Although this border village doesn't have a plaza like a town or a city, the village has a large intersection in the middle of the village and there are a lot of stalls that sell all kinds of things there, a food stall that sells beef skewer or a stall that sells daily necessities like soaps, buckets, candles, carpet, and other miscellaneous stuff.
The twins looked around at all the stalls in the intersection before finally deciding that they want to try the beef skewers at the stall that is tended by an old lady.
Isaac then walked to the beef skewer stall and called the old lady
"Mam, can I have 2 beef skewers please?"
The old lady who is tending the stall heard the question, but she can't find where the person who is talking to her. She looked around at the stall beside her just in case she misheard it, but she still couldn't find where the sound is coming from.
"Mam! I'm down here!"
Isaac's six years old body is apparently too short for the old lady to see him behind the wooden stall. After she sees that her customer is a cute handsome child, she hurriedly said sorry that she didn't notice him earlier
"I'm sorry I didn't see you earlier child, what can I help you with?"
"Don't worry about it mam, can I have 2 beef skewers please?"
"Yes 2 beef skewers coming right up."
The old lady packed the beef skewers into a paper bag before giving it to Isaac.
"Thank you mam, how much for the beef skewers?"
"It's 2 coppers child."
Isaac then grabbed 2 coppers from the money pouch that Mark gave him and gave it to the old lady.
After saying thanks once again, he walked back to where Aiden was waiting for him, he wanted to eat the beef skewers right away and opened the paper bag, but when he opened the bag, there 3 beef skewers instead of two, so he went back to the old lady at the beef skewer stall and told her that she put one too many beef skewers.
"Thank you for telling me child, I keep on forgetting stuff these days, as a token for your honesty, just take it, child. You don't have to pay for it." The old lady said while smiling at Isaac.
"Is it really okay mam?"
The old lady just nodded at Isaac's question.
"Thank you very much!"
Isaac then went back to Aiden and told him about just what happened.
'See what I mean Gra, there's also a benefit for being a nice person.'
'I think she just wanted to give you an extra beef skewer in the first place.'
'Why though?'
'I guess being a cute child also have their own benefits.'
'Ah that may be right Gra, but I still think that being nice is a good trait to have.'
'Yeah sure Faust'
They ate the beef skewers, each eating 1,5 portion. After eating they decided to see other stalls just in case something piqued their interest, but even after walking around twice they didn't find anything interesting.
'Dad is sure taking his time, what should we now Faust?'
'Let's walk around the village, aren't you curious about how an actual medieval village looks like?'
'What else we can see? There's only wooden buildings here and there, wooden stalls, and rarely some brick house pop out here and there, what else could there be here?'
'I don't know, that's why we're taking a look at it.'
Faust and Angra then proceed to walk to the other side of the village, away from the middle intersection. They are walking in between houses and they encountered less and less people the more they walked away from the intersection.
The dirt from the unpaved road are dirtying their shoes and the same scene of wooden houses here and there is starting to make Angra bored.
'See Faust? There is nothing here.'
Seeing that there is really nothing interesting there, Faust intended to go back since their father may already have been waiting for them.
They walked and walked for a while, but they can't seem to find their way back to the intersection.
'Faust…'
'Yes..?'
'Are we..?'
'For some reason yes.'
'How..'
'Please don't ask me, I also wonder how we can get lost in a small village in the first place. These goddamn wooden houses all looked the same that I can't find any landmark.'
'Don't worry if we're still lost after trying for another ten minutes, I will just use the spirits surveillance system to find dad, then find our way back to him.'
'Why not use them now since we're already lost like 15 minutes?'
'Getting lost is part of exploring you know? It won't be fun if we didn't try to find our way back on our own.'
'Whatever, we won't be truly lost in this little village.'
'Yes and we can also go straight back home if we want to, the zombie crew is stationed at home, so I can follow the connection there anytime.'
They walked again for another 15 minutes and they are starting to give up.
'Really, did we just got more lost even though we've walked in the direction to the center of the village?'
'Alright Faust, Although I'm not tired, this is starting to get frustrating, just use your spirits to get back.'
'Alright then'
Faust was about to tell his spirits to find his dad, but before he was able to send them off, he heard a muffled scream
"HELP!!!"
---
Mark walked into the loud and crowded pub and searched for his usual table to sit at.
He looked around the pub and finally walked to a table at the corner of the pub, there was already a man sitting there who seemed to be waiting for someone.
Mark sat at the opposite chair of the man. Mark looked at the man who is sitting in front of him. He has short brown hair, with a medium-sized body not too big nor too small, his clothes are the clothes that you can find anywhere in the village. In fact, his looks is just like any other ordinary villager.
"Is there anything new Zach?"
"There is no urgent or significant news since last time, but it is confirmed that the new mayor is not just some ordinary folks."
"Do you have the full report?"
"I still need to confirm it, but I'm 89% sure about it."
"Is there anything else?"
"And there's some rumor about a rebellion in the capital of the kingdom."
"Please tell me more about it."
Zach then told Mark about the general update of the situation in the kingdom and the news nearby. The talk is long enough that it takes them about 30 minutes before they move on to another topic.
"I think that the bandits from last time succeeded in robbing the house of the mayor, the merchant, and another villager's house, but we can't seem to find their traces, it was last seen that they are heading into The Forest of Beast, but when I tried to follow it, it just disappeared, since you live near there, did you find anything, Mark?"
"Sadly no, maybe they are really good at hiding themselves, and The Forest of Beast has many unpredictable variables that may help them to erase their trail."
"Alright, thanks for the info Zach, see you in 3 days."
Mark then tossed a gold coin from the pouch that was given by Tom the butcher to Zach.
"Okay"
'Ah, I hope those kids are alright, it took longer than I expected, but there should be no problem right?'
When Mark was about to get up from his seat, the pub's door is suddenly swung heavily and a person came running in
"THE MAYOR'S DAUGHTER HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED!"
---
'Gra!'
'Yes I heard it, but do we really need to get ourselves into other people's business though?'
'It's alright, you're also bored right?'
'Yes you're right, let's do this then.'
'But remember, no killing Gra.'
'Yes yes, of course.'
The twins then head to where the scream is coming from, they used wind magic to move faster and making less sound so whatever happens there, they won't be noticed unless they have a high level in their mana sense skill.
They arrived at the place where they heard the scream, but they found nothing, Faust then told the spirits to scatter around and report to him if they found anything suspicious.
'I guess it's no ordinary case, it would not be possible to disappear this fast with no skills or abilities.'
'Ohh this actually becomes interesting.'
'Beware Gra, if they are stronger than us, then we must retreat, our safety is number one priority.'
After a while, one of the spirits came back and lead them to a small wooden house about a minute away from where they were. Because the spirit isn't capable of communication, Faust then silently made a small hole as big as his thumb using death magic to rot a small part of the wood before pushing it slightly with his thumb to make the hole. He looked into the hole and saw 2 men were sitting at the front side of the house, and at the back of the house, he saw a girl who had her hands and legs tied up, and a cloth was tied to her mouth preventing her from making any sounds.
'Since we need to do this without attracting attention, so get in and get out strategy then?'
'Okay.'
'So I will give you an opening and after that, you will rescue the girl then we disappear, any questions Gra?'
'Nope'
'Alright I'm going to try out this new magic that I've been thinking about, hopes it works out well'
Faust prepared his magic then
'3, 2, 1, GO!'
A solid object suddenly crashed the house from the front door, before the people inside are able to identify what the object was, The whole house was filled with hot steam that hindered everybody's eyesight and the hot air should have burned the skin of the two men who sat in front of the house and the pressure from the steam created some holes in the weaker part of the house.
After that, 2 shadows seem to be getting out of the steam-filled house and disappeared into the complicated terrains of the many wooden houses in the village.