"That"s that then… You over there!"Having ma.s.sacred the 20 some people in reddish brown cloaks trying to kill her for some reason, Lilly called out to one of the spectators, a senior monster hunter.
"M-me?"
"Yeah you child, come over here~ I wont hurt you unless you make me."
"O-okay, I don"t hold any hostile intentions against you!"
Dropping his trusty two handed sword, the veteran monster hunter also peeled off his plate armor to show that he didn"t hide any weapons underneath.
"W-what do you want?"
Even if his safety had been somewhat guaranteed the hunter wasn"t naive enough to believe that the tiny elver wouldn"t kill him if he couldn"t answer in a satisfactory manner.
"Did you know these people?"
"N-no elder! They arrived a week ago and booked themselves into the moon inn."
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Having realized what kind of creature he spoke to, the veteran hunter couldn"t stop shaking.
"The moon inn huh?... Okay then."
Taking a moment to think Lilly elevated herself above the head of all the spectator with the help of air magic and amplified her voice through the use of magic as she spoke to the shaking hunter and the surrounding crowd.
"I"m going to need a volunteer to guide me to the moon inn and some more children that keep this area free from interference in the meanwhile. Of course the volunteer"s will be rewarded handsomely, but if no children helps me I"ll burn this disgusting town to the ground."
-
Quickly securing a guide Lilly was led to what amounted to nothing more than a dirty hole in the wall of a building. Saying goodbye to the guide after throwing him some monster cores, Lilly entered and politely got the attention of the innkeeper and was quickly lead towards the room the red cloaks had rented.
"That will be it innkeep, I"ll take it from here."
"T-thank you for your benevolence and sparing my life!"
Running away with his tail between his legs the innkeeper retreated to a safe distance while hoping his inn wouldn"t be completely ruined.
"Now then, time to knock.."
Briefly channeling mana Lilly formed blades of wind around her hands as she took a deep breath. Having prepared herself the grand elder prepared flying magic then circulated mana mixed into the surrounding air and scouted ahead into the room.
(Large… And occupied…. Wait, what is that?)
Sensing something she did not expect Lilly froze for a moment, before her face turned grim and her anger flared and she breached the room with a giant ball of compressed air that completely blew in the locked and reinforced door.
"What!?"
"Intruder!"
"Kill her!"
Once more proving they had some sort of extensive combat training, the room"s occupants quickly sprung into action as they scrambled to reach their weapons.
"TOO SLOW!"
But alas Lilly already knew where all the weapons inside the room where located, and quickly dealt with the hostiles in order of who happened to be closer to their means of fighting back. After 30 seconds of fighting the 30 person bunk room had turned silent, and 5 humans laid dead on the floor, either having been torn to shreds from Lilly"s air blades of her other spells.
"Now that that then… Time to check out this."
Turning towards the innermost part of the room Lilly floated a few centimeters above the ground so she avoided to soil her feet as she approached some sort of large cloth covered crate.
"Now what do we have here?"
Hearing a stressed heartbeat and rushed breathing from beneath the cloth, Lilly formed a wind blade in one hand while she lifted the cloth with the other.
"HIII!! Don"t hurt me again I won"t make any noise!"
It was a small creature, no larger than the 1 meters and 50 centimeters that Lilly herself stood at. The child had slightly scaled skin, with about half a centimeter wide scales reflected the scarce sunlight of the room and made all the colours of the rainbow s.h.i.+ne out in return. The scales looked to form wherever tougher skin would normally form, such as the palms of their hands and along the jawline and on his knees and elbows. The child"s limbs were also unique, with small fins and weeped feet and hands that looked to be specialized for aquatic travel. The child"s face was very androgynous, with short blue hair, a small nose and large blue eyes. The Child Looked to be no more than 10 years old, but Lilly could see multiple scars and bruises, old and new all over the body that was not even properly hidden by what basically amounted to a dirty rag.
"A child?"
"Please don"t hurt me!!"
In response to Lilly looking at the kid with interest it curled up into a ball and begged for mercy. In response Lilly"s eyes turned cold, if there was one thing she hated in the entire world it was child abusers.
"HIIII!!"
"No no, it"s okay its okay. Please calm down."
Having dealt with children like that before as she had saved and raised many runaway slave children she quickly bend the steel cage open and hugged the child with all her might as she quietly started to sing a calming elvish song her mother had taught her. After about 35 minutes of clawing, screaming and being shouted in the face, the child finally calmed down and fell asleep.
"This sure is a handful…"
---
After the last redcoats had been annihilated and all traces of their existence had been catalogued and send up the chain of command Lilly, Lux and Terra spend an entire day negotiating trade and cleaning up which only left the question about the child Lux had picked up.
"Absolutely not. We"re not keeping her, him."
"I"m also against it, we"re traveling through the most dangerous territory there is, we can"t bring a child."
With both Lux and Terra agreeing on something for once Lilly prepared to make an ultimatum, before the last member of the group spoke up.
"That statement is inherently incorrect."
"Like completely false."
"Perhaps you"re forgetting about our existence?"
"You"re already bringing a lot of children on this trip, in a way."
"Iris, that"s-"
"Entirely correct. Thanks you for agreeing with our statements Lux."
"We appreciate it."
Seeing Iris more upset than any of them ever had before, the entire conversation slowed down.
"Iris what"s wrong?"
"We can"t leave the child here, we"ll state our reasons."
"Reason #1: If you"re already keeping one child on this trip, one more is no issue."
"Reason #2: I"ve calculated the child"s chance of survival if we abandon the child here, it"s less that 0.001%."
"Reason #3: Whoever attacked us kept that child alive and captured for some reason, we can possibly learn about the hostiles from the child."
"Reason #4: I"m really bored on this trip, I want a playmate for the trip, otherwise I might stop maintaining the reactors."
"... We do have a child maintaining our fusion reactors.."
"That we do.. So Lux and I are against taking the child with us, and Iris and Lilly want to help… What do we do?"
With the inside of the AEHWP falling silent as the discussion came to a standstill, it wasn"t long before Lux broke the silence.
"There"s really no discussion at all, this is a military operation, not a high school cla.s.s. I am acting as second in command, Terra is first in command and we"re both opposed to bringing the child along."
"These are the facts yeah.. We"ll pay a large sum to make sure the child is not harmed and kept save while we complete the mission."
Making the final decision on the matter Terra stood up and was about to walk out when she was blocked by Iris.
"We, no I was serious about that earlier statement. That child is like me, it needs help."
Still maintaining her poker face Terra answered Iris reluglently.
"On that point we agree."
"Then why are we not helping!?"
"Because I"m not bringing a tourist along for this trip!!"
But as Iris kept poking at her reasoning Terra cracked.
"Eh?"
"Last time that happened you died and my dear friend also suffered!! That is all we"re going to say about this subject, we"re leaving in 1 hour, anyone that do not agree are free to stay here!"
Just as Dax blamed himself for Alice"s injury so did Terra. She believed that she and Alice not been there Dax would have handled the situation flawlessly. If Terra had not been there Dax could have saved Alice, if she had not been selfish and wanted to gain Dax"s approval.