CH 4 - The Hera Sisters

Dainn

I felt foolish when the full situation finally got explained to me. I wasn't a slave, first off, though I had been sold. The truth was that Lord Hera was a friend to many travelling merchants, adventurers, and church dignitaries. He had been helped once upon a time by my father Damien. His wife had been taken by some reprobates (his words not mine) and was currently dealing with an emergency in Vatica and could not pursue.

Thanks to my father's help years ago, he had agreed to take Dainn in and provide him an education and life they couldn't provide him. He was free to do as he pleased, so long as he behaved himself, including leaving the manor in his free time.

The whole selling part of this was a kindness done by Henry, to cover the damages I had caused. I felt silly when I realized that of course they couldn't afford to pay for repairs, and insurance wasn't exactly a thing here.

And so over the next few weeks, I relaxed. The eight instructors stayed on full time. Originally the Lord had called in favors and offered positions to whoever thought they could train my affinities.

However, since my affinity was currently in question, they had defaulted to whoever wished to stay and train me. That ended up being every last one of them, even the Silver mage.

He had been astounded to see my pure magical potential, and had actually begun treating me like his favorite person in the whole world. I wondered if I was a part of some sinister manga villain's plan to steal my power or something.

So now my days have become pretty routine, though not as rigorous as earth schools could be. Wake up around eight in the morning, attend Bartleby's lessons at nine after breakfast, then three hours later it was lunch. I could get all my written work done by the end of lunch, and then for the last two hours I attended my magic classes.

The first hour was always White magic, with my instructor taking over Emilia and Hannah's lessons, so I ended up spending more time with them, though we never spoke. I was an outsider. The second hour changed daily, rotating through the other seven schools of magic.

After that was done I had the rest of the day to myself, with an occasional task asked of me here and there.

I found myself sticking to two places, one of which was in the manor's basement area. Bartleby had an office he said I could use, and it tended to be more quiet than upstairs with two girls running in and out. The other was the library, which had thousands of books and novels and tomes.

However, after learning I could use purple magic to enhance my speed, and realizing my mana pool allowed me to enhance myself quite a bit, I knew what I had to do.

If Barry Allen taught me anything, it's that speedsters should be using their abilities to read. So with a clear goal in mind, and needing to be able to maintain my comprehension while on speed, I got to work learning to control my mana output.

It took me three days, but I was eventually able to do what I set out to do, and so, after a week, I had read the entire library collection.

It was interesting, for sure, but it was clear these were all padding. It seemed laughable, how mundane it all was while trying to look sophisticated. Though, in the end, I completed a small dream of mine.

But that left me with nothing to do really after finishing my reading homework each day. So, I started heading into the city.

I found a few magic shops, bookstores, and even windowshopped in the weapon and armor stalls. I had started receiving a two gold allowance per week, which I learned was a lot.

One gold was the equivalent of one hundred silver, and the same conversion applied for silver to bronze. Most commoners were lucky to earn ten bronze a day.

Still it was clear that my life was, how you say, wanting. I had no friends or companions of any kind, which wasn't new, but this was different. Now I was a person of somewhat status, not a commoner nor a lordling, and with that came much more free time.

It made the isolation less bearable.

Luckily for me, that would soon change. After a month as Lord Hera's ward, I was walking around the city, near the living quarters.

I was mapping the city's layout in my head. It was to test how far my Orange magic could reach, and I didn't want to target a home, shop, or busy road.

That's when it happened. I turned a corner when I heard Emilia and Hannah. I paused, and decided to wait and watch to determine the situation I was strolling into.

I didn't like what I soon heard.

"Sir, I will ask you not to touch me or my sister again!" It was Hannah, and I peeked to see her talking to two men dressed in the typical steel plate and white surcoat of the Vatica city guard.

"Shut your mouth girl. I won't say it again. Come with us peacefully now or else." The man that spoke touched the sword at his hip, and I could feel his intentions.

Maybe it was because I was going to be a serial killer eventually in my last life, maybe it's because I spent that life mostly watching and observing people, but I gained a sort of sixth sense.

It allowed me to sense things others couldn't. It didn't happen often, but there were times, like this, where I could feel a sort of bloodlust, murderous intent, a dark urge calling like mine.

"Sir, surely you know who we are, don't you? Leave now or I'll report you to my father."

The second man moved, grabbing Emilia in a flash. A knife appeared at her throat, and Hannah gasped.

"What's the matter?" The first guy asks her, his voice dripping with malice. "Did you suddenly remember that Daddy ain't here?"

I tense up. Memories flood to mind. That night, specifically. The boy, naked and tied to the bed. The pervert daydreaming as he ran the bath.

"Little lady lordlings like you two go for a hefty price. Not to mention how young you are! The lads will have a field day breaking in those tight little-!"

I cast an Orange spell to shut his filthy mouth, using a Student level spell with Master level control to send two blunted pillars of stone, thin and precise, directly to each of his nuts.

He falls to his knees in pain, which surprises his ally enough for me to get Emilia away from him using a Master level Silver spell, travel void. I simply sent a shadow beneath her, swallowed her up, and safely deposited her next to me as I turned the corner.

"You little shit! Who do you-!" the second guy tried to say, but I shut him up in a similar, if not more direct way. Instead of two small pillars, I just made a stone fist give him a jab in the nards.

"Shut your mouths." I walk up, feeling powerful in my four year old body. "You should have listened to the girls and just walked. I will not be so forgiving."

I start by killing two birds with one stone, or rather, one blade of light. With a simple looking but not so simple casting of a Master level Gold spell, I form a small shard of light and solidify it enough that it could cut through steel. That was easy enough, the tricky part came with the directing of the spell. However, I wasn't in any mood to fail.

With a flick of my wrist I cut through the helm and strap of one guard's helm with the light before sending it flying around to do the same to the other. It was less than a second, and at first they hadn't understood what I did.

Then the helms slid off their owner's heads, revealing two ugly human mugs. First bird dead: identities seen. Second bird: the thin line of blood that forms on their necks as they realize just how precise I was and could have been.

I could have slit their necks open if I wanted. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to let you go, and then I'm going to walk the Lord's daughters home. Once there, I hope you two have fled town, because I will be showing this to the Lord."

I twist my hand over the ground beneath us, creating two picture perfect mugshots of the two of them. They looked at it in shock, then at me confused. I nodded.

I included in their mugshots words burned into their foreheads: "predator". "I hope you have the wits left to run, for your own sake."

With that, I raise my hand and burn the brand into each of them.

***

I walked the girls back to the manor in relative silence. They seemed in shock, though whether because they had been threatened with a life as sex slaves, or because of my extreme punishment, I couldn't say.

The silence was broken by Emilia. She was the first of the two girls to speak to me since I arrived. "Uh, Mr. Dainn," she says, looking at the ground while pulling on my sleeve. It was weird, since she was technically older than me. "Thanks for saving us."

I open my mouth in surprise, the words taking a minute. Have I ever been thanked before? Sure, I did for completing mundane tasks at work and the like, but for something with so much weight to it? I didn't think so.

"It's nothing, Emilia, really. And you don't need to call me mister or anything like that. Technically. You're my superior."

She looked up at me, and I felt something stir within me when she put those pink eyes on me. She laughed, a small, cute thing that caused that feeling to grow. What was that? "Ok, Dainn! You're so cool!"

That took me back. Cool? Me?

Hannah spoke up, though she acted more proper and snooty, putting on an aura of indifference as if today's events were nothing to get worked up about. "Indeed, the help was appreciated. However, I'd like to ask that you don't mention this to father."

"Why's that? They were planning to take you. They wanted to treat and use you like nothing more than toys. Not only that, but they were guardsmen who likely didn't just decide today was the day to break bad."

She huffs and scoffs, seemingly pouting. I looked to Emilia for answers, but she just shrugged. "I don't know," she whispers.

"Listen, sir Dainn," she says, taking a sassy posture that I saw her mother take once or twice to scold her daughters. "You already branded those deviants, so they can't hide their crimes forever. Just let what happens happen, and leave our names out of it."

It suddenly occurred to me. "Why were the two of you out there anyways?"

Hannah jumps in surprise, and is seemingly annoyed that I had asked the wrong question. "None of your business!"

"She was going to meet a boy she likes," Emilia spilled. She looked down in embarrassment, caused by Hannah's glare. "The man that grabbed me was his father."

I nodded. "I see." I walked over to Hannah, calm as ever, and slapped her. Both girls gasped, and I couldn't blame them, but I had to say what needed to be said.

"So you put your sister in harm's way just for a crush? Did your father know you were going there? You're mother? Bartleby or Gauss? What would have happened if I didn't show up?" I pause, letting a dark shadow fall over my face as I imagine the horrors they could have suffered for her childish gambit. "Fine, I won't tell Lord Hera. However, next time something like this happens, I won't be saving you if I think you made the same stupid fucking mistake twice."

I looked at her, and saw her face fall as my words struck home. I ended the day with a bow to her, then to Emilia, and then gave them both an apology and goodbye.