Chapter 430: Permission Denied
"""Greetings, Master,""" the three children saluted formally.
Waving her hand casually, Celestina, who had apparently chosen to hide from her eldest daughter here, signaled for her Disciples to join her, Sasha, and the two women from the Carlson Family at the table.
Lucas walked over right away, but Eris and Christina lagged behind a bit, clearly still ruminating on what their Senior Brother had just told them about the common sense of the world.
"Is something wrong, you two?" Sasha asked.
Eris was her daughter, and over the months they had been together, Sasha had begun to see Christina as one of her own children as well, a sentiment the young princess didn’t have a problem with.
In Tina’s mind, she already had 3 mothers, so adding one more didn’t seem like a big deal to her.
Normally, both girls would have responded immediately, but they were too lost in their own thoughts to do so right now.
The adults in the room obviously noticed this anomaly and turned to Lucas for an explanation.
Cornered, with nowhere to run, Lucas scratched his cheek awkwardly and did his best to explain why his big sisters were so out of it.
By the time the boy was done, Eris and Christina had basically recovered and were now looking towards their elders expectantly.
Audrey had also fallen into a state of shock and had turned to her Ancestor, hoping for clarity.
What exactly these young girls wanted to hear was unclear.
Did they want their elders to deny what Lucas had told them?
Did they want them to confirm it?
Probably, not even they knew.
Sasha seemed a bit embarrassed by all of this, but the older women, Elizabeth and Celestina, simply exchanged a knowing glance and shrugged their shoulders, the latter casually remarking, "You should trust your Senior Brother, he knows what he’s talking about."
"En," Elizabeth nodded, "No one talks about it, and it’s not like the big families do this maliciously, it’s just... that’s the way things have always been done."
"But... isn’t that unfair?" Audrey asked in a somewhat disappointed tone.
All her life, Audrey had looked up to her Grandmother Elizabeth as a role model for how a noble lady should act, so hearing that her Ancestor, and her entire family for that matter, had engaged in such dishonourable conduct came as something of a shock to her.
To the young, impressionable girl’s surprise, however, her grandmother simply turned to her and asked, "What made you think the world was fair?"
Needless to say, Audrey was stunned silent.
Eris and Christina had both experienced a similar rude awakening several months ago, so they weren’t nearly as surprised by this rather blunt statement, but that didn’t make them feel any better.
"Is... is there something we can do about that?" Eris asked sheepishly, already knowing the answer.
All the adults and Lucas shook their heads, though the latter did add, "There are ways we can reduce the level of inequality and raise the overall quality of life for everyone, but there’s no way to completely eliminate it. At least, none that I can think of."
Eris pouted, as this was exactly what she didn’t want to hear, but she still nodded in the end.
"Why are you suddenly so interested in such complex social and political issues?" Celestina asked, genuinely curious about how this topic had come up among three young children.
"It’s like this, Master," Eris explained what happened, with Christina and Lucas offering some words of analysis and support along the way. They then asked her for her permission and support to implement their plan.
Celestina listened carefully to what happened at the orphanage, what her Disciple’s suspicions were, what their immediate course of action was going to be, and what kind of follow-up they wanted to do afterwards.
She was impressed by their observation skills, their reasoning abilities, their thoughtfulness, their sense of righteousness, and their generosity. She even said as much.
Then she shook her head firmly, "Permission denied. I can’t allow you to take any such action at this time."
Eris immediately wanted to object, as did Christina, but Lucas held his hand up, signaling for them to wait.
Lucas poured over everything they had just said, looking for some reason his Master might have to refuse them, but try as he might, he couldn’t find anything, so he simply asked, "Why not?"
"Because the leaders of Eris’ protective detail already reported this incident to me," Celestina replied, her eyes then narrowing ever so slightly, "She also reported that she sent 2 of her team members to follow this ’Bellamy’ fellow, but they lost him somewhere in the city."
Lucas’ eyes also narrowed when he heard this, as did the eyes of everyone else in the room.
Eris had suspected that her Master had sent some people to follow and protect her after the carriage had arrived at just the right time to pick her up tonight, and now she had confirmed it, but that wasn’t what really surprised her.
"How strong were the two guards sent to shadow that man?" Christina asked the critical question.
"One of them was a Low-Rank Initiate," Celestina replied gravely.
Sharp breaths were drawn at those words, as the implication was clear.
Either this Bellamy figure was a highly trained Mortal Realm master, one capable of outwitting and eluding a Initiate-Realm master’s senses, or he was an Initiate-Realm Cultivator himself.
Both of these possibilities led to even more disturbing implications.
"If he was able to lose the guards Master sent to protect Eris, he can’t possibly be some low-level criminal," Lucas muttered, "He must belong to a very powerful and dangerous organization. He might even be an agent of some foreign power."
"Indeed," Celestina nodded, "Which means his objective in ’purchasing’ so many children is probably much more nefarious than you all originally imagined. It also means we’ll likely never see that ’Bellamy’ ever again. He must know his identify has been compromised, so he won’t dare show himself in Misty City from now on."
"That’s also why I intend to launch a full-scale investigation into him and whoever is backing him, as well as all the orphanages in the South-East Province," Celestina followed up, "This whole situation reeks of a conspiracy."