I carried the boy away from the scene, out of the house. He went without a fuss, and was now happily slumped across my shoulder despite being handcuffed.
I peered back for a moment and halted. It's... gone.
"Henry! There you are!"
Jo stood a little further down the hill, completely out of breath.
"I looked across the entire village, sheesh. Where did you go? We were at the village entrance and then... you were gone."
I really wasn't sure what to say to her. I stood there with a strange look of bewilderment, concern - and most of all - confusion.
"Who's this?" She pointed to the boy I was holding.
"I... Erm. It's one of the victims. I've already went over the crime scene, so we can go."
The expression engulfing her face clearly said: 'Whaaaaaat? We travelled for two hours and you just went ahead and did our job by yourself?!' but what she actually said to me was: "Oh. Right, okay, the carriage is waiting for us at the village entrance."
I took once final glance as we approached the bottom of the hill. It really was gone; the barrier, the sphere of corrupted mana, the girl...
"Hey, Jo, do you remember that hooded figure...?"
"Huh? That creepy assassin from the political assassination last month? Last I heard... he's still in the council's dungeons being torture-- I mean interrogated."
Her memory had been tampered with. She had no recollection of the barrier, the girl, or anything that happened after we entered the village. The only question was... why was my memory left intact? It felt like someone - or something - was steering my life in whichever direction they fancied to suit their goals.
"Y- yeah, that guy."
As we travelled back to the city, I told Jo the details of the crime scene - omitting some details like the all-powerful elf I had encountered and the strange black miasma tainting the area.
"What'll we do with the boy then?" Our attention drifted towards the boy sleeping next to me.
"It sounds like a clear case of druidic powers awakening too early. It happens. Are we going to hand him over to the druids?" She continued.
I shook my head, resting my chin atop my hands.
"Put your hand on his chest."
Jo raised an eyebrow, but complied with the instruction, reaching across to the boy and gently placing her hand on his tattered shirt. After a few seconds, she shot me a wild glance and took her hand away. I nodded in acknowledgement, and we sat in silence for the next half-hour, each of us contemplating the case.
There are several schools of magic, and several ways of casting all sorts of spells, but all of it stems from the primary and secondary core(s). Raw, unrefined mana from the atmosphere is gathered in the primary core - initially over long periods of focused meditation but with practice mages can gather this mana subconsciously in their sleep. Then, mana is refined into a specific nature and pools in the secondary core - where it can then be distributed throughout the body and used to cast spells.
An all-purpose mage such as myself can consciously refine mana particles into any of the basic natures; fire, earth, air or water - but can only store one at a time; therefore making element combinations impossible. This limits the variety of my spells, but due to a dense secondary core and thick mana veins, the magic that I can cast is very powerful - or so I'd like to think.
Druids also gather mana in their primary core, but cannot consciously refine mana. Instead, mana naturally flows from their primary core to their secondary core while undergoing a very potent refinement process. The resulting mana particles are a combination of earth, air and water - nature magic. This magic allows the spell caster to alter the very shape of their body into whatever they desire.
If somehow, a young druid accidentally gathered mana into their primary core, which then naturally refined itself over time into the secondary core... and then that secondary core eventually overflowed with mana... Well, the result would be nothing short of a disaster. Most likely, the mana would uncontrollably spread throughout the body and kill them - and perhaps others around them. However, in a worst case scenario, young druids have been known to shapeshift against their will as their secondary core shatters - turning them into a wild animal fuelled by uncontrolled nature magic.
Unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately in this case - the boy has no mana cores, which means the perpetrator could not have possibly been them. These days, someone with absolutely no affinity for magic is almost a rarity - at least in the city. The absence or presence of a mana core is mostly genetic, and since Eros was founded by mages, most of its residents - even those in poverty - generally possess at least the primary core.
Considering the stranger aspects of this case, I've made the decision to keep them handcuffed until they can undergo a thorough examination back at HQ.