- (Anna’s POV) –

Alice and me just went out of the Adventurer Guild and Alice decided to stay with me for the rest of the days.

Roland told me that the Merchant Guild is in charge of selling all houses, so I’m going to ask them. I want to open my first shop close to the market in the middle of the town. Of course, I want to open more shop in the future, and I don’t want to be stuck in a shop. That’s why I’m planning to employ a lot of people to run the business for me! So, I can do other things and still get money, even if I do nothing!

You might be wondering what kind of shop I want to open first? I decided that it will be a shop selling potions and anything related to alchemy! I made some research, and potion exists, but the effects are quite bad… so it must be easy to beat my competitors in this field!~

While I’m thinking about those things, we just arrived in front of the Merchant Guild. We enter the building and another clerk come to us.

“Hello, may I help you?” (clerk)

“We are here because I want to buy a shop or a house in the town and join the Merchant Guild.” (Anna)

Roland also told me that it’s mandatory to join the Merchant Guild if you open a shop. It would be better if it’s already a shop, so I won’t have to do too much work to modify the building.

“Alright, let’s go to this room!” (clerk)

I move inside the room and sit in front of a desk while the clerk take some documents.

“Please complete this form to join the Merchant Guild.” (clerk)

It asks the name, the age, the type of business, and the location. I write everything and give back the form.

“Thank you. You also said that you wanted to buy a shop, right?” (clerk)

“Yes.” (Anna)

“One of the merchants went to the capital so he sold us his shop in this town. Are you interested to take a look at it ? Its location is there.” (clerk)

Ohh! Nice coincidence!

He points at a map and I can recognize the market a few hundred meters away. That’s the perfect location!

“It sounds pretty good. Is it possible to take a look at the shop before I decide?” (Anna)

“Of course, follow me.” (clerk)

The three of us go out of the Merchant Guild and move toward the shop in sales. We stop in front of a 3-story building mainly made of wood. There are already all the stuffs needed to make it attractive, so I won’t have too much work to do before the opening! Isn’t it perfect?~

We go inside and I look at the interior. It’s of course empty, but I can already imagine where I would place most of the stuff. There is also a door that lead upstairs.

“This floor was used for the customers, while upstairs was used to live. There are about 10 rooms upstairs in total.” (clerk)

Good! With this, I can let my employees live and sleep inside the shop (if they want to).

“It’s really interesting! What about the price?” (Anna)

“The price is 130 gold coins.” (clerk)

Oh, I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough money, but it’s fine. I have 295 gold coins right now!~ An average commoner needs to work approximately 15 years to afford this building, it sounds reasonable if we compare it with the price on Earth. It’s also a very big building with a lot of room so it’s even cheap, to be honest.

“Alright! I will take it!” (Anna)

“In that case, let’s go back to the guild to complete the formalities.” (clerk)

We move back to the guild and sit at the same desk.

“Ok, please complete this form. Also, you will have to pay some taxes to the lord every month.” (clerk)

Ah… I forgot about the taxes! Whatever, I should have enough money, hehe.~ I give him back the form.

“Alright, everything is completed! Good luck for your shop!” (clerk)

“Thank you, see you next time!” (Anna)

I will take care of the shop tomorrow, it’s soon the time for dinner. I still plan to go to the orphanage to give them some food, then I will go back to Alice’s house.

I go out of the merchant guild with Alice. Isn’t she bored by those kinds of things?

“Do you want me to bring you back to the house? Or do you want to go with me to the orphanage?” (Anna)

“Do you want to get rid of me that much?! Of course, I come with you!” (Alice)

“Alright, alright.” (Anna)

We move toward the orphanage. I think it’s around 6PM according to the sun’s location.

When we arrive there, I can see the headmistress and several children close to her. When I was about to greet them, I suddenly stop because I can see a few guards behind them.

What’s going on?!

Once I get closer, I can see their faces and it’s definitely not a happy face! Did something happen?

I move toward the headmistress to greet her.

“Hello, why are you all making this kind of face? And why are there some guards behind you? Did something happen?” (Anna)

“Ah… it’s you Anna-chan. Well, yes, something happened…” (Headmistress)

“What happened? Can I somehow help you?” (Anna)

“I don’t think that you can help… I don’t want to put you in dangers…” (Headmistress)

I won’t be in dangers, so tell me!! Suddenly, one guard sees me and comes to me.

“Oh! Are you perhaps lady Anna?” (guard)

Ah yes, I forgot. All the guards were told to somehow ‘not anger’ me and ‘be nice’ to me… So it’s not surprising if they know me with my hair color.

“Can you tell me what happened?” (Anna)

“Well… you see. From what we were told, around 30 black clothed men came to the orphanage and captured half of the children, then they ran away holding the captured children.” (guard)

WHAT ?! They told me that there are 52 children in this orphanage, so it means that around 26 were captured?! I look at Alice and she is making a terrified face. I turn again to the guard and ask:

“What are you doing, then? Are you not going to rescue them?!” (Anna)

“W-We sent all the available guard to rescue them, but we don’t know their location, we were informed too late… We were told to stay here to protect the remaining children.” (guard)

Well, it’s not a bad idea, but they have to be found really fast! The mastermind is probably a slave trader, and slave trading is forbidden in this country. However, it’s not forbidden in some country… so there is a chance that they are going to run away from the country.

“How many people were sent to rescue the children?” (Anna)

“We only had 25 available guards, so we did 5 group of 5. One group is staying here so there are currently 20 people trying to find the location of the bandits.” (guard)

Ah sh*t… I don’t think it’s enough to find them. Even if they find them, they will have to regroup and fight against 30 black clothed men, and maybe there is even more bandits that didn’t come here…

“What about the knights? Did you contact them?” (Anna)

“It’s not that easy! They can’t move without the Lord’s orders! It would take hours to get the approval and make them move!” (guard)

When I was training with the knights this morning, they told me that there are 2 separate orders: the knights and the guards. They are both under the Lord, BUT the guards are normal citizens and are hired while the knights stay, train and sleep at the Lord’s house. The main difference is that the knights only move for a war or a monsters invasion and can only move under the Lord’s order while the guards are more independent, they are still under the Lord’s order, but they can move on their own.

Also, the knights are stronger than the guard in general.

This system is not bad, but there are many flaws. I will have to talk to Roland about it later.

I need to help the children somehow.

Let’s see, there is 3 sides that need to be protected: the orphanage, Alice, and the captured children.

I will leave the orphanage to those guards, even if I don’t trust them. However, I promised to protect Alice so I can’t trust the guard to protect them. It would be a problem if the black clothed men came back to the orphanage and capture Alice, the lord’s daughter, while she is under my responsibility!

Then, let’s bring Alice with me!~

I turn toward the headmistress and ask:

“Do you have some clothes that one of the captured kids were wearing recently?” (Anna)

“Ah, yes!” (headmistress)

She goes inside the orphanage and come back a dozen of seconds later.

“Here are a few clothes from several captured children.” (headmistress)

“Ok, perfect!” (Anna)

I summon Shiro in front of me. Haha, all the guards and children look surprised!~

“Shiro! Sniff those clothes and try to find where the person wearing them is!” (Anna)

Yup! I’m using Shiro’s sense of smell to find the children.

*sniff* *sniff* Shiro is sniffing, she turns toward a certain direction, then she turns toward me. I somehow understood that she wants to tell me that she knows where they are.

“Alice, let’s go!” (Anna)

I take Alice and jump on top of Shiro’s back. I turn toward the headmistress, she is looking at me with wide opened eyes, haha, it was expected!~ I didn’t want to show Shiro to everyone yet, but the safety of the children is way more important than a few secrets, right?~

“I will take care of those bandits! Let’s go, Shiro!” (Anna)

Shiro run at maximum speed toward the town, mainly jumping over the roofs.

It only takes a few minutes for Shiro to stop in a dark alley. There are 2 peoples in front of a door wearing black clothes. So, it’s here, uhh?!

Those 2 peoples saw us and are ready to attack us.

“What are you doing here!” (black clothed man)

I move faster than they can see and knock both of them out.

I could go in and kill everyone, BUT I have to protect the children aswell; I need to be very careful. I turn toward Alice.

“Alice! You will go back to your house with Shiro and tell your father everything and tell him to bring the knights here!” (Anna)

“Understood!” (Alice)

I turn toward Shiro.

“Shiro! You will bring Alice on your back to her house. You have to protect her at all costs!” (Anna)

*woof* (Shiro)

“I will take care of those bandits and protect the children until you come back! Okay, you can go now!” (Anna)

Shiro and Alice leave me, and I turn back toward the door.

I send a wave of mana to see how many people are inside. I can count 79 peoples inside. From their amount of mana and shapes, I can guess that there is 33 children and 46 adults.

So, are there a few children that are not from the orphanage? From what they told me yesterday, they should be 52 children in the orphanage, so when the guard said ‘half of the children’, I thought that there are 26 captured children. Well whatever, maybe it was only an approximation? Anyway, I have to protect them all.

My goal is to find the children as quickly as I can without being noticed. If they notice me before I can reach the children, they might be using them as hostages.

I break the door with a kick, summon my sword, and go inside discretely. I try my best to not leak any mana and to reduce the sound. It’s impossible to totally delete the sound with mana, the best I can do is attenuate it.

There are 3 black clothed men inside, I knock them out before they can do anything.

I take a look around me and I can see a corridor. Most of the adults and children are there according to the ‘radar’. I discretely move inside the corridor. There is a door in front of me and a small window, so I can see what’s inside.

I can see the children together inside a big cage!~ However, in front of the cage, there are many black clothed men! There are at least 40 of them!! And in front of the black clothed men, there is 1 fat man wearing luxurious clothes. Here we go, I think I found the mastermind! They are talking so I try to hear their conversation.

“Hahaha! Great job, everyone! Tomorrow, we will move to the frontier discretely! There is no way that the guards will find us before that! Once we sell all those brats, we will be rich!” (fat man)

Haha, exactly like I thought, he plans to go to another country to sell the children as slaves.

“I will let you play with the wom-“ (fat man)

Before he could finish his sentence, I destroy the door and instantly pass everyone before they can react and arrive in front of the children, inside the cage (I destroyed the bars while I was running).

I turn toward the children with a big smile.

“Hello, I came to rescue you and bring you back!” (Anna)

All of them are looking at me with tears in the eyes and are nodding. It looks like most of them are recognizing me!~

All the adults finally understood that there is an intruder, so they turn toward me.

“W-What are you doing here! H-How did you get here?” (fat man)

“I came to bring back those children.” (Anna)

“Stop playing the hero! Coming here alone is equivalent to ask us to capture you as well!” (fat man)

He turns toward the black clothed men.

“Capture her!” (fat man)

The black clothed men are coming toward me. I need to be very careful, if even one of them slip behind me, they might take hostage one of the children. It’s very hard to protect 33 peoples at the same time!!

When a black clothed man come too close, I instantly slash him to death. I don’t care about ‘not killing them’ or those kinds of bullshit! Those guys don’t deserve to live after what they did! I’m not some of kind of Shonen protagonist that refuse to kill their enemies for a stupid reason and then get f*cked when they counter-attack!

I prefer to kill them so I’m sure that they won’t move and give me some problem later. The only things I’m regretting while killing them is to let the children see that much blood.

I keep slashing when they come until there are about 20 peoples remaining. After they saw me killing half of their comrades, they are backing off, afraid.

“What are you doing! Capture her! The one that succeed to capture her get the right to r*pe her!” (fat man)

Well, sorry for you but no one will get me.

Since they are ignoring the orders and are not coming to me, I decide to move. I dash toward them and slice theirs heads one by one with ultra speed. However, we might need some people alive to interrogate them, so I knock out 3 of them.

“W-w-aah” (fat man)

All the adults are dead, except 3 black clothed men and the fat man; there are also the 5 black clothed men that I knocked out at the entrance.

Then, I also knock out the fat man.

Here we go! There is no adult conscious now in this room! (except me)

I look around the room and see some rope in a corner so I take it and put it on their legs and arms to make sure that they won’t cause more problem later.

I walk back toward the children and smile.

“There is no bad guy anymore! The knights will arrive soon, and I will stay with you until then!” (Anna)

Some children start to cry while some others look at me with sparkle in the eyes. I wonder if they are afraid of me after I killed more than 40 peoples in front of them.

One boy come closer to me. I recognize him, it’s the boy that I meet in the street! I think his name was Rudy or something?

“You were so cool, Anna-oneesan!” (Rudy)

Cool?! Killing a few dozens of people cool for you?! What’s wrong with the children of this world!!

Some other children come closer aswell.

“Thank you very much for saving us!” (girl 1)

“It was amazing!” (boy 1)

“You are so strong!” (boy 2)

“I want to be like you when I’m taller!” (girl 2)

It looks like the children are not afraid of me, what a relief *sigh*.

Then, I keep talking with the children while waiting for the knights.