Fighting Corruption ③
腐敗との戦い③
The sight of children tiptoeing was a bit funny. They look like children who are about to escape their house to go to the neighboring attraction. While I had intended to, I could not bring myself to laugh, since they were seriously doing it. These just goes to show how frightened they were against their captors.
“Ace… at least slow your pace…” Ran muttered under her breath; her eyes were watery. “What if you wake up the guards?”
“Well, the thing is…” I had intended to explain to them but they had started to do the act before I could stop them. Due to how swift their movements were, I could not tell them that all four guards inside the orphanage together with the two guards at the entrance are sleeping. Ran shot me serious eyes when I told them about it though.
With that out of the way, the children who had finally decided to flee their captors escaped the orphanage under the cloak of the night.
*****
Our destination is in the central district. It was ways off and made it longer due to the pace of the children but thanks to having carried out our plans in the night there were no extra commotion that could instantly alert any of our pursuers. Most of the south district’s houses leading to our destination were residential, there were no establishments that were opened who would question our escapade, as all residents here must be asleep making our escape more inconspicuous.
“Excuse me…” while on our slow paced march towards the central district, Martha walked up to me. As she closed in, I saw the two boys groan at the sight. Jealousy sure was evident with their eyes… also for some reason, there was another pair of eyes that seemed fierce, in the person of the young Ran. However, since there was nothing, I could do about their gazes, I decided to set them aside and ushered Martha to continue. “What do you think will happen to us…?”
I am guessing she wanted to ask what punishment are in store for them, in the most ambiguous way she could. She probably did not want the younger ones to hear or understand them but clearly want to be able to prepare of what to come. She was clearly smart for her age.
“Unnecessary fear will soften your resolve.” Afterall if you think about their crimes, there were many that you can think of for their punishments and while I wanted to be honest with her, I think that seeding fear will give a negative result even if she thinks she just wants to prepare herself. “You should just worry about them when the time comes.” Therefore, gave her a more ambiguous answer.
She must have wanted to push some answers from me but since I never continued, she could only nod her head and move towards the children to guide them. With that, the eyes that was latching towards me also finally stopped.
With nothing standing our way, we were able to arrive at the plaza. Where we thought the night would have retired the all residents, only to find them gathered near the church.
“What…” Fear was evident in the children’s eyes, the younger once gripped the hands of the slightly older children. They must be thinking about all the bad things they have done, and the bad things that will happen to them. I could see the older boys trying to protect the children. “Ace…”
Since I have no knowledge about the appearance of the mob, I could not answer them. I guess I was just too focused on detecting malice that would harm us, that I could not detect the presence of the crowd. However, since I could not sense any malice from the crowd gave me all the assurance that nothing bad were to come from the children.
As if on cue, Lady Anna and Sir Heid appears from within the church standing beside them was the only apothecary and maiden of the Church -sister Feyth Romlis. With warm smiles and arms open wide, they then gestured for the children to enter.
The frozen children could not do anything at first. But two individuals who had accepted the Romarias heartily instantly sped past the children and entered the church to accept the warm gestures from the couple.
Acting as a catalyst, more children followed behind Ran and Len and went inside the church. Although hesitant at first, the three oldest children also entered the church.
“And with, that you are now under the protection of the Church.” Sister Feyth voice reverberated inside the hollowed walls of the church.
I later found out that the crowd that had gathered in the plaza were witnesses that the children came inside on their own will. The crowd themselves did not know why they were gathered there. Only that they were asked by a few of people to bear witness of something that will happen in the dead of the night.
That was not the only thing they had kept from me though. Apparently, there was some sort of magic barrier erected in the church. All those with malice and or ill intent will not be able to cross that barrier and attacked with a powerful surge of mana within their bodies. Had the children come on pretense, they will surely be repelled.
“You should really tell people these of sort of things!” I could only shout at the elderly sister. I mean, if I had chosen to be honest with the children about their punishment, fear might change their hearts and their resolve will have wavered and would have endangered the children. To this, the sister only answered: “It was necessary to ascertain the children’s heart.”
I was glad that I had a background of being a teacher in the previous world and was able to develop a skill for being tactful towards them. As I breathed a sigh now that we have gone past one of the heaviest hurdles of saving the children.
We were far from over though.
*****
With the children no longer in imminent danger, we were able to buy some time to gather enough data to close or chase out the managers of the orphanage. Although I said, we had enough time. We don’t plan to slow down with evidence gathering.
The residents must have to some extent learned about the events that had transpired that night and have chosen to remain silent. However, one way or another, words will reach the orphanage managers and will act accordingly making gathering information harder. So, with that we have chosen to strike while the iron was hot.
Fortunately, we already have some evidence about the corruption of the managers thanks to our connection with Lisa Salsa, head official of the Water Department and from Arldo Pento form the Lumberjack Division, who had done the job of refurbishing the orphanage.
However, those evidences will only imprison the orphanage director and managers who may as well be small time operators. With an operation this big, a noble or two should be involve. While it is easy to just pin everything on Molba Mesner who has direct control over the orphanage and Viscount Glimour Savil the noble who had instated Molba. We have no evidence to use against them both and one of them is clearly a noble, of a very high status that we are unable to touch with our current power.
Lady Anna and sir Heid have no desire to fight against nobles. They know first-hand how devious they can be. Any fight against them, will be over before it even starts and it was clear it was moving in their direction. For now, all the couple cares about, is for the children to be safe and receive the warmth that they have been deprived of off far too long. That will not happen if however, if we don’t get the men behind this operation.
“This sure will get complicated, isn’t it?” I could not agree more with what sir Heid says.
The more we looked deeper into things the more stench of nobles gets unearthed. Molba Mesner’s dealings with Count of Ruthwere and some other. Large sums from some merchants… large financial gaps from orphanages… but since we are unable to draw anything conclusive, we are not able to do anything forward.
“Ha?” While deep in thought, a young girl -Ran to be exact handed me some tea.
Oh, allow me to digress a bit. All of the children are in church’s care and protection, there have been talks about some them adopted by residents, but can only proceed after this whole mess gets resolved for safety reasons.
The older ones where in a slightly difficult situation though, since they had confessed to crimes, they are not allowed to be adopted. Officially, no one will adopt them knowing that they have done crimes. Sister Feyth will oversee their conducts until they are deemed worthy for adoption.
Lastly, both Len and Ran are staying here with the Romaria’s, The couple had given their intention to adopt the twins and the twins were as eager, so sister Feyth had allowed them to stay with the couple under the pretext of pre-adoption.
“Tea…” I was under the impression that Ran was the talkative one but for some reason she was being silent around me, I wonder if she still holds a grudge from being pinned on our first meeting. I could only offer her a small nod as thanks and drank from the cup. “…orphans, is it…”
“Orphans…” I had to repeat it… something stuck in my head and for some reason the word won’t leave my head.
“Orphanages…!” when my head finally wrapped around the word, I ran through the documents again as I shouted.
“That scared me…” Lady Anna almost dropped some of the documents she had been reading. Len and Ran were in defensive stance. Only sir Heid must have somehow guessed what I was on to as he was the only one who recovered and move to shuffle some of the documents together with me.
“Found it… is this what you were looking for Ace.” Sir Heid was spot on as he handed me document containing financial statements of certain orphanages. Right, while we were so relieved that we had saved children from one orphanage, it did not occur to us that there are currently four orphanages in Amarante.
These were new orphanages built after Lady Anna left for the capital and so did not know about their existence. Apparently, the town had added them as the number of orphans have increased over the years, that and the tax on the receiving end also raised.
“Do you think that the children there are safe?”
The only way to find out is to find out.
*****
With the help of some trusted individuals, we had each conducted research on orphanages. The night after we held a meeting to summarize our findings with a conclusion.
“The northern and eastern orphanages seem to be distancing themselves with the Mesner’s.” -by Lisa Salsa
“Don’t be going to the western orphanage now or ya’ll draw some attention.” -by Arldo Pento
“…A large donation was given to the eastern orphanage just recently...” – by Amanda Feyda. How on earth did she even get this kind of information? As a bookworm of some sort, I am guessing that she was good getting the right documents. We were glad that she was in our side.
Anyways, while it was indeed a bad move to be poking the hornets’ nest, the Romaria was intent on saving the other children and decided to seek help from the towns people. While the two needed to rally help to save the children the soonest possible, I decided to take my chances and headed for the western orphanage and lucky I did too.
*****
Just like the night we had escaped from the southern orphanage. Seven silhouettes of adults together with 18 children were moving away from the western orphanage. Unlike us who were headed for the church for sanctuary, this group headed for the western gate – probably to escape with the children in tow.
“It’s a little late for a school tour wouldn’t you say?” night excursions weren’t that rare when dealing with children, they could be out for camping and the likes. However, daggers and knives in front of the children were clear indication that they were up to no good.
Without a moment to lose, I then render six of the men unconscious. They were easy to deal with since they were probably regular folks holding weapons to scare children. However, the last of the adults guiding the children clearly cut out from a different cloth. I haven’t sensed this much blood thirst since I was chased by Kizuari, in the mysterious island forest.
The hooded individual was readying to eliminate me. I too solidified my defense, but before either of us could make a move. A crowd started to gather in our direction. The couple must have managed to gather some people to protect the children. Sensing disadvantage from the crowd, the hooded individual then left with a puff. ‘Are you a ninja?’
Since there was no way of tracing the hooded individual, I then attended to the crying children released from their anxiety and fears.
The orphanage children should be safe for now. From the looks of things. This issue is far from over, in fact, things might have just gotten more complicated.
