-In the forest to the north of the orphanage-

A grey hair colored child could be seen running through the forest. The child had run a lot already, it could be seen from the shoes. The bottom of the shoes were worn away. And the leather was damaged in many places because of the forest environment.

The child stopped before a tree and climbed into an opening at the bottom of the tree quickly. Being just small enough to be able to fit through. The child hid in the tree.

A few moments later, two people came running from the same direction. They stopped right after crossing the tree the child hid in.

"The footsteps end here."

One of the man looked down at where the footsteps ended.

"He must be nearby."

"No, he jumped up. I'm sure of it."

"What? How could a kid do that? Use your brain."

"Are you calling me stupid? How dare you! I'm certain he went up the trees, he's got those beast's blood. He can climb up trees and go around."

"You're right. They've got those strong bodies after all."

What these two men were talking about were the beast-people. A human like with animal features. Legend has it that powerful animals in the past blessed humans with their blood, transforming them into hybrids. The blood was passed down through generations and now most of them reside in the beast kingdom.

Though outside of the beast kingdom, beast-people are not accepted in every place. There is prejudice against them. While some places actively hate beast-people, racism.

"He must have gone to that town nearby."

"Let's head there right now. Maybe we can catch him along the way."

The two people chasing the kid didn't think to check their surrounding. If they had, they would've seen the small opening in the tree and found the child hiding. The two ran away without finding the child. The child could finally sigh in relief that they weren't chasing him.

"There's a town nearby..."

The child decided to head to the town where the orphanage was located. Hoping to find some beast-people that could give a helping hand to him.

Strangely enough, the child looked 100% human. Normally, beast-people have characteristics of beasts. Like ears, fur or tails. But there were no signs of such things on this child.

The child left the hiding spot and carefully went towards the town.

***

*Knock knock*

"Wake up, Leaf."

I knocked on the door to wake up Leaf. Today is the second day of Leaf coming here. It's also the day the merchants arrive.

I was thinking of having Leaf take a bath, since she didn't take one yesterday. But when I went into the bathroom, I found that there was no bathtub. I didn't clean all of the building. And Leaf didn't tell me about the missing bathtub. Maybe she didn't know about it.

The door swung open.

"I'm awake!"

Leaf with messy hair came out.

"Sure you were. Come on, let's get your face cleaned up. We're going shopping today."

"Going shopping?"

"Yes, you didn't tell me there was no bathtub in the house."

"What's a bathtub?"

Leaf tilted her head. She didn't know what a bathtub is.

'Ah, my bad. I forgot not everyone has a bathtub in their house.'

"Anyways, we'll go buy a bathtub later. And we'll order some new things. This building is lacking a lot of things since it's a very old place."

"Ok, when are we going?"

"After you wash your face and have breakfast."

"Ok!"

Leaf and I headed to the kitchen. I showed her the tap.

"If you twist this, cold water will come out. I'll get some material later to make one that also changes temperature."

"Wow, that's so cool! I didn't have anything like this in my house."

Leaf remembered her previous house, and became a bit sad because it brought up bad memories.

"Come on, don't just stand there. Try it out."

To cheer up Leaf, I told her to use the water tap. She put her hand on the tap and twisted it. We waited for water to flow out.

We waited....there was no water.

"Uhm, it's not working, Unnie."

"Why isn't it working? I set up the water source already though."

"Maybe it's broken?"

"No way, let me check."

I kneeled down to check the connection of the pipes. The tap was connected to a pipe and the pipe went into the wall at the bottom and out the other side.

"It's leads to the outside, let's go check there."

I went out to the back of the building with Leaf to check. But we found nothing, no pipes in sight.

"There's nothing in the middle connecting the water source and the outlet. Argh, who did it?! They stole the connecting pipes! If I ever find them, I'll drown them under a tap!"

"Haha."

Leaf was laughing.

"At least you're cheerful. Come, I'll perform a water spell."

"A water spell?"

"Yes, look. Water."

Mana from me flowed out into the air and a blue dot appeared in the air. At a steady rate, water flowed out.

"Wow, that's so cool. Can you do other spells too. Like fire?"

"Yes, but that would hurt to wash your face with."

"I DON'T WANT TO WASH MY FACE WITH FIRE!"

"I know, I'm just joking. Haha."

Leaf made an angry pout.

"Mean Unnie."

"Come on, wash your face already."

"Oh, right."

Leaf quickly washed her face. I also quickly washed my face.

"Come on, let's have breakfast."

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"Ok."

"Oh right, I also need to water the backyard for the future."

I made my mana flow out to over the whole area at the back of the orphanage. Blue light shone across the area and water fell down. This is for the future when I plant some herbs. I need the soil moist. There are spells for that but it's better to build up the garden slowly.

Because I need the soil to keep a lot of mana in it.

"Wow, that was so cool. Will I be able to do that too?"

"If you try hard enough, you can do anything."

"I'll do my best!"

Leaf and I went back into the house. We had a simple breakfast of bread and strawberry jam.

"Wow, what is this?"

Leaf held up the jar of strawberry jam.

"It's made from a fruit called strawberry."

"It's not a berry??"

"Yes, it's not a berry."

"Why is it called a berry then?"

"I guess it's because it looks like a berry, but it's actually a fruit."

"Can't we change it's name to strawfruit?"

"Haha, you're being funny. It's too late to change something like that. Anyways, if you're done eating, let's go."

Leaf and I stood up.

And we left the orphanage.

"Oh right, I should put a spell on the house."

I pointed my index finger towards the front door. And mana flowed out from my finger.

"Don't let anyone new in without my permission."

It was a simple spell that would stop any stranger from entering.

A few minutes of walking later, we arrived at the center of the town. This town wasn't that huge. There were a lot of people in this town though. But there weren't enough houses for them. So they stay in the streets.

In the center of the town, a big group of people could be seen. There were actually two groups of people. One were the poor refugees. The other group wore high quality clothes. Made of leather and high quality cotton.

"Come! Get yourself some food! Fresh and warm!"

One of the high class looking person yelled.

"Form a line, please. Children first!"

The man shouted again.

This group of people were the merchants I called for. The silver wolf merchants. One of the top merchant group around. I have a few connections in the world, so I called for some assistance.

"Miss Thea, how are you?"

One of the merchants approached me. A young man with blonde hair.

"I'm doing great. Is everything set up?"

"Yes, the silver wolf store is right there. You can't miss it."

"Of course, did you put that giant wolf head like every other store?"

"Of course!"

One of the silver wolf merchants' trademark. They like to put a giant wolf head wherever they have a store. This made them recognizable to everyone. And the stores can't be missed.

"My name is Silas, I was put in charge of taking care of your territory. I'll work hard from now on!"

The young man named Silas, went into a bow towards me.

"Stop that! What do you mean my territory? I just own the orphanage here."

"Yes, yes. I understand."

"Are you giving food to the people right now?"

"Yes! The master thought there would be a need to do so, so we prepared a lot of ingredients."

"Good, we'll help out. Come on, Leaf."

"Yes, Unnie."

"Wait, Miss Thea? You'll help out? You can leave that to us though."

Silas was flustered. The master of the silver wolf merchants had told Silas to take extra care of Thea and never cause her trouble. So he didn't want to inconvenience her with this simple task.

"Yes, do you have a problem with me doing so?"

It's good for me to work with the community. I will get to know the people around here.

"No no, please go ahead. I have no problem with that."

Sweat could be seen on Silas' forehead.

"Don't be so tense, Silas. We'll see each other often from now on."

To Thea, this sounded like she was telling Silas to see her as a friend. But to Silas, this sounded like her telling him to listen to her and not make trouble for her. It made Silas even more nervous.

There were a lot of people in the town. While serving food to the people, I got to know a young woman in the merchant group called Su. She had purple hair. And she was an elf.

"Apparently, this town was abandoned until a few years ago. There were no people until the refugees started to settle here."

"That must be the reason why all the buildings are in such disrepair."

"We don't know why this town was abandoned. But it was a really long time ago. Nobody decided to repair the town because no one wanted to anger the surrounding kingdoms."

"Well, can you get some people to come and fix up the house? And get someone to manage this land and the people's wellbeing. Someone reliable."

"Yes, Miss Thea! I'll relay your request to Silas."

"Good, Su. By the way, do you know a lot about gardening? I heard elves are really good at dealing with plants."

"Hehe, as a matter of fact, in my family I was the best at cultivating plants. I was actually the best at flower magic in my whole village."

Su's face was held high, she was proud to tell someone about her accomplishments.

"Wow, that's amazing Su. I would like to hire you then."

"Yes, of course I'm amazing. Wait, you want to hire me?"

Su was shocked for some reason.

"Yes, I have need for your expertise."

"But I'm already employed here."

"It's okay. Silas will let you work for me."

"Ok, Miss Thea. Do you want me to work on your garden?"

"Well...I mean. There's no garden yet."

"There's no garden yet? So you want me to plant some flowers and trees?"

"No no, I have the seeds already. I got them from...a friend. You just need to plant those and take care of them until they're grown."

"I see. I'll be happy to work for you, Miss Thea."

"Great!"

We continued to serve the refugees food. Of course, I asked if there were any kids without parents or guardians. But the response I received was that there were no such people.

After serving all the people, I talked with the children and learned quite a lot.

Most of the refugees were from the west and the north. By the way, I was born in the south. There's a small kingdom to the west called the Iselia Kingdom. The king there is a madman apparently.

He ordered the villages at the edge of the kingdom to be destroyed in case there are spies in them. The adult refugees seem to believe the king was fed a potion that caused him to go mad. And that the people around him were replaced by the kingdom that was even further west.

Well, it's not important to me so I don't really care.

"But I heard king Almos was going to come here after us."

"What was that? Is that true?"

I heard some important information.

"Yes, before we left the village. I heard one of the merchants say that king Almos won't stop until everyone who escaped is dead. They said they'll follow us to other kingdoms even."

'So the king of Iselia won't stop until everyone is dead? What a pathetic king.'

"But it's not certain he'll come after you."

Leaf chimed in. Leaf was shaking a bit. I put my hand on her head and patted her.

"Where are you from, Leaf?"

"I'm from the south."

"Ah, I'm from the south too."

There are two kingdoms to the south. The nearest one is the most powerful kingdom in the world. The Zatiax empire. They call themselves followers of Zatix, the god of Sol.

The second kingdom is further south, it's where I come from. The Yurivia kingdom. It is separated by the ocean from the other kingdoms.

"Leaf must be from Zatiax then."

"Yes, I was born there."

We talked a while more with the people there.

"Let's go meet Silas and order stuff for the house."

Me and Leaf left Su and the others to find Silas at the silver wolf store. The giant wolf head was very eye catching. But it does make it easy to find the store.

"Silas, I want to order some furniture. And I want someone to come and fix the pipes."

I came through the door and loudly announced to Silas, who was busy writing something onto a notebook at the front desk.

"Miss Thea, the master thought you would need some fixing up with the building, so we already prepared a bunch of common things for you. You can check them out. If they're to your liking, we'll move them to your storage immediately."

"Oh! As expected of the silver wolves, you guys always think ahead."

"You didn't expect anything, Unnie."

"You're supposed to be on my side, Leaf."

"Please follow me."

Silas led us through the door behind him to the storage room. There, a large number of furniture was stored. Various different shapes, colors and designs. I chose a simple light brown colored furniture for Leaf's room. And various other colors for each of the rooms.

"And white wood furniture for me. "

"Ok, we'll move them to your orphanage. Is there anything else you need?"

"Not really much. Get me some ingredients for cooking."'

"Alright, we'll take the payment out from your account."

We left the store and went back to the orphanage.

***

"Fuck! Why won't this open?"

We saw two rough looking men at the front door of the orphanage. The man at the front was trying to open the door to the orphanage.

"Come on, just break it down."

The other man was getting angry at him.

"You think I'm not trying? This thing is not budging at all."

"Move it, you're just weak."

The other man pushed him away and kicked hard at the door. Yet the door did not even shake. But the man stopped moving.

"AH, MY LEG!"

Even though the impact on the door was strong, the door was not damaged. But the man's leg still hit the door hard and was stopped. The force was not dissipated onto the door but his leg. The bone in his leg was severely injured.

"Wh-what is this door?!"

In his pain, he asked a question. Fear could be heard in his voice.

"Or rather, what is this place?"

The other man asked the bigger question.

"What are you doing?"

Me and Leaf came up to them. I was a bit angry since they tried to break my orphanage.

"I'll give you 10 seconds to explain yourselves."

I gave them the angry gaze.

"And who you are? Get the fuck away."

"She's the owner of this place that you're trying to break into, you bastards."

Leaf answered for me. Though I didn't appreciate her language. I'll talk to her later about that.

"So you're the owner? Hurry up and open the door then. We have business in there."

"Huh, how dare you demand something of me? You wanna die?"

I was getting angrier by the second.

"Just open the door before you get hurt."

Hmm, I came up with a clever plan. A mischievous smile appeared on my face

"Sure, I'll open it for you. Wait a second."

"Hmph, you should've done that when we told you to. Hurry up."

A walked up to the door and gently put my hand on it and pushed down on the knob. The door opened.

"Come on, Leaf. Go in."

Leaf quickly rushed in. I turned towards the two men.

"Now, if you want to come in. State your business first. Otherwise, the moment you make a step inside, you can say good bye to your life."

The two men looked at each other and then laughed.

"Haha, how dare you threaten us?!"

One of them didn't take my threat seriously and extended his hand through the door toward me. And his hand disappeared.

Only the part that went through the door disappeared.

"M-my hand! What did you do?!"

"I told you, state your business or die."

My eyes exuded a coldness that caused the men to finally speak.

"There's a kid in there that we're chasing. We need to bring him back."

"A kid?"

It's not Leaf since they just saw her. But there's no other kid here.

"There's no other kid here. But...why are you chasing that kid?"

Anger could be heard at the end of my sentence.

"That..."

"Get lost."

The men turned around and ran away scared.

If I had known they were after a kid, I would've actually cut that man's hand. I had cast invisibility and paralysis spells on his hand only. It would wear off in a few hours.

I'll have to ask Silas to find out about this child they were chasing later.