Bounty

Paley woke up early as usual and began training his magic. He wanted to try a new training method that he thought of last night. It involved clearing your mind and trying to cast a spell as quickly as possible with no preparation.

He cleared the old statues of everyone and prepared a stone to fall from a tree in front of him. He got rid of all thought. After a few seconds, the stone fell, and he tried to react accordingly. But his Rock Arrow ( an earth magic spell where he generates a medium-sized rock in the shape of an arrow and blasts it forward ) missed completely and crashed into the tree.

After around fifty tries, he started to get good at reacting to the stone falling. His cast speed improved significantly as well as his general reaction speed. He took a break after an hour of training restlessly. While he rested, Teerom and Reben approached him.

"Paley?" They called out as they emerged from the forest.

"I'm here," Paley replied, revealing his hand out from behind a tree where he sat.

"Are we interrupting?" Teerom asked, noticing that the statues were gone.

"No, I'm just taking a break now,"

"Cool. So we were wondering if you wanted to come camping with us."

"Camping?" Paley remembered the word faintly. Maybe it was in some story that he read in the past.

"Yep, just the boys," Reben answered.

"Camping's when you go out into the wild and live there for like two days," Teerom explained.

"Sounds fun. I'll tag along," Paley said.

"Great! See you in a bit, then," Teerom and Reben left Paley to finish training.

They went back to the orphanage, and Teerom made his way upstairs, where he saw Amasha sitting by himself. He held a dark red book in his hands which he was nearly done reading.

"What're you reading?" Teerom asked, taking a seat next to him.

"It's a book about demons," Amasha replied enthusiastically, "There are all sorts of stories of horrible demons and the heroes that took them down,"

Teerom now recognized the book. He didn't realize Paley took that one too back when they stole the magic books from the library.

"Demons, huh?" Teerom's tone lowered sombrely.

"I want to be like them one day. The hero who saved a city from demons. Amasha!" Amasha raised his hand triumphantly, gripping an invisible sword.

"Who doesn't? But I'm sorry bud. Demons aren't real," Teerom said suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"What we think are unholy creatures that kill for the sake of killing are probably just regular old monsters that look like fairy tale demons."

"That's a good theory, if only it didn't come from the fairy tale fanatic himself," Jurie stepped out of the bathroom after a long and relaxing bath. She dried her hair as she walked over to the two boys. Of course, she had a towel wrapped around her body.

"Aneros is real, though," Teerom argued.

"Have you seen him with your own eyes?" Jurie asked with a smug smile on her face.

"No, but I'm sure that he was the one who drove the demon- monsters away during the dark ages."

"And what evidence do you have to back that?"

"It was in the book-" Teerom realized he fell into a trap. Jurie was a naturally dubious person. Like everyone else in the orphanage, she didn't have faith, but she had a strong opposition to it. She argued that faith can't be proved since it all came from books.

"All books are fiction, Teerom." She didn't realize how close she was getting to him while wearing nothing but a towel.

"What about this one?" Amasha held up the demon book.

"Aha! If all books are fiction, then is this one lying?" Teerom grinned victoriously.

"Okay, fine," Jurie accepted defeat, "Maybe not all of them are fictional," She stared into his eyes confidently, making his cool demeanor crumble into a panic.

Amasha's attention was redirected suddenly when his nose started to twitch at the captivating scent of Paley's and Madella's cooking. "Lunchtime!" He exclaimed and ran down the stairs. Paley passed by him and made his way upstairs.

"Lunch is ready," He said and quickly went back down after seeing Jurie and Teerom so close. They looked at each other awkwardly, and Jurie quickly moved away from him, completely embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, Teerom, but demons are real," Jurie said. She and all the orphans believed in demons.

"I know," Teerom sighed, "I just don't want to believe something so horrible could exist," Teerom had an experience with a demon when he was younger when he lost someone dear to him. His sister.

"Anyways, I'm famished, let us go and eat, eh?" Teerom stood up and held out his hand like a gentleman.

"Let us," Jurie took his hand and they made their way downstairs to eat.

Everyone ate and talked as usual. After lunch, Madella gathered them all around the fireplace.

"Okay, so, we have a pretty big problem on our hands." She began, "Knights are starting to investigate the city, and they'll probably come down to our orphanage too eventually."

"Why're knights investigating the city?" Teerom asked. Madella's gaze shifted to Paley.

"Paley, when you went to buy presents for me, did you come across a certain noble called Dersohn?"

"I don't know if his name was Dersohn, but I remember disposing of a rude noble, yes." Paley felt no remorse for debilitating a man and leaving him to live the rest of his life in a demented state.

"Does 'disposing of' mean frying his head?" Madella was suddenly stern.

"Yeah, he tried to-" Before Paley could tell her what kind of a scumbag the noble was Madella shouted at him, "Do you know how much danger you've put yourself in!? You cannot hurt a noble. You shouldn't hurt anyone!" Her yelling surprised all the orphans. She had never yelled at anyone, ever.

"He deserved it, I still wonder how many innocent, helpless women he has tortured and ruined!" Paley fought back but quickly resigned. The last thing he wanted was to hurt the kind woman who took care of him.

"Paley, I understand why you think that. But no one deserves such punishment. Not even the worst person you can think of, okay?" She returned to her calm and gentle demeanor.

"I'm sorry..." Paley began to tear up, "If I didn't do anything, he would've hurt Jurie."

"Mother, he's right, that man wanted to make me his wife. By force," Jurie backed Paley up. Teerom suddenly tensed up at that.

"Good job, Paley. You did the right thing." He was furious at the thought of the noble forcing himself onto Jurie. The other orphans had been watching the conversation awkwardly. No one knew of this apart from Jurie, Rauba, and Bacha.

"I'm sorry, Paley. I didn't mean to shout at you," Madella hugged him tightly to rid herself of some guilt.

"No, I understand. I shouldn't have gone that far, I'll try to resolve things peacefully if there's a next time." Paley said, hugging her back. Jurie smiled to herself at the sight.

"So, we just stay clear of knights?" Reben asked.

"Yeah. Oh, I forgot to mention... You have a bounty on your head, Paley," Madella said.

"It was twenty silver coins last time, it can't be that much now," Teerom calmed down and went back to leaning against the staircase.

"It's three-diamond coins." Madella's words took everyone by surprise.

"Three diamond coins!?" They yelled.