Henry walked slowly, without much care for those around, as his mind was lost in thought. At that mont, one particular carriage, drawn by a slightly obese creature, crossed the road in a hurry—almost slamming against Henry, who was at the side of the road.
"Eh, whoever that might be, he should be re-educated on how to ride a carriage properly on the road," muttered Henry, wiping away the dust that had stuck to his clothes.
"Now that I think about it, the atmosphere here is actually very pleasant. From what I know, underground should get hotter—or is already hotter—than the surface, to the point where humans can’t survive. But this place, despite being so deep, doesn’t seem to have any uncomfortable air. Either they use magic to regulate the air, or the atmospheric structure of this world is different from the one I know of."
He continued walking, adjusting his clothes, but suddenly, one of his steps landed unevenly as he stepped on sothing on the ground.
"Hmm? A doll?"
Picking up the doll that lay on the ground, Henry looked around.
"There’s no one around here this could belong to. And I’m sure it wasn’t here a mont ago..."
At that mont, from a distance, he saw the sa carriage that had passed him earlier, now stuck behind another carriage that was dragging sothing heavy.
"Could it belong to soone in that carriage?"
Holding the doll, Henry made his way toward it. Since it was already along the path he was walking, he didn’t see it as an extra effort to return a doll to a child.
When he got closer to the carriage, he did indeed see a small child sitting at the corner, looking outside. Her figure could only be seen faintly, as the back of the carriage was covered by a tent. But the closer Henry stepped, and the clearer he saw her face, the more he felt sothing was off—though he couldn’t quite figure out what.
"Ahem, hey, is this yours?" he asked when he got close to the girl. Surprisingly, she didn’t notice him until he was right beside the carriage. When she heard his voice, she looked at him in fright. Then, she saw the doll being held out by Henry.
The little girl’s eyes stayed on the doll for a few seconds. Afterwards, she looked down while shaking her head.
"Did she get scared? How thoughtless of ... Of course, she could’ve gotten scared when a big man like suddenly started talking to her," Henry thought, reaching into his pocket to get a piece of candy he had with him.
"Here," he said, handing the candy to the little girl. The candy was wrapped in a beautiful and colorful wrapper, which instantly caught her attention.
But she hesitated to take it, looking up at Henry’s face with a doubtful expression.
Her face changed, Henry thought. It was like that of a hopeless person before, but now there’s a bit of light in her eyes. Though it was still a doubtful look, at least the hopeless expression from earlier had disappeared.
"Here," Henry said again, offering the candy. But the mont he tried to reach his hand into the carriage, it was repelled by a magical force field.
"Hey, what’s going on here?" a voice suddenly called out. A man in ragged clothes and with a fearso face approached.
The mont he arrived, Henry noticed the little girl’s face once again turned to that sa hopeless and despondent expression.
"Oh, sorry. I just wanted to see if this belonged to soone in here," Henry explained. At that mont, he pulled the tent flap slightly to get a better look inside the carriage. But just as he did, his hand was pushed back by a magical spell placed on the tent, which then automatically resealed the entire back of the carriage, hiding the little girl once more.
"Agh!"
Henry was violently shoved back by the man and fell onto the street.
"Fucking creep," said the man as he moved to the front of the carriage. Pretty soon, it started moving again and rode away.
Henry got up just as the carriage left.
"It’s suspicious," Henry muttered, rembering the change in the young girl’s expression and the force field on the carriage that seed to be there to cage those inside. More than that, he rembered what he saw inside the carriage—it was filled to the brim with children, all around the sa age as the one he had offered candy to before.
And they all had the sa expression as her.
"Not one of them seed to be in a healthy condition. I really wanted to go and inform Auran about our teleportation problem and quickly find a solution, but..." he clenched his fists. "Tch, I just hate myself for this."
Picking up his pace, he quickly followed behind the carriage. Although he wasn’t fast enough to catch up with it, he could at least keep it in sight. The carriage wasn’t moving too fast either, since it was traveling through a populated area where the roads weren’t made for high-speed riding. Soon, the carriage left the market area of the circle and moved deeper into the district, where extraordinary forest seed to be growing.
"There’s a forest here... If nothing else, this must be the reason why the air here is so comfortable. But these plants are way different from the ones I’m familiar with."
Once in the forest, the carriage stopped for a bit, and a fearso-looking man got off and strolled into the woods to take a leak.
It was during this short break that Henry managed to catch up with the carriage.
"Ugh, I’m dying," he muttered, breathing like an exhausted horse in a desert.
With one deep breath, his back straightened, and he aid his hand at the man in the woods.
"Let’s see what you’re made of."
{Zero Movent Restriction}
A dark mist spread out from his fingertip and sprinted toward the man, quickly getting absorbed into his body.
At that mont, the man finished relieving himself and turned around to walk back, but suddenly, he collapsed backward, falling into a deep sleep.
"Is he also at the Bond Stage too? He has quite a bit of magic resistance... Despite looking like a stray magician, could it be that he’s actually soone from an academy?" Henry thought, coming to a conclusion.
"The spell I cast put him to sleep since the core of it demands zero movent. But because of his magical resistance, the duration of the effect should be shortened. In that ti, I should be able to check what’s really going on here."
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