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The moment the two beheaded bandits' bodies hit the ground, I used some basic earth magic to bury them, leaving no trace and avoiding the smell of blood permeating the air.
The moment the earth buried the two men, I released my hold on the air dome that isolated the sound, and we stood still, waiting for any reaction for a few seconds.
Satisfied that there were no signs we had been detected, I gave the hand signal, and we split up to search the tents for the second pair of bandits that was supposed to rotate guard with the two beheaded bandits.
It did not take long for us to find them two tents away, and the men-at-arms quickly dispatched them with a smothering hand to the mouth and a stab of their dagger to their hearts. Once their struggles ended and the light of life left their eyes, we made our way to the hunting lodge.
As we got closer to one of the hunting lodge windows, I could hear the sounds of two people talking, along with faint snoring.
I was tempted to peek inside the window in order to get a better layout and the bandits' position, but I could not risk them seeing me peek and spooking them. So I gathered my men a few tents away to discuss our options, and we ended up deciding with shock and awe.
One by one, the four of us took our positions. I took the door, while the other three stood by a window each, all of us with our auras ready and suppressed as much as possible in case one of the bandits is particularly sensitive and somehow able to sense us.
I counted down in my head, and when I reached zero, I burst through the door with my dagger out, splintering it into pieces. Just a split second after breaking through the door, Sir Ector and two other men-at-arms came through the windows.
There were two bandits at the table reaching for their weapons, but I was already on them and stabbed one of them with my dagger. The other bandit at the table took a dagger to the side of the neck from one of the man-at-arms.
By the time I looked up and around, Sir Ector and another man-at-arms were standing over the dead bodies of two bandits who didn't even get the chance to scramble out of bed.
Once we confirmed that the rest of the lodge was clear, Sir Ector stuck his head out the window and let out a sharp whistle to tell the other men-at-arms that we were done.
It did not take us long to find the cellar entrance, and what I found made me sick to my stomach. There were twenty-three kids, ranging in age from two years old to thirteen years old, all dirty and covered in their own filth.
When we got them out of the cellar, three of the younger kids were unresponsive and burning up with a fever. When I asked them when the kids' fever started, the older ones said that it started early this morning. The older kids did what they could with the water they had to keep them cool with soaked pieces of their clothes, and it was lucky that they did.
I quickly asked the men-at-arms to get some fresh water and cloth, and also asked them to scrounge up what food they could find in the bandit camp and cook up something simple to eat, because from the sounds of the rumbling tummies coming from these children, they will need the energy to get home.
When the clean cloth and water arrived, I turned half the bucket of water into ice and instructed some of the men-at-arms to use the iced-damp cloths to bring the body temperature down for the three feverish children.
"We know what to do, Young Master, not the first time we took care of a child's fever." one of the men-at-arms said with a sad smile while squeezing a damp cloth and placing it on the child's forehead. The other men-at-arms did the same for the other two feverish children, then started removing the soiled clothes to wipe them down.
I nodded and walked toward the other children. I guess I should expect no less from these men. Most of them are fathers themselves, and when they are not training with the knights or out on assignment, they are with their families. In fact, I have met most of their children when mother occasionally organizes a get-together of the house staff and their family.
Following the men-at-arms' example, I stood before the rest of the children, who were looking lost and afraid. After assuring them that they were going to go back to their parents after we got some food in them, they calmed down.
I then split them into boys and girls, then took the boys out back and told them to strip.
And NO, I am not a pervert who pervs on little boys! But they can't just go home covered in what I smell is urine and feces, let alone eat, so they are going to need to take a shower and I will have to clean their clothes.
It took me a while to convince the boys that I wasn't going to do anything suspicious, and luckily, the smell of food cooking wafting through the air helped. Especially when I told them that they were not eating until they were clean.
Since there was no stream nearby, I spread my mana out in a wide radius and pulled the water from the surroundings, gathering a blob of water over the boys' heads, heating it with some fire magic, and made it rain on them.
While the kids were bathing with the hot water and scooping up the coarse mud to scrub themselves, I separated a section of the water blob and threw the soiled clothes into it before heating it to a higher temperature than the shower water. I then agitated the water clockwise and counterclockwise, just like I remember the top-loading washing machines I used to watch in my previous life.
Come to think of it… It would not be that hard to create a washing machine. I am sure all the maids in charge of laundry would love me for it.
When the soiled clothes made the water turn brown, I simply let the water splash to the ground before using water to rise up again from the ground. The dirt stays in the dirt, while just the water rises to give the clothes a second round of washing.
Not satisfied with the cleanliness of the clothes, especially because I don't have any soap to wash them with, another idea comes to mind. I repeated all the steps as the first wash, but this time I used instinctive air magic to induce sound waves directly inside the ball of water, creating vibrations on top of the agitation.
As I turned the frequency of the sound waves higher and higher, I could see the outside of the water start to ripple more violently, until it reached the point that the ball of water looked like a spiked ball from the sound waves moving through it.
After I dumped the dirty water to see the results of my idea, I could honestly say I was impressed. "Danm… Ultrasonic Cleaning actually works. But just to be safe, let's put these through another two cycles."
When the boys finished their shower, I dried them the way I dry their clothes, which is to say I used some basic water magic to draw the moisture from their skin and then employed a mix of wind and fire magic to blow warm air at them, like I was a huge hair dryer.
Later, when it was the girls' turn for a shower, I had to preserve their modesty by raising some walls for them before I rained warm water on them and washed their clothes.
Now that I was doing all this, I realized that I could do a lot to make and enhance home appliances.