Az was woken up early by the rising sunshine blinding him. Yawning, he stood up, mumbling: "next time, someone should better close these damn curtains," before continuing lying.

There he realized something. It felt as if a flash just hit him, waking Az immediately up, who was still half asleep.

"Wait, a second. Curtains? Wait, how did I even end up here?" Az shouted as he jolted out of his lying position, glancing in all directions of his room.

But seeing his servants with him in the room relieved the young boy, who immediately fell back on his bed.

'As long as they are here with me, I'll probably be in a safe place.'

"Oh, our young master is also finally awake," Simaev commented with a smile as her gaze moved from the book in her hands to Az and back.

His other three servants were also busy reading. Ogron regularly commented to himself at least twice a minute: "The quality of the language really degraded over time," whenever he found a sentence that sounded odd.

"At least you can read that stuff. These bastards changed the whole damn alphabet. I can't even read these books," sighed Otaz, whose head was resting on the table, showing an expression of defeat.

Hearing their conversation, Az chuckled.

Even if his minions couldn't give him any warmth, seeing them interact with each other just as humans made him smile.

'They may not be able to replace the family I once had. But they protect me, and as long as they are around me, I don't feel alone.'

But before Az could say anything, Satoshi threw a letter to him, which the former caught.

Confused, he looked at the envelope. He neither knew the province nor the city from where the letter was mailed, but as his gaze hit the name of the one sending the letter, he got excited.

The one from whom the letter was, was none else than his oldest brother.

Filled with happiness, excitement, and also with curiosity, Az ripped the envelope open before taking out the letter addressed to him with shaky hands.

As he saw the familiar handwriting of his oldest brother, his breath grew rapid, and some tears fell down out of happiness.

The group immediately grew quiet, and Ogron commented: "You're already crying without even reading the letter?"

"Pssht!" replied Simaev to his dumb remark, hitting the former's head with her hand before slowly standing up.

Till now, Az didn't even dare to think of what happened to his siblings. Az just couldn't accept that they may have even died during the spell.

Satoshi once bluntly told Az after hearing his story: "The likelihood of any of your siblings having survived is pretty slim. If I'm being honest, especially for Luz, your oldest brother. Even if that guy somehow survived, he will at least be crippled. If he is lucky, of course."

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

This honest statement always haunted the young kid. He always denied it in hopes that his siblings were all well.

"It's ok. But please calm down before you read the letter. We don't want to make the letter dirty, right?" whispered Simaev into Az's ear.

Az nodded as tears streamed down his cheeks like waterfalls. "I-I-I'm just happy," muttered Az while cleaning his eyes.

With a trembling voice, Az began to read the letter aloud so that all of his servants could hear it.

"Dear Az,

Your eldest brother is doing well. He is in the care of a master mage and now has a job. Meanwhile, I have caught up with you and am now a beginner mage like you. You don't have to worry about me.

I just want to tell you that I am proud of you. You survived until now and came up with the idea of using the guild network to contact all of us."

Reaching that point, Az couldn't continue because of all the tears he was shedding. He was just happy. In the room, a crying boy was seen, holding tightly a letter with both hands. His smile was so genuine that it could melt even the hearts of the coldest warriors.

After calming himself down, he continued reading:

"I am looking forward to our future reunion, and your mail calms my heart since now I know that at least one of us is doing well.

I would love to pack all my things and leave to find you, but I don't have enough money for the trip yet. I am here in the city called Albian on Master Brian's estate.

Visit me there. Tell the butlers that you are the younger brother of Luz, and they will welcome you.

I look forward to your response, and hopefully, you can read your older brother's writing. ;)

By any chance, have our remaining siblings responded to you?

I'm still worried about them.

Sincerely, your eldest brother Luz."

After finishing the letter, his tears still streamed down, and he muttered as quietly as possible: "Brother. I wish to hug you one more time. I also want you to give me some brotherly warmth I'm craving."

There he sat silently on his bed, hugging the letter as tight as possible.

Nobody dared to utter a comment, but Az's sobbing stopped completely after like 15 minutes.

"I've decided that we'll be moving to my brother as fast as possible," he stated bluntly.

To his surprise, none of his servants objected to his words. They smiled and were happy for you.

"Well, we've already expected that. But we need one day's worth of time before we move," admitted Satoshi.

"Why?" asked Az immediately.

Satoshi slowly stood up and made his to Az while answering his question with another question. "Well, do you expect us to know the way?"

Now, Az got the problem, and he felt a bit embarrassed by his stupidity. His teacher merely smiled as he patted Az with his bone fingers.

"It's ok not to realize everything at a moment's notice. We'll be asking the guild staff if the higher-ups here could help us out with some maps and so forth," Satoshi commented.

Ogron added: "We'll also have to do some research on the place. You know, we four are skeletons. Therefore it's important for us to know through which kind of security we have to go through, without grabbing anyone's attention there."

The message Az sent back to Luz was quite a short one.

"Dear brother,

it warms my heart hearing that you're well off. I've been worried about all my brothers, especially about you, since you had the highest risk of dying. You probably were also worried about me. But worry not, I'm probably better off than you since I've got my own servants who were taking care of everything I can't take care of.

Unfortunally, I haven't yet received any message from any of our other siblings. But if you can survive, they'll probably also survive till now. It's merely a matter of time before they send us a message.

As for your magic talent, I'll be testing it after our reunion, heheheh.

I've also got some great news for you. You're most beloved brother will be visiting you soon, rather you gotta take care of him soon, hehehe.

Sincerely Az."

***********************************************************************************************

A few days later, a group made of five left the guild.

"Luz, I'm coming," muttered Az, starring towards the shining red morning sun. And so their journey towards Luz's place began.