〆 𝖆 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖘𝖊𝖉 𝖘𝖑𝖎𝖒𝖊 𝖎𝖓 𝖓𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉 〆 ᵗᵖⁿ ⁺ ᵗᵗⁱᵍʳᵃᵃˢ

VII. Only Passing By

Two days later, a blue shadow moved through the trees around the children's former home. Souei had been transported to the other world via Milim's portal only moments ago, and was already scouting the area.

Strange creatures moved through the woods; pale-skinned monsters unlike anything Souei had seen before. They were tall beings that each had a long, thin face with two eyes arranged vertically, one above the other, and two horns. They also had mouths with sharp canines and long tongues. Their arms were long with six fingers that ended in sharp nails, almost talons. Each had four limbs, like humans, ogres and goblins, and walked on two legs. As Souei looked at them closer, he realised they each wore a mask and a black cape for some reason. He found this most curious, and wondered if it might indicate a weakness. It was also possible that it was merely local fashion. He made a note of it for his report.

They were working in and around the orphanage, making changes and improving security, as best he could tell. It seemed likely they planned to reopen the place, perhaps with a new batch of kids. Or perhaps, that was what they wanted anyone who came snooping to think.

Souei moved in for a closer look, but as he approached the creatures, he noticed them stop moving and look around themselves. He paused for a moment. Was it possible they could sense his presence? They clearly couldn't see him, as their eyes passed over his hiding spot several times, but they kept moving their heads around, seemingly watching for anything.

He waited a short while, unmoving, until the creatures seemed to give up and go about their business. Deciding that he should scout the rest of the area, he made duplicates of himself, which instantly sped off to examine the place.

He followed the creatures to the building that had apparently been the children's original home, if home was the correct word to describe a place where you waited to be slaughtered. Did chickens consider their coops home? Nothing seemed out of the ordinary there. The creatures continued with their work, performing what looked like routine maintenance on the house. After a while, Souei got bored and leapt up into a tree where he could easily stay out of the creature's way. He decided he would wait until nightfall when, hopefully, the creatures would be gone, and he would be able to explore the house properly.

As he settled in the tree, he suddenly received a thought communication from his duplicates. They had scouted some of the land, and had come across a huge wall, which appeared to surround the entire plantation. No doubt this was the one that Krone had already told them about, which was built to contain the orphanage, securing the children inside so they couldn't wander off or escape.

He instructed his duplicates to climb the wall and see what was beyond it. A second later, he received their report. There was a steep cliff just beyond the wall. A fall from it would undoubtedly kill a mere human, but a kijin with his abilities could easily scale it. From what they could see, however, there was nothing but forest. Duplicates searching in other directions had better luck. From their vantage points along the walls, they could make out much more of the overall structure

Souei kept constant contact with all of his duplicates, as they scouted the walls around plant 3 at speeds no human could match. Each report they provided was used to build a mental map that he could later commit to paper. He waited a few minutes for the rest of them to report. When they did, though, he was shocked.

It turned out that the outer wall enclosed a vast territory that was divided into sections. Each of the nearest sections contained plantations, which were almost identical to the one Souei was scouting. Though his clones had only viewed two so far, it was enough to establish a pattern. The duplicates stopped to examine the plantations from the wall, gathering what details they could. Each section followed the same pattern, with the same house and forested area, filled with children and a single woman who was presumably their caretaker. Each section also had a large locked gate on the far side of the plantation from the outer wall. That bore investigating.