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The Meaning of Life
Chapter 7: Tagging Along

Chapter 7: Tagging Along

{Sally P.O.V.}

I am Sally. I am an E-rank adventurer and a late stage apprentice magus and my elemental affinity is light. My role in the party is a healer. Me and my friends are all E-rank adventurers and we accepted our first out-of-town request. Usually we just accept requests to hunt low level monsters or gather materials at Loren Town, our home where I grew up and became an adventurer, so we were naturally excited.

The contents were to guard and escort merchant Norman out of Loren Town ang go to Arles City. The reason why it was considered as an E-rank request instead of a D or D+ rank request was because the path we will travel in to arrive at Arles City is to go through the Rietol Forest.

It was a considerably safe forest with the monsters only going up as high as a middle stage magus in strength and usually they rarely appear. It was suppose to be a simple trek lasting 4 days but... 

"Give us your valuables and women now! There will be no trouble afterwards!"

On the second day of our journey, we were ambushed by bandits. They were all initial stage warriors and there were sixteen of them! We were completely outnumbered. The strongest of us is surprisingly the merchant Norman, who we were suppose to protect. He is a middle stage warrior but I don't think that even if he has an advantage in stage level he will be able to fend of the bandits.

What should I do? Those bandits are looking at me with strange, almost hungry gazes. Oh no... they're not thinking...? No... no no no!!! I don't want to become a plaything! I don't want me and Lily to be like some toy! Yet... I also don't want to kill people. All we have been doing is fight and kill mindless monsters in the outskirts of Loren town while gathering materials. I've never fought anyone before. I still haven't seen anyone die before.I don't I don't want to die! I don't want anyone to die! I'm scared... so scared. I faintly trembled with fear. Lily is also sweating nervously.

"Bullshit!! You'll kill us all even if we complied and do you think we'll just stand around here and let you take our money and our girls without doing anything?!? I will not let you touch Sarah and Lily!"

Lean, our de facto leader, an initial stage warrior as well as a swordsman screamed out. Karl, also an initial stage warrior and an axe wielder also looks angry. Den, a dogkin late stage novice warrior and our scout is fuming mad. I can tell it because he is silent, not like he's easygoing self. Lily, his twin sister is also a late stage novice warrior, has a frightened face so I am sure that's he is pissed as her brother. I'm glad that I have good friends. It eased my chaotic mind.

"Hahaha. That's fine by me! I'll let you guys watch as we fucked those girls up before killing you."

" Boss can I have the dog chick over there? I wanna lick them ears"

" Yeah. I'd like to suck on them busty nipples of the healer over there!"

" Alright but the first taste goes to me!"

The bandits talk are talking about us. I'm scared. Terrified even. These people want to rape me and Lily then make our friends watch. How evil. They're immoral, vulgar and cruel. Are they even human? They want to make us girls their toys to release their desires..? No... n-no no... I didn't do "it" with anyone before. I always planned to meet someone I like then get married and do "it" with them but... am I gonna be tainted now?... No...no please... someone help us... someone save us. I thought I silently as I become paler and started shaking. Even Lily, who is usually calm, is trembling and pale-faced. The guys become madder when they heard that except for Norman. He has serious and solemn look on his face.

Just when the bandits advanced and tears almost fell from my eyes something happened. Four fast objects, even faster than well-aimed arrows were shot out from the forest treeline and...

*splat* *splat* *blood spraying*

"Uuugggh!!"

"AAAAAHHH!!"

"*coughs blood*... W-what the...?* falls to the ground*"

"What was that?!"

"A mage!"

"'Kyaah!!"

Me and Lily involuntarily screamed from seeing someone die for the first time in a bloody and gory way. Blood, severed limbs, even a head... ugh. But my mind concentrated on what Den had said... a mage? What skill. For that person to be able to incapacitate and severely wound several people at once... and with such speed! They might be a Senior... no an Elite Magus! But what is a powerful mage doing here? Well... we are lucky that someone powerful is here and by the looks of it, that person is at our side. Thank the gods... they answered my prayers...wuwuwu. 

As I silently shed tears the bandits are all panicking, looking for the one who killed so many of them instantly. Then I noticed a small figure come out of the forest, some meters away from us and there I saw... the most beautiful boy I have ever seen. Walking with slow yet elegant steps, a boy five years of age appeared with floating earthen spikes floating around him. Although he wore plain but clean clothes, it further emphasized his pure and charming aura. His smooth, dark hair and snow white skin contrasts perfectly. 

But most captivating of all... was his eyes. Bright and radiant, like the sky at its bluest... no even bluer than that. Another thing was the multi-colored ripples in his pupils like an aurora constantly interchanging shining colors of the rainbow, making me feel disoriented but instead of it being bad, I felt at peace like I was being lulled to sleep. Those eyes made for a higher existence... that all-encompassing gaze of his, coupled with the hovering javelins of earth that are like loyal knight awaiting his will and that beautiful and artistic glaive, making him seem... majestic and noble.

If he wasn't a kid I would have fallen in love hard. All I feel now is complete admiration and affection towards the boy. All of us, including the bandits were silent and shocked as the one who clearly caused mayhem appeared before us, and it was a boy barely six. What's more... he bears the strength of an initial stage magus, at five years of age! That is amazing!

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Most people follow the path of warriors as it is easier for them to gain breakthroughs but mages are different. It takes a lot of skill, perseverance and very good control of refined mana. The breakthroughs are different for warriors and mages. While warriors rely on instinct and emotion to do this, mages rely on intellect and other factors we do not know. Probably luck or chance. And now a five year old child is standing here in front of me with an even higher rank than me and I'm already seventeen!

When me and my parents realized that I have very good control over refined mana at the age of seven,  we were elated and immediately celebrated. Even in Loren town I am considered a genius healer but... here I see true and unprecedented genius. Finally someone broke the silent stand-off. It was the bandit leader from before, the one who said vulgar profanities earlier... looking at him still scares me.

"W-who a-are you? W-what d-do y-y-you want?"

Hearing this stiffly said question, the boy looked thoughtful for a moment then answered with a voice as sweet and heavenly as an angel.

"I am Krey. Uncles, please die quickly okay?"

But contains a death sentence given by the reaper. Although he, "Krey" said it cutely while tilting his head to the side, I can't help but feel a chill in my back. Eight floating javelins immediately shot forward impaling and killing the remaining bandits. It was a massacre, blood and corpses of bandits everywhere.

How decisive. A child capable of killing without batting an eye to the act. What mental fortitude! Comparing myself and him from earlier, I can't help but feel ashamed.

As that happened, Krey walked forward, with his javelins still hovering, to the scene of carnage. Wrinkling his noise, he crouched down, put is glaive down and started to search through those... gory disgusting remains of the dead bandits... Ugh, my god. Who is this child? To be unfazed and even touching the corpses... really admirable. Seemingly finding nothing, Krey got up, picked up his glaive, walked out of the space with blood and gore, and wash his hands with... water magic... wait, he has dual affinities? After washing he conjured a small ball of bright... flames?! Triple-affinities?! So many surprises. I looked at my friends and they too look taken aback. Krey propelled the bright fireball towards the corpses and the area exploded in fiery fumes. What a powerful spell... it must have cost a lot of mana but Krey doesn't even look tired.

Then the boy turned towards us, made his javelins disappear and asked...

"Hey, big sister I don't know where a town is. Can I tag along with you? Please~?" He asked pleadingly and adorably but it looked intimidating to us with the red flames at his back contrasting with his blue eyes. We don't really have a choice do we?

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{Krey P.O.V.}

Woohoo! That was fun. I relieved some of my stress over there. While I don't show it, I'm actually tired and pissed at the long and tiring voyage in the forest. So killing those bandits actually felt great. Do I feel bad about killing? No. Do I regret acting impulsively and in turn lost my humanity? No. Why should I? Those bandits were trash so how could I "lose" my humanity. I saved those six didn't I? Killing for me is not a matter of black and white. It is a method, a necessity to achieve something. But if someone I like gets killed then I'll immediately go and have vengeance. 

How could I say something so immoral? Blame the lack of guidance because of my parent's death and the fact that I learned most of human emotions through anime, and damn does anime have a lot of info and genre. I also blame the weirdness of the internet.

But let's forget my rambling.

After killing the bandits, I went to their corpses, it smells so bad, and started looting them~! What? They're already dead so let their blessings be given to those who are of need. Mainly me. I have cheat ability, weapons anf equipment but no money. After finding some coins, I put them in my storage ring and after doing so, I counted them. Wow, these bandits are pretty well of huh~? I found two gold coins, thirteen silver coins, and and sixty six copper. I don't know the monetary values for this world but judging it with the help of fantasy novel info, this would be a lotta money. 

Oh yeah! Jackpot!! Keeping that thought to myself, I left the bloody area and washed my hands with the new spell I've just created [Water Spray]. Its for cleaning. I feel like I'm abusing Magic Creation Array by doing this but... who cares?

As I finished washing my hands, I casted [Compressed Fireball], which took out an eight of my mana, with the glaive's effect still here, so it is a considerably strong I spell I've chanelled, as strong as an intermediate elite magus spell, and propelled it towards the dead bodies. The area went up in flames burning the corpses black. We wouldn't want it to block the road after all~.

I made my remaining [Assassination Spikes] dissipate back to me in the form of my refined mana and my mana is filled 12/20. *sigh* Cheat items... though their awesome, their also disheartening to use.. for a reason I will not talk about.

I then asked the healer girl a question, once again acting adorable.

"Hey, big sister I don't know where a town is. Can I tag along with you? Please~?" 

Ufufufufu... you cannot resist my natural cuteness! Now on to the nearest city~~!

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Author Note: Exams are done and I probably passed... maybe. Here you guys enjoy! And I changed "elder magus to elite magus" in chapter 5 to give MC a little nerf. To those who are against it then I'm sorry. I'm not going to make him even more overpowered to the point that it is cliche. I want to give more depth to the story than that. But MC will still be OP.