“I needed some action, right...”

I started banging my head rhythmically against the bars in front of me. One, two, tatatatatat, one, two, tatatatatatat… “Perfect!”

“Alt, calm down,” Julian said, leaning his back against the dirty wall. We were in a kind of prison. Our carriage had been attacked out of nowhere. Many of the personal guards and knights were hit by arrows in the sudden attack or perished in the flames. And there were so many of them that fighting back would only get the kids killed.

Calm down... I had to be calm. My mom would definitely check if I had reached home in a while. But would she know exactly where I was? As far as I remember, she could only see around me.

I had to get out of this cage and get out into the open field. I looked around, there were 4 cages opposite each other, we were not the only children being attacked, there were about 10 other children here. I couldn't put them in danger. The place where we were was like a small prison underground, where one bandit was waiting for us and two to three dozen of others were waiting above.

I watched the bandits for a while and I was able to understand that every half an hour or so a person would come down and check and then go back up again.

“You even took my flask!” I shouted.

“Alt, please,” Julian said, but I continued, I couldn't stay here any longer.

“At least give me my flask, I only filled it with some wine from the palace, I'm going crazy with thirst, please!”

I noticed the sneer on the man's face and as he asked, “Which one was yours?” I quickly pointed to my black and yellow flask. I took my hand out of the cage and held it out to him, he approached me and, as I had predicted, he started drinking from my flask while he was sneering. From the second sip he took, the veins in his body turned black and he fell to the ground.

He was dead, I don't think there was a creature capable of handling the poison I drank as water every day. That was the second time I killed someone. No, it was the first time I had killed someone willingly, no matter how much of an asshole he was, I stared at his corpse in silence for a while. But I quickly pulled myself together and took the keys from his waist with a stone stick I had created with magic and unlocked everyone's cage.

As the children and Julian looked at me in amazement, I made a 'hush' sign with my index finger and we started moving silently towards the stairs. I could have taken the sword from the man's desk, but it was too big for me or anyone else here to lift and use effectively.

“Hey Larry! Ronald said-”

A man with a big nose, thin body, wearing a leather armor was coming down the stairs, this was the guy who kept going up and down. After he took a few steps I created a barrier right in front of his foot and made him fall down the stairs and then I eased his fall with the wind and I pinned his face, mouth, arms and legs to the ground with stone locks. I looked him in the eye and I started to choke him with creating a bubble of air and as he was about to pass out and die, my hands started shaking and my head started hurting, should I kill him?

If I continued, he would die.

He was looking into my eyes.

As if he was begging.

Didn't these kids beg for their parents too?

If I keep going…

I think he died.

…

“Let's go,” I said, looking at Julian, and everyone nodded.

How normal it was for you guys, right? Now I had to see this guy in my dreams, and maybe others too.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The man I had just killed had a dagger, and one of the boys, who looked like he was about 15 or 16, was reaching for it, and when he saw me reaching for it he stopped, but I took it and gave it to him.

“You look like you can use it better than me, maybe you should take it,” the boy said. He was a boy with short red hair and green eyes, maybe the oldest of us.

“No,” I handed him the dagger again and this time he took it.

“How many elements can you use at the same time and how old are you?” A blonde girl asked and I looked at her in surprise. She averted her eyes and I started walking up the stairs.

When I looked up and around, luckily I didn't see anyone and when I signaled to the others, everyone came up in silence.

We were in a small abandoned fortress-like place. The walls to the left and to the right of us had fallen down, but there were bandits roaming around. And very close to us two bandits were sitting, eating from bowls in their hands. The bandits all had leather armor.

I could see our carriages a little bit ahead, it was almost impossible to escape with them, for sure someone would be caught or injured or worst case scenario, someone would be killed.

I could see that there were a lot of trees in the area around us, we could try to escape through the trees, but if we were attacked by the beasts, one or more of the children would definitely be injured.

It didn't make sense to attack the bandits either.

While I was still thinking, a bandit came towards where we were, and at the last moment I realized and was about to attack him, the boy whom I had given the dagger grabbed the bandit, pushed him against the wall and stabbed him in the throat with the dagger, killing him. I looked at him and he was very calm, I asked him, “Do you do this often?” and he replied, “My father wore the purple cape in the 15th legion, I was trained to do this.”

Whatever that means.

“I'm Vincent, I want to thank you, if I had stayed there and waited to be rescued, I would have disgraced my father's name,” he said as I looked at the blood on the floor.

I moved forward without saying anything and approached the yellow building near the broken wall to our left. Getting away from the bandits was the best option at the moment.

After counting at least 8 people inside, I was about to leave the building and look for another way out when a voice called out.

“Hey! You-”

The moment I noticed the man shouting in our direction, I created a stone stake between his legs and impaled him. He was dead, but most of the bandits in the castle seemed to realize that something was wrong. We moved quickly towards the building on the left, hiding in the corner of the building as the bandits came out and Vincent killed one of them with a knife through the heart, while I knocked the other one to the ground with a stone stake I had created from the ground, hitting him in the knee and knocking him unconscious with another stone stake.

As soon as we entered the building, I looked around and saw a full-length mirror inside. I took it and placed it opposite the door, facing left, and after sending the children to hide in the corner of the room, I waited to the left of the door. The first bandit who came to the door looked in the mirror, of course he couldn't see me, so he looked to his right and went in, and I stuck a sharp spear made of a stone in the bandit's leg and pulled him to my side, and as he fell to the ground, I created a sphere around his head, which I used to zero out the air inside and prevent his voice from being heard. Just as I was about to knock him out, I saw my siyah dagger at his waist and I quickly grabbed it and stabbed the fallen thug in the throat and wiped the blood from my face as everyone looked at me. “Are you a vampire?” Vincent asked as I cleaned my hands with the water spell and I shook my head, “It was an illusion spell.”

It was both a lie and not, but I had something more important to say, “I'm running out of mana.”

I wanted to save the mana I had left to heal myself, I had to be prepared for the worst case scenario. We'd killed three of the bandits, so there were only five of them left in this building, and there must have been at least ten more outside. Fighting was not an option, and they would be cautious now that they had seen the dead bandits. Element of surprise was gone. We moved through the building and approached the broken wall and saw 3 bandits waiting there.

My heart was beating like crazy, I had to use my mana carefully but…

As we jumped out of the window and approached the wall, I conjured a voice in the forest, “Larry!”

It was the voice of the man who was checking us, it wasn't exactly the same, as I remember, but it seemed to attract the attention of those who were waiting at the broken wall. And I was out of mana.

I started to have trouble walking and Julian held me and helped me to walk. Two of the men were heading into the woods and one was still waiting where we were going to pass. Vincent moved slowly, close to the wall, looking for an opening to strike the man unnoticed, and in a split second, I don't know where it came from, but an arrow with a very delicate but blinding light appeared, shattering the bandit's armor and pinning him to the ground.

As everyone stared in fear at the bandit's body, we hurried through the broken wall, away from the fortress and into the woods.

“Hey fucking brats, they're running away!” One of the bandits shouted, and we accelerated in panic.

Had I turned into a murderer for killing these thugs, or was it just self-defense? Hadn't I cleaned my hands? Why were there still blood stains?

And why did I feel so tired?

“Hey, Alt! Stay awake!

Hey!”