Delayed Transfer

Hamil pressed the option for Narcone then pressed enter. A blue light appeared in the middle of the warp gate and expanded until it filled the doorway. Looking at the warp gate, Mark thought that it resembled the activated town portal scroll in the Diablo game franchise.

“You have to enter now since the gate would only last for ten minutes,” Mark said to everyone and they hurriedly entered the gate.

Mark wished them well in his mind and left the warp gate but he saw that a couple of people from the circus stayed to guard the gate. In his opinion, they didn’t need to since the two trees really do look inconspicuous and the guards only brought attention to it.

Suddenly he thought of something that could be considered as a death flag. What if somebody kidnapped Hamil and the others and then he had to stage a rescue attempt? But then again, he knew that the circus people were powerful, and if something like a kidnapping happened, they should be able to escape without any problem.

While he was walking back to the RV, Mark thought of diving into his dungeon since he only needed to conquer nine more floors and his dungeon would be complete, but he decided to hold off in doing that since he needed to be in here in case something happened that needed his presence. He wanted to complete them as soon as possible though since he somehow had a vague feeling that something huge would occur to his system. He just hoped that after completing the dungeon, it wouldn’t disappear or anything like that since if it did, it would be a tremendous loss for him.

The dungeon had safe places that he could go to and a lot of his items were stored in them. That was also the main reason why Mark didn’t start a construction project on the thirty-first hot spring safe floor. He wanted to check what would happen first once he completed all of the fifty floors.

Rendira was tutoring the kids so he decided to kill the dungeon bosses to farm items since it wouldn’t take him long. After farming the bosses, which took him less than an hour, Mark stored the unidentified items on the first floor and returned to the RV. Unfortunately, there were still no mythical items that appeared.

Milena was just serving lunch when he returned and while they were eating, the twins said something to Mark.

“Mark, you promised us that you’d let us see Frozen again today so can we see it together with some of our friends?” Isaac asked.

Mark sighed but of course, he agreed so after lunch, the twins invited some of their friends inside the RV. Soon, Deo, and the others arrived. Four children joined the twins and when they were ready, he allowed Isaac to play the movie. He asked Norleen to look after the kids while he roamed around the circus. He didn’t want to watch the animated film.

Mark saw that Milena, Lisa, and Connor were already preparing their stall but he could see that Milena wasn’t that motivated. He was guessing it was because they were expecting to earn way less compared to when they were selling items in Narcone due to the price slash that they did.

He then went to the theater tent and saw that the queue for purchasing the movie tickets was short and it was probably because the population of the town was small. He also visited Yoda and heard the people who were riding the void dragon screaming their enjoyment.

He then continued walking around until he noticed a small forest beside the circus so Mark went there to explore. He wasn’t worried about any dangerous animals or getting lost since he knew that there shouldn’t be any dangerous animals in a forest near a town and if there were, he was too powerful to be afraid of the common wolf or bear and if he did get lost, he just need to fly up and would see the town or the circus immediately.

While walking around the forest, he heard children’s voices in the distance so Mark went to investigate. He then saw three very young children wearing very rough homespun clothes. He listened to what the kids were saying and heard them talking to each other about the vegetable herbs they had found that would taste great when added to their soup for dinner.

Based on the children’s conversation that Mark had overheard, they were orphans in an orphanage located in the village. His terrible bleeding heart acted up and he had an urge to gather all the orphans to take care of them but he stopped himself. If Milena and Hamil were there and knew that Mark almost went to the orphanage to take all the children there so he could take care of them but stopped himself, they would have sweated a lot and thanked the divines that he still had some form of common sense left.

Mark knew that he couldn’t take all the orphans in the world so like all the powerless bleeding hearts in the world, the only thing that he could do was to donate to alleviate some suffering, if they were truly suffering, for a bit. He decided to do it the proper and official way by visiting the orphanage in the town and not suddenly confronting the children in the forest like some sort of pervert so he returned to the circus.

The kids just completed watching the animated film and Mark could hear the accursed song already spreading and caught himself humming it so he stopped.

“Mark, you’re back! Can we eat some snacks?!” Aaron shouted.

“Not yet. I found something interesting. A group of people that you possibly could add to your space fleet!”

The twins were surprised and asked where so Mark asked them to follow him while he carried Liriel. Norleen helped Milena and the others sell their items while the twins’ friends returned to their carriages after telling the twins they had some chores to complete.

Mark walked towards the town carrying Liriel while the twins were beside him. He didn’t use magic to travel since he didn’t want to alarm the townspeople. He asked a pedestrian the orphanage's location and was pointed to somewhere in the east.

“Why are you looking for the orphanage? Are you going to leave us there while you go out and have adventures?” Isaac asked.

Mark was shocked when he heard what the kid said but when he turned to look at Isaac, he was even more shocked to see that the kid was just joking. He was glad that the kid was comfortable enough with him to be able to a joke like that but he was also impressed at the kid’s wit.

Even Aaron laughed when he heard what his brother said.

“I was walking in the forest beside the circus and found a few children looking for vegetable herbs so they could add them to their dinner. I was thinking that maybe we can give them some food so you can recruit them as part of your spaceship crew while we’re here in town,’ Mark told the twins.

The twins responded enthusiastically and said that their plan was a good one, worthy of a Sith. That comment made Mark laughed loudly and Liriel joined him, giggling.