Brewing trouble 

Third Person POV:

It was nearly the end of the month.

After a few days of continuous rain, the sky seemed to be somewhat clear.

Everyone had received their payments so the mood was cheerful in the Black Bulls base.

With money in hand, everyone decided not to do any missions for the rest of the days and spend their money relaxing.

As usual, Magna and Yami went to the Black Market to gamble with Finral and begin dragged with them, Charmy to some bakery, and Luck to some underground arena to beat up some people.

Gordon, Grey, Julian, Secre, and Kirin stayed in the base and decided to play some board games.

After the Mixer, Rebecca invited Asta to visit her restaurant but due to him being busy doing missions, he could not go.

When he had time, he decided to give her a visit with Noelle tagging along supposedly to keep an eye on him. Since Noelle now had enough Magic control, she could now give Asta a ride on her broom.

It was Gauche's sister Marrie's 10th birthday so Gauche went there to meet her. Vanessa decided to tag along with her as she was interested to see the Church where Julian spent five years and Marie was living.

Julian had handed Gauche some money to buy something to eat for everyone in the Church since he was not going.

"Give this piece of paper to sister Teresa and say that it is a gift from me" The paper Julian handed to Gauche had a seal planted in it.

"Another…." Gauche said.

"Huh?"

"Give me another seal, I want to give it to Marie"

"Sure, here you go"

The paper was something created by Julian and Secre after a month of research. It paper had Julian's sealing magic sealed in them which would activate when the holder was in a life-threatening situation.

It had one-time use so the user has to be careful.

All the Black Bulls members had this seal along with the Storage and Mana Storing seal with the exception of Asta as he could not be able to activate any of them as they required mana.

While Asta was discussing this with Vanessa, it turned out that Rebecca's house was not so far from the church where Gauche and Vanessa were going.

Since Asta and Noelle were going almost to the same place, they decided to go together.

The Church Julian grew up in was in the common realm in a city named Nean.

Although it was near the capital, there was a big forest in between. There is a direct route to the capital which most people use but it is a roundabout way.

After a few hours since they left, Julian and Kirin prepared to leave too.

"Where are you going?" Secre asked.

"Just going for a tour, will be back by the night"

***********

The children were really happy to get new toys and food that the Black Bulls brought for them. Vanessa even knitted clothes for everyone with her magic.

Even if Julian would have not told anything, Gauche would have brought some things for everyone there.

Gauche and his sister had a tough childhood.

He had to beg in the streets to get food so he knows how much those small things mean to these children who don't have their parents.

Gauche's overprotective nature toward his sister was due to the reason she was the only one who kept him from losing his mind during their lowest point.

After joining the Black Bulls, things started to change for Gauche as he now had people who got his back.

His sister grew up in a proper environment without the need to worry about money, Gauche was happy.

Even when he saw Asta playing with his sister, he felt a little jealous but nothing more than that as his sister didn't leave his side for the rest of the day after that.

Since Gauche was working to improve his magic, he unlocked various new spells.

One of them was creating two mirrors that could make the two sides talk in real-time.

Marie was thrilled to receive that gift as she could now talk to her brother whenever she wanted.

Sister Theresa was glad to see Gauche slowly changing.

She still remembered the time when Gauche attacked anyone who even came near Marie.

Although she was still pissed that Julian didn't come to visit her since the incident in the capital more than a month ago.

Asta asked her about various things that he was curious about with Noelle and Vanessa in line.

Sister Theresa told Asta about Father Orsi's childhood and the short time Sister Lily stayed with her after transferring from the Church in the Capital.

Asta was amazed to hear about the sides of father Orsi and Sister Lily that he didn't know about.

Noelle knew about the past of sister Theresa and asked her if she knew her mother Acier Silva.

From what Noelle's siblings told her, she passed away shortly after giving birth to Noelle.

" You look exactly like her when she was younger…..

She was already the captain of the Silver Eagles when Fuegoleon and Mereoleona were in training.

Mereoleona saw her as her idol and used to follow her around like a minion everywhere" Sister said, shocking Noelle.

She couldn't imagine the fearsome Mereoleona she knew could have ever done that.

Sister Theresa asked them to wait and brought a big album.

One by one she showed pictures of Acier and pictures of Fueoleon and Mereoleona when they were younger. Sister avoided the topic of her death as she didn't want to ruin the moment.

Finally some embarrassing pictures of Julian.

In one of them, he was almost drowning in the river as he didn't know how to swim yet. And in another one, his face being scratched by two cats.

All of them got a good laugh but still, Noelle got a little emotional seeing her mother.

In the afternoon, Rebecca and her siblings came to pray and were surprised to see Asta there.

While Rebecca's siblings played with the children at the church, Asta had a talk with her.

Since it was time for lunch, Rebecca helped Sister Theresa to make a meal for everyone.

After lunch, Rebecca left as she had to open her restaurant while her siblings stayed back.

At night, all the Black Bulls gathered in Rebecca's restaurant for dinner. As they went late, it was almost empty.

Rebecca's house had two empty rooms so Black Bulls and the others decided to spend the night there.

***********

In a cave, multiple people can be seen paralyzed in a standing position.

Among them, noteworthy people were a fat man and one was a black-haired woman wearing the robe of the Eye of the Midnight Sun.

'No variables so far…' Julian inspected large tubes that were present in the cave.

They were machines to store mana.

These were the same machines that he came across on his first mission.

Julian came out of the cave and looked up to see the snow-filled path.

"Someone modified the rainclouds that were present in the sky to snow clouds with the effect of hypnosis"

[What will you do now kiddo?]

"I will not destroy them yet, let's see how the situation escalates"

If things go according to the manga, Patry and the third eye with appear. Julian wanted to see how he would stand against them.

Intending to fight didn't mean that he would make the children suffer.

Julian snapped his fingers to release everyone out of their paralysis.

Julian disappeared from his place leaving behind particles of light.

********

At 2 am in the morning…..

Cold air blew over half of the city followed by snowfall.

It was rare to see snowfall at this part of the year but since it was raining heavily for a few days, people didn't seem to suspect anything.

Not many people were awake during this time but those who were awake slowly started to go into a deep slumber.

Slowly the doors of the houses opened as children started to walk out of their houses towards a specific direction with their eyes half closed.

"Slap!"

Asta woke up clutching his face on being slapped and saw Gauche standing beside him.

Before he could say anything Guache spoke up.

"Take out your sword and touch me, someone has used mass hypnosis magic. I can't keep my eyes open for longer"

Asta asked what Gauche did which made him snap out of the effect. Since Asta always slept with the Demon Dweller sword in case of emergency, he was not affected.

One by one Asta woke up Noelle and Vanessa and made a discovery that all the children in the house were gone.

They ran towards the Church to find the same situation with all the children gone. This made Guache boil with anger as his sister Marie was gone too.

"We will rescue her Gauche, now is not the time to lose your temper " Vanessa calmed him down.

*********

The Black Bulls members stood on top of the Church which had a view of the snowy path. There was a coat of flames around everyone keeping the snow off them.

"This snow is not natural…." Sister Theresa looked at the sky.

It was found that even if Asta removed the effect with anti-magic, exposure to the snow returns the hypnosis effect.

Children could be going in a line towards the mountains.

Vanessa had blocked all the city exits with walls made of strings so no more children left the city but the ones left kept moving.

Noelle's hands started shaking with the current situation.

She saw the situation in the capital all over again. Last time it was flames, this time it was snow.

Noelle wondered why was someone doing this.

"Calm down girl…. situation hasn't escalated yet'

"No….communicators are not working," Vanessa informed Sister Theresa.

"Alright children, here is the plan….

Gauche and Asta will move toward the location where the children are heading at.

Asta's anti-magic is crucial for this mission.

Vanessa will stay in town and keep on trying the communicator while stopping any more children from leaving.

Noelle will come with me to stop the children from moving ahead and shield them from the snow. " Sister Instructed everyone.

As everyone prepared to depart, a red bird came and sat on the shoulder of Sister Theresa who immediately recognized the mana signature.

"Wait for a minute" sister commanded as the surrounding went silent for a moment.

Woosh!!

The entire sky got covered in a sea of red flames completely destroying the snow clouds in one go.

The sky that was dark a minute ago turned into a scene from the apocalypse due to the blood-red color.

All the children that were moving stopped in their tracks.

"This mana…..Julian !" a smile bloomed on Noelle and Vanessa's faces.

"Julian ni !!!"

"You guys seem to be in a pinch so I decided to help a little " a voice came from behind them as Julian seemed to have teleported behind them. He was holding a white-haired man covered in Julian's retraining magic.

"Your speed surpassed my expectations boy" Sister Theresa commented with a smile.

None of the Black Bulls had seen Julian practicing light magic so they didn't know about his new insane speed. If this was an enemy, they would not be even able to react.

"Don't mention it, you have yet to see many things that will surpass your expectations" Julian said.

"Hope you are right…"

Clap!

"Now then, I heard about sister's plan and would not modify it much…

I got the one controlling the snow but chances are he was just acting on orders. From the details so far, I can tell that it is similar to the mana-stealing incidents that surfaced last year.

Asta, Gauche go ahead and engage the enemies ahead.

Vanessa, go join Sister and Noelle to bring back the Children to the city.

I will check every corner of the city as there must be people hiding and supervising the mission

Go!"