Starting Life From Zero: Far From Home

Chapter Fourteen

"What do you mean she wasn't known to any of the villagers here," Steve asked again as he rested his butt against the wall of the village matron's house. She was an ancient woman with a slight hunch to her back and though she looked every bit her age there was a watchful nature about her that Steve could pick up on.

He would have downplayed her at first glance, maybe that was a thing that he needed to be better about.

"We had seen her playing with other children in the village recently, I mean, it's not that odd for a traveling merchant or vagabond to come through with their family," she explained, "but she's not one of the children that lives here."

Steve nodded. "If she belonged to an outsider's family is there any idea who they were?"

"There actually aren't any outsiders in the village," said Milde Irlam as she pulled her yellow cloak tighter about herself. "I guess no one noticed or thought to put the two things together."

Steve folded his arms and lowered his head in thought. Things had come to a head quite fast; there was the mabeast attack and the missing children all on the same day that the others had visited the village. Then there was the crystals that were missing here from the protective barrier. If Elsa was removing the ones around the manor could she be removing them here too?

Even then, it seemed very odd that this girl would vanished right after being attacked. He had to think there were probably more people out there than anyone wanted to admit that would like to see harm come to Emilia, especially how she speaks about her resemblance to the witch. Steve thought back to the things he had seen done just because people shared a few traits. Locking families in camps because a nation half a world away declared war on you, scrutinizing another people because sixteen men flew planes into buildings—he had a good grasp of how racism could drive people to do awful things.

He also had an idea of how the mind of an assassin worked. Had someone used that little girl to spy and sent those mabeast to extract her. If so, how did someone train and control a creature like that.

"If you keep standing around like that with your little tight tush on my wall, I might bite it," said Milde Irlam breaking his silence.

"Sorry, ma'am," Steve said getting back to his full height. "I'll get out of your hair in a minute. Are you sure that things are going to be fine around here?"

Milde nodded. "They usually are. A little thing like this is all fine and well long as everyone is safe. And a wide scale attack on the Mathers Domain is ill advised at best. They don't call the man the most skilled magic user in the Kingdom for no reason."

Steve patted her shoulder and hoped that he never had to be on the receiving end of what passed for the most skilled magic user this world had to offer. "Thanks for filling me in," he said.

As he moved to walk out of the door he felt a little pinch on his butt. It barely registered through the suit and he felt that it was best not to stir things up. When he stepped out side a cool wind swept through the street. He didn't know the seasons here, but this might have been the coldest night yet.

Beatrice was standing near the center of the town with her hands folded in front of her. He walked over to meet her.

"Miss Beatrice," Steve said. "Can I ask you about something."

"Mmm, go ahead, I suppose."

Steve wanted to choose his words carefully, so he plotted the sentence out in his head first. "Is there any way you know of to control a mabeast?"

Beatrice stared at him, her blue and pink butterfly print eyes studying his face for a long time before she made a noise. "It would be possible, I suppose. There are stories of someone using the horn of a mabeast to gain control of it."