Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

"I know that you want to solve all problems by yourself, but it is important to trust your friends and let them do their job," Terra said. "When they think that they need help, they will ask for it."

"You have a point," Rain said while stretching his body. "I guess I was just thinking too much since nothing happened as of late. It was about time for something to happen, I guess."

"I am going to the orphanage again, call me if something happens," Terra said and then approached Rain and forced him to smile with her fingers. "If you keep scowling too much, you will have wrinkles in your twenties."

In the end, Rain spent the day in the garden looking after his kids. He didn't want to leave Seara behind and let her wake up in an empty home, after all. Still, while she told him to wake her up for dinner, she woke up at noon and had lunch with them.

"I am going to talk with Branden and Esmeralda for a bit," Seara declared.

"I guess we are going too," Rain said.

"Some room to breathe, please?" Seara sighed.

"Even at night as well?" Rain asked.

"You are so unfair…" Seara said while showing a troubled expression.

"Sorry… I went too far," Rain said. "I will stop insisting on that, just make sure to inform me if something big happens."

"Thank you for understanding that," Seara said. "Now that we have a bunch of people working on this, it is only a matter of time before we find what those guys are up to."

Although she said that, in the following month, Seara looked more and more tired when she returned. She basically slept during half of the time she stayed there as well, and that showed how much work she was doing when she wasn't there.

While Rain was lost in thought, he heard a small thud coming from behind in the garden and then he suddenly saw Danny with his face on the ground. Rain hurriedly approached him and checked him… his face was just a bit dirty… it seemed that he had tripped. Danny tried really hard not to cry, but he was sniffing a lot. Meanwhile, Annie was grinning a bit.

"Annie… don't smile at the misfortune of others," Rain said while moving his index finger from one side to the other. "That isn't nice. You have to praise someone when they screw up and try to learn from their mistakes. That's my boy, if you keep this up, you will become as cool as papa."

Danny smiled a lot after that… Rain always wondered how his kids would grow up when he was a reincarnated person. They were pretty smart for their age, but they were one hundred percent children. Not adults in kids bodies… it seemed that Rain's existence didn't create an Isekai service for human souls.

"... It has been a month since I had any work, so maybe we should visit Uncle Branden and Auntie Esmeralda and slow down their work a lot," Rain said while patting his kids. "I have money to spare, but I like when more coins fall into my pocket. Let's shake them off for more work."

Most of the work that they could give him could be solved with magic, so it would be fine for Rain to take his kids with him and show his cool side.

Upon arriving at the castle, Rain saw the golems that he had stationed there to serve as guards for the people inside. To decrease costs, since they needed to save as much money as possible in the last three years, Esmeralda and Branden only had a couple of people directly working for them in the castle; it was also to avoid assassination attempts as well.

While they could use Magic Boost, there are some nasty poisons out there that can take down even Rain in less than thirty seconds.

After arriving in the throne room, Rain found those two and Seara there studying a map… she didn't mention that she was in the capital that day… but Rain had imagined that she occasionally would come.

"It seems that we arrived at an interesting time," Rain smirked and then everyone facepalmed.

"... I guess that is the downside of letting Rain be responsible for our security, the golems work for him and they wouldn't inform us of his approach," Branden said.

In the end, Rain put Danny on Branden's shoulder and Annie on Esmeralda's before he had a good chance to study the map. There were several red points on the map of the whole country, some were big, others were small, there was some numbers near them as well… the math said that in total, it was around two thousand.

"Let me guess, two thousand disappearances in the last month?" Rain asked.

"Yes…" Seara said and then sighed. "You can call us incompetent for not finding a single one of them."

"Not at all, I have a lot of time to think about it in the last month and it makes sense that you didn't find them," Rain said. "Do you know why?"

"No idea," Seara said.

"Well, let me study the map for a moment, and then I will be able to say something smart," Rain said.

Actually, Rain wasn't able to understand anything since he didn't have enough information, but after studying the map and seeing that there were no markings on the capital, he was able to come up with some possibilities.

"There are no soldiers of that war in the capital at the moment? Why?" Rain asked.

"Because you solved most of the problems that we had with magic, so we sent them where you wouldn't be able to go," Branden explained.

"It seems that you ended up sending them to troublesome areas without noticing…" Rain said while pointing to the cities that had the most disappearances around. "These places were under Joanis control before."