"Who did that?!" The boy asked as he turned around with anger on his face.

The rest of the boys shook their heads to show they didn’t know and also turned around.

But to their surprise, they saw a little girl wearing a plain, unremarkable dull brown dress.

"What are you doing?" She asked with slightly narrowed eyes.

The boys didn’t answer, but their gazes immediately fell on the small bag she carried.

The boy leading got over his surprise. He laughed and put down his hand. The part of his wrist the stone had hit had turned a redish purple.

"Are you the one who hit me? That’s fine. As long as you just hand over what’s in the bag, I’ll let you off."

Aristia glanced at Carolyn whose face had both hope and worry at seeing someone and rolled her eyes.

She turned her attention back to the boy. "Let that innocent girl go." She said.

[Ugh! I can’t believe I ended up being the knight in shining armor.]

The boys laughed like she said a joke.

"We can tell you’re not from around here. You should be worrying about yourself instead." One of the boys said.

"Don’t tell me who to worry about." Aristia snapped at him.

The boys exchanged glances, surprise creeping up again. "So you’re not afraid, or you’re acting like you’re not?"

"That’s a silly question. Why should I be? Hand over the girl."

Someone was about to yell that she was the silly one here, but the leader waved his hand.

"Hand over the bag first." The leader said, somewhat exasperatedly. They didn’t really mean to harm anyone. But seeing that the girl wasn’t scared, he wasn’t sure what to do to make her afraid.

So he just settled with going straight to the point.

Aristia sighed and rubbed her forehead in the same exasperated manner, after all, they had forced her to step in when she hadn’t planned to.

"Fine, but I don’t trust all of you." She said.

The boys exchanged glances again, now feeling amused.

"You hand the girl over, and I give you the bag. At the same time." Aristia continued.

"Are you telling us what to do?" The leader asked.

"At the same time!" Aristia repeated fiercely, glaring at them. "Take it or leave it. Anyway, I won’t care either way. I don’t even know her. So, do we have a deal?"

The leader couldn’t help but laugh, somehow not finding her boldness and fierceness irritating.

"Fine. We have a deal." He said, gesturing to the boys. "Give her the girl."

Two boys grabbed Carolyn on both hands, taking her toward Aristia and pushing her forward once they were a distance away from Aristia.

Carolyn stumbled, a small scream leaving her lips, but managed to steady herself just in time before she could crash into Aristia.

Aristia, who was about to take a step to the side. "..."

[Well, it’s good she caught herself in time.]

"Time to fulfill your end." The leader said, gesturing to her.

Aristia nodded and threw the bulging bag to him.

The boy caught it in the air.

"Wow, it’s a bit heavy." He said.

The rest of the boys’ faces lit up when they heard it as they quickly surrounded the leader. They didn’t expect that the one from nobillity had no money, while a commoner had a bag that was full of it.

Meanwhile, Aristia made an unnoticeable gesture behind her and grabbed Carolyn. "When I say so, run as fast as you can."

Carolyn was confused. "Huh? What do you mean?"

By now, the boys had already opened the bag.

The expression on their faces faded, replaced by confusion, disbelief and finally, anger.

They looked up at Aristia, waiting for an explanation.

Aristia shrugged with a helpless smile.

"I never said there was money inside? You told me to hand over whatever’s in the bag." She said.

Seeing the boys’ expressions changing, she stopped smiling, a sentence spilling from her lips.

"Run!"

It took a second for the command to register in Carolyn’s brain, but a second later, she was running behind Aristia.

"Get them!" The leader gritted his teeth as he commanded his gang.

The stunned members of the gang regained their senses and gave chase.

The leader was left staring at the bag filled with... milk and chocolate candy.

His head was lowered, however, a small smile couldn’t help but appear on his face when he remembered who liked this candy.

Slowly, he walked out of the alley, only to see a little girl waddling up to him with a smile.

"Bro... brother. Brother Damon."

A wide smile appeared on the face of the leader as he bent down and picked up his sister.

"Moi Moi." He noticed something and asked. "What are you eating?"

Moira beamed and took the candy out of her mouth. "Milk candy! There was a sister, nice sister. She gave me candy!"

Damon glanced at the sweet that his sister loved but could only eat on rare occasions. It was the same as the one in the bag.

He looked back at his little sister. "A sister gave it to you?"

Moira bobbed her head. "Mm. She gave Moira a steamed bun with meat inside."

Finally eating meat, Moira’s eyes shone almost endlessly.

"So that’s why your mouth is oily." Damon said, pinching her cheeks.

Moira giggled.

"Well, I have a bag of milk candy." Damon said.

Moira’s eyes widened seeing the amount of candy. It was the first time she was touching so many, not to talk of it being for her.

She looked up at Damon with slight confusion. "But this is nice sister’s bag."

Damon rubbed the back of his neck a bit awkwardly. "Well, I met nice sister. She gave it to me because she knows Moira likes milk candy. But there’s also chocolate candy."

The smile on Moira’s face was so adorable that Damon couldn’t help but pinch her cheeks.

Damon’s gaze moved in the direction his gang had disappeared in.

But unbeknownst to any of them, they hadn’t been alone.

Earlier in the alley, someone had watched everything that had happened.

At this moment, the figure had already quietly left the alley and the slums.