Chapter 10: Taking out the trash

Talon popped his head into the room through the small crack of the door, only to see a dozen eyes staring at him in fear. But when they realized it was Talon, he could almost hear them exhale the breath they had been holding. They all knew Talon; he was once an orphan here too. They just never expected to see him in the middle of the night. Since the orphans never left the orphanage, none of them knew about the news circulating around town that Talon had died during a mission. When Vaila saw that it was her sworn brother, she smiled and ran towards him. He opened the door and accepted her hug.

“Where have you been?” she murmured, her voice shaking.

Talon smiled and patted her head. He was glad she hadn’t heard about his apparent death yet. It would have been heartbreaking for her. After all, she was only thirteen and could barely take care of herself if he died.

He broke off the hug and stared into her bright red eyes. “We can finally leave.”

His words shocked her as she didn’t understand what he meant. She knew even he was struggling to survive alone. “Did you… get a better job?” she asked with uncertainty.

“Better.”

Her eyes widened, and her voice raised, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “You awakened?!”

Talon chuckled in embarrassment. “I was just lucky, just lucky…”

“Hmph, it’s high time your luck changed for the better. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sis.” He patted her head fondly. “Now pack up, we’re leaving.”

“But, what about the staff? They won’t just let us go, will they?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll talk with them. Why don’t you go pack up and meet me by the gate in ten minutes?”

Vaila nodded and ran back to her bed to pack up. Talon smiled as he watched her go. He then left the room, and the moment he returned to the passageway, his face turned cold.

The orphanage was split into two parts: the west wing for the boys and the east wing for the girls. The staff lived in quarters at the back of the building. This made it easy for Talon to do what he was about to do. The quarters were silent at this time of night, but there was still some illumination in a few rooms.

One of the staff members was reading, using the light from an oil lamp to read the holy book of the Holy Mother Church. Apart from the sound of pages being turned and the flickering oil lamp, the room was silent.

Talon released his mental shroud around him like an area of effect. In his mental world, he shaped his very first mental cue before releasing it outwards like pollen carried on the wind. After confirming that each person in the quarters was affected, he left for the orphanage’s gate.

By the time he got to the gate, he found Vaila already waiting for him. She was easily noticeable in the dark due to her albino skin, snow-white hair, and the fact that she was fidgeting like she was worried. When she saw him walking towards the gate, her face brightened.

“What did they say?”

“They said we can leave.”

“Yes.” She rejoiced, and Talon’s smile widened.

“Come on, we need to leave town.”

“Ah? Where are we going?”

“Bluefeather Duchy. I hear it’s a good place to start over.”

---

Talon really wanted to get back at the Verdant Brothers. He wanted to head straight to the Duke of Ironflower and report the case in court, but he decided against it. While he was happy to be alive and awakened, he knew that even though the Duke would probably hunt down the brothers for their crimes, he would never be safe. Even if he could protect himself, he feared he would fail to protect Vaila. So, he chose to escape to the Bluefeather Duchy in the northwest region of the kingdom. There, he could still make his report to the Adventurer Guild branch and achieve the same result without risking his life.

‘And if they want proof, I am the greatest proof. Let me see them dare say I am lying after they have proclaimed to an entire town that I died.’

The next morning, the town of Eryndor was in an uproar. All the staff of the Holy Mother orphanage walked to the town square and revealed all their evil acts and how they starved and maltreated the orphans. Once they finished their confessions, they all stabbed themselves in the throat, dying together in the town square.

When townspeople spoke to the orphans to find out what could have pushed the staff to do something so out of the norm, some orphans claimed to have seen Talon come pick his adopted sister overnight.

In pubs, people discussed this in hushed voices.

“Isn’t Talon the useless guy that was killed recently on an escort mission?”

“Yes, yes… it is him… is it his ghost?”

“Bah… stop cooking up such inauspicious things… Do you want to scare the town?”

More people came to this conclusion, but many were too scared to speak it out loud.

---

The moon was full tonight, which made the night bright. Vaila sat on the cart, having fallen asleep an hour after they started the journey. When they wanted to leave Eryndor, they were lucky to meet a group of travelers on their way to either Bluefeather Duchy or towns close to it.

The caravan had about thirty people, most of whom were merchants. The others were local adventurers paid a small sum to escort them. Talon acted as one of the travelers rather than an adventurer. He covered his face with a shawl and gently whipped the donkey pulling his cart.

Since he was free, Talon decided to practice his abilities. In his mental world, he saw an island, the forefront of his consciousness. It was vibrant with images representing his thoughts, recent memories, and current feelings. The ocean around his mind island was calm. He could see other islands far off, representing the minds of people near him. This was the plane of collective consciousness. Every sentient creature had a mind island, but to interact through this plane, one had to enter the mental plane of the target.

Talon retracted his senses and zoomed out, seeing constellations of pulsing stars pulling and pushing each other. This space above the plane of collective consciousness gave a higher vantage point to notice more mental worlds. Each pulsing star was the mind of a sentient creature.

When Talon tried to reach out to the nearby stars, thin tentacles emerged from his own star and stretched outwards. He realized he could use the mental propagation method easily from this perspective.

He spun a mental web in the air above his mind island, creating clouds that floated around. Each cloud was a specific mental cue designed by him, serving both offensive and defensive purposes. He hoped these clouds would act as an early warning system against intruders and plant mental cues in their mind islands upon contact.

The caravan suddenly came to a halt, drawing Talon’s attention. He noticed the adventurer leading the escort team had raised his hand to stop the convoy.

Talon leaned to the side and asked the adventurer beside his cart in a suppressed voice, “What's going on?”

“Not sure, it seems the boss noticed something in the forest,” the man replied, looking towards the dark forest on both sides of the road. It wasn’t unheard of for bandits and monsters to attack convoys, so everyone was tense.

Talon looked around but couldn’t find anything unusual. He then checked the mental plane. Zooming out, he saw the yellow stars representing humans nearby. The number was the same, but now, a series of green stars were converging on them from the surrounding space.

He had no idea what the green stars meant, but one of them had two golden rings around it.

He knew what that meant. Awakened, double awakening!

His senses returned to reality as he shouted, “We’re under attack!”