(Maia's Pov)
In all fairness, we could've come back to watch over them almost right after dealing with Cifer, but we just took the day off for ourselves and roamed around the capital. It's not like they were in any particular danger anyway in the end, and I'd say that we deserve a break once in a while… Alright, alright, I'll stop making excuses. But still, it's not that big of a deal in the end, since they had the elf duo watching over them anyway.
It was around 11 at night, and both me and Mio, who was back to her own body, went through a portal, taking us in the sky, behind the 2 of them.
"Yo, you two. Everything's alright?"
"Hm? Oahhh?! Mio, Maia… how many times do we have to tell you to not appear behind us out of nowhere?"
Sylara was the only one to actually get scared though. Well, I guess Mivana may have been as well, but her poker face is generally better than her mother's in all fairness.
"Did you two have fun meeting him?"
"Well, I definitely did personally, but I'm not so sure about this one."
I pointed towards her while replying to Mivana, as she and Sylara were still on the topic of our questionable entrance choices. Was it even that scary? I'm honestly just too used to Mio appearing out of nowhere, so I can't really tell for sure. Thinking about it from their point of view though, I guess it may actually be a lot more scary than I thought. I'll apologize one day… Probably, anyway.
"I didn't have a blast, but I wasn't that bored either. Oh, and by the way Sylara, we went to that one pastry shop you're supplying today."
"You mean the one that opened recently, right?"
"Yeah, that one. The stuff there is pretty good, though the product quality not being the highest grade was definitely noticeable for us."
"That's because you much on strawberries I make for you all day long…"
"S-so what?! Can't I have a small treat of joy for myself once in a while?"
"Maia, I hate to break it to you, but you really do eat a lot of them. Is it an addiction or something? I know they're your favorite, but you definitely take it up a notch higher than just that."
"I don't wanna hear that from you… you would eat as many strawberries as I do if she made them spicy."
"As if that's possible to begin with. If it was I'd have done it myself-"
"It is though?"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"Sylara… what did you just say?"
"Did you not know? Even if it doesn't naturally have capsaicin, I can add it myself when creating them."
Pretty funny, isn't it? Mio is usually the one with the most knowledge among us after all. But don't get the wrong idea about her. That may be true for most cases, and most scenarios, but in the end she's still just a human girl. She may have an addiction to spice, but for example, she had never even thought of simply adding the substance that makes stuff spicy inside food that isn't supposed to have it..
I have seen her, or rather she's forced me to see and taste some of her spicy creations in the past. I'm not talking about making spicy dishes, though, I mean genuinely taking the most random food or ingredient, and smothering it with the spiciest seasonings on the planet, or just the peppers themselves.
You're probably seeing the pattern here by now. Mio has thought of making random stuff spicy, but never internally. For the record, she can also create any fruits or plants the same way if not better than Sylara as well, she just chooses not to. I've asked her once about it, but apparently she just likes the taste of Sylara's more, so that's why she doesn't make her own.
Mio had frozen momentarily. I guess that finding out she could've made or asked for hassle free weird spicy ingredients instead of creating them manually was a little shocking to her. Me and Mivana were just watching from the sidelines, while Sylara had her arms crossed, looking almost confused about it. Did she think Mio was aware of it until now? I guess that's one negative effect of usually being the smartest, huh? The few times you don't think about something, others may find it confusing.
Oh also, I've never thought about it either, don't get me wrong. It's not like I watched her experiments and had the idea but never told her. So don't try to come at me for it, alright? Though I'm not as surprised as Mio is, this was the first time I heard about this too.
"Really?"
"Really. Modifying the structure of it isn't really hard. For that matter, have you ever thought about why my products have different grades in quality that I sell? The higher the grade, the more nutrient and flavorful I make them. But on special request I can also just make a lemon sweet or something like that."
"….I see. May you be so kind as to make me a spicy strawberry please… as spicy as possible."
"…yeah, no problem."
"Thanks…"
It was a little awkward honestly. Like when your friend says or asks for something ridiculous, but you unironically can do it, so you're just like "yeah… you got it buddy." But since they're aware of how ridiculous their request is, they're fairly gloomy about it. It didn't take longer than a few seconds for the perfectly normal looking strawberry to appear in Sylara's hand though, before handing it to Mio.
Regardless, after taking that first bite and somehow loving it, she ended up asking for a whole basket worth of them as a snack, before finally allowing the two of them to go.
"Thanks for watching over them today, you two."
"No need to thank us, it was entertaining enough to watch your little brother in action."
"Though the action in question was apparently just pointing his sword at a couple, alongside dad…"
"But that on its own was pretty cool. Don't you think so, Mom?"
"I agree, it was pretty exciting to see that all the talking you two did about him being a hero and what not wasn't all in vain. Not that I've doubted it until now or anything. The little man was ready to do whatever it took. Your dad, well, he's just as good."
"I know right?! But of course, that much was expected from my soon to be husband."
Though she wasn't even talking to you… also, take that smug grin off your face, he's not gonna get married any time soon either!
"Well, regardless we're going home now. Let us know if you want to have us watch over them again."
We nodded, And portal then opened beside them. They quickly went in, leaving us alone on our duty again. It was fun to talk about strawberries and all, but it was time to get a little more serious. They had given us updates on what was going on through the day, so we knew the gist of it.
"At least they'll finally take care of it tonight. Tomorrow they should be able to go back on the road at this rate."
"Yeah, it shouldn't be too long until they try to take back the kid."
I knew the general gist of the situation here as well, but I didn't actually know the full story. More than anything really I was curious about what the coverup for the whole thing even was, so I decided to ask.
"Say, Mio. I get most of what's going on here, but how is it even being covered up?"
"Hm? Ah, you didn't know? They're using a local legend to cover it up."
"Local legend…"
"Oh, I think I've heard about it. Is it the one about 2 nobles who ran away from home, then the mother became a cursed spirit?"
"Yeah, it is. It's a pretty old tale, around 100 years old or so, which only made it more believable in the end."
"So they're giving away their children because they believe in a made up story from 100 years ago, huh?"
"The story isn't fake though?"
"Wait, seriously?"
"I mean, sure, part of it is. Like for example, the mother didn't become a cursed spirit or anything like that. But the actual tale is real. I found the file while looking through old stuff a while ago. It was covered up fairly well honestly, since they were from noble families."
"Where did the curse part come from though? If they believed it then they also most likely stayed out of the forest for their whole lives, no? Wouldn't they need a pretty big conviction for that?"
"I'm Not really sure when it became a cursed tale, but it is true that only one of the men hunting them actually got out of there alive. They weren't just regular nobles anymore after all. The father had accumulated a good amount of strength through training over the years, so they had trouble taking the 3 down, but they succeeded eventually."
"Apparently, the last survivor was severely injured as well, not just general physical ones either, but also brain injuries. Those probably limited his speech, and through a lot of misunderstandings and gibberish it became what it is now."
"…I wonder how many tales are actually just either made up or misunderstood gibberish passed down."
"A lot more than you think haha. But regardless, it seems like they're starting to make their move."
I turned my attention back to the ground, and yeah she was right. A few men, around 30 or so, were approaching their carriage silently, from all directions.
"Cael is gonna be so pissed when he learns the truth…"
"I know right? I haven't seen him angry in a while, so it'll be pretty fun to watch. After all, even when he's furious he's still as attentive and sharp as usual, honestly, it's actually almost hot how cool he is when he's angr-"
"Yeah , yeah, we get it you creep. Enjoy your show, but do it in silence… keep your dirty thoughts about my little brother to yourself."
"You didn't have to word it like that…"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Cael's Pov)
Usually as I've already mentioned the kids used to sleep inside the carriages, while the adults did it outside. We decided to not straight up tell Lina to become a bait though, so instead everyone was going to sleep outside tonight.
We had already set up our tents, and the twins alongside Lina were already asleep. All we had to do now was wait, but honestly that's only assuming something will happen to begin with.
We have no way to confirm whether there really is really more to it than a simple curse or not after all, so we were kinda just gambling it. It's not like we actually had anything to lose from it either in the end though, since the worst case scenario was sleeping outside in a perfectly heat regulated barrier.
What time is it even? It's been a while since we went inside our tents, and it was around 10 or so when we did. I've been thinking mostly about how this would play out if there were more people involved, and I think that there's a general outcome we'd all agree on, even though we didn't really discuss a plan or anything like that.
Assuming there would be more than one person coming after us at least anyway, the best choice is to just immobilize and interrogate them somehow, while avoiding making too much noise. We should probably avoid waking up Lina if anyone does come, since there's a high chance they would be the people who got her in that state to begin with after all.
I guess I'll check again.
I've been mana checking our surroundings in a few intervals just in case, and I'm fairly sure dad was doing it too. Granted that if someone did come for us it wouldn't be a powerhouse, it's still better to be safe than risk actually getting secretly ambushed you know? Catch them before they catch you, type of thing,
Let's see, let's see… I don't really feel any movement- oh, nevermind?
There were some mana sources, human ones. Among them actually, there seemed to be one that was quite strong too… C rank? Maybe even B? For starters, seeing that there really were some people coming for us was technically a good thing, as bad as it sounded.
Well, not really good but also not terrible? Anyway, at the very least we had confirmation of the fact that that old man didn't tell us everything.
"Dad, can you feel them?"
"Yeah, I also thought I'd check by now… seems like you were right about waiting."
"Though it's not exactly the best thing ever that we're about to get jumped…"
"I can't disagree, but at least we'll be able to get to the bottom of this. Aldric, Isolde, Lyanna are you guys ready?"
"Yeah, there's no problem."
"Yep, I'm ready dear."
"Same here, I just have to make sure the little one doesn't wake up when I get up though…"
There seem to be around 35 of them give or take. Besides that one strong guy that's probably their leader, the rest are actually weaker than even myself. They're closer to regular humans than adventurers honestly, which just shows that they really thought we were just a bunch of spoiled fallen nobles. I guess disgrace has its own merits sometimes, doesn't it?
It was about 5 minutes afterwards that they did actually try to ambush us, but I'll spare you the Boring part. We immobilized all of them with no real issues, since we had a certain someone on our side. After tying them up together, it was now time to actually get to the point. But before that, we untapped the mouth of only one of them, that being the strongest one. We taped them all previously to avoid unnecessary noise, but we couldn't really interrogate him if he couldn't speak.
"Well, I can't blame you for thinking that way... but I honestly almost feel bad for you guys. unfortunately though, you decided to mess with the wrong family."
"Tsk. You damn monster."
"Monster, huh? I'm almost offended that you think I'm a monster at my level. If I'm a monster then what does that make my sweet little girl?"
Sweet, huh? You're talking about Maia, no? Are you sure you don't have a secret daughter or something, old man?
"What are you going to do with us?"
"Hmmm. Well, it just depends on how much you're going to talk. But honestly, looking at that contorted face of yours, you don't really seem in the mood for a chat, are you?"
"You twisted bastard…"
Well, I can't actually fully disagree there. Pretty sure everyone in our family has some kind of loose screw after all. Dad being the strongest here at the moment was pretty evident too. I was getting a little irritated myself though, so I didn't really want to imagine how dad felt.
"Were you after Lina?"
"So that's her name, huh?"
What?
Did this bastard not even know her name? Did they start hunting down a girl, ready to take down an innocent family protecting her as well, all while not even knowing her name? Was this really happening? Did I hear that right?
I wasn't necessarily angry until now. But that simple comment is what actually almost had my blood boil with rage. For starters, they really were after her, that alone being bad enough. But they don't even know her name? Does her life mean so little to them that they can't even learn that?
Unsheathing my sword, I pushed dad aside. I then walked in front of him, and held it in front of his face, while looking down at him.
"Were you the ones that kidnapped her?"
"Woah… you're one scary brat, aren't you? But I'll have to correct you there. We didn't kidnap anyone after all, she was handed to us."
This bastard…
He smirked.
He doesn't feel sorry about what they did…
He then continued rambling. Why? Weren't you against giving us information?
"We even healed her, you know? I know a little healing magic myself, so I used it on her. We couldn't sell her all bruised up after all. But she somehow escaped our carriage while on the move… seriously, if whichever bastard was on guard was actually paying attention we wouldn't be here to begin with."
…At All.
I had risen up my arm. This guy was scum. No, even less than that. His life was worth less than the random ants you'd accidentally step on while walking, or even the laziest of individuals. This guy needs to go. He's a waste of oxygen. We don't need him. We should just get rid of him… But then why?
"…Why are you holding my arm, Mom, Dad?"
I turned my face slightly around. They had the same sorrowful expression on their faces, mixed with disgust.
"…sweetie, you shouldn't get your hands dirty for someone like him."
"Put your blade down, Cael. We aren't in a position to kill people now. We have no authority if not for this seal. We'll get them all arrested, but we shouldn't dirty our hands with scum like them."
I looked back at him, and his smirk got even wider.
It was infuriating. So much that I wanted to just forcefully free my hand and kill him anyway… but I decided not to.
"…Alright."
I sheathed it.
"Hah…hahahahahaha! Man, this is so pathetic! Hahaha you can't even afford to kill someone that's actually guilty? And you guys used to be the strongest household in the kingdom after the Royal one…this is beyond ridiculous-"
Before he could finish though, he was interrupted. By what you may ask? I was honestly shocked by it myself, but it wasn't just me who had punched him at that moment. I aimed for his nose, dad had gone for his left check, while mom Aldric went for his right one. All 3 of us did it at the same time, hitting him hard enough for him to feel it, but not enough to pass out.
"My bad… I definitely broke your nose there, didn't I? But don't worry… We have a pretty good healer here, so you won't get imprisoned all bruised up."
Yeah… I think I get it now. The look of shock on his face really gave it away. This guy genuinely thought we wouldn't be able to harm him whatsoever, didn't he? So he spilled the beans on only the things he knew would get us angry on purpose. He was taunting us, and we fell for it.
But what about it? Is falling into taunting really something to be ashamed of? In most cases it would be considered stepping as low if not lower than the person doing the taunting itself, but in this case? We're just going to use his advice.
He said he healed Lina to avoid her being bruised up once she'd be sold. Then we'll cover up his bruises and broken bones to avoid having him arrive in prison all beaten up. It's simple like that, it's just taking his advice.
Are we stepping as low as him, if not lower? Maybe. But is it unjustifiable? I'd honestly love for someone to try and tell me that it is. It would say a lot about themselves as a person after all. So actually, yeah maybe we aren't even taking his advice in the end. Maybe we really just fell for his ragebait. However, I'm not really sure about it, but given their actions I think that neither dad or Aldric or myself cares.
I'll skip the details once again, since you can imagine what happened to him afterwards, but I will go after the information that we squeezed out of him in the meanwhile.
It turns out that the story the old man told us was actually partially true. The story of those 2 nobles did happen, there just wasn't any curse. What had really happened was that the chief had unintentionally messed around when he was out sometime 10 years ago, and got into some mess with these guys.
We didn't really get too many details on that part, but it seems like he had borrowed some money from these guys to use them in order to build walls around the village, but he actually used them all for himself. Which is why, these guys intended on taking his life, until he offered them a deal.
Panicking, cornered up and hopeless, he gave a shot to his last resort. "Spare me, and protect our village. In exchange, I'll give you one of our children every year for you to do whatever you want with them" is the gist of it. He told them about the tale of the alleged curse of the forest as well, which made the deal seem more approachable, resulting in them accepting in the end.
Children were and still are really valuable on the market, as disgusting as it is after all.
There was no curse on the ground either, all the land is still very fertile. But since the chief had actually managed to convince the villagers about the curse being real before anyone could even bother trying, they didn't even bother to falsificate it. The exact same goes for the animals, and any other aspect of the curse.
The chief gave up the kids of his own villagers, just to save his life. Innocent young children, tormented and sold… Lina would've been the 10th. That means 9 other kids had already met that fate over the course of 10 years.
We couldn't get out any information regarding who they sold them to in the end though. It seems like to him whoever they were in business with was scarier than us. It was annoying, but there wasn't much we could do about it.
On the other hand, what we could do and did right away after getting the information, was paying the chief a visit. Was it the middle of the night? Yeah, he was sleeping pretty peacefully when we got there. Did we wake him up? Of course, we had to wake up this poor old man in the middle of the night, since we had really important things to talk about.
Did we feel bad about it however? Not at all. It took him no less than 5 minutes to spill the beans after we cornered him. We didn't even need to use any violence, which shows just how cowardly this man really was. He gave away children with 0 issues to his sleep, but he couldn't even handle the thought of getting punched once. Which one of us was the privileged nobles again?
Not that a village chief is necessarily noble, and since this clearly isn't the case, but he was still at the top of this village so I guess "noble" in title relative to his surroundings. But honestly, the grammar doesn't even matter now.
That same night, dad, who was by far the fastest among us, went to the nearest town that had sentinel recruits stationed in it, and reported them. Do you remember a while back when he sent Maia to the town after Alduin's visit? He said something about her being the fastest and that was the reason why he sent her, didn't he?
It may have been true relatively speaking, since the Maia after the visit was substantially stronger and faster, but he could've easily gone himself in no less than a matter of minutes. I guess he just wanted to prioritize the villagers' situation? He was the one in charge after all. But regardless, the point is that Maia's estimate about dad's strength from a while ago was most likely accurate.
The next day, we had quite a bit of explaining to do because of their village chief randomly getting arrested, but we couldn't just leave like that. The parents that had given up their children over the years were understandably mortified, but there unfortunately wasn't much we could do for them other than giving them our condolences.
We explained the situation to the recruits who came to arrest those guys as well, and they said they'd try to find the sold children, but honestly as much as it disgusts me to say it, I wouldn't bet on all of them being alive anymore.
Lina's parents honestly had it the best and worst at the same time, considering they could've been next. They did in fact give up their daughter after all, but they were lucky enough that she escaped and we found her.
We couldn't find it in ourselves to blame them too much after seeing how genuinely remorseful they were, and in the end they were all being deceived by their leader, so it was understandable that they'd believe it.
It also seemed like Lina didn't want to blame her parents or anything like that, whether out of kindness or simply being too young to understand, so I don't think it's a bad choice to leave her with them for the time being.
On top of calling the recruits to arrest those guys, while in the town dad also did something else though. He ordered enough materials and workers to actually build the walls of the village, and also bought more food and supplies for them as well. He didn't tell me how much he spent, but considering that he obviously used the seal, it wouldn't really matter that much either way.
It was a pretty short detour from our journey thankfully, but I don't regret taking this side quest on. With that being taken care of though, we were back on our way towards the capital. We have a court trial to partake in a while after all.