‘There you are, you little terror!’ A woman behind a fruit stand shouted as she looked for something to throw at Seth.

‘What did you do this time?’ Lan asked, stepping back as he readied to defend himself.

‘Nothing, I swear.’

‘Oh, don’t you dare lie and you,’ She rounded on Lan, ‘are you this little monster’s brother?’

‘That’s right?’ Seth answered before Lan could enthusiastically deny it.

‘Oh yeah? Well, you’ll have to pay for the fruit he stole,’ She said, jabbing her finger at the two of them in time with her words. With a frown at the boy, Lan sighed.

‘I’m not his brother; I’m another one of his victims.’ At this, she frowned and seemed to take a closer look at them.

‘You know you are covered in blood, right?’

‘I noticed, yeah. Well, while we are here, do you mind selling us some fruit. And don’t worry, I’ll pay for this and whatever he stole. ’ Lan placated, just getting a huff from the woman.

‘You pick what you want.’

‘That's what I did last time, and you got mad.’ Seth said, moving to grab a large Light apple before crying out as she smacked him on the hand.

‘You have to pay after you pick them.’ A little more cautiously, Seth picked about twenty apples. The whole time the woman watched Lan as she leaned on her hand.

‘So the boy steals from you, and you buy him a meal?’

Lan shrugged, and her expression softened a little, and she looked him over again.

‘Oh well, it’s not like I am going to stop you.’ With the apples paid for and a little extra for whatever it was he had taken earlier, they readied to leave.

‘Come on then. I’ll help to carry all… well this anyway.’ Seth said, picking up the wrapped meat Leaving Lan to carry the rest as he followed.

As they walked, Seth's eyes never stopped moving. Only stopping for a moment to shake his head or frown. After some time, Lan started seeing who he was looking at. People. People who seemed like anyone else but would suddenly change direction when Seth looked at them.

‘Hey, I have to know. How did you know that?’ Lan asked, and Seth looked at him for a moment. ‘How did you know to pick me.’ Seth shrugged as his expression grew guarded.

‘It was how you were walking.’ At that, Lan stared blankly at the boy until he went on. ‘When people walk with their hands in their pockets, their hands most of the time swing a little, yours are all stiff, and you kept looking around too, and you were trying too hard not to look weird.’

Clearly, feeling like he wasn’t explaining well enough, Seth pointed to a man in fine clothes. ‘See, that man probably has more coin than you, but he walks like nothing is on his mind. It’s clear that he has money, and he is careless about it. So it’s likely that you would get in big trouble if he caught you. If you see a woman with a sword, you know they can use it. If you watch people enough, you can tell when they don’t act right. You just got to learn what it means.’

Lan nodded. It made sense, even if he had never thought to put it into words before.

After some time, they walked out of the city gate and over to a building on a nearby hill overlooking the city. As they approached the building, a young girl waved to them before running down.

Of course, it was the same girl that had distracted Lan when Seth picked his pocket. When she recognised him, she slid to a stop, looking wide-eyed at Lan before giving him a sweet smile.

‘Oh, it’s you, mister. I never had a chance to thank you for helping me because you ran off so fast.’

‘Leave it alone, Milly, he is alright,’ Seth said, much to the girl's surprise.

‘He is. Did he not have any money?’ she whispered as if it was the only reason Lan wouldn’t have to kill Seth.

‘I said drop it. Are the others home?’

‘Yeah, everyone is here,’ she answered, running around the two of them. ‘Oh, what’s this.’ She asked, lifting the cover over the bread.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘Hey! Go let Sister know that we have a guest.’ Seth said, and with a nod, the girl ran off. Not even a moment later, they heard.

‘Sister, Seth brought home a weird man!’

‘Sorry.’ Seth shrugged.

‘That’s alright,’ Lan smiled a moment before a wave of children came tumbling down the hill towards them. Predictably it was mostly the same children from their previous encounter in the alley, only this time, they looked genuinely excited as they hovered around Seth and his weird friend.

‘Hey, if you don’t stop, you aren’t getting any!’ Seth shouted as they crowded around, some even trying to swing off Lan’s arms. In the chaos, Lan noticed one child who looked to be the youngest of the ten children pulling on his shirt, although he didn’t say anything.

‘Oh no, what do you think you are doing? Leave that man alone.’ A soft voice called over the children. When Lan looked up, he was greeted by a silk-skinned woman with long soft Blonde hair and green eyes. She was dressed in a simple green dress that did little to hide her natural beauty; in fact, if anything, accented it. Lan must have been staring because as their eyes met, she looked worriedly at Seth.

‘Who is this, Seth?’ she asked, her eyes returning to Lan as if readying to choose her next move depending on what he would say.

‘Lily, this is Lan. He got hurt helping me out.’

‘Oh?’ she said, looking more worried before it shifted to suspicion, ‘You weren’t stealing again, were you?’ she added, her tone a long-suffering one which Lan decided made her a great judge of character.

‘What? No!’ Seth protested, and Lan was sure he could see the little wheels in the boy’s mind kick up the speed. ‘I was just walking around when some people who thought I had stolen money came there to take it from me. Lan wouldn’t have helped me if I was really stealing, would he?’ Seth lied, and from the softening of her expression Lan guessed Lily had bought it, and he decided she was a terrible judge of character.

‘Thank you for looking after him.’ Lily gave him a warm smile. A sight like the promise of the comfort of a fireplace on a winter night.

‘Oh, not at all.’ Lan found himself smiling without thinking and then tried to ignore the grin on Seth’s face.

‘Lan needs help because he is not a pot carrier,’ He grinned at his intentional mistake, ‘seeing as he saved me and bought us all this food. I was hoping that you would.’ Lan looked at Lily again. She must have been a healer.

‘Seth, you didn’t tell Lan I was a healer, did you? I told you I only know a little. You shouldn’t go promising people things for food that we can’t do.’ Lily told Seth in the tone of someone who only wanted to best for him.

‘He didn’t promise me anything. He didn’t even tell me where we were going,’ Lan stepped in. ‘as for the food. Well, I kind of walked into that one,’ Lan shrugged when Lily gave him an odd look. After a moment and more accusatorial looks at Seth, she sighed.

‘I guess it couldn’t hurt to have a look at you.’

‘Great! I’ll make sure everyone gets something to eat, and you can heal Lan,’ Seth called some of the other children by name, who took the basket from him as Lan followed Lily.

‘What is this place?’ Lan asked as they walked around the building, which looked like a noble’s manor, although in a bit of disrepair. Around the property were the remnants of a wall that, for the most part, had been reclaimed by nature in the places where a bit of wall still stuck out.

‘It’s an orphanage, of course.’ She said a little too insistently.

‘Ah, right…’ Lan nodded, feeling no desire to argue the point, like the fact that one had to be a sister of light to manage an Orphanage in Roark. Even though the children called her sister, Lan didn’t feel the aura of a nun around her. Whatever her reason for lying was, it was her reason.

As they reached the back of the building, Lily told Lan to sit in the chair around a table that once may have hosted tea parties and headed inside. From where he sat, Lan had a view of the plains heading to the same forest they had faced the razer wolves. He could even see the road they had taken. A part of him knew he should have been shaken by this.

Now that Lan had his money back, he would enter it again at some point. But all he could think about was what would have happened if the wolves hadn’t been spotted, or worse yet, if the guild hadn’t been able to stop them. How would Lily, Seth and Milly have done? They lived outside of the walls of the capital, and they didn’t even have village guards like his home did. Before Lan could let the bitter thought set in, Lily returned.

‘Are you alright?’ she asked, concern on her face, along with a new pair of eyeglasses. Which was not only a wonderful touch but an expensive one at that.

‘Oh, no, I am fine.’ Lan looked away.

‘Are you sure.’ She asked and moved to look at his face.

‘I’m fine,’ Lan laughed, ‘I was just thinking about… well, work.’

‘Oh,’ Lily said, setting the bucket and towel down, ‘and what does a man who is willing to buy a meal for twenty children do for work.

‘I am… an Adventurer,’ Lan said, finding the words a little embarrassing to say.

‘What?’ Lily’s face flashed to worry. ‘What did Seth do.’ She asked and looked ready to run to find him.

‘Huh, nothing.’

‘But why is someone strong enough to hurt an adventurer after him then?’

‘Oh! No, I only just started.’ Lan shrugged, ‘plus, I had sand in my eyes at the time.’ he added, more so for his own ego than Lily, who sighed.

‘Okay…’ Lily said, visibly relaxing before quickly snatching up the towel. ‘speaking of which.’ she sat next to him and started to clean his wound.

Clearly, him throwing water on his face hadn’t been a good enough job as she frowned. ‘This cut is deep, and just from a glance, the sand has scratched the top layer of your eyes. It must not feel too nice.’

‘No, miss, it does not.’ Lan said

‘Try not to look around. I’ll start with your eyes.’ With that, Lan’s vision filled with a warm golden light as Lily’s hands started to glow.

[Targeted spell linked: Lesser heal]

Almost immediately, as the pain began to fade, he relaxed as if a weight had fallen from his shoulders.

‘Alright, your eyes should be healed.’ Lily said as he tried blinking.’

‘Yeah. I think they are.’ Lan smiled as the blinded status effect vanished and turned to find Lily staring at him. The moment their eyes met, her face reddened, and she looked away.

‘Are you alright? You didn’t use too much mana, did you?’ Lan tried.

‘Just fine, it’s just… she looked at him before looking away quickly. ‘Never mind, I’ll work on your face now. And thank you.’ She added as she started to work on his nose and the cut above his eye.

‘For what?’