n

n

n“Yes, it’s a deal,”

n…

nA few days passed, and we finally broke the news to the little girl, and as she broke down in tears while screaming at all of us and tearing the sheets of her bed, we just stood there.

n“I hate you! I hate you all! You’re just selling me away like my parents! I hate all of you!” She shouted, and the sudden news almost shattered Aisa and Cy’s hearts.

nThey both just stood there, silently looking down at the ground while biting as hard as they could onto their bottom lips.

n“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Findir asked, and the little girl locked eyes with him and began to bang her little fists against his stomach.

n“B-Because I thought you would hate m-me and l-leave me… I-I’m sorry. D-Did I do something wrong?” She asked with tears streaming down her face.

nAt this moment, she seemed like the most ill-natured kid out of all of us as she looked at us with sore and confused eyes.

nShe begged, stomped, and continued to throw a tantrum until she slumped onto her bed, holding her face against the soft and plump sheets.

n“Was I a bad girl? Did I do something wrong?” She continued to mutter, and Aisa had enough as she quickly dipped down next to her and squeezed her with a long and cumbersome hug.

n“You didn’t do anything wrong… It’s just… If you stay here, you’ll be in danger. You’ll eventually be a burden to us, but with this deal, we can protect not only each other but also your future. Your future will be bright and full of happiness. If we make it out of this, we’ll try to find you, no matter how many years it takes,” Aisa whispered while placing her chin on her tiny shoulder.

n“P-Promise… I-Is that a promise?” The little girl sniffled.

n“It’s a promise… pinky promise,” Aisa said before reaching out her pinky, and the both of them locked pinkies, signaling a sign of child-like promise.

nThe little girl burst into tears and cried and cried until no more tears ran from the corners of her eyes.

nShe soon drifted off into a drowsy state and slumped onto her torn-apart bed, slowly falling asleep from exhaustion.

n“That was quite the dilemma,” Luna muttered, and everybody but me shot her glare.

nI was currently crouching down to the ground and inspecting the ice that had slowly covered the entire place, and it was the most frigid, tough, and slick ice I had ever seen.

n“It’s snowing,” Cy suddenly announced, and everybody looked out the window, only to see the falling of thousands of snowflakes covering the mansion.

nIt was quite a beautiful storm for the last bits of snow we were going to have for this winter as spring was soon approaching us.

n…

nThe next day, the same man draped in the darkness appeared before us, and the little girl wanted to say goodbye to all of us.

nShe had her little suitcase in hand, filled to the brim with all kinds of snacks and things a bunch of us had bought in order to spoil her.

nNone of it was for her own comfort, though.

n“Big sis! We never talked much, and now I know you don’t like me, but I love you! I want you to always be my big sister, and I’ll have you acknowledge me as your little sister one day!” The little girl shouted, and so Luna gave her a fist bump with a few encouraging words.

n“I’ll be expecting to see you at the top of the world someday then… good luck,” She said before walking away, leaving me to step up to her.

nAs I placed my feet in front of her and looked down on her with a menacing presence, the little girl swallowed a large drop of saliva.

n“Little girl, I’ll see you some time again. Also, make sure to become. So strong that nobody can mess with you,”

nThe little girl just nodded once before glancing down and then right back up at me.

nShe looked as if she wanted to ask something of me.

n“Good luck… Adele,” I muttered before crouching down to her height and patting her head, causing her to cry tears of sadness mixed with joy.

nIt was quite an adorable sight to see.

n“Alright. The troops will become in a few days, so survive till then… I wish you all good luck on your future affairs,” The man cloaked in the darkness said before quickly disappearing into a bloop of darkness.

nThe little girl was also gone now, and Aisa was bawling thick and salty tears.

n“Let’s go. We’ve got a job to finish,” Bella said as she placed her hand on Aisa’s shoulder, and as we all split up into the mansion, a shift underwent us.

n…

nA few more days had passed, and the mage troops had finally arrived; thankfully, they also had some platoon leaders and commanders who could watch over everything.

nWe could all just sit back and help out from the backline, hoping to not get our asses destroyed by a random family head.

nAnd so, we had a meeting to discuss our future plans and everything we had come up with so far.

nThough first, we had this topic at hand.

n“Let’s eat it,” Cy said as he tossed the blood-red pill from the palm of his hand and onto our stone meeting table.

nEverybody gazed at the pill with indecisive eyes… but after hearing Cy’s explanation, everybody slowly began to melt from their fearful shells.

n“We need the power. We’ll take anything we can get… And I’ve also investigated it a bit and have discovered that these pills awaken some kind of presence inside of you. This may be the thing that the tower master was talking about, but it isn’t necessarily bad,”

n“And what makes you say that?” Luna asked.

n“Because the presence is like being blessed by a god… but… the being who is blessing you is a bit different,”

n