Clan's POV Part 2

A few hours ago:

After Kai left the clan hall to act upon his commands, Rokas kept sitting on his little throne while in deep thoughts.

After a few minutes, he stood up and headed towards Jacob's room which was previously Rosa's room. As he walked towards it, he could feel a sense of worry surrounding the clan.

The servants were working as usual. Except, all of their faces had signs of unease. They were all worried for that hardworking kid, for his grandson.

He still remembered Jacob's young face. He loved little children very much. Especially those who were his own. He had visited Jacob when he was an infant many times in order to play with him.

He kept visiting him until he felt that it was time. He didn't want Jacob to know that he was disowned by his biological father. He did not want him to know that he was the indirect cause of his mother's death.

He didn't want him to spend his childhood and teenage in depression and sadness. He would have told him when he would have turned into a big adult. But his love for his grandchildren was not that light.

All the clan was aware of it. Many times, Rokas had observed little Jacob playing and learning while hiding his presence. He found him to be a hardworking kid and he liked such children much more.

Many times he just wanted to run and take that adorable child into one big hug, but he strictly stopped himself from doing so. He could not destroy his childhood. Rosa was doing a fine job raising him as a son.

Every servant he passed by paused his work and bowed to him. The servants' quarters soon came into his view. He entered one of the buildings that comprised the servants' quarters and soon stepped into Jacob's room.

Everything was the same as the last time he was here. Except, the cupboard was empty of any clothes and Rosa's bed was a bit tilted.

He looked towards the bed as he thought about the tilt. Soon, he noticed a discrepancy near it. A floorboard was not fitting perfectly with others.

He stepped near it, bowed down and tried to pry it open. It came off without much resistance. Inside, he could see a pouch-shaped indentation. He immediately realised what this space had been used for in the past.

"Rosa.." He had already built a scenario in his mind. It seems like my second possibility is true. Hmmm. Rokas thought as he exited the room and started walking towards the clan hall.

But he is just a kid. He will be discovered soon. It is still too early for him to step out in the wider world. He thought as he kept walking with his hands behind his back, occasionally nodding at a bowing servant nearby. He soon entered the clan hall and sat back on his little throne, waiting for the news.

A few hours later, the door to the clan hall opened and Kai stepped in, followed by two of his soldiers. The soldiers gave the usual salute while Kai just bowed his head slightly.

"Father. There is news." Kai said and paused.

Rokas nodded at that and said, "Tell me about it."

"We have found out through our investigations that Jacob ran off on his own. Your second possibility was true. We also found out where he had been one day ago. This is the good news."

Rokas raised his eyebrows at that. It seems things were not that simple.

"The bad news is that he again went missing after that at night. No sign of him has been found yesterday. It is as if he vanished in the thin air the night before yesterday. There is a great possibility that he was kidnapped from the streets during the rainy night."

"Hmmm. What about the people exiting the city? Were they seen with children?"

"Yes. But after some investigation, we have confirmed that they were all their children."

"Very well. In that case, Jacob is still being held in some building in the city. Carry out a systemic search of the city block by block and keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. Also, take care and don't let Jacob get hurt after he is found. I want this man who stole my grandson." Rokas clenched his fist at that. He could not wait to get his hands on the kidnapper

"As you wish, father." After saying that, Kai exited the hall. Rokas kept sitting there while rubbing his chin and thinking about how to make an example of the kidnapper when he would be caught.

Squad Captain Zolio was watching the Rokasians searching the houses in front of them. He had been running around for the past few hours searching for that Rokasian kid. He was tired.

Thankfully, the city-wide search came to a stop. He was now observing the Rokasians carry out their search with great dedication. His squad was also standing behind him.

That spooked them quite a lot. That poor kid. Zolio thought as he turned and started walking towards the Storm clan guard quarters. But soon, he felt a tug on his clothes from behind. He stopped and turned towards the guard who was tugging him.

"What?" He asked the guard with an annoyed voice.

"Captain, I have noticed something strange." The guard replied with a soft voice. It was almost a whisper.

"Hmm? What is it?"

"Didn't that kid go missing the night before yesterday?"

"Yes. He did. So what about it?"

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"Didn't we find someone walking around with an unconscious kid that night? We also let him exit the city that night."

"Indeed, we did. So what about it? Wasn't that kid his child?"

"It is what he claimed. That the kid was his child. But we never heard from the kid whether that old man was his father or not."

Zolio started feeling uneasy after hearing that.

"Wasn't the kid unconscious that time because he was sick? We couldn't ask him due to that." The captain raised a logical doubt.

"That's the point, captain. How do we know that he became unconscious because he was sick? We were not there when it happened. It is also possible that the old man knocked him out while he was sick. We didn't properly inspect the kid's body after all."

"Your points make sense. But one of you vouched for him that he did not do any crimes in the past decade."

"Yes. But what is stopping him from doing something terrible now? We also know that Jacob had lost his money to some thief and had no money to afford a roof. He had nowhere to go to spend his night. And it was cold that night in addition to all the rain. He was only wearing normal servant clothes. What if he fell sick there and then and was knocked out by that old man? Isn't it a valid possibility?" After saying that, the highly paranoid guard went silent.

Zolio's face immediately turned ugly after that. He connected all the dots and realized a single truth, they had let the possible kidnapper escape right under their noses. The paranoia of his charge had helped them greatly in realising their blunder.

He looked towards the Rokasians. He knew things were about to escalate from now on.

Rokas was still sitting in the clan hall. His son was doing everything. He didn't have to do anything. He had retired after all. Suddenly, Kai burst into the hall and startled him. His face was marred with worry as he said,

"Father. We have a suspect and he had already left the city during that rainy night."

Rokas stood up from his seat after hearing that.

"What??? How??"

"He was caught by a patrol that night. He was carrying an unconscious sick child. He claimed to be his father and paid for his medicine at Maria's. The guards then let him exit the city. They didn't see the child's face."

"What negligence. Why did he leave the city?"

"Because he lives out of the city. He is a white-robed old man. He is a woodcutter and sells wood on a monthly basis."

"How does he look like?" Rokas wanted to know the appearance of that old man.

"According to patrol that had caught him that night, he is a tall old man with silver eyes." Kai replied instantly.

"Silver eyes...." Rokas went into deep thought. He had a slight impression of someone having silver eyes. He knew that he had seen someone with silver eyes recently. He was trying hard to think who was that person.

After about a couple of minutes of thinking hard, a memory flashed through his mind. It was a months-old memory. He was standing with Jacob when Rosa was being buried. He had felt at that time that someone was standing outside of the cemetery looking at them.

He had then tilted his head slightly to the left and had found an old man with silver eyes standing just outside the fences. He remembered all that because of his slight curiosity at that time about that old man's identity. His slightly strengthened memory due to the second level of cultivation also played its part.

"So, it is him." Saying that Rokas started smiling while nodding his head. He seemed to be happy but Kai knew how much angry he was when he did that.

"Father. He is still a suspect. It is not confirmed yet. This might be a coincidence."

"Too much of a coincidence. So a foreigner, huh? Call an interclan meeting right in front of the castle. We have a foreign threat to deal with." Rokas ordered his son and headed towards his room. It was time for a fight and he had to prepare.

Twenty minutes later, right in front of the castle, rows upon rows of soldiers could be seen standing in clean formations. All the soldiers of the three clans were present.

They were standing in neat rows at some distance from one another. The Storm clan supported the highest numbers while the Rokas clan had the lowest. In front of them stood four people. Three were the current clan lords while Rokas was the only former one there.

"Gentlemen. We have a possible foreign threat on the horizon." Rokas started the impromptu meeting.

"Care to elaborate on that, Rokas.", Leo clan head knew what was it all about. But it wasn't disrespectful to ask for more details. They were of similar age after all.

"My grandson has been kidnapped and it is a great possibility that the kidnapper is an outsider."

"Indeed. The circumstances under which the suspected kidnapper left the city were also very suspicious. It cannot be mere coincidence." It was the storm clan head this time. The kidnapper escaped under his people. So he knew much more details than Rokas himself.

"We might as well walk into an ambush." The Leo clan head put forward his thoughts.

"We don't have a choice. Our children are not secure until the threat is neutralised. We have to strike first before they put any demands." Kai said as he perfectly laid down the magnitude of the possible threat they were facing.

"True. But the bandits are always unpredictable. We may lose Jacob during the battle." The Leo clan leader replied with some uncertainty.

"Again, no choice. We cannot let them dictate us by threats. We have to take the risk otherwise our losses will only increase with time."

They have unconsciously linked all this to bandits. After the foreign clan invasions, bandits were the only human threat present there. They didn't even take the involvement of a single person into consideration. They had already labelled that old man as a sleeper cell.

Bandits were a great threat that humanity faced after the beasts. They were the organized scum of humanity.

They were involved in almost every inhuman thing that could be thought about by a sane mind. There were also cultivators among them. So the damage they did was proportional to their cultivation level.

Humanity had done everything in its power to wipe them out of the face of the planet. But they were like maggots. They popped out of nowhere every now and then.

Rokas himself remembered how he had battled them a dozen times when he was still the clan head. All four of them could only hope in their mind that there was no third-level cultivator lying in wait for them. Otherwise, they could only run and send for help from Agoross.

They had unanimously agreed previously that they would help each other in case of a foreign threat. And the deal was very successful. They had cut their losses significantly as they jointly crushed all the foreign threats with overwhelming force. They could not back down now.

After that, all the three clans mobilized all their soldiers as they started combing the nearby forest in the west. The bandits can only hide their base in the forest.

The forest was very large. It took the search parties consisting of almost eight hundred soldiers four days in order to find the isolated house of the elder. Many soldiers were injured during the search efforts due to wild animal attacks and other minor accidents. Fortunately, nobody lost his life.

Rokas along with the other three was standing right outside the lockless door of that simple house. They could not detect any kind of movement from inside by their enhanced hearing. Soldiers were also surrounding it from all sides in order to block any escape attempt.

Rokas kicked the door and rushed in. The other three quickly followed him inside. They found it empty. They also checked the two separate rooms. But it was of no avail. All they could find were mundane things.

After that, they all came out wordlessly. Rokas was sporting an expressionless face while the other three had disappointed expressions.

"From the clues we have gathered, it is either that old man only or one more accomplice at most." Leo's head broke the uncomfortable silence.

"He or they probably knew we were coming. They must have fled days ago." Kai also gave his opinion but soon regretted it.

"ARGHHH!!" Rokas suddenly punched the house with his full cultivation while shouting in frustration and anger.

The house crumbled under his sudden assault. The wall closet to him burst into pieces of wood while the rest of the house also became damaged and fell.

The clan lords jumped at the right time so they didn't suffer any damage from the suddenly falling house. Only Rokas remained standing there as a cloud of dust rose. He was breathing heavily, his face twisted into an expression of anger.

"Father!! Please calm down." Kai tried to calm his rampaging father. He was greatly regretting his words. He should have remained silent. He failed to judge the gravity of the situation correctly.

The other two clan lords' expressions also turned ugly seeing the state Rokas was in. Rokas was someone of their calibre. Seeing him in such a state due to the loss of his grandson was not pleasant.

They could place themselves in his shoes and think what would have they done if their grandsons were stolen from them. The Storm clan lord's face was uglier. Under his guards, the kidnapper escaped the city. In a way, he was responsible for this.

"We will find him. I will help you. I take the responsibility of searching for them in northern cities" he said as he decided to help his old rival.

"I take the responsibility for the cities in the south." The Leo clan lord also decided to help him. They were talking about a kid here. He would have celebrated if Rokas himself had died somewhere but a little child was involved here. He was not that heartless.

Rokas calmed down after that and looked at them in gratitude. He then said,

"I will remember this favour from you two. Thank you both. We will take Agoross then."

After that, they returned to Worlen. Posters of Jacob were already long prepared by then. They then decided to make wanted posters of the elder that escaped from the city that night, using what few eyewitnesses they had.

A bounty of twenty gold coins was set for the elder and another twenty gold coins for finding Jacob. It was a great sum of money for common people, capable of setting them for life.

After that, their soldiers spread to nearby cities in search of that elder known as Father and Jacob. They tried various means during their search including contacting local clans, attaching posters on the walls in busy markets, contacting bounty hunters, establishing check posts etc.

Seeing the lucrative rewards, many bounty hunters specifically went out to hunt for them but ultimately failed.

Soldiers also kept searching for them for many months but could not find them at all. After about four months, they called off the search after seeing no result.

As time passed, some posters were replaced by other things while some were torn off. Only a chosen few remained and people slowly forgot the faces. Only a few people who had a deeper connection with this missing case remembered the faces perfectly. Life moved on after that.

This was but a minor incident in a small city on the eastern fringes of an insignificant frontier kingdom. No person of some minor importance took notice of that.

The newspaper agencies in large cities didn't even bother mentioning this minor thing in a small corner of a page except one or two in Agoross. Even that was a one-time affair and nobody noticed anything.