We made it out of there safely… somehow.

Rosine led us to her cottage, where we broke the beast boy's metal binds. Currently, she was feeding him some fruit they kept at home.

The boy was voraciously devouring it in silence. Even if I had not seen the way he dug into the food, his body was a dead giveaway for how poorly he was being treated. His bony cheeks, tiny structure and dirty body were more than enough to tell just how the past few days were for him.

"Wow, you must have been really hungry.", Rosine said, bringing more fruits over. She then sat down next to him and patted him on the head, but the boy didn't pay any attention to her as he ate. "Wow, his hair is really… hairy."

Hearing that come from her mouth, I resisted the urge to beat her. If I did, she'd have killed me. I just chose to focus on other things.

For instance, how I'd been able to make a flame so hot. I was certain I knew the limits of my firepower, so I wasn't expecting to actually have surpassed them in that moment without at least passing out. The strangest bit was I didn't even feel tired after doing that. Maybe there was a little mental drain from how hard I was concentrating, but my body felt exactly the same.

It made me curious on just what else I could do now.

"Didn't expect ya ta help.", Lesley said, taking a seat next to me. "Maybe you aren't as bad as Geoffrey says you are. Good on you."

I didn't respond to him, but only looked at Rosine taking care of the boy. He was around my size, but I guessed he was most likely older than me. It was kind of frustrating being the mentally oldest one in the room, yet the physically youngest.

It was because of things like that that a goddamned eight-year-old felt like he could come sit next to me to praise me like his junior.

"What was that thing ya did?", He asked, his emerald eyes focusing intensely on me.

I averted my gaze, trying my best to ignore him.

"I'm talking about da fire thing. Ya broke 'em locks with fire. How?", He leaned in closer to me, his eyes boring into my soul.

"How'd ya even make da fire? And how'd ya make da fire break 'em locks?"

"He used magic.", Rosine answered, scratching the young beast boy behind his ear. The boy's tail wagged in glee, while my face turned dark in grim.

She just sold us out like it was nothing.

"Magic!?", He grabbed my hands, his eyes shining brightly like stars. "Ya can make fire with magic? T-That's so awesome!"

"Heh!", Rosine snickered. She got up from petting the beast boy, then rubbed her nose. "He's not the only one capable of using magic. Behold, my great flames!"

She spread her arms forth, ready to burn herself yet again, just when a weak voice spoke.

"T… Thank… you, mew.", He said, his accent a bit off and voice a little squeaky.

We all looked at the beast boy, only to find him holding back his tears. His body shivered and his ears drooped down.

Before I could even get a word out, Rosine grabbed him in a hug.

"Don't worry. We've got you.", She said, comforting the child. She rubbed his back and just sat there silently with him.

It left me stunned. Rosine of all people was showing so much compassion it felt like an entirely different person. I'd heard that your parents determined what kind of adult you would turn into, and if Lola was anything to go off on, this was in no way, shape or form how I thought Rosine would handle this situation.

"There she goes again, acting all big sisterly.", Lesley said, crossing his arms and just watching her with an unreadable expression.

Coming to think of it, this kid wasn't normal too. He was acting way too calmly about everything. His older brother was more of a kid than he was. I was starting to get creeped out by both of them.

"Meow~", One of the windows leading to the cottage slammed open and a black spotted white cat appeared, looking at us with a cold gaze.

Polka had appeared.

That meant Lola was nearby. I ran up to the window to look outside and almost fell on my back. Walking towards us, was a mob of men carrying all sorts of weapons and chains, being lead a boy, about ten years old, with snot running down his nose, and dusty brown hair.

The owners had come searching for their property, guided by Geoffrey.

"Crap. We gotta move.", I whispered loudly, making everyone look at me.

"Why?"

"They found us."

"Eh? H-How?"

"Geoffrey.", I snarled, while taking another peak out the window. "There's about 10 guys out there and with the looks in their eyes, this couldn't possibly end well."

There was this one guy in particular that towered above the others. He had a falcon tattoo on the side of his face, and carried a giant double-sided axe. He looked to be the strongest in the group as well as possessed a certain violent aura about him that made me feel like getting caught by him meant worse than a scolding.

"Let's go beat them up.", Rosine said, heading towards the door.

"Eh?"

"With our magic, normal people won't be able to give us much trouble.", She said, reaching out for the door handle. "Lesley can, uh, throw stones or something. Confuse 'em. We can definitely beat 'em up."

'Em?'

Her inner delinquent was starting to take over. Allowing her to do whatever she wanted here would get us all in serious trouble. No, we were already in trouble because I obliged her earlier on.

"Yeah!", Lesley ran to her side, ready to jump into the fight. "I'll show my no-good older brother a thing or two."

'Lesley too? These two dumbasses are just going to end up getting themselves killed.'

I shot a rock pellet at her hand, slapping it away.

"Ow!", She yelped.

"Oi, you two.", I called, making them pause in their tracks. "We can just return the slave and apologise. That way, we can make it out of this alive."

Having said this, Rosine walked over to me, her face completely unreadable. Yet, I felt like I could tell what she was going to say.

*SLAP*

She delivered a wicked slap to my cheek before saying anything.

"When you see someone suffering, you should help them! Always! Isn't that what the strong are supposed to do?"

"Meow.", Polka meowed again, jumping off the window.

Rather than the slap, what hit me hard were her words. I'd heard them from somewhere before. Maybe in one of my many incarnations. I'd completely forgotten when and where, and now I was wondering what was happening for such words to have stuck with me.

"Uh, guys. They're almost here.", Lesley, ignoring the mood, warned us.

Rosine walked back to the door.

I sent a blast of wind, pushing her away from the door. Right now, I couldn't care less if this girl hated me for this. I wasn't going to let her kill herself for some random slave she just saw today.

"H-Hey. Belfry? D-Didn't you just hear what I said?", She grunted, getting up from the ground.

Just then, Lesley tackled me to the ground.

"Huh?"

"I don't care if ya got magic or whatever. I ain't gone let ya hand him over just like dat.", He grunted, trying to pin me down the ground.

"And I'm not going to sit here and let Rosine die because of your silly lofty ideals.", With a blast of wind, Lesley was thrown off my body. I stood back up and jumped back, creating enough distance between myself and him.

From the side, Rosine was jumping in with a flaming fist.

'S-Seriously? You're going to burn me over this?'

Quickly, I sprayed her with a blast of water, then grabbed her incoming hand to flip her over, landing her on her back, then quickly elevating the earth around Lesley to trap his feet.

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With both arms spread out, facing each of them, I was ready to hurt both of them to protect them.

Breaking this awkward stalemate, the beast boy spoke.

"F-Follow, mew. Cat… say… follow, mew.", The boy struggled to find the right words.

Rosine, Lesley and I all looked at the boy with wide eyes. I felt like we all had the exact same thought, but quickly arrived at an answer. It'd make sense for a cat person to understand cats to some extent.

"H-How do you understand that?", Lesley asked.

Never mind. Not all of us came to find an answer. I almost forgot this brat was seven.

Just then, there was knocking on the door.

"Anyone home?", A gruff voice came through.

I was about to go open the door, when Rosine grabbed my leg and looked me dead in the eye. Her emerald green eyes begging me to not do anything.

I wasn't going to listen to her. Her eyes definitely weren't going to convince me. I definitely wasn't making a wall to block the door. I definitely wasn't going to grab Rosine and his hands by the wrists, then follow after Polka. The beast boy definitely wasn't already ahead of us. Polka definitely didn't lead us to the backdoor, which led to a bushy background. We definitely didn't cross the river by swimming and end up on the other side.

'Damn it all! W-Why did I, gaaah!?'

We were running through the bewildering forest at the moment, Polka leading us. Lesley tapped me on the back.

"Good on ya.", He praised me, then ran ahead.

'Don't give me your praise you little shit!'

Following up was a knock on the head. To my side, Rosine was frowning.

"I was holding back on you, you know?", She just had to point out. I mean, I definitely easily overpowered her due to her lack of any physical training whatsoever, but telling her that would only earn me another knock.

"Still…", She grabbed my hands and started to run faster. Her frown then turned into a wide grin. "That was pretty cool."

"Rosine…", For a moment, this child was starting to appear like an angel.

"I'll beat you up if you try that again.", She raised her fist threateningly.

That was only for a moment though.

"There they are!", The voice of a disgruntled man cut through the air, followed by the whizzing of a blade.

Polka tackled me to the ground, helping me narrowly avoid the incoming attack.

When I looked down, in between my legs, there was a dagger there. But more concerningly, Polka's black and white fur was stained red. The cat winced in pain as I touched it, trying to assess just how bad the wound was.

"Meow."

It struggled back up, then jumped off me to go face whoever it was. Surprisingly, Polka was an extremely reliable cat.

I turned around to see who it was as well.

It was a skinny man, wearing nothing but harem pants, with a white sash around his waist and sandals on his feet. His skin was of a darker tone and had red tattoos carved into them from his bald head to his abdomen. In his hand, he held a reddish-brown khopesh.

The red tattoos looked eerily familiar, but I was unable to come to a conclusion at the moment.

"3 bratty children, one runaway item and an injured demon beast.", He said, raising his khopesh up to point at us. "I knew those idiots were incompetent, but to allow this to get this far out, they are complete clots."

'Clots? Does he mean klutz?'

I chose to ignore that as an accent thing. It wasn't even relevant here at the moment. For now, we had to find a way to convince him not to kill us.

Maybe if we begged him and told him we were tricked by the beast, he'd consider forgiving us. At least, let us off with heavy scolding. No, that was too light for types like this guy. If we were lucky, we'd be let off with a severe beating. Even then, it was better than letting Rosine die here.

"Aaaaghh!", Rosine's ferocious roar came from my side as she pounced on the man, her fists set ablaze. Behind her, Lesley had picked up a couple of stones and was ready to throw them, the beast boy, whimpering behind him.

"Oh for fucks sake, Rosine!"

Now I had no choice but to get involved before she got herself killed. I raised a slab of rock to trip Rosine over, causing her to stumble to the ground, face-forward, then quickly shot some balls of water at her burning fist.

Honestly, at this point, I was starting to get sick and tired of doing that.

"Beeelfryyyy!", Rosine roared, getting up from the ground and glaring at me, a purple aura enveloping her body.

"Magic?", The man's eyes widened in shock for a moment. He then raised his blade up to lick it with his pierced tongue. "And two different elements at that. Oi, oi, we've got ourselves a prodigy here."

'Crap.'

Just then, Lesley decided to follow up Rosine's attempts flying rocks at the man. The man's eyes then narrowed as he casually deflected each rock with his khopesh and casually walk towards us.

"I didn't expect a crappy village like this to have magic users. The boss'll be happy 'bout this.", His walk quickly turned into a sprint, his khopesh raised to the air. "Come 'ere kiddies!"

Well, no point in trying to appease him then.

"Oi, Lesley! Get the beast kid out of here! Rosine, you too!"

I created a wall before Rosine, then ran to grab Polka off the ground, as well as get Rosine's hand, but she angrily pushed me away.

"Stop getting in my way, you stupid brat!", She roared, her hair setting ablaze and a violent purple aura overwhelming her body.

I was left stunned, as for the very first time since Rosine had unlocked her flames, I didn't see any signs of her being burnt. This moment of discovery was short-lived however, as the wall I'd conjured up was slice in two, with the blade only missing the top of Rosine's head by a centimeter.

"Thought you were running awa-huh?", I quickly fired off two fireballs at him, making the man bend backwards, narrowly avoiding them.

In that moment, I grabbed Rosine and propelled us away with wind, simultaneously twisting mid-air so we could continue running without making any pauses. Then, I handed over the weakened Polka to Rosine, who was still dazed by what just happened, then turned around to build up more walls behind us.

Even if the man was strong enough to slice walls, it'd take some time to cut through at the very least, half a dozen of them. I made the walls as tall, wide and thick as I could obstructing the visible path and leaving only jungle for the man to walk through if he wanted to come after us.

As soon as I was done, I turned back to start chasing after the group. That was when I realised, I was all alone. They were long gone.

'At least, I know they're safe.'

A relaxed smile spread across my face.

Ignoring the matter of this being a dangerous forest with magical beasts and the likes, the fact that Polka was leading us in a particular direction reassured me of the fact that Lola was around, and would definitely know how to take care of those two.

Now, I had the simple choice between running and hiding, or fighting this man to stop his pursuit.

'The obvious answer is to run!'

I started running, just when a shadow passed over me, and a man doing a somersault landed right in front of me, a khopesh in his hand.

'F-Fighting's also good, I guess.'

Rather than cutting through the walls, this man had opted to jump over them. I had to give him credit, he knew when and when not to fight certain battles.

"Kekeke. I'm honestly surprised a kid can cast so much magic without getting tired. It's almost unbelievable." The man stood up, slowly turning around. "Then again, it doesn't bother me too much, since a mage, no less, a child, is my opponent."

He pointed his weapon at me and cackled loudly.

What he said really got me thinking. I'd casted so many spells today, and even used up a lot of mana earlier to break the locks on the cage, yet, I didn't feel fatigued in the slightest. This was a completely new record for me. But it also made me weary about where my limits lied. I never could tell when my mana was about to run out, unless I had two spells in me.

Meaning, from here on out, any spell I used could be my last. I had to do so sparingly, and with the elements that drained the least.

"H-Hey, mister. Could we just forget about all of this?"

"No.", He bluntly rejected my proposal. "We need to leave tonight, yet you brats have delayed our progress. Now we have no choice but you go up tomorrow and we even have damaged goods now. At least, you three will make up for it."

It was very obvious from his tone what he meant. From the very moment we stole from them, we were considered goods that could be sold to pay them back.

"W-Wait! We haven't damaged the beast boy, ok? H-He's in perfect condition. Even better than we found him! You don't need to sell us."

I wasn't a fan of this, but at the moment, I had to prioritise Rosine's life. Allowing them to get back their slave, was the more sensible response here.

"Better than before, you say?" His mouth pulled into a wide sadistic grin, as his eyes narrowed, making him resemble a frog. "Hey, kid. Don't you know what happens to runaway slaves?"

"Eh?"

"It's the duty of the one responsible of the runaway to ensure that they never do so again. And what better way is there to avoid this, other than cutting off a limb! You know what that means? You just damaged our property. You'll have to pay for that with your lives! I'm certain some of the fine nobles of the Xander kingdom wouldn't mind playing around with that little girl."

"Huh?"

What was this feeling in my stomach? They churned and twisted, but not in a painful way. It was more like; I'd just tasted something vile and my body was trying vomit it out.

"What was it you called her? Rosa? Yes, we've received quite the number of requests for a girl like her."

Ah, right. Lola called this feeling, disgust.

Right now, just listening to this frog-faced bastard made me feel utter disgust. Here I was, under the delusion that if push came to shove, I'd offer my life up, be killed once we'd gotten far away from here, and simply start over again.

But right now, just listening to this man, I could feel a vein about to burst.

Forget bargaining with this guy. Right now, the only thing going through my mind was ways to kill him.

I could feel my right thigh burning up as the wind begun to swirl around me, howling.

The man, sensing my killing intent, replaced his disgusting grin with a frown, then snorted.

"I guess a conversation is off the table now. Oh well.", He shrugged, then pounced on me, bringing down his khopesh.

With the winds around me, I avoided his blow, then blasted a couple of Earth pellets at his face. The man easily spun to the right, planting his foot in the ground and readying to attack me once again, but this time, I'd conjured up a stamp, right before his feet, throwing him off balance and causing him to trip.

I turned the ground into spikes, that would stab him dead upon his fall, but the man nimbly, flipped his way out of that.

"Oi, oi. T-that's a cheap trick, you know? You scared me there."

Wasting no time, I sent a barrage of fire balls his way.

However, it would seem he was tired of me throwing the elements at him, as he just sliced through the flames, dispersing them.

"You can't honestly believe you can take me on a head-on battle.", He snickered, casually walking up to me and deflecting any magic projectile sent to him. "Somehow, you create spells without chanting, but even then, a mage will never defeat a swordsman in one-on-one combat."

He was right.

I let my anger take over and stupidly started a fight without even thinking of an escape route, and now he was easily defending against me. He wasn't even taking me seriously in this situation. However, his hubris would be his downfall here.

I simultaneously fired off both a fire ball and a water ball, for the very first time, but I had no time to be shocked or even to praise myself for achievement, as he simply cut through both attacks. A mountain of steam arose from the impact.

'Steam?'

"Kekekeke, your attacks are so pathetically weak, it makes me almost embarrassed that I'm toying with you like this!"

His taunting made more veins snake up. My blood boiled, as the burning sensation in my right leg intensified. Unable to ignore it any longer, I fetched through my pocket to see what that was, and when I pulled it out, I was stunned to see the fang-shaped pendant the old man gave to me, glowing blue.

'Just what did that old man give me?'

"Even if I'm not taking you seriously…", The man's voice mellowed out towards the end, but intensified as he continued. "That doesn't mean you can take me like a joke."

Around him, there was an explosion of purple orbs. He suddenly disappeared from my view, completely impossible to track no matter where I looked. My heart raced fast, my eyes trying to locate him and my brains rushing through possible counter measures for this sort of thing.

In my previous experiences, his disappearance could be from a myriad of factors like, him simply being too fast for my eyes to keep track off, or a tool that turned him invisible or even teleportation. I couldn't tell.

"Boo.", A shrill, excitable voice, sounded in my ears, as the tip of blade headed straight for my head.

He got me beat, completely.

"Tch."

"Oh, come on, can't a patrol guard in the boonies even take a piss in peace?", When I opened my eyes, I saw a man, wearing nothing but regular clothes and iron boots, standing in front of me with a sword in hand.