─'Ugh, five more minutes..'
Kallous tightly hugged the pillow, ignoring the system's nagging sound. He loathed it when Allyn used the system's alarm to wake him up. He was relieved that there are no alarm clocks in this world, but to think that his precious starlight will use this deadly device he deeply despises against him just to make him suffer...
Betrayals comes in ways you least expect it.
Grunting as he pushed his hands down on the mattress, turning his body into a sitting position, he slowly sat up as he cursed his nonexistent peaceful life.
✿ 'Good morning Kal! o(≧▽≦)o' Allyn happily greeted as she flew around him in circles.
─ 'Tsk, you know I hate Mondays. Why wake me up so early?' he glared as he stood up and went to the bathroom to take a shower.
Testing the water, he stood under the hot spray which calmed him down immediately. Allyn noticed his change and could only sigh helplessly.
Her master's morning mood swings could bring many to shame. Fortunately, he is only like that on Mondays. Which makes her wonder if Mondays really were as bad as Kallous says.
Kal took his sweet time as he scrubbed his body with the products Allyn recommended as he listened to her daily update and possible schedule for this week. He still couldn't get used to his long hair and truthfully wished to cut it, which he would've done so long ago if not for Allyn threatening him if he dared to do so.
Turning off the shower, he grabbed the towel and quickly dried himself, stepping outside of the bathroom. After dressing himself up, without the need for any assistance from Allyn, he silently stood by the mirror and scanned himself.
There was a notable change in his body from when he first came to the orphanage. Particularly in terms of his height.
He no longer looked like a tiny dwarf child and now could be compared to the average five year olds. He looked much healthier. However, thanks to his long hair, he could be mistaken for a girl, which he wasn't too pleased with.
─ 'Allyn, are you sure this growth rate is normal?' Kal casually asked, tying his hair up so it won't get in his way of doing his usual activities.
✿'Of course! Not only that, based on the guideline, you will keep growing till your body reaches its adult faze, and by the time you are considered a fully fledged adult, that is when your body stops growing and will stay as it is till the end of your lifespan.' She replied, secretly helping Kal fix his ponytail.
Kal paused his movement for a second and hummed as he put his shoes on. 'I supposed this guideline doesn't mention anything about the life span of this mysterious race that I belong to?'
✿ 'No, of course it does! It's mentioned right here-' Allyn suddenly stopped and looked at her master's innocent expression.
✿ 'I won't fall for that, you know. If you really want answers, I suggest finishing your missions quickly, and unless stated otherwise, you won't get any information from me hmph!' Allyn huffed and quickly disappeared from his sight before she fell into another trick of his.
Sigh
'Should I praise her for doing her job diligently or should I curse my luck for not getting enough answers?'
A silly grin made its way onto his face as he shook his head. He'd been awake for half an hour, and all he did was blame his luck. Kal had to admit that it wasn't how he wished to start his day, but what can he say? Its Monday.
Mondays are always a terrible, unlucky day.
When he got out of the room, he noticed that some of the kids were awake and already heading upstairs. Since the incident that happened into the dining hall days ago, Lucy forced us in a 'house arrest' and all we could do was stay in our assigned rooms.
It was a disaster, Kallous wasn't able to sneak out without anyone noticing. Especially with the heavy security she had placed.
This, of course, only helped the situation with the twins get worse as he felt their eyes, mostly Ian's, on him. Although they weren't hustle by any means, rather, it had a weird feeling that Kal would deny sensing till his dying breath. He didn't like it one bit.
No one seemed to mention his growth, maybe because they already fell in love with his loveable façade and attitude that he had applied, which resulted in them turning a blind eye to this change, or maybe nobody actually cared in the first place and he was just overthinking too much.
Either way, as long as no one confronts him about it or gaze at him suspiciously, he will not change his act and continue on with his life.
He was stopped a few times by side characters who wished to converse with him before he finally made his way to the dining hall. Despite the fact that he hated this, he will commit to his act for the sake of his future, even if it means that he will stay innocent and lovable for several hours straight.
Once he successfully made his way to his bench, sliding into his seat, he silently looked at the already prepared healthy breakfast and ate his meal.
Kal took in this rare moment of peace to settle in his thoughts and note down his future plans.
For starters, The only reason that he allowed himself to be Kidnapped in the first place was only for the sake of taking this unforeseen chance to prevent Vita from turning into a death region.
Of course, it was pure coincidence that he was brought here. If Cian took him anywhere else, Kal would've dealt with him before anything suspicious happens.
Kal wasn't stupid enough to follow strangers anyway.
Plus, only by staying here will he be able to prevent the future catastrophe and lives of children won't end up being lost for nothing.
Kallous doesn't care much about human lives, but he does care about this world. For the sake of his survival here, he will need for this world to continue to exist and not perish or turn for the worse.
Naturally, it's not like if Vita ended up changing like it's written fate will the world end right there and then, no. However, that incident was the spark that lit up the fire that burned everything.
It was best to stop it at all cost.
Kal nabbed a piece of toast and chewed on it, his mind was slowly piecing out the events that led Vita to end up that way, Barely noticing the kids trickling in and sitting beside him, digging into their own breakfast.
Something must've happened when the gates appeared here. Kal knew that Lucy had a hand on this but couldn't pinpoint what she did exactly to lead for such a huge event to happen. He silently checked the system and found what he was looking for; a copy of the novel he wrote.
He had asked Allyn to make one since it was better to have a copy instead of searching inside his memories whenever he wanted to remember a scene or a line from the novel.
As he scanned the pages on the screen, he found the scene that mentioned the event.
The scene was as cliché as it could be. The protagonist was trapped in a dungeon and there he met a stranger, an old scholar, who was studying the history behind the death regions. One of which was Vita, that later was came to be known as Varea, losing its original name in the process.
As he continued to read on while eating his breakfast, he stumbled on the line said by the scholar which made Kal remember the exact scene that took place.
Inside the gate, one of the first few portals that appeared on the land, was Lucy. She stole an unidentified item from inside of the portal and took it to the outside world.
In the novel, it specifically mentioned that her greed was what led the tragedy to happen.
The scholar revealed that the item was cursed, and based on how the town ended up, one could only imagine the grade of that curse.
No one knew what the item was, the people that witnessed Lucy exiting the portal couldn't make out what it was as well.
However, even with the little to no information Kal was able to gather from the few mentioning of the event and in his memories, it was safe to say that he had a lead.
If by stopping Lucy from taking that unknown item could prevent the annulation of the town, Kal might aswell do just that.
'I'll have to ask Allyn to do more spying on that crazy old hag.' Kal could only sigh as he took an apple from one of the plates near him and began to slice into it while pondering about all the details of his plan that ended up getting more complicated by the minute.
"Kallous!" shouted Nez, trying to get Kal's attention. He was a side character who fancied Kal and was the leader of Kal's fan club in the orphanage.
Kal's head snapped up, slowly becoming more aware of his surroundings. His gaze roamed around and saw the worried looks he was receiving from the kids on his bench. A cute puzzled expression graced his face, silently looking at the child who had called for him.
"What's wrong? Why is everyone looking at me like that?" he titled his head innocently as he smiled at them.
Nez carefully took off Kal's left glove and used a napkin to wrap around Kal's bleeding finger. Taking away any sharp objects near the child in front of him.
"Geez Kallous, stop making us worry like that. You could've sliced off your finger if not for us keeping an eye on you."
"Ah, thank you." Still keeping a fake smile, he took away his hand from the boy and hid it under the table. The kids thought he was just shy and chuckled before continuing with their own things.
─ 'Allyn.' Kal called as he closed his eyes, silently rubbing his injured hand on his clothes.
✿ 'Hmm? ...Kal is that blood? why are you so clumsy?' Allyn quickly took out a low grade healing potion and made sure that he drank every single drop of it.
─ 'Where were you?' Seeing that his hand was all healed up, he picked a napkin and starting wiping the blood stains after taking out a spare glove and wore it.
Allyn halted her movement and smiled as she scanned Kal's no longer injured hand. she looked up and saw Kal's expressionless face. For some odd reason, she imagined him sulking and puffing his cheeks in protest but that's just her imagination running wild.
✿ 'Spying. Lucy invited a guest today, an old man to be exact. He looked very ugly and I advise you to not look at him since he will only taint your sight.' She circled around Kal then landed on his shoulder before she continued, 'I saw her receive a large sum of coins from the old man. She was smiling like a creep. Very unshiny.'
─ 'I see. And by any chance, did this guest go to the other side of the building?' standing up, unaware of the eyes on him, he made his way outside the hall.
✿ 'Woah! How did you know? Yes, he did go there.'
─ 'She must've giving him one of the trained kids. And by the amount she received, he must've been satisfied with the 'gift'.'
Allyn hovered around Kal in silence as she followed him to the outside of the building . She did not like the fact that many kids were sold and they couldn't do anything about it just yet.
She thought about telling the local authorities since the knights are already suspicious about this orphanage's activities, but Kal advised against it, saying that no one will take a child's complaint seriously and that, even in the event that they did, it will be too late because the orphanage's head would have destroyed any evidence before it could be discovered and used against them.
The only way they saw fit was to catch them in the act. Which is why Kal believed it was best to get himself chosen and set on the list. Hopefully by doing so, he might be able to get hold of physical evidence that can be used against them unshiny creatures.
Allyn could only shake her head and pray that this plan will somehow work out in the end.
"Kallous dear, could you come here for a moment?" A young nurse waved at Kallous to get his attention. She stood there with a knight who looked awfully familiar to Kal.
Since Kal already turned and faced them, he couldn't just turn around like he didn't see them. So, he sighed inwardly and made his way to the nurse while smiling brightly at them.
Kal was committed to his act. Even though it annoyed him so much to act like a bright, innocent young child, he had to continue or else how could he survive in this hell hole that he was kidnapped into.
Kal could only complain inwardly and suffer in silence.
"Big sister, need any help?"
The nurse chuckled and met his silver eyes.
"Do me a favour and help this kind gentlemen find the head butler, you know, that tall, slender old man that has an a blank expression on his face."
The nurse started to make weird expressions just to validate her point which made Allyn, who was watching from on top of Kal's head, label her as 'The weird hat lady'.
The knight simple stood there in silence, eyeing Kallous and paying no attention to the lady beside him.
Kal didn't want to stay here and watch how many expression the nurse could make in a span of however long she planned to continue on and so he only nodded and left after looking at the man once, who was caught staring at him, and went to find the butler.
The knight silently followed the child after thanking the nurse.
'What a charming young lad, Reminds me of little cousin before he hit that awkward stage in life and started to act fierce.' The knight thought as he followed the boy.
Before the knight could speak to Kal, they already made their way to the butler who happened to be chatting with a maid outside.
The butler quickly noticed them and raised an eyebrow in question.
Seeing that Kal already done his task, he left the two to chat and walked away. Leaving Allyn to eavesdrop on their conversation.
What can he say? It wasn't common to see a knight here and with the current situation, no way that guy came without reason.
He soon made his way out and headed towards the open area where orphans were allowed to play at.
It didn't take long for Kal to spot some of the older kids playing carelessly and laughing cheerfully as kids should be.
This sight made him stop for a moment, few weeks from now and this place will soon be deserted, death will grace this land and he is the only one that knows of this and could stop it.
Kal hopes that by the end of it, he would just get the twins on their own path and then go venture the land with his starlight. While imagining how his future might go, he steadily found a place to rest under a tree, far enough for anyone to notice him.
His future was blurry that's for sure but still somewhat manageable.
After all, he has his trusty system to help him.
What could ever go wrong?
✿ 'I'm back! Missed me?' Allyn quickly appeared to Kal's side and rested right on top of his head.
─ 'Right on time, what did the knight need from the butler?' To say that Kal was not intrigued was an understatement. As long as it involves anything related to this orphanage than he must know all about it.
For the sake of gathering information of course...
Allyn removed the annoying leaf that dared to sneak into her spot. Once done, she quickly informed Kal of what she had witnessed.
─ 'THE BUTLER DID WHAT?!'
✿ 'Apparently, the knight wanted to investigate the rumour he just heard from, and I quote, "The most charming lady he had ever interacted with," and considering the fact that the people missing were large in number, he stated that it was only right for the knights to get involve.
At first, the butler offered him a meeting with unshiny Lucy so they can file the statement and get permission for the knights to do their search, to which the knight agreed immediately. However, as the knight followed him to her office, the butler attacked the knight and made him pass out right then and there.
He took the poor unconscious knight to the other side of the building with some staff helping him out. That area is very suspicious, first the kids and now the poor knight! I didn't want to follow them all the way there given that it didn't have shiny vibes and I don't like it.'
While Allyn continued to go on and on about the situation, Kal felt that the people here were stupid. First, the knight who let his guard down to the point that a mare butler was able to land a hit on him, making him pass out in the process. Second, there's the butler himself who thought that it was a great idea to just attack and kidnap a knight, entirely disregarding that he might or might not have team mates who were still waiting for him or at least know of his location, and continue on with his life like he didn't just do that.
Kal understood the butler's actions, someone knew of the rumour and was a knight at that, so he had to deal with him before it reached the public. However, this action simply made it worse.
The knight order are bound to notice this and will soon learn that the orphanage had a hand one way or another. Which, unfortunately for Lucy, will give the knights more than enough reason to investigate the orphanage and she could do nothing about it.
She could deny but who is she to stop the Elpis knights if they were to pressure her?
Kal could only light a candle for her misfortune.
One simple act of misjudgement and soon all her plans will fall apart.
Actions won't take place right away; in fact, they could take weeks if Lucy tries to trick them, but it will happen eventually.
Not like he cared for any of that anyway.
Although he must admit, this unexpected turn of events would definitely benefit his plans immensely.
Lucy will be so occupied and she will have no time to keep an eye on anyone other than her target.
Truly a blessing in disguise.
Somehow, Kal felt that the start of the day was eventful.
Mondays might not be so bad after all.