Rent Free

Even though Alan was a smart kid, he was a kid nonetheless. He couldn't contain his excitement once he saw his system notification and wanted to go back to sleep to go on a spending spree inside the library of genesis.

Right now, he still needed to visit the criminals' camp, which was hours away from the village, so he decided not to fall asleep. The journey there and back would take the entire day, so he decided to move immediately. He put his tent and everything inside his system's inventory and decided to head out.

When Alan absorbed the memories of the criminal leader, his system memorized the exact location of their base and how far it was from the village.

'System, is it possible for you to make a map based on the information I have in my head,' he thought.

The system responded to his request, and a map appeared in front of him. He began walking out of the village towards the red dot on the map. As he was walking, people would give him glances, but these glances were different from the rotten ones he would get back home.

The gazes of the townspeople were filled with curiosity since they had rarely seen a child dressed like Alan in their village. On top of that, he seemed to be on his own with no one accompanying him.

Alan continued walking out of the village, ignoring the looks he was receiving. He knew a way to get a favor from the villagers, and to do that, he would need to go to the criminal's camp.

Based on his deductions, he knew the route to the camp was very dangerous since the townspeople couldn't capture the criminals. Therefore, he decided to avoid walking straight towards it. If he did, he would have arrived in three hours, but he didn't know what awaited him outside the village. Instead, Alan used a safe route that he saw in the memories of the leader.

The journey to the camp was long, and Alan's legs felt like they were about to collapse. He had never exercised before since he never left his room which he started to regret. He would have made an effort had he known he would be thrown out to the countryside.

Alan arrived at his destination after 8 hours, but there wasn't any base in front of him. Instead, what he was looking at was a hill. Alan walked into the hill, and his body went through it. Since he read the leader's memories, he knew the base was hidden by illusion magic. This was also why the criminals felt comfortable leaving the base unattended.

He was now inside a small cave. Alan looked around and saw a dozen people trapped inside small cages. They were residents of the village that got kidnapped by the criminal.

Alan walked towards one of the adults and spoke.

"I'm here to free you guys."

The man looked at him with a worried face. Alan could tell that by the man's face, that he was severely traumatized and scared.

Alan touched the cage to appraise it.

[Steel Cage]

[This cage has magic on it that weakens any living being inside of it. The only way to open the cage is with a key that has the same or a stronger amount of magic applied to it.]

"Well, how am I supposed to open this?" Alan said as a frown appeared on his face.

"Actually, I have the key. One of the men had it on them when I ate him," Izmos said. "I will send it to your inventory."

< You have acquired Steel Cage Key >

"Nice," Alan said as he took out the key and began freeing all the villagers.

Once they were all free, one of the villagers walked up to Alan before speaking.

"Who are you, and where are those men?" he asked.

"Don't worry... those men are dead," Alan replied. "As for who I am, I'm the same as you. Those men also tried kidnapping me. Unfortunately for them, a beast killed them before they could get their hands on me."

"You dare compare me to a beast, boy!" Izmos said.

Alan ignored his words and continued explaining.

"I found this key which must have fallen from one of their bodies while they were chasing me. I used tracking magic on it to find this place."

"Tracking Magic!!!," one of the villagers said. "Wow... you must be a genius. You don't look like you're from here. When we get back, I'll make sure the village elder rewards you."

Alan couldn't completely lie in his story because it would make him suspicious. Instead, he changed a few things to make it sound believable. The villagers might have accused him of being an accomplice to the crimes had he not given a reasonable explanation. He would rather them think he was a genius child prodigy that came to visit than believe he was a threat to the village.

"Alright, I'm going to go ahead and destroy these so they won't be used to hurt any more people," Alan said as he placed his hands over each of the cages.

The cages all turned into particles and disappeared into thin air. This sight was different from putting items into a storage device. When items were put into a storage device, they would get sucked into it. What the villagers saw looked like the cages got destroyed, so they believed Alan had used some sort of magic to destroy them.

"All right, we should get going before night hits. Here is some food. I know you guys probably haven't eaten in a while."

"Oh my god, what an angel," one of the women said.

The villagers ate the fruit Alan had given them and proceeded to head out. Alan used the safe route to get back to the village, and the group arrived at the town as the sun was setting.

Once they arrived, noise could be heard from inside the village. All the villagers started running in their direction with different expressions. Some were crying, some were celebrating, and some were looking at the scene in shock.

Alan watched as the villagers were reunited with their families with a smile on his face. Even though he didn't have a family anymore, he was still happy seeing the smiles of the parents, children, and spouses.

An old man approached the group and spoke.

"How did you guys escape?" he said. "We were looking for you guys for months to no avail."

"Village elder, this child right here was the one that rescued us," one of the villagers spoke.

Everybody looked at Alan with shocked expressions.

"I see," the village elder said as he examined Alan's body from head to toe. "Young man, why don't we go inside and talk? It's getting late outside."

Alan nodded his head in agreement. The elderly man led Alan towards his residence, and they both stepped inside. The man had a normal-sized body frame with grey hair and a beard that was a couple of inches long. Surprisingly, even though the man looked old, he had no bald spots.

He led Alan to his dining table and urged him to sit.

"I know you were out the entire day," he said. "Would you like something to eat?"

"I'm fine," Alan replied. "I ate something on my way back."

"Suit yourself," the man said.

He then sat across from Alan and continued speaking.

"My name is Ivan Gest, and I'm the elder of this village. Would you mind recalling the events of your journey to me?"

"Not at all," Alan said as he started telling the story to Ivan.

Ivan listened to the boy's story with great interest. After Alan was done telling his story, Ivan had a big smile on his face.

"Where are you from, child?" Ivan asked.

"As you can see, I'm not from here. The truth is that I was brought to this village through a teleportation circle and abandoned here by my family."

What Alan wanted the most right now was a place to live. He didn't want to camp outside for the rest of his life. To do this, he decided to tell Ivan of his circumstances and hoped the old man would show him some sympathy and give him a place to stay.

"Such a horrible thing to do to your flesh and blood," Ivan said. "Don't worry. If you need a place to live, I got one for you. It's the least I can do to reward you for saving my people. There's a house in the corner of town that my granddaughter used to live in before she left this place. You can live there for however long you may need."

He then proceeded to give Alan a key and pointed in the direction of where the house was located.

Alan got up and left Ivan's place, walking towards the house with a smile on his face. He had gotten a house for free without paying a single penny.

Once he reached the house, the smile on his face began to disappear.

"What the hell is this?"