Leonard soon entered the dining hall, which was just a plain room with a long rectangular table. There was no decorations or anything of such in the dining hall, in fact the whole orphanage just had the key essentials for living as spending money on anything else such as decorations was money the orphanage didn't have.
Sitting at the table was all the orphans and the director who were all about to eat, it seemed Leonard was the last person to come, but it was nothing new as Leonard was often the last to wake up in the morning, the reason for this was because Leonard often struggled to sleep at night, he just had too much on his mind, constantly thinking.
"Look who finally decided to join us." Morten exclaimed loudly, Morten was a preteen boy with long brown hair that came down to his ears and brown eyes with a hint of yellow around the pupils, and for some reason Morten was always slightly antagonistic to Leonard.
Leonard ignored his jeering and found his seat on the table with Jack on his right and Joseph on his left, Joseph was a boy a few years younger than Leonard and he was a quiet and sensible child.
As all the orphans were talking and chatting with each other Leonard stared at his breakfast in front of him it was a piece of bread with a bowl of soup which was made with vegetables and a little bit of meat. 'Life as an orphan is a lot easier then I once thought, all the books I read before transmigrating always depicted life as an orphan to be horrid with being constantly malnourished and living in cramped and dirty areas but my life in this world as an orphan is pretty tame, although much less lavish then my past life I still get given adequate amount of food and a clean safe place to sleep, though a large part of the reason orphans in this world live with much less suffering was because of Hannibal Heavenborne, he was an extraordinary man who rose to power only a couple decades ago, he started as a humble orphan that lived in extreme abject poverty and constant troubles however around his teenage years he was discovered to posses an extremely powerful physique, the Heavenly Order quickly took Hannibal away from his orphanage to train him to be a powerful figure among them and Hannibal got stronger at a very fast pace and in only a couple decades Hannibal had became a very important higher up in the Heavenly Order, he was also given the surname Heavenborne only given to the most respected in the Heavenly court and after that Hannibal used the extreme amount of authority he had in the Heavenly Order to give funding to every orphanage in the Heavenly Orders circle of influence, greatly improving the living conditions of orphans. Hannibal is one of the few people I deeply respect for if not for him my already tough life here in this world would be even worse.
Leonard, escaping from his thoughts began to slowly eat his food ignoring the other orphans talks. Jack nudged Leonard with his elbow to get his attention.
"Hey Leon you wanna play with me and the boys on our street, I know you always decline but bro, you don't know what your missing out on." Jack asked Leonard in an almost pleading tone.
"Sorry Jack but I think I'm going to visit the public Library after finishing breakfast." Leonard replied apologetically, he, in fact didn't mind Jack even though he was a little annoying at times, Leonard always declined Jacks offers for two main reasons, the first was that Leonard was mentally in his thirties and stupid games that little kids use to entertain themselves were simply not entertaining at all to Leonard and the second, more important reason was because Leonard hated wasting his time on anything except further advancing his progress on finding a way back home.
"ugh, I knew you'd say that, the library might as well be your second home from all the time you spend there."
Jack, annoyed at Leonard stopped talking to him and focused on eating his food quickly so he could leave and play. Leonard felt relief wash over him that Jack cut the conversation short, as usually when Leonard declines Jacks plans to play games it would end with Jack giving Leonard a tiresome rant on why he's so boring and to have fun once in a while.
Once breakfast was over, everyone dispersed to attend to their individual tasks or interests, Jack left to play with the other neighbourhood children, the usually silent director who owned the orphanage went on to do some work, the only caretaker the orphanage had went to take care of the toddler and infant orphans. There was also other orphans who went to do their own interests, Leonard himself left to go to the library but before that he had something he had to do.
Walking out the orphanage Leonard first went to meet up with someone he had a long term deal with, after walking for a few minutes Leonard arrived at a park and spotted a boy around the same age as Leonard, the boy was sitting on one of the benches with some newspapers on his lap. After spotting the boy Leonard made a beeline to him, after all the whole reason he delayed his library visit was because of the deal he and the boy had made a long time ago.
When Leonard got close enough the boy too saw Leonard and started to wave at him.
"Leonard its always a pleasure to see you, come sit next to me, we need to read these newspapers quick since the last time you were too engrossed in it spending too much time, causing my parents to scold me for being late at getting their newspapers."
"Alright Nick, I promise I wont spend too much time looking at the newspapers." Leonard replied while sitting adjacent to Nick.
The whole deal that Leonard had with Nick was actually something that began when they were much younger. Leonard had helped Nick get out of some major trouble, and Nick feeling indebted asked Leonard if there was anything he could do to help him out, Leonard seeing if this kid could even help him asked many questions and then that was when Leonard found out Nick buys newspapers in the morning to deliver to his parents, so Leonard made a deal with Nick that just before Nick gives the newspapers to his parents he would let Leonard have a quick read of it.
The reason Leonard didn't just outright buy the newspapers was because he had no money, as he was still a child and an orphan on top of that Leonard simply had no income to buy anything.
"Alright lets get to reading." Nick said, looking slightly impatient after Leonard sat next to him.
As Nick flipped the newspaper so the frontline could be seen Leonards gazed intensely at it with an unreadable expression plastered on his face.
On the other hand Nicks expression turned strangely Zealous after seeing the headline.
"Ha would you look at that, the Heavenly Order caught and executed another of those vile otherworldly demons."