Managing an orphanage in another world

Pretty soon, Silas and his employees arrived with the furniture and other things.

"Set the bathtub first."

The furniture was moved in. The bathtub was placed, and a high class water pipe system was installed. I asked Silas to send someone to find out about the two men who were here before.

"Don't you need to connect the pipes to a water source?"

Silas asked me a question like that.

"I can help you find a water source nearby."

"There's no need for that. I made a water source myself."

"You...made one?"

Silas didn't understand what I meant.

"I made an infinite water source yesterday."

"What?! You can do something like that? How did you make it?"

Silas talked to me about a business opportunity. Apparently, nobody can figure out how to make a infinite water source.

"The problem mages have had is that it never lasts more than a few hours. So how did you figure it out?"

"I didn't do anything crazy, I just used a 5 layered magic circle."

"F-five layered?"

Silas was shocked. Most magic spells exist in zero to three layers. This is the tier that most human mages would be at for their whole lives.

Four and five layers is for only those that are proficient in magic. Such as the old masters of the mage towers. And the few that obtain 6th level are called Grand Mages.

7th level mages are called Archmages. Archmages are practically unheard of. In the world's history, they can be counted on one hand. They say magic beyond 7th level is not possible for humans. Beings such as elves, dragons are the only ones who can learn those.

What had shocked Silas was Thea's age. If Thea was a 60 year old mage, it would be perfectly fine for her to know 5th tier magic. But she was only 23 this year.

"Can you make one for me?"

"Sure, come back later. I'll give you one."

"J-just like that?"

"You asked for one, didn't you?"

I was puzzled, he asked for one and he's confused when he received one.

"Anyways Silas, you can move the extra furniture and the ingredients to the storage."

"Yes, Miss Thea!"

Silas responded very loudly and enthusiastically. I seemed he had new-found respect for Thea.

Silas and his employees started to move all the furniture to the second floor of the building. Now, each room had it's own furniture for future use. I hoped the children will like the furniture.

"I'll move the ingredients to your storage."

Silas also brought a massive amount of ingredients, too much to fit in my magic bag.

"Leaf, you lead them to the storage."

"Yes, Unnie. Come, misters."

Leaf guided Silas and a few others to the storage in big strides. She had a very happy face since I gave her the task.

"You can put them here."

Leaf told Silas as she pointed towards the open space in the storage. It was at this moment that a sound of something moving could be heard from the storage.

Silas immediately threw down the ingredients he was carrying down and ran in front of Leaf. he held up his fists. Silas was a martial artist, he trained his body and mainly used his fists in fighting. Though usually, he didn't need to fight.

"Who's there?!"

Silas shouted. The men behind him also took out their weapons, one of the men pulled Leaf to the back to better protect her.

"Show yourself!"

Silas shouted again. But there was no response even after waiting for a dozen seconds.

"You guys wait here, I'll check out what's there. It could just be a rat for all we know."

Silas took a step into the storage. There were a bunch of empty boxes stored there. Silas looked towards one of the corners. The boxes were stacked particularly in that corner. Almost as if someone was hiding in the back of it.

Silas, with his guard up, moved towards the boxes. He knocked over one of the boxes to find a child shaking in fear. A child with grey hair. The same child who was running in the forest. And the two people were chasing.

Silas let his guard down immediately upon seeing a child.

"Kid, what are you doing here?"

The child did not respond. He kept trembling.

Silas turned towards Leaf and the others.

"Call Miss Thea quick."

Leaf quickly ran to me.

"Unnie, Silas is calling you. Something serious happened."

Leaf didn't know what happened since she didn't see what was hiding in the storage.

"Something happened? Let's go."

I came to the storage and went to Silas.

"What happened?"

"Look for yourself."

Silas gestured towards the corner where the child was hiding. I was shocked to see a child.

"He's not responding to me. I seem to have scared him with my voice earlier."

The child looked towards me. His gold colored eyes met my blue colored eyes.

"Calm down."

I cast a magic spell that would calm him down at the same time. The child stopped shaking.

"What's your name?"

"...Nem..."

The child responded in a very weak voice.

"Well, Nem. Are you hungry?"

"Huh?"

The child, named Nem, looked towards me with wide eyes. And his stomach grumbled.

My eyes cannot lie to me, this child was in need of help. It was fate that lead him to me. But one thing that concerned me was that there seemed to be magic cast on Nem. I could smell it.

I used my magic eyes to check and I could tell that Nem was trying to hide his features. Nem was a beast-man. His ears and tail were hidden using magic. I didn't try to pry into his circumstance.

"Why don't you come out and I'll prepare something good for you to eat? How about that?"

I suggested to Nem in a calm and inviting voice. Nem didn't respond, but I could see it his eyes that he really wanted to. I didn't wait for him to respond. I stretched my hand out to him.

Nem slowly stretched his hand to me and I held it in my hand. I pulled him out from the boxes he was hiding in. I slowly walked with him to the kitchen. I had to crouch besides him because he was so small that his hand didn't reach me when I was standing straight.

I sat him down on the table in the kitchen. There was a big table out in the living room area for many people to sit and eat. And there was a small table here in the kitchen for a few people to sit at. I thought there would be a need somewhere for it, so I ordered it.

Nem sat down and stayed quiet. While I turned my back to him and took out some eggs from my magic bag. I was just going to make a simple sunny-side up egg and toast for him. All this time, Leaf was in the corridor trying to secretly watch, but she was too obvious.

I took the frying pan hanging on the wall and put some oil on it. The stove didn't work as I hadn't repaired the broken magic circle etchings so I used fire magic at a controlled rate.

After the pan had heated up, I broke the egg and placed it onto the pan. A minute or two later, a perfect sunny-side up egg was completed. I sprinkled some salt on it. But as I was about to do the same with pepper, I thought of something.

"Nem, do you want pepper on top?"

I turned and asked a question. Nem immediately shook his head. I thought this would be the case since beast-people have very strong noses. Since pepper already makes normal people sneeze, it would be hundreds of time worse for beast-people.

"Alright, then. Here you go."

I gave Nem the sunny-side up egg and toast. He was about to pick up the fork to eat.

"Aren't you going to wash your hands first?"

I asked him. In response, Nem jumped down from his chair and headed towards the sink. He was barely able to reach the sink and wash his hands. I applauded him for his efforts.

"Very good, Nem."

Nem came back and sat on the chair again. And he picked up the fork to eat the food.

He made a very satisfied face while eating the food. Pretty soon, he was finished eating.

"You're done eating? Can you tell me how old you are?"

Nem looked at his fingers and counted. Then showed me his fingers.

"You're 8 years old? You're so well-mannered for an 8 year old, Nem."

"I'm 12 years old, Unnie."

Leaf was already standing besides me. She proudly declared her age.

"Oh, our Leaf is a big girl."

I patted Leaf on the head.

"Does Leaf mean to say she's big enough to live on her own now?"

"What?! Unnie, what are you talking about?!"

Leaf was startled at my joke.

"I'm messing with you. Leaf is still a child."

"Don't joke about that."

She looked away from me. It seemed I made Leaf mad with my "joke". I'll have to make up for it.

"How about this? I'll teach you magic if you forgive me."

"Really?!"

Leaf immediately turned back around, her eyes were sparkling.

"It seems you don't want to learn magic..."

"I forgive you. I wasn't really angry."

"Thank you for forgiving me. I'll teach you starting tomorrow. How about that?"

"Can't we start today?"

"I would but I need to do some stuff. How about Nem? Would you like to stay here with Leaf?"

"...ok..."

Nem decided to stay with us. Now I've got two children to take care of.

"Alright! Leaf, you need to take a bath."

"Can't I take it later?"

"No! You take one now or no magic training for you tomorrow."

"Ok ok. I'll go..."

***

It was around 2pm. I gave Leaf a book to read after she took a bath. She was sitting quietly in the living room reading the book. Her legs were swaying back and forth. She seemed to be enjoying the book quite a bit. It was a story about an elf who found a cute little creature in the forest.

While Nem had been hanging around me the whole time. Not really saying anything. Just quietly observing me. It wasn't really annoying since I loved his presence.

I had been busy myself with a few things. First, I fixed the stove's magic circle. Then I fortified the water pipes just in case. Right now, I was busy with making the infinite water source magic circle for Silas.

Why did I say I would make it for him? Because he said it's an opportunity to make money.

But it's not the easiest thing to make. It required a lot of attention during the etching part. The material could be damage if the force applied is too much. And the whole thing could be messed up at any point if you make a mistake with the etching itself.

Though that's not really a problem with me because I know the magic spell restore. Other mages would have a hard time with these things.

But it does take a lot of time with tools. I don't like using my mana to etch because in the end it makes my head hurt and uncomfortable.

"A~nd done!"

Finally, I finished the etchings at around 4 pm. I put together the five layers of etchings and from the center water started to flow out.

The thing people had difficult with making an infinite water source was that the magic circle itself would consume the material too fast. This was because of the nature of the magic.

So I devised a way to keep the material from falling apart and keeping the rate of flow constant. It was much harder than a simple magic circle and ended up needing 5 layers of complexity.

"Alright, let's go to Silas."

***

Me and Leaf left to give Silas the magic circuit. Nem was scared of coming out of the house so we decided to leave him. Of course, I told him that it would be safe in the house. Only then did he calm down and let us go.

"Silas, I made the magic circuit for you."

"That was fast!"

"Yes, yes. Just check it out first."

After waiting for Silas to appraise it, he came back with a shocked face.

"This is crazy!"

"How much would it sell for?"

"What do you mean how much would it sell for? There's no such thing on the market! It's impossible to tell how much it would cost."

"But can't you make a guess?"

"If I had to guess, it would be at least fifty thousand coins."

"F-fifty thousand?!"

Both me and Leaf exclaimed.

"Yes, the price is only that low because the output of the circuit is so low."

"So if I increase the output, it'll be worth a lot more..."

"Unnie, your eyes are turning into coins."

What's wrong with my eyes? Doesn't everyone want more money?

"Ok Silas, I want you to sell this magic circuit as fast as you can."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"But you just said you could."

"I meant to say we don't know if there are any faults with the magic circuit. We have to check the circles themselves more."

"Are you doubting Thea Unnie?"

Leaf looked at Silas with scary eyes.

"Stop it, Leaf. It's perfectly okay to want to make sure of something like that."

"Yes, Unnie. I understand"

"But...are you really doubting my abilities."

This time, I looked at Silas with scary eyes.

"Unnie, you don't look scary at all."

"What do you mean I don't look scary at all?"

"It's true, Miss Thea. I was felt more scared of little Leaf here."

"Fine, you can sell it after checking. I'm going back."

"Oh actually, Miss Thea. We have some news for you."

"Some news?"

"Yes, it's about those people we were told to follow."

"Oh those two!"

"Yes, I sent someone after them. We found them in the forest heading in the direction of the branch of the bone hound gang. We suspect they are members of that branch."

"The bone hound gang?"

"Oh, they are a gang that-"

"Wait!"

"What's the problem, Miss Thea?"

I turned towards Leaf.

"You go wait outside, Leaf."

Leaf went outside and Silas told me the rest.

"The bone hound gang's base is located to the west of here. They mainly hunt beast-people that come through here from the east. Since there is no authority managing this place, they've been allowed to exist here."

"They recently attacked a village in the eastern kingdom of the beast-people, Cleovantra. Reports say that they tortured the beast-people for hours. After they were done, they left their bodies sprawled out with all the limbs missing to show their might to the people of Cleovantra."

"I'm assuming the king of Cleovantra has received a report, so why haven't they done anything?"

"We don't know. It's not the first time this has happened, so they should've received reports before. But as far as we know, they've been allowed to exist for some reason."

"Who's the leader of this bone hound gang?"

"We don't know, their leader is always in hiding. No one has been able to identify whoever the leader is. The two men we are following will lead us to their hideout. So we're hoping to put a few people skilled in surveillance and figure out the leader's identity. Or...would you like us to directly attack them?"

"No, figure out who their leader is first. And figure out as many of the member's identities. Report to me after, I'll deal with them directly."

I left the store in a sour mood. If my guess was right, the town they attacked previously was the same town Nem used to live in. It just made me so angry.

"Come on, Leaf. Let's go."

"Unnie, did something bad happen?"

Leaf could tell from Thea's face that something bad had happened. And it made her worry.

"Don't worry, mister Silas and I will take care of it. You don't have to be concerned."

"W-will it really be fine?"

I turned towards Leaf.

"Of course it will be fine. I am not someone who loses. No matter what happens, I will always be the victor."

I picked up Leaf into my arms.

"How are you so strong, Unnie?"

Leaf was 12 years old, she was not a small girl. And Thea's arms weren't particularly fit.

"You're very light, Leaf. You have to eat more if you want to grow up tall and beautiful."

"Yes, Unnie! I'll eat a lot."

Thea did not tell her that she was using body strengthening magic.

They returned home. Only to find that Nem had gone missing.