Aliss walked with Boy to a run-down building located on the edges of town. It was dirty and in need of repairs, with a couple broken windows that had just been boarded up for now, and some clearly rotting planks on the walls that definitely needed to be replaced. Aliss could see Boy deflate when he walked up to it, gazing at its exterior.
“Do you think we have enough to fix the windows, at least?” Aliss asked. “They probably let in a bad draft in the winter.”
Boy paused for a moment before hesitantly nodding.
“I’m sure Milena will appreciate all the work you’re putting into helping her, even if it isn’t all you wanted to do.”
He sighed and continued walking forward.
Aliss knew he felt indebted to Milena for taking him in, but she never truly understood why he was so determined to make this place good for the rest of the orphans who were there. Obviously it was great to help, but it got to a point where she almost got worried about him. Either way, he’d helped her in the past, so she would help him, too—even if helping him really just meant helping these other people.
It was hard to get him to talk about any of his past, and not just because he couldn’t speak. It may have been impossible to have a verbal conversation with Boy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t communicate at all. He was completely capable of writing things down, using his hands to make symbols, anything. And he did that sort of thing frequently when it came to other topics. One time, he’d written what felt like an entire book in a single afternoon just talking with her about a few of his favorite dishes. But when it came to speaking of the time before he met her? Nothing. He’d nod or shake his head, and sometimes not even that much.
She didn’t mind, of course; she had secrets of her own, so she understood how he felt. If he didn’t want to talk about it, they wouldn’t.
As Aliss opened the door, its hinges echoing out a creak into the building, she called out, “Hello everyone!”
Instantly, a stampede of little footsteps came stomping through the hallways, and Aliss watched as a crowd of around a dozen children rounded the corner, their eyes lighting up when they saw who stood in the doorway. There was Pinnon, that one with the short black hair, and there was Awala, the slightly older girl who acted like she was everyone else’s mom. Aliss hadn’t known these kids for long, so she was still trying to keep all of the names straight.As she took stock of all of them, they ran right up to her…and straight past, like a river flowing around her legs.
“Boy!” one of them shouted as they all crowded around the man standing behind Aliss. “Can we play the game where you pick me up and spin me around again? Please?”
“Hey, Boy,” an older one said, “I’ve been working on making a new desk, can you come look at it?”
“Boy, can you come wrestle with us?”
Aliss smiled and looked back at them fighting for his attention. He grinned and listened to each of their requests, ruffling their hair and giving each one a hug as they all came to talk to him.
Eventually, they made it inside, sitting on some old, torn-up furniture that the owner, Milena, had been able to scavenge from donations or just people throwing out their old stuff. That was pretty much entirely how this place was run. It certainly wasn’t funded by the town government, much to Aliss’s annoyance.
Milena was who Aliss and Boy were here to see, but Aliss was happy to sit with the children, too, while they waited for her to show up. She’d asked where Milena was, but none of the kids knew. A couple said she was sleeping in, while one of them swore they heard her walking out of the place in the middle of the night, so Aliss and Boy just decided to wait for her.
One of the kids, Pinnon, even made breakfast for everyone, since Milena wasn’t around to cook. He was young—much too young to know how to combine ingredients or put them over heat—so Aliss was surprised to see he’d taken the initiative to do such a thing. He must’ve taken after Boy’s own culinary side.
He brought out the food, flanked by two of his friends, on big platters that they must’ve found in one of the drawers, holding them high over their heads like they were fancy chefs.
“Behold,” Pinnon announced, “my brand-new breakfast! I invented it myself!”
“Oh, wow,” Aliss said, “very impressive.”
He set it down on the table and showed it off to everyone. “I call it bread soup!”
The plate was covered in a thin layer of water that was just barely held within by the rims, and sitting in the lukewarm water was a pile of old–and now soggy—bread slices.
A couple of the other kids let out exaggerated “ew”s while Pinnon looked to Aliss and Boy for approval.
“...That looks great,” Aliss said. She wasn’t entirely sure what to say, torn between encouraging the poor Pinnon for doing his best while working with some extremely limited ingredients, and telling him she couldn’t make everyone eat something that was, objectively speaking, pretty gross.
Boy pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and leaned over, setting it on the table and scribbling on it for a moment. Then, he handed it to Pinnon.
Good job, it said. Is it okay if I eat it all? It looks very yummy. I will make some other food, that way everyone gets something for breakfast. I will make your favorite coal-baked beans with white soup.
One of the older kids picked it up to read it out loud, that way the illiterate ones could understand.
Pinnon’s eyes lit up at Boy’s words. “Yes! That’s great!”
Boy nodded and grabbed the plate, taking it with him to the kitchen and leaving Aliss with the rest of the children. She just could not understand how he was so quick with those types of scenarios.
By the time a couple hours had passed, everyone having their fill of Boy’s resourceful cooking with whatever the orphanage had in stock, Aliss started to get concerned. It wasn’t like Milena to leave the kids alone at all, much less for this long. She occasionally went out on trips, sure, but she would never do something like that without informing anyone. And it was definitely too late for her to just be sleeping in.
Aliss shared a glance with Boy, both of them understanding the other. Something was wrong.
“Okay,” Aliss said with a smile, “I think Boy and I are gonna go and try to find Miss Milena. You kids be good.”
“Are you going to call some men over to fix the house?” one of the kids asked.
“That’s what we want to talk with her about,” Aliss said. “We just got some extra money that might help pay a few workers to do some repairs if it’s possible. But we still need to make sure you all have enough to eat, first.”
“Oh, oh!” another yelled. “Can you get them to fix the floor? One of the boards in front of my bedroom door is creaky, and it makes noise when people walk over it to go to the toilet at night.”
“Uh, we’re probably going to try and do more important repairs first. And it’s still not a sure thing, so—”
“What about new beds?” a third interrupted.
“Tell you what. We’ll go talk with Milena about it, and then let you know what she says, alright?”
The group gave out a chorus of “okay”s, and the two of them set off.
They walked down a hallway, Boy leading Aliss to where he knew Milena’s room was. Aliss had to assume she wasn’t there—no way she was still asleep—but maybe they’d find a note explaining where she’d gone, or something. A couple of the younger kids followed them through the building, which Aliss was fine with as long as they didn’t cause trouble.
Eventually, after some time walking through the halls, Boy stopped in front of a door that had a faint carving labeling it Headmistress. He raised his hand and knocked on it lightly.
No response.
He knocked more heavily.
“Miss Milena!” one of the kids that’d come with them yelled through a crack in the door. “Boy’s here to see you!”
There was still no response.
“We’re coming in, okay?” Aliss called.
She grabbed the doorknob and turned, opening the door and—
“Oh my gods!” she gasped, taking a step back.
Instantly, Boy dropped to the ground and grabbed the two children, gripping his hands around their eyes and pulling them tight to his chest.
Lying on the floor by her bed was Milena, with a dagger in her back. The elderly woman was crumpled on the floor, dried blood covering the old wooden boards and soaked into her nightgown, and protruding from her corpse was the ornate blade.
Aliss rushed forward, Boy staying behind to shield the children’s eyes. She grabbed Milena’s frail body and turned it over. She was cold—colder than living people were supposed to be. Her face was frozen in a state of petrified fear and shock. And her gown was…burnt? In the front, it was charred and burnt away in places, like she’d been lit aflame.
In fact…Aliss turned the body over again, examining the wound on the corpse’s back. Yes, it really hadn’t bled as much as a wound that deep should have. A dagger that large, stabbed…what was that, maybe the entire length of a hand? That far into someone’s flesh, it wouldn’t just create a little puddle on the floor and dirty up her clothes, it should’ve made an entire pool of the stuff.
There was only one explanation, then. Obviously, Milena was murdered. Someone had broken in and killed her the night before, Aliss could assume. But the murderer hadn’t just killed her, they’d stuck this dagger in her back after she was dead. Corpses didn’t bleed nearly as much as living people did, so that was the only explanation.
But why? Hatred? To prove a point? Send a message? She wondered who could have even had the motivation to do such a thing. Perhaps Milena had gotten herself involved with some bad people, and this was some sort of—
“Boy, move your hand!” one of the kids said. “I didn’t see what happened! Is Milena in her room? What’s going on?”
Oh, my gods! Aliss was brought back to reality. She was holding a corpse, for the gods’ sakes! Now wasn’t the time to go pondering motives.
Taking a deep breath, she gently set it down and stood. The blood was so dry it hadn’t even gotten on her hands. She looked around, looking for something to cover the body with, before settling on the sheets from Milena’s bed. At the very least, this could prevent any kids who came wandering down the hallway from seeing her.
As she rushed over to grab the sheets, she glanced over at Boy and the kids. They were standing impatiently against his chest, his hands still gripped tightly around their eyes. One was trying her best to tug his hand from her face, but that would never work, with Boy’s high Stats and natural adult strength.
Then Aliss glanced up at Boy’s own face. Silent tears trickled down his cheeks as he stared on. His lips were pressed together so hard they’d turned white, his entire lower jaw trembling. His breathing was shaky, to the point where his rising and falling chest bounced the children’s heads off of it. He didn’t blink, didn’t look away for a moment. Just stared at the body of Milena.
Aliss hurriedly finished setting the sheet over the body and ran to grab the kids from him so he could at least wipe his eyes. She turned them away before they could see what’d happened and started walking them down the hallway.
“C’mon,” she said in as gentle a tone she could muster. “Yes, let’s go down here. Just follow me.”
“What happened, Miss Aliss?” the girl asked.
“I’ll explain it to you later, alright? You don’t need to worry about it for now.”
‘For now’ carried quite a lot of weight in that sentence.
Milena was dead, and there was nobody lined up to take care of these kids anymore. Aliss and Boy’s adventuring work was the only thing keeping the place afloat monetarily, and there was no way they’d be able to continue scraping together enough money to keep that up if one of them suddenly had to babysit full-time.
Aliss didn’t know Milena well, but she did know that woman was the only person keeping these kids alive. And that woman had just been burnt alive and stabbed in the back. Aliss tried to keep herself from imagining the sight of the poor woman’s corpse, instead trying to plan for the future.
She’d been putting together a contingency for when this happened, though it was supposed to be for when Milena eventually passed from old age, later on. Not…this. That plan would have to be accelerated to happen now.
To do it, she’d need two things. Levels, and money. Fast. As soon as possible, really. She’d thankfully gotten a decent boost in XP from that Young Dragon they’d killed. The reward money from that was originally supposed to go toward repairing this place, but clearly there were more important things to be spending it on to keep these kids safe. Still, they’d need more. To get more…
It seemed she’d be giving that strange pair, Annor and Eita, a call. Much sooner than she’d originally anticipated. She needed to take on the hardest jobs she possibly could, and with their insane strategies? They were the perfect help.