Underworldly Dealings V

"Can you tell me about the person that brought it?" Kies asked the seller. This was important. If he could tell him the person who brought the necklace then it will help him with finding that girl.

"The person that brought it? Sorry, but I can't tell you that. It's a rule to keep each customer's purchase private."

"I really need to find that person."

"No can do." The seller wasn't going to tell Kies anything. It sucked but he did have a point. If he was a customer, he wouldn't want people asking about the things he brought, especially if it was something valuable. The last thing he wanted was for people to go after him for something he had. Though the necklace wasn't something valuable as it was only made out of wood, the same thing still applied to it.

Since Kies didn't want to violate any of the rules, he walked away from the stall disappointed and continued down the street, looking for buildings that he may find familiar. It was a shame but rules were rules. It was nice that the seller was obeying it. There were many merchants here who looked like they would tell that info for a decent price.

After aimlessly wandering the city for a few hours or so, Kies decided to go back to the slums. The place was huge and there were still a lot of areas that he still hasn't explored yet but he thought that it was getting late. He didn't find any place that was familiar nor did he find any building that looked like an orphanage. But that wasn't to say that he didn't make any progress. He learned that none of these areas had what he was looking for.

He will come back some other time and continue searching. He didn't know how much time he still had left since the mission could end abruptly depending on what happens, but he was sure that he would still be here for at least more than a week. Kies still had plenty of time to search.

On his way back to the slums, Kies encountered a group of people who were dressed suspiciously, even more so than him as a matter of fact. They were covered from head to toe completely in gray and two of them were carrying a large bag on their shoulders. The bag would occasionally wiggle and one of the men would punch it to make it stop. They were traffickers.

Kies didn't know if he should get involved in something like this but he didn't have the time to think about it as the group saw him watching them and dropped what they were doing to get rid of him. "Should've minded your own business, kid," one of the men said, looming over him. He reached out his arms to grab Kies but was shocked when his hands went right through his body. "What!?" Kies had chanted Wind's Refuge while they were coming to him.

Kies planted his hand on the face of the masked man who tried grabbing him and let loose a strong blast of wind. "Gah!" Contrary to what Kies had expected, the man did not get sent flying back through the air, but instead only staggered and took a few steps backward. "Magic!" he shouted at the other men, informing them that Kies was a mage.

The rest who had been standing by watching and waiting for their companion to deal with Kies all joined the fight after learning that he was not a normal opponent. "My hands went through him. Be careful!" the man told everyone.

"We can just wait for the spell to end. He shouldn't be able to keep it up forever," another said.

It looked like they knew how to fight against a mage. Normally, people would start panicking if they encountered one but these people were calm and composed. They knew what they were doing. They were no normal enemies. Kies had to be careful as well.

While his spell was still active and none of them could touch him, Kies ran up to the closest one and tried to attack him with Wind Blades but he retreated when he saw Kies get close to him. Kies continued chasing after him but that only caused him to move back even more in response. He wasn't going to fight him until the spell wore off.

It was after seeing this that he realized that fighting them was not a good idea. These people were very well trained and could handle fighting a mage. He quickly changed his plans from fighting them to running away. He had a feeling that if he didn't run while he still had the chance to, he wouldn't be able to escape at all.

Kies wasted no time and began chanting Wind's Blessing before his other spell wore off. "He's doing something! Watch him!" One of the traffickers saw Kies' mouth moving under the cloth and warned the rest to be careful. All of them backed off from Kies and got ready to dodge an attack from him. But unfortunately for them, that was not what Kies was doing.

The second he finished saying the words to the spells, Kies dashed right through and past the traffickers. "F*ck, we were tricked! Wait... he's after the bag! Stop him!" But it was too late. All of the traffickers had been busy trying to get to him and there was no one guarding the bag. Kies ran up to it as Wind's Refuge wore off just in time for him to bend over and pick it up.

It was a lot lighter than he had expected and he picked it up with ease. Maybe it was because the wind was assisting him since he did see that it took two people to carry it. Either way, Kies bolted out of there as fast as he could, only turning around to have a quick glance at the traffickers after he ran a good distance from them.

The group was chasing him as he expected and they were startlingly fast. Even with the winds enhancing his speed, the group was not that far behind him but the distance was quickly increasing between them as Kies continued to run away.

"Mmmph, mmph!" A muffled voice cried from inside the bag and wiggled around vigorously, causing him to almost lose his balance and drop them.

"I'm saving you!" Kies told the person inside the bag, though he wasn't sure if they could hear him. But the chances were that they couldn't because the bag continued to squirm in his arms as the person tried to struggle to get out of it. Unable to keep his balance while carrying the person, Kies tripped and fell over onto the ground, and dropped the bag.

Kies pushed himself back up immediately and looked back. Luckily, it looked like he had run far enough that he had lost the traffickers. Kies sighed in relief and walked over to the bag which was still squirming even after he dropped the person inside. Heck, he wasn't even sure if it was a person anymore. It might be an animal. Even after getting punched and dropped like that, whatever was inside still had a ton of energy.

Finally, after a bunch of struggling and wiggling, the thing inside managed to loosen the rope that tied the top of the bag which was keeping it trapped in. Kies had not been prepared to see what was inside the bag as it came out and his eyes widened to the size of an egg he watched the thing inside crawl out.

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