[Kiiria!] Eirlathion greeted my mother warmly as she approached. [You have come early. I am still teaching the boys. What brings you here at this time?]

[Well… Fomire, do you want to tell them?] She asked, turning to the woman beside her with a somewhat happy look on her face.

The early-30s looking woman nodded and stepped forward when her name was called and looked around to us.

[Some scouts just returned. They mentioned seeing some highway-men up ahead. They were wondering if Asaren and the two boys would like to participate again.] She dutifully reported.

Rolwen immediately got a dark look on his face. If his was dark though, Levin positively paled and looked like he was about to cry.

I looked over and noted Levin’s expression with narrowed eyes. It looked like he was still traumatized from the last time we joined the hunting bands on one of these ventures.

It was one of the things that the Hidan did. They were a roving band of powerful fighters, and they routinely traveled right through what some provincial city-states decided was their territory. Of course, this would make most of these city dwellers feel threatened and uncomfortable that what amounted to a small war party was passing so nearby them.

Given this situation, simply not attacking people was not enough to set them at ease. Instead, they had discovered another way. They would actively go after the local bandits and highwaymen. What bandits did to the innocent travelers, they would do the same to the bandits. They would kill, capture, and enslave the brutal men and sell them off to the local authority figures for bounty. The Hidan had little need of the money and goods of the local townships, but this bought them in reputation was something that could not be measured in monetary value.

And so, when bandits are spotted, the procedure is always to assault and crush them.

We had joined the last couple raids they’d gone on. It was apparently their way of training the young ones in this tribe, bringing them along to observe the hunts. We were the youngest there, and it was considered quite early to be joining a hunt, but they’d decided to make an exception due to our past-life memories.

Last time, I brought up a rather wild idea that would lead us to their base-camp. However, this involved me and the boys going out alone to approach the bandits. This meant that, when the fighting started, we all got a very up-close view of the bloodshed. We were all prepared for the bandits to mistreat us, but Levin was not ready to see someone become a corpse right in front of him.

That wasn’t all though. Our mission failed because one of them decided he wanted to give me a somewhat violet reminder of my new gender in this world. I responded by turning my wooden bracelet into a dagger and nearly taking his arm off, and then severing his spinal chord and turning him into a paraplegic.

I’m a god-dam 5 year old now! The guy got exactly what he deserved.

Actually, it’s a lot more likely that second part was what traumatized Levin more than anything. He came to me privately later and confided in me that he was actually a girl in his past life. Perhaps that made him a little more sensitive to this sort of thing and was over-empathizing with me a little from that incident. Either way, he still needed some recovery time before trying anything like that again.

While we didn’t accomplish what we were going after, it didn’t actually lose us anything. We were planning to wipe them out anyway, and the rest of the hunting party was laying in wait and pounced the very second they saw things were going south. All it meant was that we weren't getting the bonus extra we had been aiming for. It seemed like the Hidan men also had a lot of respect for me due to how I’d handled myself. I suppose that’s evident in the fact they were willing to let me have another try at it now.

I looked back to Fomire after considering the situation for a while. [After what happened last time, I do not think it is a good idea for Levin to join me until he has learned to use the living wood weapon he has. Rolwen, are you interested in coming along? You have just learned, but it should not be hard to produce a dagger with what you know now.]

[Heh, another high-danger mission to take out a threat.] He said, before suddenly switching to English. “I gotta say, I still stand by my statement from last time. The risk-reward analysis on this is totally fucked. But, it’s training, right? Yeah, it’s dangerous, but it’s actually lower danger levels than with real ninja infiltration missions. It’s just right for a training mission. Yeah, I hate it, but I’ll go.”

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[Sounds like Rolwen is with us.] I said.

[Very well. I shall go to tell the hunting party you will be joining them.] Fomire replied.

As she was leaving, I looked over to Levin, staring at him until he noticed me looking.

“Don’t worry Levin.” I said. “You can sit back with the rest for this round. Or, do you not want to come at all?”

“Mmm… I’ll come!” He snapped, casting off his misgivings like an annoying piece of fabric that had just been thrown in his general direction.

[Alright. We will all be going.] I announced. [It will only be me and Rolwen to infiltrate, but Levin will still be going along with the hunting party as well.]

I caught a sad longing look from my mother as she stared at me. I’ve caught her looking at me like this a few times before. I suppose it’s an improvement from the old pained looks that suggested her memory of how we were conceived, but I could still sense a different kind of pain behind her eyes.

I wished I could figure out what she was thinking at these times. I had my theories, of course. Too many theories, actually. But, too many of those so closely paralleled my own pain that I could never be certain whether perhaps my thoughts were tainted by bias.

I looked down to avoid her gaze, and then furiously dragged my attention back to the boys. [Well, let us not keep them waiting.] I said, and then lead them off.

***

A short distance from the borderlands of the Mageocracy of Alkath, a small elf girl wandered, together with a young human boy looking to be around the same age as she was. They both seemed highly disheveled, covered in layers of dirt and dried mud, their short hair was matted, and their clothing was worn thin.

Anyone who knew about the elves may assume the boy to be the girl’s birthmate, if it weren’t for the fact that he looked to be nearly identical to her in age. Elven children aged at around 1/3 the rate of humans at this age, and both of them looked to be around 5 or 6.

This lead to the next most likely conclusion. Going by their miserable appearance, it was an easy conclusion to think they might both be escaped slaves, fleeing the same slave master having escaped together. This seemed an entirely reasonable conclusion in every way, unless one were to pay closer attention to realize that, between the both of them, there was not a single bruise, and under their draping long-sleeved clothing they had filled out and toned bodies that were far more fit than those of the regular child.

The distinctly non child-like muscle definition on their upper arms could be interpreted for skinniness, if you were to view it from a distance and were not paying much attention. That is, if you could see the offending upper arms to start with beneath those tattered sleeves.

Despite all of these little inconsistencies, not the least of which would be the question in the sanity of whoever would dare enslave an elven child, the two played the part rather convincingly at first glance as they said little and kept their eyes largely too the ground, only occasionally looking up with fear in their eyes as their heads quickly darted around to scan for possible threats. The most frequent direction either one of them looked, though, was straight back over their shoulders.

The two were travelling down a road that lead from the marshlands toward the next trade city, taking the well-worn path travelled by hundreds of wagons. However, as the two attempted to pass through a narrow point in the road, they both heard a noise.

They gasped and clung to one another as their eyes darted violently around the stone faces around them. Then, they were surrounded. There were large armed men filing in both in front of and behind them, and they gave a sinister chuckle.

{Hey, what do we have here?} One of the men, who appeared to be in a leader-like role, asked. {Looks like maybe some run-away slaves, eh? Alright. Just be quiet now, you two. I’m sure you know what happens if you try to pull something stupid, right?}

The two just cowered and clung to each other. Most of the men were carrying rough looking spears, but there was the occasional bronze-made sword or stone ax among them. There were around 10 of them in total by rough estimate. There was no way a couple of normal children could get out of a situation like this.

{Ey, what we gonna do with them?} One of the guys asked. {We don’t exactly have a way to keep them tied up here or anything.}

{Oh, shit! Look!}

{What?} All of the men cast their eyes in a panic toward the man who was pointing a stunned finger. Some of them on the other side of the children from the man actually looked over their shoulders to make sure he wasn’t indicating some kind of incoming threat, but another voice quickly cleared up their confusion as someone else had noticed the same thing this man had cried out about.

{That kid’s an elf!} He said.

{Shit! What crazy bastard keeps an elf for a slave?}

{I think we just lucked out. Major pay-day.}

{Alright, that’s it!} The man in the lead yelled out. {We’re taking this haul back to camp. Gotta protect this precious cargo.}

{Yeah, hehehe.} Several others chuckled or nodded in agreement.

In all of their celebrating, a slight smile played at the lips of the small boy, before the girl pulled him violently toward her and buried her head in his collar bone.

[Noooo!] She wailed out. [I want to go home!]

Meanwhile, far off in the distance, there were several onlookers hiding themselves in the shadows of a hill.

The girl’s cry was loud enough for them to hear it easily at this distance, and they gave each other a silent nod.

[She just gave the signal.] A man said quietly. [That is what she said she would yell if they are taking them back to the camp. From here, we follow at a distance. This will be a lesson in tracking and stalking from now on.]