Lost

Chapter Thirty: Lost

Teenagers are bothering,

Teenagers are unhinged,

Teenagers are daring.

Zenith had truly found it impressive that those two had been with Escanor and didn't say anything that made him swing his sword to cut their limbs.

That Dark Mage was amongst the few that Zenith tried to avoid when he could because the young man bothered him a lot.

Yet, Alexandria had even expended his electricity to affect him, it was the wrong method but the right energy.

Zenith sighed as he recounted these events on his bed when all the students had left the school. It was a successful first day as a teacher.

He had a student nearly make a dangerous prank, a new student came to his class, a Dark Mage challenged him, a student hit on him, and he had saved two students from danger.

"Alexandria is involved in the first and last troubles, I should really put him on a leash." He said as he wrote it down on his personal journal.

His eyes darted to the other written notes on his journal and he realized he forgot to do something important. "The agency hasn't paid those two for working on the gate."

He left the bed but paused. It's not like they'd be able to do it now, but maybe he should drop by the agency and have a worker know about it. They could work on it by morning or before morning.

Seeing that he looked good in his nightwear, he took off two bands and teleported to the school's garden.

He plucked a random flower and teleported with it, appearing in front of the mask store he looked at earlier. He used a levitation spell to make the flower float then used Word's Will to make it bloom.

It was a wisteria flower and blooming under the night sky was a comforting sight. Zenith liked comfort, and generally didn't want to be walking alone at night.

He strolled down the street and the flower followed in full bloom. Using Ultra Vision, he tried to find his way to the agency, retracing the steps he came with.

After reaching an unknown district with houses lined up left and right, he stopped using Ultra Vision and finalized that he got himself lost.

"Guess I'd forget it till tomorrow. I should buy a phone too, they might not be boring." He sighed, while pacing in front of road and waiting for the passersby to cross. "I'd ask the agency to buy the phone too…."

He paused and turned back, looking at a trashcan that fell down. He could feel someone's presence there, not an impressive presence and felt familiar.

He turned to the road and saw that they were no longer people crossing. That had been his imagination, wasn't it? He turned to the trashcan and walked towards it.

"There's a reason you have a 'forbidden use' stamp." He said while walking. He turned to the road and they was really no one there. Did he really imagine it?

He reached the trashcan and a girl with long black hair covering her face, laid on the ground with her back. From her clothes, Zenith didn't think she lived around, so was she lost as well?

"Get up, Dexter Esther, and don't play any tricks." He stretched a hand to her. She raised her hand but not reaching for his.

He wondered if she couldn't see because of the hair all over her face. Invoking his bloody water snake, he made it swim on her face and she jumped up with a scream and tried to run from her own hair.

Zenith nodded and slowly walked back to the road. "Did you run away from home? Or you got lost?"

"Lost." Her voice was deep. "I mean, yeah, I got lost."

When she spoke the second time, her voice was lighter. Zenith glanced behind him, then scrutinized her clothes and shoes, she also had rare jewelry on.

They looked really expensive for a high schooler to own and he knew all the rich students in his class by their surnames. Also, she didn't dress that way in class so where was she going that needed her to dress that way?

"Your name is Esther, right?"

"Yes." Her voice remained lighter.

Zenith couldn't remember specifically speaking to her but he might've heard her speak at class and it was always a light girly voice, nothing like that first 'lost'.

He knew the obvious question should be where her home was so he could take her back but he rather asked her actual identity to know if she had a suspicious background.

Also, even if he knew her house address, he didn't know anywhere to be able to take her back home. "Is Dexter your surname or other name? Walk with me."

There was a police station nearby so he could just drop her off there. He noticed that she walked slowly so sent a gust of wind to pull her to his side.

Her cheeks flushed when she walked besides him and she made a gap between them. Zenith didn't care.

"M-My name is Esther and um… Dexter is my mother's name. I don't think… think I have a surname."

"You mean, Dexter isn't your father's name?*

"I don't have a father." She said with no emotion and a slightly deeper voice.

Zenith didn't bother ask further, and he resisted the urge to say 'same'. That wouldn't help her or him, and might sound like a bonding moment. "I'm dropping you off at a police station, but first, tell me—"

Zenith had never seen someone run so fast without being magically aided and before he knew it, Dexter Esther was already at the other end of the street. He just stared at her puzzled.

She stopped running and turned to him with a betrayed expression. "I can find my way back!" she shouted from the distance.

Zenith shook his head. Did she do something bad so was conscious of the police? "That's fine! It'd save me the stress of reporting a lost child!"

The girl's expression straightened when she realized that's what he meant, she pushed some hair from her face and looked down.

"Sorry, Sir! If you want, I can show you the way—" when she looked up, she found that he'd gone.

She didn't notice his presence leave and immediately calculated that he had left fragments of his presence before leaving.

She sighed before walking away.