Chapter 8: I'll take him

As the sun hung in the middle of the sky on top of the Teir-2 city of Aries, inside the conference room of the three-story tall Adventurers' Guild Building, Four men and Three Women sat at one side of the table in the middle of the room.

At the head of the table,a gray haired man with a scar that passed over his shut right eyelid and his misshapen nose was sitting with one of his hands twisting the end of his mustache.

All the other participants in the meeting were obviously waiting for him to speak.

The gray haired man stopped twirling his mustache and looked at the people sitting around him as he began speaking,

"I guess you all must know about the attacks in the Tier-one cities that fell under our jurisdiction, The attacks were all premeditated and all targeted orphanages, in particular the nursery was the prime objective of the invaders. Those at this table will be responsible for handling the response for this incident, any questions?"

"Do we know which organization is behind these attacks yet?", A man wearing a black tank top with black trousers asked, to which, the man wearing glasses and a white robe, looking like a generic mage out of a fantasy themed novel while sitting to the right of the old man, replied "My scours in some of the cities have reported to me that the invaders that were captured claim to be from the Black Crow."

"The Black crow? But dont all their members commit suicide as soon as they are captured? I've been trying to get one of my spies into the inner circle for years." Said a dark skinned woman wearing brown clothing with a golden lining as she slammed the palm of her hands down onto the conference table, which shook gently. It was clear to the others at the table that she had barely used any strength and had slammed the table for show rather than out of frustration.

"That's just it, apparently when they were questioned about the same, they claimed they were from the outer circle and this was one of their first missions, except for the team leaders, who all either escaped or ended up dying fighting against the defenders, there were no survivors amongst them." The knock off mage replied.

"Oh that's boring." Said the dark skinned woman as she settled down, seemingly losing interest.

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*Ahem*, the old man who had just watched the topic at hand go out the proverbial window, tried to use his authority to bring the conversation back around.

"Oh come on Gramps, we all know what's gonna happen; We're gonna accuse the Black Crow, they're gonna claim plausible deniability or claim they are being framed until eventually we come to a compromise, and they provide us some resources as compensation at the threat of us taking this to the Union Association." Said a short girl that seemed to be the youngest one at the table, looking like a teenager with a pair of ponytails and boyish fingerless gloves on her hands.

There was an awkward silence in the room as everyone except the old man stared at the girl, the old man meanwhile seemed to be quite interested in the floral patterns on the wall.

...

Meanwhile, in Vandara;

Construction work was ongoing in the nursery to fix the roof with the giant hole in the wall; Many middle-aged uncles could be seen roaming without a shirt as they did labor work to earn some money to survive another day and feed their families.

Although most infants were fine thanks to the quick response of the matrons, some infants had fainted after the first clash between the now deceased head matron and the disappeared blue haired man due to the loud noise and pressure created by the collision of their fists.

These injured infants were kept under constant surveillance and as their tiny little eyes opened one by one smiles could be seen on the faces of the matrons, even though the orphanage had lost so much in yesterdays' tragedy.

Soon every infant except one had opened their eyes, except one.

It was the green-eyed one that barely cried or laughed, he had been found unconscious and on his back after the sun had risen and his eyes had been swollen for no apparent cause.

Soon, a few days had passed since the incident, the roof had almost been completely repaired and the middle-aged uncles that were done with their responsibilities had started to leave.

As the manual workers began to leave, one of them approached three matrons that were all sitting next to a crib near the entrance of the orphanage and asked,

"Is everything alright? I've seen you three here since the past few days and it seems that you aren't getting much rest, especially after what y'all went through a few days ago"

He looked at the three matrons that were now looking at him and continued

"If there's anything I can do that will help you with your problems, do let me know, after all my father himself was raised in this orphanage."

One of the matrons seemed to recognize the mans' father by resemblance and began chatting with him, now having a self loathing smile on her face; She explained the situation of the infant and how his brother had most likely been killed by the blue haired man.

"What a pitiful child, If he does wake up, he deserves some happiness after all that's happened to him."

The old man said, he then paused for a second and continued with a determined look on his face,

"I'll come by in three days time, if he has wakened up by then I'll take him as my own."

The old man then nodded to himself as though reaffirming his determination, and then turned around and left the orphanage without a word.