The Cold (5)

It was obvious their conversation was going nowhere. It was going in circles, listening to them disagreeing with each other. There was no way we could walk inside the storm without having a barrier around, which expended mana. If we chose to stay here, we would have to continue adjusting the temperature in our spot, using more mana. Either way, we were going to have to use more mana to survive. Teleporting to the shack was our best option and everyone knew it.

Although I didn't know how much mana everyone else possessed, I had recovered around half of my supply. Where else would I use the cheat card that I got from God? I suffered too much in exchange for that one card. Finding myself inside Luke's arms again, I tried to pull away from him. But I ended up kicking the blankets when his grip on me tightened, not willing to let me go.

"I can show you how much mana I have left," I turned to Luke.

"Let's check how much she has after using that much," Charles agreed with me.

Since I was familiar with the process, I held Luke's hand and imagined pushing in some of my mana into him. It was a warm tingling feeling whenever I transferred some mana with him, almost pleasing to the point my mind melted when done in bigger amounts. The feeling abruptly stopped when Luke shook my hand off. When I studied his face, he seemed to disagree with my idea, the opposite of what I wanted.

"You only have half of what you originally possess," he noticed.

"I have more than this," he carefully chose his words.

I knew that Luke possessed an enormous amount of mana that could come close to mine, but always dismissed it. He was reluctant to use most of it except for healing me, otherwise not performing big spells. Charles didn't know what he was truly talking about, thinking I had a dangerously low amount of mana leftover. I wondered why Luke wasn't the one to suggest teleporting all of us to the shack, he had more than enough affluent mana leftover after it.

"We don't know if that shack is safe," Luke explained to me.

"It's better than staying here," I tried to point out.

"If it isn't safe, we can make it safe. We can just knock out the owner and throw them out with the rest of their belongings," I argued.

"That's trespassing and breaking in," Alex disapproved.

"I've done it before! At the criminal syndicate, I poisoned everyone to take over the organization," I knew the bottles of soda were poison now.

"It's usually a crime," Luke threw my idea away.

"It's not a crime if we make them unconscious and use the shack for a bit. They won't even know we were there," I wondered if my idea was extreme.

"Do you know how many laws you're breaking in all your ideas?" Charles turned against me.

"It's fine as long as we don't get caught," I shrugged.

I was good at covering things by now. If I went through all my memories, many laws were broken all the time. The first district had strict laws for almost everything you could think, under the tight control of the counsel. There were severe consequences for stealing, including small items like pillows and blankets. Many families labelled all their possessions with their family crests, showing the clear owner.

"Worst case scenario, we can buy the shack from them," I planned to use their wealth to our advantage.

"We could," Charles seemed to consider my idea.

"But we don't have our marbles with us," Alex's eyes flickered with hints of anger.

"That's why we should threaten them to willingly hand over the shack to us," I wondered what they were doing with the power their families possessed.

These children were too innocent, following the law when we were close to freezing to death. I didn't pull out my violent ideas yet and Charles was looking at me in a new light. As the reliable adult here, it was up to me to show them the ideas I threw out were nothing. I sighed before beginning, "it's better than torturing them to not report us. We could easily kill these normal civilians but being merciful by letting them stay inside the house while they're unconscious."

"We know they'll die if we kick them out to fend for themselves in the snowstorm. But it's either us or them. Didn't you always say we should put our safety first?" I looked up to face Luke.

"Where are you getting all these ideas from?" Charles seemed to be a little scared of me.

"From all the so-called books she reads," Alex knew from skimming through my otaku goods.

"No stealing or injuring them to the point they will be close to dying," Luke gave into me.

"You're actually going with her idea?" Charles was stunned.

"It's safer than the other options," Alex knew it couldn't be helped.

Although I felt guilty for corrupting them a little, I was glad we would be teleporting out of here. The next time I blinked, I found us in front of the doorsteps of the shack. The actual size was smaller than what I thought it would be. It was around the two luxurious dorm rooms combined together, the exterior covered by special glass, not letting us see what was inside. I wondered why these kinds of houses were popular in the first district, choosing to use translucent materials.

"Welcome, we have been waiting for you," someone immediately opened the door.