tried to get in the cart to forcefully drag us out. Most probably they were hoping to see me in tears by now. But for a second I try to intimidate them by releasing a bit of my magic power and came out with Stella on my own.

Now the place was clearly in sight. The broken church building was probably centuries old. The colored glasses and the roof must have been wrecked by the storms and heavy rain. While the pillars and the plaster on the walls had completely crumbled.

Half of the rooftop was absent, allowing the sunlight to flood in and illuminate the area perfectly.

One of the kidnappers pulled our ties and guided us to the inside of the church like we were some wild animals.

The inside of the church was even more disturbing. I wished Stella did not have to see this, but it could not have been helped. Several children and young girls like me were held in chains and in cages. Some looked badly injured, must be the wounds they received when being captivated. But it was still not time for me to show my magic.

All I was waiting for was for the ring leader to show up. He must be here.

“I see you have brought the final lot.” A man sitting on the chair at the farther end of the church on the stage, stood up with a walking stick held in his hand.

“You can put the slave collar in her neck now and chain her hands.” The man pointed his stick at me and Stella with a grin.

Tch...

“Don’t look so unhappy. The Stark Kingdom has turned its back on us slaver merchants. If I cannot be a slave merchant, then I have no purpose here. So, I thought why not grab as many of you and flee this country. It’s all the fault of the kingdom.” The bald man said looking at me.

By his rich-looking suit and how everyone followed him as he gave out orders. He was most definitely the ring leader.

The kidnappers had already started moving the prisons and loading them on a caravan. So, they were about to leave soon.

According to Al, there were thirty-five armed kidnappers giving guard. I resisted myself from using [DISMANTLE] on each of them and finish them off in a blink of an eye. But that would be a too-gruesome scene.

Now that I was in front of these kids I could not just kill anyone in front of them. I didn’t want to get them scared any more than they already were, especially Stella.

One of his men approached me with a pair of slave collars. I had decided by the last moment to teleport all the captured with me back to the city and quickly come back and take care of these goons. Or I might come up with another better idea in the meantime.

But then the man stopped moving and looked at me with a surprised look.

Briefly, a shadow came over us, obscuring the light for a moment.

⸻And then like a gale a person passed from above us. Such incredible speed, that our eyes met for only a brief moment and I could barely see his face as it blurred past in an instant.

I held Stella tightly. Out of all oddities someone had escaped my eyes. Someone I could not identify or notice them until now.

A guy in black clothes, wielding a sword. The next time I looked at the kidnapper holding the chains, he was already bleeding from his neck and then it falls with a spurt of blood.

The guy without giving any notice to the mess he had created, looked around getting a feel of the situation and the enemies who now ran at him with weapons.

He did not seem to care much about his blood-stained clothes and the dirty ground oozing with blood from the fallen dead corpses. I held Stella close and try to shut her eyes.

“Who is he?” The slave merchant looked at the guy with a disgusted look. “It does not matter kill him, everyone.” The slave merchant screamed.

As the kidnappers and bodyguards surrounded the guy. I could barely make out his movements because of his inexplicable moves but also the speed of his sword was something unmatchable.

The men were split into chunks of flesh as the guy stood tall.

“What are you all doing? I have paid a whole lot to you, so do your job.” The slave merchant screamed at his own men.

“What if he is a knight?”

“There could be others coming as well.”

“He is so strong.” After losing the first round the guards became more cautious of the intruder.

“If he is here to protect them. I say take that girl hostage.” The slave merchant again looked at me with a smug expression.

Take me as a hostage? It did not make sense. The guards were now too afraid to approach the guy, and at the moment none of them were close to me. So, who?

I looked down. No matter how many times I wanted to neglect all these thoughts. Of why Stella approached me out of nowhere in the first place when I got lost. Why she suggested going to the church tower and took me through back alleyways. Of how it was more than a coincidence for the kidnappers to be there prepared at the same time.

It was not a question of how hard I wanted to deny those facts, because it really did not matter to me. I was just glad, someone really wanted to help me at that time when I was in trouble.

But then Stella revealed a knife from under her cloth. Of course, it was foolish of me to think till now that it was normal for kids to carry small knives in this world because they could be handy.

While Stella moved her hands back and forth with the knife pointing at me at the same time, she looked pale. It wouldn’t have mattered because when the knife would have hit my clothes it would have crumbled anyway.

But before the knife made contact, the guy appeared in front of me in a blaze and held the blade with his hands almost passing through his palm.

Of course, he couldn’t use his sword in the nick of time to block the knife without hurting Stella, so he received the blow instead of me.

The surprised Stella looked at the deep incision with wide-open eyes. Leaving the hilt of the knife she falls to the ground.

The guy looked up at his hand and pulled out the knife like it was nothing and threw it away. But as if I could for a second feel the sharp pain he suffered.

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Someone got hurt because of me, ⸻because of my own carelessness. Maybe I should have stopped Stella on my own and then he wouldn’t have needed to get hurt.

But it was already too late. It was only because of my own selfishness this happened.

The real reason I had delayed my action was because I did not want the children to get scared of me. Especially when I was myself afraid to use my magic in a fight after the duel with the evil goddess.

Without hesitation, I grasped his hands tightly and invoked the power of my healing magic.

The moment the light grew, it devastatingly broke into fragments of light and the healing spell failed.

“⸻Why? My magic…” I murmured.

The guy instinctively took his hand back off as if he wanted to cover up something as quickly as possible.

It’s all wrong, my magic somehow failed and now someone suffered because of my shortcomings.

The sight of blood gushing from his hand made me gulp and filled me with fear for the very first time.

I desperately tore off a part of the cloth from the side of my dress and wrapped it tightly around his hand to stop the bleeding.

The guy looked at me with emotionless eyes but this time he did not resist.

“What are you doing you stupid little girl? Pick up that knife and kill them. Don’t you want your friends back?” The slave merchant barked at Stella from afar.

Stella lay down crying and did nothing in response. She was scared to her wits.

“No, not anymore. I can’t do this.”

The situation was clear to us.

I went down to Stella myself and held her close to me.

“I am sorry. I am sorry…. I am sorry.” Stella kept on repeating herself.

It was hard to believe that such a small girl was made to dirty things and she had to keep a face all this time against her will. Despite the circumstances, she did not get scared or run away but instead chose to save her friends.

“It’s alright now. No one’s going to force you to do bad things anymore.”

The guy nods at me and leaves.

Huh! What did he mean by that? Is he going to take care of everything? What about my turn?

I quickly got my answer, when only with a few strokes of his sword, he takes out five other opponents. He was quickly making his way to the slave merchant, their leader. No matter what kind of weapon the kidnappers used or no matter to what extent they augmented their bodies with magic. His skills with the sword was unmatchable.

The slave merchant understanding his dire situation takes out a weird-looking purple stone from his pocket and fixes it on his stick.

“Haahaaa… you can’t touch me anymore.” The slave merchant taunted.

“⸻We will see to that.” The guy in black robe spoke, jumping off a huge lying pillar he leaped as he thrust his sword forward for a piercing attack.

Yet, to his surprise, the blow was deflected by a vibrant yellow force field.

Realizing something was wrong with the force field, the guy quickly jumps back.

“This is a magical artifact and the source of magic power you see are my very precious belongings itself.” The slave merchant waves his stick as he points it at all his slaves with the collars on their necks.

I looked at the slaves and he was right; the soul energy was being drained from all of them and one by one they were falling unconscious. The artifact was able to absorb the life energy of the slaves at a tremendous rate.

The slave merchant was set on completely draining all the slaves of their life energy. If this continued they were all going to die.

Thankfully the first guard killed had dropped the chains he was going to put around my neck beside me. Quickly picking them up, I asked Al to analyze them. If it was an artifact, it most probably had a condition in the form of a curse. Then my light magic should be able to nullify it and render it useless.

“Now everyone attack him.” The slave merchant ordered his goons to move, the same yellow force field appeared over them.

As the goons now with confidence kept attacking the guy in black. He had no choice but to dodge and keep guard. If he attacked he would have put the life of the slaves at risk by absorbing more of their magical energy to repel his own attack.

I saw the guy struggle unable to quickly come up with a counter for this without harming the innocent slaves.

“You cannot do anything. Can you now. I will make sure chump brats like you learn your lesson. Let’s see who falls first, the slaves you came here to rescue or yourself. Either way I win. Haaaaa…”

“Could you please stop? That vulgar laugh makes me uncomfortable.” I didn’t want to forgive the slave merchant for making Stella do such a horrible thing or hurting other kids.

[ANALYSIS COMPLETE. RESULT AFFIRMATIVE.]

The moment I got the green signal from Al, I quickly cast my strongest healing magic on the entire church ground. It only looked like a light flashing from the ground. But in only a span of less than a second, all the slaves were healed of their wounds, injury and the cursed slave chains wither into ash.

I quickly try to stop my magic, before using more than required. As usual, the effect surpassed what was actually needed.

As soon as the guy, notices the force field dissipating, and realizes I had severed the chain. Without hesitation, he swiftly swung his sword, slicing through his opponents. His blade burned with a black aura, akin to dark magic but it was quite different and something I had never seen before.

The overwhelming amount of magic concentrated on the edge of the sword made it look like it could cut through anything now.

Moving with lightning speed, he dashed towards the salve merchant planning to escape, leaving him no opportunity to react or make any further moves. With a decisive strike, his sword pierced the merchant's abdomen, leaving him wounded and bleeding profusely on the ground.

Now that all of them were taken care of, the guy quietly walks towards us. I still held Stella closely. I didn’t know who he was, so I was still on my guard.

Having no choice, I decided to look at his status.

“⸻I cannot.” I whispered to myself in disbelief as the status appeared hazy to me. No actual information was visible.

Is this guy actually stronger than me?

As I stared at him with flinched eyes, I could not help but feel I was being quietly stared back at by the guy too.

Unable to suppress my uneasiness, I did not know what could happen next. Was my identity still safe? Could he see my status then?

“Are you…” Just when the guy was about to say something.

The silence was quickly broken by Stella’s outburst when she realized the fight was over. Also, the slaves who had woken up started screaming out for help. At least they looked back to being healthy and uninjured now.

“Are you …alright?” the guy approached Stella.

In response, she looked up and said, “Is it over? Are my friends and I free now?”

“Yes.” The guy answered.

“Thank you.” With that Stella again started crying holding me more tightly while I stroked her head. Her fear finally took a normal form and she no longer had to hold back.

The guy most probably thought it was not the right time, and decided to break the cages and let all the kids out.

When Stella started feeling well again, she explained the situation to us of how her friends were captured in a similar way and she was promised that they would be released if she brought in more people to take their place. Since Stella was being monitored she could not tell or ask anyone for help but do as they said.

So, I also fell victim to this racket altogether from the very start.

All the other kids belonged to the Stark capital city and were captured from the day that slavery was abolished and shared the same story.

The boy now looks at me intently, as if indirectly asking how did I end up here.

Right, by the looks I did not really fit in this group, and saying that I lost my way in the city and then got duped by a girl and finally got myself kidnapped was too embarrassing to say in front of so many.

Wait! Isn’t this the place, where I should say ⸻my name’s not important? I am nobody special. Since I am the one who truly saved them with my magic in the end.

“Are you dumb?” the boy said, while I was still thinking.

“Is that the first thing you say to me!?” I yelled without thinking of the people listening.

“I will have you know I am a magical genius and the greatest healer. My name is Alicia.” I did not want to lose face around so many, especially about my healing magic.

“I see.” The boy could not help but notice how easily the curse spell was dispelled and everyone was healed. There was no hostility, but both of us were observing each other now for the very same reason. Seems, like my identity is safe and the mask is doing its interfering.

“Thank you, big brother and big sister Alicia for saving us.” Just then Stella held our hands while laughing, she wanted to introduce us to her friends who just now came out of the cage and we got surrounded by a whole bunch of kids.

“It doesn’t mean anything. I was just passing by.” The boy said without any expression on his face.

“Wahhhh…” The kids were surprised by how cool he sounded.

That was supposed to be my line and wasn’t I the one who tracked them down and healed them. On the other hand, I was glad this ended without any problem and went all according to my plan, only if it was half of it.

Just as I thought, all these kids had magic potential, and so were valuable as slaves in various ways. Being commoners and missing from the kingdom itself, no one would be able to find them. So, he must have been planning to do this for a long time. Once slavery was made illegal he was forced to play out his hand and hasten his preparations while fleeing.

The next thing we decided was to quickly take these kids back home. Fortunately, the boy knew the way back from the forest, so all I just needed to do was make sure all of the kids were together as we would search for their houses in the city.

Despite the age difference between me and them, the moment we hit the city roads, the children began to act freely. They were no longer scared and finally felt safe.

Surprisingly all of these kids knew their way around and it did not take much time to get them back to their home. Hours passed as we send off the children from far to their homes only to be received by their worried surprised parents.

Finally, the last kid remaining was Stella herself.

“Big brother I am sorry I did not want to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.” The boy then showed Stella the white cloth wrapped around his hand.

Why is he so carelessly waving it like that, shouldn’t he get it treated soon? I don’t know why my magic didn’t work on him and it would be meaningless to try it again right now and only raise suspicion for each other.

“Big Sister Alicia. I am sorry, I really wanted to help you to get back to your home. If you want I can still take you to the church tower or the walls.”

The boy looked at me with a suspicious gaze. Don’t tell me he figured it out.

“It’s alright Stella I think I just remembered something now. Your parents will be waiting for you back at home so you should not make them wait any longer. There will be another time.”

“So, we are going to meet again.”

“Most definitely.” I tried to cheer up her because she did not need to worry. The sun was already about to set and it would get dark soon.

“Goodbye, big sister. I will play with you next time as well.”

Maybe I should next time bring Hana with me. But I will have to warn her not to use her physical strength while playing.

Wait, doesn’t it mean I am the only one left? I can’t just teleport right in front of this guy and reveal my powers. It's best I hide them for now.

But I don’t know what to say to a boy. Especially when someone’s around my age. Children and elders are easier to talk to.

The boy kept on staring at my mask; has he already figured something out? Should I really bring up the topic of status, and what if he himself does not have any appraisal skill?

The staring kept up for a while and I looked around stealing gazes. Why do I have to behave like I am the one at fault here?

“Just so you know, I intentionally got myself kidnaped to get to the bottom of the case. I could have handled it on my own.”

“I know, I am glad you were there to help the kids and take care of the artifact. And sorry for ruining your cloth.” The boy raises his arm and shows the palm covered with the torn cloth.

“Don’t just flaunt or wave it like that. You could have just said thank you. It was only for formality because you got hurt because of me.” I winced with embarrassment. What was I thinking, to do such a humiliating thing? Even though I did not use a properly sanitized bandage, my dress is made out of webs and magic so it should be fine.

“You are pretty good at looking after children. I couldn’t have done the rest myself.”

“Well, I do have two small sisters, and I like looking after them.” I remembered about Lili and my younger cousin sister back from my previous world. I hope both of them are doing well.

“Thank you.”

“There is no need to thank me. After all you took care of the entire organization while I just sat and watch.”

“Since you gave me your name. Then I should tell you mine as well.” The boy then thought for a while. I wonder what was there to really think about?

“⸻My name is Ken.”

Just then the church bell began to ring loudly marking the setting of the sun as he looked up in the direction from where the sound came.

The next time he turned back I had already left.

***

STARK PALACE

[TELEPORT]

I am glad he finally took his eyes off of me.

I knew I could no longer wait there or be embarrassed. And it was dangerous for me to stay there. If I cannot see his status, it means that my identity is equally at the risk of being exposed. He did use only little magic while fighting in the end and it was not just any ordinary magic.

Wait! I forgot to asked him, how did he find us.

Was he just fooling around there and it was only a coincidence?

Doesn’t matter I was back at the palace gates and out of nowhere Regis, Hana, Caige, Maia and Arya rushed to meet me.

“Where were you all this time. All of us were worried.” Regis demanded an answer without giving me a window to greet any of them.

“I went to the city on my own and came back.” It was finally my time to show Regis I could do it myself. Even though in the end I had to use teleport to get back, but it was only for emergency.

Maybe just this time I will apologise to her for refusing to go outside.

“You did what? And why are your clothes torn and dirty. And how could you leave all the time waiting outside the library.” Regis shouted at me without thinking of my feelings or considering my achievements of making back home in one piece. Maybe I will just have to keep this entire adventure to myself.

***

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