"Can I join your group?"
"Excuse me, what?"
"Can I please join the traveling mages group?"
"EH, WHY? It's dangerous and not fun, we sleep on the streets every day and our journey is still so long that it can even take tens or maybe a hundred years!"
"Yes! I want to travel the world! My father never let me go outside of home much. Before we moved to this village, we live somewhere with a big house and a big backyard, but I never get to go outside the house, when father said that we'll be moving, I thought that we will be traveling like what the books that my mother used to read me about a hero who traveled around the world discovering new places and meeting new friends along the way, but it turns out that I only sat at a carriage for a long time before finally living inside another house for years!"
"That's why today I decided to disobey my father and go outside the house…"
Faust actually sympathized a little by hearing the little girl's story, he could not imagine if he ever would be locked up at home for ten years long and can't experience the many wonderful things the world has to offer.
"I'm sorry Eleora, but you can't. It is very dangerous and I can't let you go through it, besides your father will worry about you."
"But, I'm sure I can do it if you give me a chance! My father said that I'm a very smart girl and he said that I'm talented in magic! I'm sure I will be able to defend myself if I train a little!"
Faust was about to find another excuse so she will give up trying to join them, but before he was about to say it, Angra suddenly said
"No, you can't Eleora."
"But why?"
"Because you're too weak, you will drag us down."
"But I can use magic!"
"Really? show me then."
Eleora then focused on her hands, her fingers, very slowly fire attribute mana were gathering on her fingers, and a small flame only as big as Angra's thumb appeared on her index finger.
"See! I can use magic!"
"Oh I see, but what can your magic do against something like this?"
Angra then used fire-fusion and made a hand-blade with solid magic before slicing a tree nearby, causing the tree to be easily cut into two horizontally, leaving the part where the blade passed through scorched black.
Seeing the tree that she knows is very sturdy that she can even climb the branches are easily cut into two using little effort, her small flame on his index finger slowly getting fainter before it finally died down.
'Gra, why are you so harsh to a little kid? If she cries, it will be more troublesome for us!'
'Hey, you're the one to come up with the traveling mages bullshit, so right now I'm helping you to fix the little mess you've created.'
'But you don't need to do it like that!'
'Can't you see that she is quiet right now? My method is working Faust.'
'But… Ah, whatever, just hope that she won't take that to heart and become depressed about it.'
'Can a kid be depressed though?'
'Won't they just forget about it tomorrow, or when they are given candy?'
'Well, human psychology is not that simple, but kids are mostly innocent, depending on who raised them, so we can't be too harsh to an innocent one.'
'Really? But what if a kid is threatening mom or dad?'
'I'll kill it.'
'Whoa easy Faust, I'm just checking if you've become a naive bastard. You don't have to go that hard.'
'There is no compromise for anything that threatens my family.'
'Alright, alright, I'm sorry for bringing that topic up, can you please check on her right now? She is already quiet for a while.'
Faust then nodded to Angra in response.
'Yup, he's still scary.' Angra thought to himself.
"Eleora… Are you okay? He didn't mean anything bad, but it's true, our journey is very dangerous, with your ability, at least right now, it is impossible for you to join us."
"Then, if I become stronger later on, will you let me join?"
"Well, if you're stronger, then I can think about it."
"Can you pinky promise me?"
"Ah, okay"
Faust then made a pinky promise gesture and she wrapped her pinky finger around Faust's. After wrapping their pinky fingers with each other, Faust wanted to let go, but she held his finger and won't let go.
"Don't you forget to say something?"
After remembering what she meant, Faust then gulped and reluctantly said "I promise that I will give you a chance to join if you become stronger later, if I break the promise then I will swallow a thousand needles."
After Faust finished saying the oath, she finally let go of Faust's finger and nodded in approval. After that, they stayed quiet and waited for Mark's arrival.
---
Mark followed the clusters of spirit from the village all the way to the outskirts of The Forest of Beast. When he stepped inside the outskirts of the forest, someone was already waiting for him.
"Dadd!"
"Isaac, what are you doing here?"
"So, the story is.."
"Wait, before we get into further detail, can you please confirm that you are the one responsible for blowing up a house in the village with a steam explosion earlier?"
"Umm yes it's me, is anything wrong dad? Did I mess something up? Did someone find out anything that they shouldn't have?"
"Ah, don't worry Isaac, it's nothing like that, I'm just making sure. Okay then continue your story."
Isaac then told Mark about the whole event from their decision to walk around the village and they sort of got lost before hearing someone screaming for help then saving the little girl from the kidnappers and then bringing her here.
"Dad, I'm sorry if I did something wrong by saving her and now I don't know what to do next after saving her, what should we do?"
"You did nothing wrong Isaac, saving someone in trouble if you can is a good thing to do. And more importantly, you kept your identities a secret when doing it so there should be no problem."
Mark is also thinking about what they should do next, if they just give her back to the mayor, then they will attract unnecessary attention to themselves. And they also have to deal with kidnappers, because letting something so dangerous inside that little village can disrupt the usual peaceful daily life they have here.
"Ah dad also, I just made a cover-up scenario for us, that I already told to the girl."
Isaac then told his dad about the Travelling Mages Group and hearing all this, his dad burst out a laughter
"Ahahahaha! Good job Isaac! How can you come with such things in a short time?"
"I don't know, it just came to me."
"By the way, with that, we can easily solve the problem where our identities may be exposed, now the only problem left is how to clean up those kidnappers."
"About that, I may have told some spirits to follow the kidnappers."
"Nice! You're brilliant Isaac! Now, all we need to do is just to tell the little girl about the plan."
"Don't forget to wear a mask, dad!"
"Ah no, I don't want to wear such a crude mask."
Mark then used solid magic to make a helmet made of fire mana, the helmet is quite thin, but it covered all sides of Mark's face and with the hot fire distorting the light, it is not possible to clearly sees his face and with fire fusion, the flame helmet can't harm him at all.
"WHY DID I NOT THINK OF THAT!" Isaac facepalmed himself for not having the idea to use solid magic as an armor instead of conjuring a mask made of earth.
"Ahahaha, don't worry Isaac, experience is one of the advantages that I have over you. I'm sure you will be able to catch up to me in no time at all."
After they finished their preparation for hiding their identities, they finally came back to where Aiden and Eleora were waiting for them.
Angra is the first to notice that his brother just came back with a huge, tall, well-built man wearing something that looks like a knight helm that fully covered all sides of his face. Although he can't see his face clearly, Angra is very familiar with the man's body and posture and he is sure that it's his dad.
Angra wanted to greet his dad, but he remembered that at the moment they are the traveling mage group so he refrained himself from doing that. And the one who actually greeted him first is actually Eleora
"Good evening sir, the leader of the traveling mages group, my name is Eleora," she said while slightly bowing.
Mark wanted to ask what was up with the little girl, but he kept it to himself for now and went directly to explain what they will do next.
"Do you understand Eleora?"
"Wait, so what we will be doing after this is, first, we will go into the kidnappers' hideout, next we will get rid of all the kidnappers, after that, we will go back to my father's house and I must not tell the people about the traveling mages group, but instead a mysterious group of people is the one who saved me?"
"Yup that's correct."
"But why do you not want to be known by others? Isn't having your name well known will help you in your search for the treasure?"
Mark was about to give her his thought-up excuse, but Isaac did it first.
"We can't do that, Eleora. If there's a lot of other people who are also searching for the treasure. If people know who we are, there will be people that will hunt us down, so that the people who are also searching for the treasure will have less competition."
"I see, okay then. When will we go to beat up those kidnappers?" Eleora said as she rolled her sleeve as if she was getting ready to fight.