Chương 241: The Lost and Seeking

Another two weeks passed by. Despite my initial concerns that part of Felix's past would haunt us, nothing happened. The three of us kept going to school, I continued my research on my magic, and I kept working with doctor Trish to improve my healing. Anise and Felix kept working on their research for star-paper and trying to perfect it. I often stepped in to help out with Felix's experiments. So far, we hadn't found a way to get a piece of star-paper above sixty percent efficiency, but we kept trying.

Not that a sixty percent efficiency star paper was anything to sneeze at. Previously, Anise could only work on her spell constellations four hours a day. With the star paper, she could now make use of an extra five or six hours a day. She still couldn't work on Zelyrian magic in the middle of class, but she could work on it after school. With the extra time, she estimated that she could form simpler spell constellations in about half a year, instead of nine to ten months.

Her current focus was on a basic magic eye spell. On the fifteenth day after peace negotiations started, there was still no word about a finalized treaty. However, we found Old Mo waiting for us after school. He had a rather thoughtful expression on his face, and his gaze settled firmly on Felix once we left the building.

"Old Mo?" I asked, uncertainly.

"The four of us need to talk," he said.

"I learned something that might affect you. We'll discuss more once we reach my bakery." The three of us followed Old Mo through the streets of town. Old Mo was silent during the walk, which set me a little bit on edge. Was something bad happening? Was Old Mo in trouble? Maybe someone had found out about his past and wanted to put him in prison? All sorts of terrifying scenarios surfaced in my head. I found myself scanning our surroundings with spatial and soul-sight, and jumping at shadows.

After twenty minutes of anxiety, we arrived at Old Mo's bakery. Old Mo led us into his shop, before he pushed his bed aside. He opened a trap door underneath his bed, and gestured for us to enter. As we climbed down the ladder, I realized that Old Mo had repurposed some kind of basement. It was now a large room, with a good amount of food and weapons stored inside. I took a seat on one of the crates of jerky, and Anise and Felix did the same. Old Mo made his way down last.

He took a few looks around, knocked on the walls a few times, and then nodded.

"It doesn't sound like there are any tunnels nearby. It's unlikely, but you never know." I wondered if there was some sort of ability potion that let people tunnel through the earth efficiently. Old Mo had briefed me on healing abilities, so that I could make my healing more believable, but I didn't know what other abilities existed. A tunneling ability was the only reason I could think of to check for new tunnels.

"All right, let's talk," said Old Mo. He pulled out a copy of the daily newspaper, before he glanced at Felix again.

"Felix, when you were born in this world, you were an artificial child, right? Made from Zelyrian technology?" Felix nodded.

"I was made from Zelyrian tech, yeah. Miria, Sallia, and Anise broke me out when we were six. After we escaped, Miria used one of her abilities to change my appearance. I kept my name, but Felix is a pretty common name, so I figured it was fine." Felix shrugged.

"Nobody seems to have ever connected the dots." Old Mo nodded.

"There aren't any abilities I know of that could make it easy to track you down. And there aren't exactly a shortage of six year old children in the slums. Connecting you to the 'Felix' who escaped Verne's labs should be very difficult. Normally, that should have been where the story ended…" Old Mo pulled out a newspaper.

"But there's something interesting that happened last week. It just made its way to our newspapers today." I grabbed the newspaper and tilted it so that the others could also see it. Escape of the experimental children! I read the headline, and then blinked in surprise. I reread it.

"So… the other experimental children escaped?" said Felix, scratching his head as he read the newspaper. The three of us spent a few minutes flipping through the newspaper. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Apparently, a lot of the 'special assassins' of Verne had been deserting the army recently. It seemed like dozens of artificial children had fled once the peace talks started. I quietly cheered for them.

We didn't have the ability to locate the artificial children, but I hoped they could find a normal life after this.

"Isn't that… a good thing?" asked Felix.

"Well, good for them, at least? I don't see how it affects us. And I have to admit, I'm actually a little glad for them. Being an artificial child isn't pleasant. And there's no difference between their souls and everyone else's souls."

"Well… yes," said Old Mo.

"Theoretically, it's a good thing. I hope that they don't get caught and get to live real lives, away from the war. But their escape does mean something else. Most of the experimental children have drank ability potions. Unlike regular people, artificial children always gain an ability after drinking a potion. Ability potions are rare and hard to make, so nations funnel them towards people likely to get abilities from them. So a disproportionate number of artificial children have abilities.

And their physical abilities are so great that it's practically equivalent to another ability potion. No six year old should be able to win an arm wrestling match against an adult and win." I nodded thoughtfully, unsure where Old Mo was going with this conversation.

"With a bunch of former assassins fleeing everywhere, you can expect a lot of scrutiny for weird children." said Old Mo.

"The three of you are a lot better at acting your age now, and I did my best to cover up your origins. But someone might still poke around a bit if you do anything odd. I like to think that the backgrounds I've woven for the three of you will hold up, but there's always a risk." He paused, meeting each of our eyes in turn.

"So… here's what I'm thinking," said Old Mo.

"First of all, you need to be extra careful not to show anything. The good news is that Miria is pretty well known and popular in town. And frankly, she's the last person anyone would ever suspect of being an assassin. She's a healer who gets along well with almost everybody. She's very empathetic towards patients, and everyone who talks about her describes her as a kind little girl who likes healing people." I felt myself flush at Old Mo's words.

"Not to mention, she openly uses her healing ability all the time. Since it's a well known fact that you can only have one ability, nobody will ever suspect that Miria has other powers. As for you two, Felix and Anise… well, Felix has demonstrated his 'mental communication' powers… which he doesn't actually have. Anise has demonstrated the ability to fire bolts of force." Old Mo sighed.

"Both of those are at least somewhat usable for assassins. But your association with Miria will shield you two a bit. Just be careful. If people start getting suspicious about one of you, it won't take long for that suspicion to spread to all three of you. While your backgrounds can hold up to some scrutiny, the best background is one so 'obviously true' that nobody checks it." I nodded.

"One other thing, though. Miria, you've mentioned a few different 'long term' goals to focus on this world. But you never sound very committed to them. You've also mentioned that Anise needs to do something impressive with her magic to get a keyword ability. Felix sounds like he already has plans for trying to revolutionize alchemy. The two of you don't seem to have a good plan for how to proceed, though. Is that accurate?" I hesitated for a few moments, before I nodded.

"I suppose it is," I said.

"In our last two worlds, I was kind of the reckless one. I pushed our group to explore interesting and dangerous places… but there aren't many of those in this world. So I've been trying to figure out what to do with my future. I've been thinking about being a great doctor, or making public schools more widespread, or… well, I don't know. Living a normal life and farming Achievement for skills and stuff, I guess?" I shrugged.

"Apart from healing my mother and improving my understanding of alteration magic, I don't have any concrete long-term plans."

"Well… this is just an idea of mine. When you get a little older, if the experimental children are still on the loose, you could try something with them. Maybe help them integrate into the populace, or something like that? Or handle them if they become dangerous? A bunch of escaped assassins could turn towards regular lives. But they could also mix into criminal elements and become untapped dangers," said Old Mo.

"It's hard to say, but if you keep an eye on the situation, maybe you could find an opportunity to step in. I'm just trying to keep you up to date on directions you could prepare for. It's up to you, of course, but I'll keep you up to date on 'interesting' situations to look into. Besides, helping a bunch of lost children integrate into society sounds like something you would enjoy, Miria."

"It's an idea," I said thoughtfully.

"I would need a way to communicate with them, but if I see an opportunity, I think I would like that." Then, I hugged Old Mo.

"Thanks for talking about this with us. I appreciate what you've done to help us." He smiled gently and ruffled my hair.

"No problem, Mir. All right, those are the two things I wanted to mention. Let's get out of here." The four of us left Old Mo's basement, each lost in our own thoughts.