Mage×Family

Mission 1: Backup Plan

As Loid slowly approached the child, dodging the other children, he finally was able to read the title of the book stating in large gold font, 'Ruins of an Empire,' with the dual-headed dragon symbol of the Empire plastered on it. Although he had never read the book, he had heard about it. The novel was critically acclaimed by many historians and scholars and detailed the years immediately following the end of the Great War and the build-up that led to the First East-West War in 1932.

Although he didn't know much more than that, he knew that the book should've realistically been far beyond the reading level of any normal child. Surely the kid was faking reading the book, right? There were many adults who would struggle to read something as complex and long as such a historically acclaimed book.

The girl in front of him was Tanya, and unknown to him she could very easily read the book. She could read far more than it, in fact. Truth is, she wanted to know more about what happened after her death. She was confident in her knowledge of the past, but when it came to knowledge of what came after her death, she was uncertain. She needed to know more.

By now she had noticed Loid approaching, her wartime senses yet to fail her. At first, she thought it to be some other parent she would need to scare off, but she was surprised to see someone who actually appeared well-kept by most standards.

She had been more or less content with this orphanage, at least compared to her last one. It wasn't by any means a good orphanage, but she was no longer starving, and that was truly the best upgrade she could hope for. A high-quality orphanage would've asked too many questions about where she was from, but she wasn't willing to take her chances with the nuns again if they were even still around. Nuns were nuns, the less said the better.

Still, Loid seemed to be a neat and professional man, which wasn't something she expected to see in a million years at this orphanage. Usually, such people went to nicer orphanages where the children were taken better care of; most of the parents that came to this orphanage were people Tanya definitely didn't want to be a child of, even if they seemed loving and caring.

It wasn't love and care Tanya was truly after, it was success. She needed an education since even in her previous life she had spent a half decade of her childhood in war and never really got much formal schooling in this world. She was confident that she could get the academic scores needed to earn a scholarship of some kind, but she needed to get into a half-decent school first. Most of the families that came to adopt in the orphanage were largely from low-income communities, and she'd be lucky if they could support even her basic schooling needs, much less any further academic pursuits.

Was she being too picky? Most definitely, and she was even considering lowering her standards. But to see someone walk in wearing an actual clean suit certainly got her interested. If nothing else, it might be best to just take what she can get, so long as this man wasn't some lunatic. And if the man could display themselves to be more than just this, they had her attention.

The man himself was strange though. Even ignoring the fact that it seemed like someone from the middle to upper-middle class was looking to adopt in a shitty orphanage like this, the way he looked around the room... He was analyzing them. She had seen a handful of people come looking for a specific child, but this man wasn't looking, he was observing. She could tell, and that caught her attention. He seemed to judge every move every child made. In what way? She couldn't tell. Just what was he after, and why?

Part of her hoped he was looking for a smart kid, to be her way out. She wouldn't be all too surprised if someone was unable to produce children but wanted a reason to pretend like an adopted child was biologically theirs. Usually, such a thing would be more for the upper class that cared more for inheritance, but it was possible it would apply to him, too. Why else would someone come to such a shitty orphanage when there were plenty of better, more secure options. The man was sketchy, but so long as she got what she wanted, she didn't really mind dealing with it.