Homeless

After following the girl's lead for about twenty minutes, the group arrived in front of a fairly spacious house. Looking around, one could say the building had one underground floor and two above the ground, showing off its owner's good financial state. 

"So... Where should we go?"

Doris pointed at the right-side window from the second floor. 

"That's my room. We should climb up there." She narrowed her eyes after a brief pause, "Actually, let's enter the first floor and move up from there. It'll be safer and easier."

"Doesn't anyone live there?"

"Nope, it's empty. There is a staircase inside, leading to the second floor."

That seemed like a decent plan. Ian nodded at the others, gesturing for them to follow behind. The group circled the main entrance of the yard and arrived at the backyard, where there was a small staircase up to the door of the first floor. As it seemed, the main entrance was directly connected to the second floor and didn't pass the first. 

The door at the end of the stairs was pushed open by a light touch and the dark interior came into view. Alaric was quick to cast a light spell. The space brightened up, revealing the empty and dusty floor. Inside, many walls were charred black, and some wooden structures were severely burnt. The trail of smoke was still left on the ceiling and around the windows.

The scene reminded Ian of the conversation they had with the waiter this morning. He remembered hearing about this family's house catching fire alongside their mother. He peeked at the teenager's face but couldn't find any traces of discomfort on it. Ian shook his head and silently followed behind. 

Moving farther inside, an old door came into view. A set of stairs lay behind it. The group climbed them up till they reached the second floor. However, the group had to halt behind the door. The sound of people conversing could be heard from the other side.

"Oh brother, brother, you went too far this time!"

"Stop it. Don't you see his condition?"

"His nose is fractured a bit. He's a grown man. He'll be fine. But that girl? She's nowhere to be found! What if something happens to her? Once he's sober again, he'll go crazy over it. He won't remember anything and won't even believe us!"

A male and female voice came from behind the door. Doris's brows frowned briefly, but her expression soon restored to her original calmness. She pushed a finger on her lips in a gesture to the others and stealthily turned the handle. The door opened without a sound, revealing a tiny passage. Boxes and clothes were scattered here and there, spiderwebs covered the walls, and corpses of insects littered the ground. They were in a shabby storeroom.

Moving through the stuff as soundlessly as possible, the group left the room and walked behind the fully drawn curtains over the windows before reaching another room. The girl opened the door and threw herself inside, followed by the others. 

'Is it her room?'

Unlike the other locations of the house they'd seen so far, this place was clean and tidy, looking like a place someone could live in. 

"Ahem, d-don't mind the state of this place," the girl scratched her head, chuckling nervously. Taking one closer look inside the room... Hmm... Maybe not very clean and tidy... But still. 

Just as the group began helping the girl gather her stuff, the conversation from the hall heated up. 

"Where does she... hiccup, have to go to anyway? She'll... come back here crawling till the morning... Mmm..." The new voice, hiccuping and trailing off as he spoke, seemed to belong to the man who was punched unconscious by Kieran not long ago. 

"Still..."

BANG. Someone slammed a table. The sound of glass shattering echoed around. 

"Whatta you, hic, wanna say, huh? You defending that whore! Whose side are you? Were you the one, hic, the one that taught her to misbehave? To disobey me? Huhh? It was you?"

"Hey, calm down man!"

"It's yooo or one of her mother's relatives, trayin to turn ma daughter into a scumbag like themselves!"

"Hey bro, that's enough!"

Ian couldn't resist his curiosity and peeked through the curtains. He could see a middle-aged man and woman forcing the furious drunkard down the sofa. The man kept struggling and cursing, only stopping when a stream of blood began oozing down his nose. The other two rushed to wrap his nose and put ice cubes on it while chattering and nagging each other. 

'Are they his brother and sister?'

That seemed to be the case. They resembled each other and also Doris. Ian looked around the living room, but there was no one else inside. Didn't Doris mention having a brother? Where was that boy? He can't be asleep in this commission...

Inside the room, everyone was busy helping out the girl. She was packing a small suitcase with as little stuff as possible. The girl didn't seem much affected by the conversation between her father and relatives. 

Witnessing the scene, Ian couldn't help but feel that this wasn't okay.

'Is it all right to help a teenager run away from home? She's gifted and has great potential to strive to become a great mage... but isn't she too young to be wandering around the streets? Can she survive until her potential is discovered?'

He didn't want to make the wrong choice. Even if he was being paid for the job, and even if he could erase every act by the mere act of regressing, he was still somewhat responsible for whatever happened to this girl. 

"Um, can you please move a little bit?"

Doris didn't wait for the dazed cloaked weirdo to respond. She pushed the person aside and reached out behind the door. There was a large iron oil flask there. It was one of those antique tools people from a few generations in the past used to store animal oil for the winter.

Doris opened the lid and pulled out something clad in layers of colorful clothes. She didn't hesitate to unwrap it and take out the box within. Curious, the group gathered around her. The box was pushed open and what lay inside was... 

"Whoah... Look at all that money..."

A pile of coins. A massive amount of money. 

"...." 

Even Ian couldn't hide his shock at the scene. 

"Hehehe~" Snickering, Doris picked up a few coins and handed them to Eleen. "Here is your payment!"

Even after paying them 50 Silver, a huge amount of the money was left. The group couldn't take their eyes off the box. Noticing their gaze, Doris narrowed her reddish-black eyes. 

"Why're you looking at me like that? No, I've not stolen them or anything. For instance, I'm not a whore!! I've earned every bit of it by hard work!" As she proudly declared, she carefully hid the box inside the suitcase, pushing it underneath all her clothes. "I've been working here and there and saving it bit by bit. That's years of my salary altogether, so stop looking at it like that!"

"Huh..." 

That was alright. But... Years of salary? To earn that much... One has to work for at least five or six years or even more. She isn't old enough for that! 

"Wait, how old are you?"

The girl didn't hesitate to answer Ian's question. 

"20. Why?"

"....."

Pardon? 

How old?

"Wait wait, are you serious?" 

"Of course, I am, Miss Doctor! Why would I lie?"

"Ah? But... But..."

Doris shook off Eleen's grip and grabbed a few notebooks from the shell. 

"I look like a child? I know, I've been told that a lot."

"Ehh??? You mean we're almost the same age??"

Eleen's rounded eyes turned back to lock with Ian's, who wasn't much different from her. In an instant, all the complicated thoughts he had vanished from his head. The guilt he had about helping a girl run away from home or his worry about her excessive working hours completely vanished, leaving him with a single reflection.

'...I'm such a fool...'

Feeling enormously ashamed, Ian hurriedly covered his face even deeper with his hood. He wanted to find a hole, hide, and cry.

Good thing he didn't share his thoughts with anyone, or else he'd surely kill himself to begin a new round just so that others wouldn't remember a thing.

"Anyway, I'm almost done. We can leave."

Not caring about the looks the group was giving her, Doris stood in the middle of the room, taking one last look around. Her eyes lingered on an old doll thrown to one corner of the room. A smile bloomed across her face as she rushed to pick up the tiny rabbit and push it inside her bag. She then turned around and signaled the others to follow behind. 

"Seriously, shouldn't we go out and search for her? What if something happens?"

Just as they were sneaking out, the middle-aged uncle's whisper reached their ears. Doris's steps came to a stop. While listening to the man, her grip on her bags tightened; she bit down on her lip. 

"Can't we at least tell the others to look around?"

The group also halted at the entrance of the storage room. The girl, however, stood still behind the curtains. Her face was troubled for the first time since their arrival at this building. As her thin lips pressed on each other, the girl's wandering gaze locked with Ian's. In the darkness of the storage room, the person's sapphire-like pupils seemed to gleam with an unfathomable calmness within. 

"...."

Doris blinked twice before looking away. She grabbed the edge of the curtains and clothes were pushed aside by a little bit, revealing the interior of the living room. There, a tall middle-aged man with a wrinkled face and almost white hair was pacing around. Her father lay on the sofa with his eyes closed; deep asleep. The woman was far away from them; preparing something in the kitchen.

The middle-aged man, startled by the sudden movement of the curtains, turned around only to see a pair of reddish black pupils gazing at him and his brother from the tiny gap in the clothes. 

"...." 

The man opened his mouth, but no words left his lips. The look in the eyes of the childish face that gazed at them from the other side of the curtain was nowhere close to what a naive little girl could have. There was no hatred nor fear, only a bright twinkle of determination, and a faint smile. 

The middle-aged man couldn't help but chuckle. 

"Well, I'm sure she'll be back by the morning."

Doris let go of the curtain with a light chuckle. She rushed to the others and ran down the stairs. 

"Hurry, let's leave!"

She was back to her calm self again. 

Not long after exiting the building, a tiny figure came into Ian's sight. The wolf pup was rushing at him at high speed while screaming as loud as he could. 

-MAAASSSTERRRR!!!

Not just Ian, but also Alaric flinched at the screech. 

-I ATE IT! I ATE THAT THING!

Lior climbed up Ian's legs and jumped atop his shoulders. His chest was puffed and his fur was flourishing majestically as he boasted. 

-It was so easy, I can't believe that thing was so weak! Hmph! I used that trick you taught me and became a biiiggg wolf before I nom nomed it all at once. Hehehehee!

The child's teary eyes and quavering body betrayed his soaring confidence, yet Ian wasn't someone who'd point out at such details. He moved his head a little, rubbing the wolf's face with his head. 

-I told you you'd do great. 

-Y-yeah!!

The child curled inside his master's hood, explaining in detail how he confronted that corrupted elemental. Ian was sure that the elemental would cease to exist on its own if left alone for a few days, but he sent the little kid to take care of it only to ensure things. He didn't want to deal with any more trouble while in this city. 

-What about the letter I gave you?

-I left it somewhere people could easily find. I do everything perfectly, master!

A note to contact the nearest church as soon as possible and ask them to investigate. The priests could recognize the traces of corruption on the corpse of the actor and prove the cast director's innocence.

-Good work. 

-Ehehehe~

Except for Ian and Lior's secret conversation, the rest of the group walked down the empty streets in silence. It was only after they were close to their inn that Eleen finally posed a question. 

"I don't understand it. What was the point of us accompanying you? We barely even helped."

Her question snapped the black-haired girl out of her thoughts. Doris peeked at the 50 Silvers still in Eleen's palm and lightly chuckled. 

"I'd be too scared to go there and come back alone, so you guys definitely helped."

Her father's confidence wasn't for nothing. He too, knew his daughter well enough. 

"What do you plan to do from now on?"

Doirs's reply came after a brief moment of consideration, "I initially planned on finding my brother and living with him, but I'm not sure about that anymore."

"Your brother? where is he?"

"He lives in Loyatou's capital. It'll take a long time and a huge amount of money to arrive at that place. Of course, I have the money... But I'm not sure if it's worth it."

Ian stopped showering his child with tons of praise and focused on the girl. He was curious about this girl's fate. She was another anomaly of this round, someone who never survived to earn the position she deserved. Now that she was alive and free, she could become someone of high value in the future. Ian wanted to see where this girl's destiny took her to. 

After two seconds, Doris once again muttered her thoughts in a low voice, "I can simply move to another city, find a job in a restaurant, and live a quiet life, can't I? Hmm, maybe I'll do that after meeting up with my brother? Maybe I'll ask him to find a proper job for me in his workplace. That'll be safer and more convenient. What do you think?"

"....."

What? What? Work in a restaurant... Live a quiet life as a waitress for the rest of her life? An easy task besides her brother?

"Are you serious?"

Ian couldn't stop himself from asking out loud. Before the girl could answer, Ian rushed to grab her shoulders. He couldn't believe what he just heard.

"Are you dense? Are you out of your mind? A simple and peaceful life?"

"What? Why? What's wrong with it?"

"Hey hey, Ian! What are you-"

"You should build a future for yourself!"

"Yeah? I'm trying to do so?!"

"By being a waitress for the rest of your life?"

"W-what's so wrong with that?"

"Arrghhh!" Ian shook the girl back and fro with all his might. "Don't you know how one should use their gift? You can't waste it! You can't!!! You've finally been given a chance!!!!"

"Huh? What? Eh??"

"Ah, sir Ian, calm down-"

Looking at the girl's dumbfounded face, Ian's frustration soared even higher.

"You can earn tons of money, you can get a high position, you can become a famous mage, yet you want to work as a waitress for the rest of your life? That's your dream life? Only that????"

"Huh? Huh? What?"

"Don't you know anything about magic?"

"What???"

The flustered girl finally pushed the crazed person aside. It wasn't a hard task as the person was super light. 

"What the hell are you talking about?"