Oh shit.

As everyone turns towards me I quickly hide the weapon behind my back and attempt to push all the remaining traces of ‘Fear’s Illusion’ into the weapon. I convert the remainder of my ‘aura’ into ‘Death Aura’ and then push it straight into the weapon. Although the weapon isn’t as well hidden as it normally is, unless someone by some chance stares straight at it or have larger ‘aura’ than Grandma, they won’t notice anything out of place.

That was close, thank god for the ‘aura’ magnification that this weapon has. I would be in a dark deep hole of questions if it didn’t have that capability.

I quickly adopt a stereotypical innocent 4-year old look, and reply to her question with slurred and stuttered speech.

“I… I wanted to ask a que… question a-about something and I heard you were ou-outside.”

The young man nodded with approval at my answer while Julie looked at me with suspicion and Grandma still had her normal smiling face. The young man then spoke up.

“Isn’t it fine? Any normal young boy wants to know more about the world. Their curiosity is incurable at such a young age. Even I was quite curious at that age, although I never spoke up about it.”

He looked at the people around him while replying as though seeking approval from the rest. Seeing that they didn’t react at all, he turned towards me and asked me.

“Boy, what do you want to know? I might be able to answer questions that even Sophia can’t answer.”

I already knew what to answer when he said that, since I had already prepared answers for most situations on my way here.

“Umm… I wanted to ask about Magia.”

“Ohoho, you are already know about the academy country? That’s surprising, who told you about it?”

“I overheard it from one of my brothers. They were talking about all the countries but didn’t talk much at all about Magia, so I thought I would ask you.”

I realise that my speech is becoming more and more fluent as I talk, and my facade of stuttering speech is slowly being shed. At that point however, I decide that it might as well be thrown away, surely there is at least some children who can talk fluently at this age.

Another factor of this decision was that it would be far easier to achieve what I wished in the future if I acted intelligent. So I decided to voice my question and answer with a lie. After all, it wouldn’t really be fine for me to just say that I can read even though I was never taught by anyone.

Grandma and Julie nod in approval and understanding of my answer whilst the man squints as though trying to focus on something while he simultaneously introduces himself.

“My name is Helra, named by your Grandma. Honestly I have no idea how she came up with such a girly name, but I never bothered to legally change it because of how much that costs. Now I have a quick question before I answer yours, what is that behind your back?”

After introducing himself he drops a bit of a bombshell on me with that last point, but I had expected something similar to happen sooner or later. The reaction of the other 2 to the bombshell were quite different, with Grandma reacting with a stereotypical:

“What are you talking about, he is hiding nothing behind his back.”

While Julie, who already had her faith in my innocence crumble when I was only 2 ½ months old, imitated Helra with a squinting action directed at my hands behind my back. However she didn’t seem to notice anything due to her small ‘aura’ capacity but kept looking, trying to find a non-existent flaw in whatever technique she thought I was using to hide whatever object she believed I was hiding.

There was silence for a few seconds, in which I lowered the amount of ‘aura’ I used to support the weight of the ‘weapon’ and instead used that power for a larger illusion factor. This caused my arms to tense and also hurt like hell, but any signs of this was concealed by the onesie that I wore and my childish expression, so I didn’t really give any obvious signs away.

After manipulating my ‘aura’ release to this extent, I quickly said in a sweet voice.

“What do you mean Brother Helra, I’m not hiding anything.”

Even I knew how suspicious the words coming out of my mouth normally sound, but a sweet voice from a young 4 year old removes most suspicion and in general is a better reaction than being very round-about with it. Helra wouldn’t ease up on his suspicion, I could tell from his sudden change in expression that he could no longer see the ‘weapon’, but he wouldn’t just let it go like that.

“Sophia, Julie let me talk to this little boy by myself for a little while, I have a few private questions to talk to ask him, ‘mano e mano’.”

At this point I have no idea how the translation sequence works, considering it suddenly switched to Spanish to use a quote, and I can’t stop thinking that this is Betty screwing around with my head.

Putting those completely irrelevant thoughts away, I watch as Grandma nods and ushers Julie back into the orphanage, leaving me and Helra alone. Helra’s friendly expression drops the instant the women get out of sight and gets replaced with a stern one. Unnerved by this, I quickly pose a question to understand what he wants from me.

“Brother Helra, what did you want to ask me in private? Why do you not want it to be heard by Grandma and Julie?”

I already established a pretty solid theory on what I believed he would ask, but I still wanted validification.

“You see child… Unlike your Grandmother or Julie, I have been able to travel around the world with my job as a ‘transporter’. Because of this, I have seen extraordinary* sights, had had unique experiences and also gained the ability to tell lie from truth, especially if attempted by an unskilled liar.”

Yup, definitely going in the direction of my theory, just build it up a bit more.

“Did you honestly think I also haven’t experienced magic with my years? Everyone that hires a transporter nowadays has at least some kind of relation to mages and their ways. I even had to stay a week at a powerful mages place because of how long it took to load all the cargo.

Because of me being in the vicinity of such magic for an entire month, I learnt how to manipulate ‘aura’ and cast magic if you will. Although I am unskilled and have at best mediocre talent, I can still detect disturbances in the elements caused by a third party known as ‘aura’.”

… And there it is, exactly as my theory went. Quite unfortunate, but I am sure that I can turn this into an OK scenario without running into too much difficulty.

Seeing my calm, unperturbed face when my cover was being bombarded and destroyed, he took it as me not being able to completely understand the message he was trying to deliver, so he said it in a more outright manner.

“I know you can use magic, and that you just used it right then.”

“...”

I breathe in and pose a question in the form of a single word with an unmoved face.

“So?”

Although he was taken aback by my reaction, he quickly calmed himself and his facial expression changed as he realised the fault in his threats.

“Ah… I see, there is no real negative that can be received from your magic being revealed, however although I say that, I am not going to take back my threat.”

“Ohhh, and why is that ‘Brother’?”

“Although there is no apparent negative from revealing that information to anyone, I understand that you are far too intelligent for your age. Because of this, I am sure that although there isn’t any negative that is apparent to me, nonetheless you must’ve hidden this fact for a reason.

Even if the reason is as trivial as ‘it will be a pain if discovered’, it is still something I can threaten you with. So what do you think about my deduction boy?”

“... Surprisingly you are actually far more intelligent than you appear to be, I will note that when talking to other people in the future. As for you deduction, it is indeed correct, you even got one of the reasons for me hiding my magic right.

As you have already deduced to this point, I want to pose you a question now. What will you do with this information?”

I check on how much ‘aura’ I have regenerated at this point, and although it is only an incredibly small amount, it should be enough to give me a small speed boost. I look up at him and stare into his eyes with my own as I release my ‘Illusion’ technique that I was applying on the ‘Weapon’ to save as much energy as possible.

He looked surprised as he could now see the ‘weapon’ in its entirety rather than shimmering like he viewed it earlier. Unfortunately, his reaction ended at such little surprise, as he had already established a conclusion about the existence of something similar to the ‘weapon’ because of the same shimmering that concealed it.

“Well boy, I actually dislike meddling in other’s businesses if it brings no benefit to me, which yours doesn’t, however your attitude just makes me want to meddle in it.”

“I see… So will you reveal my ‘secret’?”

He looked at me with a huge grin, contrasting his serious expression from before.

“No… I just thought of something more fun to do.”

Whilst still grinning he motioned me to follow him and he began to walk towards the entrance to the church-like building. When he arrived at the entrance, his grin changed back to a serious attitude, but his eyes still betrayed his true emotions. He then walked straight into the orphanage and as he disappeared from sight, I sighed and followed.

Activating ‘Fear’s Illusion’ on the ‘Weapon’, I come in just in time to see him pose a question to Grandma.

“Can I take Sephtis with me, to travel the world of Bidragvil?”

Well, yeah I suppose that would be more entertaining for him than just giving my secret away.

Hope you enjoy, 4 chapters coming up today.