Five Years since the death of Lucia. Year 1036 of the holy templorian calendar.
The Westcrag Orphanage was one of 5 Orphanages in the city of Torbrook, still a relatively small city situated to the east of the capital.
It was also a poor city; the divide in wealth was instantly apparent, with the outer ring of the city being mostly slums, with the inner two rings being reserved for those of wealth and nobility, as well as the few knights who were on station at the castle.
Icarus ladled some stew into bowls for the other children. This was a typical start to a day for them; they got soup of one variety or another every day of the week and mystery meat on weekends.
Icarus was, of course, disgusted by this, as he had at least gotten to eat well in his past life.
Icarus hadn't been out much in his time here, with the money from the knight, the caretaker of the Orphanage had hired him a somewhat suspect tutor whose name was Daniel, as well as hiring guards who "kept him safe." And didn't allow him to leave the orphanage without supervision.
He had wanted to explore this new world, but had been shut down. He had even thought about killing himself again, but decided it would be better to at least wait until he went outside, or better yet, go with the knight from previously.
"I'll be back in 10 years." That unclear promise unironically kept Icarus alive up until this point.
This same so-called luxury of being kept hostage was not provided to the other children, of course, as Icarus was, in a sense, the most valuable asset the woman had.
He had also learned the language of this world from the tutor, as well as some of this world's history. To his dismay, this process was nearly as dull as school back on earth; some of the events in history kept him interested.
A great war had fractured the four continents 2000 years ago; the societies that had existed at that time had all been reduced to small groups, which formed the realms of sangred 1000 years later.
The Magic Society that had existed 2000 years before had left valuable information behind, as well as artifacts and massive, destroyed structures.
The Realms of Sangred were split into two main continents: Templorian land on one side and the Western continent, which was war-ridden and hostile to all.
Icarus had taken a lot of time to process the magic of this world. The tutor had demonstrated a simple fire spell called candlelight, but Icarus had failed to follow his instructions on how to perform the spell.
The instructor had babbled for a few minutes, something about every spell having a unique composition and whatnot, but Icarus couldn't make heads or tails of it.
The man noticed this and had simply smiled and told Icarus that it was normal not to unlock magic at his age, but Icarus was still disappointed.
For the rest of his time, Icarus mopped floors, cleaned and hung laundry to dry, washed dishes and did anything else around the house.
Even small chores like this were hard on Icarus, who had been a deadbeat in his previous life.
He had once complained about this. In response, caretaker Hilda had smacked him across the face and told him that other orphanages would do much worse to boys like him and that he was lucky this was the extent of what he would do.
From that day forth, Icarus has continued doing as he was told, until today.
Hilda walked out the door and signalled to a guard, "I will be out on business, you stay here and watch Icarus, let the other children play after they've done their share of work."
The guard nodded, and Hilda turned to Icarus, "and you! Stay and wait for Tutor Daniel."
Icarus nodded in response, and Hilda left the premises. His dull eyes flitted back to the dishes as he continued scrubbing.
About an hour later, the guard shifted in his spot, "Hey! The other guard should be here by now." He looked around for a moment before looking at the children who had stopped cleaning to look at him.
"Whatever, get back to work. Don't go anywhere!"
The Guard turned and walked away, the kids stared after him in bewilderment, and a moment later, he was gone.
Harlem, a red-haired boy who was the leader of the group, turned to Icarus almost immediately and exclaimed, "oi Icarus! Come with us ok?"
Icarus stared as the group of children walked out of the orphanage and gestured for him to follow.
He had never gotten along with the other kids, mostly due to his being mentally 23 years old, but also due to his being excluded from the group by his own separate rules.
He hesitated a moment, wondering if this was some plan they had, but followed, believing that such young kids wouldn't pull anything he couldn't see through. Begrudgingly, he took a breath as he went outside; the fresh air would have been nice, had it not stunk of shit.
Icarus walked through the dank alleyways. Eventually, the group popped out onto a main Street which was rather well-maintained, and even nobles bustled through it to get to the upper ring of the city.
Harlem turned and smiled, "oi! This store owner always gives us treats! Wanna come?"
Icarus nodded slightly and was taken by Harlem to a small shop that seemed to sell Ice cream. Ice cream was one of the only things Icarus enjoyed from his previous life, so he was overjoyed to find it existed in this world.
The group was handed cones of all different flavours by the worker, a kindly looking gray-haired man who wore a monocle.
As Icarus stepped up, the man's squinted eyes opened wide and stared at Icarus for a second. "Are you!.. oh, I'm sorry, I seem to be mistaken." The man handed Icarus a cone of chocolate ice cream, and the children walked away. The man's eyes followed the boy silently.
The group arrived at a bright district; it was still poor in terms of people who lived there, but the location was not as dirty as the alleyways of Westcrag.
Harlem walked over to a bush and pulled out a ball made out of intertwined sticks, gesturing towards two goal-shaped markings. He asked Icarus, "wanna play?"
Icarus stared for a moment, chewing and swallowing the last bit of ice cream cone. He figured it would be good to get some exercise in, and with his life experience, hopefully put some moves on these kids.
.
.
.
Hilda stood across a short table in a dimly lit room." so the agreed-upon amount in 4 years? Is that correct?"
Across the table, a shadowed figure extended a hand, a golden ring adorned his pinky finger, and he spoke, "Yes, that will be good. And is it important to stage it as a robbery correct?"
Hilda nodded vigorously and took the han.d "yes sir, thank you very much."
The shadowed figure retrieved his hand as Hilda hurried out of the door, wiping it on his pants as he smiled widely.
.
.
.
Harlem slammed his foot into the ball. Another boy, Ethan, blonde-haired with green eyes, deflected the ball; it shot far away, going through the open door of a nearby house.
A voice was heard inside as the group approached, Ethan went up to the door and peered inside.
'Thwack!'
Ethan stumbled back, a mark on his cheek where he had been struck.
A thin man with a gut inflated by alcohol stepped out. Icarus dashed in front, even though he had fun playing with these kids. Because of his past life, he was still mentally older than them and at least had the decency to protect them.
The man yelled out, "Damn Brats! How are you going to have responsibility for this?!" He looked at Icarus and licked his lips. Icarus shuddered and took a step back. "Oh... I know..." He reached out a mangled hand and grabbed Icarus by the wrist, pulling him towards the house.
Icarus struggled, but his body was not strong enough. 'shit this old bastard! He really likes kids! I've got to get away or... Eugh!' he was half joking but was genuinely concerned, and as they neared the entrance to the hut, he felt true fear.
He screamed, the man's grip loosened, Icarus looked down to see the man's hand fall to the ground, the man looked back and let out a noise like the yip of a dog.
A blue shadow blitzed past Icarus, and a flash of silver steel plunged into the man's chest.
The man horked up blood and stumbled back, the guard twisted his sword violently and ripped it free, the man fell back into his house with a crash.
Icarus stared at the corpse. He felt sick, violently sick. He fell to the ground and scrambled back, holding his mouth, but the guard smacked him across the face.
He sheathed his sword after shaking off the man's blood and looked to the other children.
"You fools! What was your plan here!?" He whirled to the others, "Did you bring the boy here knowing this would happen!?"
Icarus looked back in shock, Harlem and the others stood behind with guilty looks on their faces, only Ethan looked like he was unaware.
The guard angrily led them back to the orphanage and led Icarus into the laundry room.
Icarus felt immense hatred towards the other children; he didn't want to take it out on them, but he no longer had any reason to help them in any way.
From that day on, he did not talk to the other children.