“….So, for how many days should we stay out of town?”(Ren)

“Once they take the bait I’ll send a light signal through the sky and that will be your signal to come back”(Soma)

“A light signal?”(Ren)

“I’ll use my blue lightning and that will function as a light signal for you”(Soma)

“I see… got it! Leave it to me!.... But to tell you the truth, I was about to visit you tomorrow to ask you to take care of the town in my place, because I was planning to go with my knights to do some scouting for a couple of days, every year after the Flood there is another problem that befalls this town, and I was going to check things out, and right now you come to me with a solution to yet another problem, I get the feeling that you know everything about every problem this country has and that you have a solution for every one of them…”(Ren)

“Well, I’ll not deny that…”(Soma)

After finishing his talk with Ren, Soma went back home to find the kids arranging the plates on top of the tables in the dining room that have been arranged just this afternoon to fit all of them together, the room had six long tables that could fit 60 people easily, and the kids are arranging the plates on top of the tables right now in preparation for the dinner.

“Soma-kun! Welcome home!”(Marina)

“Yeah, I’m back…”(Soma)

“Fufufu! It’s like we are a newlywed couple…. Gehehehe …Gehehehe…”(Marina)

“Onii-chan! Marina Onee-chan is scaring me!”(Kid)

“Leave her alone, she is just a little bit crazy that’s all”(Soma)

“….hehe-! Hey, there don’t go telling the kids weird things!”(Marina)

“But you are the weird one here, you know”(Soma)

“That’s enough!!”(Marina)

“Yeah Yeah..”(Soma)

They all started eating after Marina, Maria, and Mai were done with bringing the food in, during the dinner the kids were very happy with the food and ended up eating a lot, according to Maria, lately, at the orphanage, they were only able to eat dried bread and salt soup and today was their first time eating meat in more than a year, and the last time they ate meat it was salted dried meat eaten by travelers, and today was their first time ever eating fresh meat.

“Now that we are done eating, I’m going to tell you our plan for tomorrow, we are going to make a library out of the biggest room in the mansion! I want everyone to help by cleaning and arranging the books on the shelves! And those who work hard will get some snacks as well!”(Soma)

“ “ “YAAAAAAYY!!” ” ”

After cleaning up, everyone went to their respective rooms to sleep for the night, the kids were given one room for every five of them, the rooms had soft beds, warm covers, and small light next to each bed for those who are scared of the dark, Maria and Mai get a room for each one of them, at first they insisted on sharing rooms with the kids but Soma and Marina were able to convince them to take a room each after two hours of going back and forth.

Soma laid on his bed and closed his eyes to sleep, but that was interrupted by the sensation of someone lying next to him and hugging his arm, it was Marina as expected…

“Oi, why are you here?”(Soma)

“…You haven’t paid me much attention lately, that’s why I’m going to sleep here tonight”(Marina)

“…Suit yourself”(Soma)

====================================================================================

In the morning, after eating breakfast, everyone headed for the largest room in the mansion and started cleaning it, while Soma worked in the workshop to make the parts of the bookshelves out of Demonic Elder Treants’ wood and once he was done, he had the kids help him take the parts up to the cleaned room, and he installed the bookshelves there.

“Now what are you gonna do about the books?”(Mai)

“This….{Book Of Knowledge: Create Grand Library}!”(Soma)

Right at that moment, a pile of books appeared out of nowhere surprising everyone except for Marina because she knew Soma's true nature.

“W-W-Where did all these books come from?!”(Mai)

“It’s a skill of mine, I can recreate any book I have read before with magic, and these here only a small part of the books I have read in the past, these books here are all books that could be easily understood by kids, but first you’ll have to teach them how to read using language textbooks which I’ll give to you later on along with some papers and colored pens for practice and for the kids to play around a little bit, don’t worry about the papers running low or anything and use then without any constraint”(Soma)

“… B-But aren’t paper expensive? Using it like that is….”(Maria)

“Don’t worry about that, the paper is made by me using Alchemy, and to be honest with you, a bundle of one hundred papers costs less than one copper coin, so don’t worry about that!”(Soma)

====================================================================================

*Knock! Knock! Knock!*

“Come in”(Marik)

“Excuse me”(Attendant)

“So, what happened?”(Wind)

“It was as you said, just now the First Knight Order departed from the town with Rendoulf-sama at their head, they headed towards the Capital City Valen, it was as Marik-sama said, they needed to report to the king about this year’s Flood”(Attendant)

“That’s my boy for you!”(Wind)

“We didn’t have to wait much and here our chance is within our grasp! Onde, take our men and your men and raid that filthy commoner’s mansion and be sure to kill every last one of them…. on second thought, kill him and that orphanage woman and her daughter, and bring the kids to Hols’s slave market and sell them there and as for that dog, you can do whatever you wanted with her!”(Marik)

“Yes, Marik-sama! But what should I use to justify our raid?”(Onde)

“Them harboring the murderer of my father, the head of the Drold family! And you’ll be attacking them two days from now, just to make sure that the knight order is not going on a simple patrol!”(Marik)

“Yes, sir!”(Onde)

====================================================================================

“…Soma-san! There is a big group of armed men heading here! Look!”(Mai)

Two days after finishing the library, Soma was helping Maria and Mai teaching the kids how to read and write when Mai started freaking out after looking out of the window.

“Hoh? It looks like our fish have eaten the bait, don’t worry I’ll go take care of them real quick”(Soma)

Soma walked out of the mansion and stood in the way of his attackers, at first they looked at him with surprised expressions but that changed into sneers in no time at all.

“What? You are here to beg for your lives?”(Onde)

“Of course not, dumpass!”(Soma)

“What?! You dare to insult me even though you are about to lose your life?! What an insolent cur indeed!”(Onde)

“Don’t blame me, you are just that dump! You and your owner who sent you here”(Soma)

“You dare insult the Drold family?!!”(Onde)

“See? I told you that you are a dumpass, you just went and revealed who was it that sent you here!”(Soma)

“…I-It doesn’t matter as you’ll be dying right here and now! At him boys!!”(Onde)

The armed men Onde brought with him, heading his orders they all started running towards Soma’s direction swords, daggers, and spears in hand, some of them were running towards him but most of them were running towards the mansion, Soma simply unsheathed his sword and from that sword, blue lightning started flashing and crackling, and as soon as Soma pointed his sword at the sky, multiple blue lightning bolts flew from the sword and created a huge cage made out of blue lightning that encased Soma and all of the attackers including Onde, the blue lightning cage was taller than the town’s walls by a lot, it was tall enough to be seen clearly from some distance away from the town, the attackers all stopped in their tracks once they saw the blue lightning and right now their faces were painted with fear in place of the sneer from moments ago.

“W-W-What t-the hell is t-this?! What did you do?!”(Onde)

“Nothing. just took the liberty of confining you here till Ren come back with his knights”(Soma)

“What are you talking about?! The knight order left the town for the capital already!!”(Onde)

“Is that what you think? They went to scout the area while waiting for my signal for them to return and this cage is that signal”(Soma)

“W-What?! …. Boys! Kill him! We have to kill him before the knight order comes back!!”(Onde)

Three of the guys near Soma started walking towards him but as they did, blue lightning fell down at them knocking them out, that was enough to scare the rest of them into submission.

“As you can see, if anyone of you tries to move lightning will strike you and knock you out, and believe me it’s quite painful!”(Soma)

Hearing that they all threw away their weapons and crouched down on the ground, put their heads on the ground, and closed their ears with their hands terrified by the idea of lightning falling down on them, leaving Onde standing alone with his mouth open and eyes full of despair.

In no time, people started crowding outside of the lightning cage trying to see what was going on, and after some time, Ren came with his knights and surrounded the lightning cage.

“Soma! Could you disable the cage? We have surrounded the area!”(Ren)

“Yeah!”(Soma)

Soma disabled the cage and Ren came walking with his knights still surrounding the area, Onde saw that as his chance as he faced Ren…

“Rendoulf-sama! Thank goodness you came! This guy attacked us out of nowhere and used that strange magic of his to imprison us in here and…..and… a..nd..”(Onde)

Onde started begging Ren to help them while telling him that they were the ones being attacked by Soma, but soon enough he stopped talking once he saw the silver scale in Ren’s hand with its left pan dropping down.

“That’s a lie! Soma, What is the truth?”(Ren)

“After seeing that you left the town with your knights, they saw it as their chance to attack me to take their revenge and to silence me”(Soma)

“T-That’s not true…-!”(Onde)

“The scale shows that soma is telling the truth! Who sent them at you?”(Ren)

“He himself said that they were sent by the Drold family”(Soma)

“The scale shows that you are telling the truth! You said that they are sent to silence you, what do you know?”(Ren)

“I know that they are dealing with illegal slavery through Hols’s slave market and that the son of the family head, Marik have been embezzling money from the orphanage and that he and his mother killed the family head in cold blood and blamed it all on Marina my friend and the daughter of the second wife of the late head who was killed by the mother of Marik, Wind using poison including some more details!”(Soma)

“All of that? And it appears that you are telling the truth!..... Men! Divide into three groups, one group take these men to the town’s square while the two other groups go and apprehend Drold Marik and Drold Wind and everyone working for them, and Hols, the owner of Hols’s slave market and bring them all to the town’s square! And you Soma, come with the orphanage people to the town’s square in one hour, there I’ll hold a public trial and will deliver my judgment there and then! And you, citizens, spread the news and tell everyone to come in one hour to stand witnesses to the whole thing as I uncover the truth! And deliver a well-deserved justice to the offenders!!”(Ren)

2.12.0.0