The Son of the Sorcery Emperor (Yuno X Male!Oc fanfic)

Chapter 28:

3rd Pov.

When Yami and Finral had left the Black Bulls headquarters to help out with the fight in the cave, Magic Knights HQ also deployed a group of mages to assist them but Yami didn't want so many mobs crowding around him during the fight and ordered them to standby at the town. Although a bit skeptical to leave the man to his own devices, they had to listen to the orders given and had the town's church set up as their temporary base of operations. All the grief-stricken parents of the kidnapped children were in the worship center praying with the other nuns for the childrens' and Magic Knights' safe return. Noelle sat next to the Scarlet siblings as they occupied one of the front seats, the youngest child, Pem, was now fast asleep in Rebecca's arm after the girl had finally calmed him down with the help of the royal girl's arms. The other two children, Zack (the oldest brother) and Ellie (the youngest sister) were seated on both their oldest sister's sides with red-rimmed eyes since they had been crying for a while after finding out that Marco and Luca were kidnapped.

Noelle fidgeted with the magic communication device as her mind constantly drifted to the rescue team that let to get the children. She was constantly trying to calm the hearts of the worried parents who have been asking if she had heard from Asta and the group since their departure. Every time Noelle gave them the answer that she hadn't, her heart sunk seeing the families starting to sink deeper into despair before they settled in silence while praying with their fellow community members.

'Is Asta and the others alright? I'm unable to contact them since none of them have magic communication devices so I don't know their current situation

The only people noticeable in the church were Rebecca, her siblings, Mary, and Noelle who were all sitting and waiting at the worship center for Asta's party to return. Noelle perked up when she sensed Finral's mana from behind her, she turned her head and sees the spatial gate appear a few feet away. Then the kidnapped children flooded out of the spatial gate and all the people leaped to their feet and ran to their respective children.

"Mama! Papa!"

"Lily, my sweetpea!"

"Meemaw!"

As Noelle hopped on her feet to look over the sea of people she sees Gauche, Damien, and someone she didn't know covered by Damien's cloak steps out from the gate.

"Gauche, Damien, you're back!" Noelle exclaims as she looks at the bleeding Sister Theresa in Damien's arms.

"Sister Theresa!" Rebecca exclaimed in horror as her hand covered her mouth to prevent herself from hurling at the sight.

Gauche grabs a nearby mage. "Hey, you! Get some healers out here for the old hag, pronto!"

"Y-Yes, sir! Healers!" The man waves over a group of healers, one of them conjured a floating platform to lay the sister on while four of them immediately started using their healing magic.

Damien lets out a sigh of relief as he can now rest easy now that the Sister is in good hands with proper healers. As a frontline fighter, Damien's healing magic is only good for first-aid despite being trained by his mother who was a superb healer during her time as a Magic Knight. This was the second time he had to deal with so much blood, though the first time was when he got gravely injured during his first dungeon mission.

'Take deep breaths, Damien. Inhale... then exhale...' The blonde places a hand over his heart as he feels his heart beating rapidly before calming down when doing the breathing exercises. 'You have gone through many battles as a Magic Knight. You had to fight bandits, enemy mages from an enemy kingdom, fight off the undead during a large-scale invasion of the capital, and a terrorist! Don't let this trip you up now...' After giving himself the pep talk, Damien gives his cheeks a few light pats.