I began to count, 1, 2, 3, 4... 25... 56... 60. "Ready or not here I come!" I yelled to the roof. I ran through the kitchen, a small stove, supported by bricks and with an oven, built-in, into the wall. I looked under the counter and under all the boxes as the kids are quite small and young, around the ages of 4 to 9. I found no one.

I went into the dining hall next to the kitchen and looked under all tables, looked under all the pillows which are used as chairs by the small tables. "No one's there, I might lose them by the time we are done," I muttered under my breath.

I ransacked through all the rooms on the first floor and only managed to find two kids out of 6. The first one I found was in the library room under the tables and the second was in the living room. He went back to the living room after I left and hid under the table where I sat with the old lady and Aria. Ah, I forgot to catch the name of the caretaker. 

"Do you guys know where the others are?" I said to the two kids while squatting down.

"No, we split up after you started to count," the kid with blue hair said.

"Oh, I know where they might be!" the blond-haired kid butted in and continued. "They might be on the 2nd floor!" the blond kid said.

"The second floor, huh. Let's go and find them all" I say, pointing towards the roof.

As we were heading towards the stairs for the second floor, I looked out through the window and saw Aria standing and taking care of the children. The girls in blue surrounded her and asked about many things. I can only imagine what they are questioning her, "how was it when you were our age" and chit-chat like that. We see the stairs leading up to a wooden door standing a bit ajar. As we are walking on the squeaky stairs I hear some mumbling and a bit of running.

We are greeted by 3 kids trying to hide, one trying to hide under the bed, one trying to run into another room and one trying to hide in a closet. 

"The gig is up boys," I declare to the children stopped in their action. 

"Aww man, you caught us -" the red-haired boy said, "Took you long enough!" the boy included and turned towards me from the closet. 

"I have never been here before, it was quite hard," I admitted.

"You're just old!" another red-haired kid retorted. 

"Hey, I am not old! I am actually 28 years old." I said with a prideful face.

"No, you're old." one of the kids said from behind me.

"Wait, I only see 5 kids, weren't you guys 6?" I said with a dumbfounded face. 

"Yes, we were 6, but one of us is still hiding." the blond-haired kid said with a giggly tone. 

"Alright, let's find the last kid!" I said towards the kids.

"We are not called “kid”, we have names you know!" the blond-haired ki-boy said.

"Well, you haven't told me your names yet," I said since I didn't know anyone's name in this orphanage.

"I am Brian, he's Austin, Robin, Raphael and he's Mathew." the blond boy said as he pointed first towards the blue-haired boy later to the red-haired boy, brown-haired, later to another blond, and lastly to another red-haired boy. 

"Alright, so you are Brian, Austin," I said looking back to the children behind me. "And you guys are Robin, Raphael, and Mathew," I remarked, pointing on each boy.

"Correct old man!" Robin said with a smug face.

"And who is the last ki- boy I need to find?" I questioned everyone.

"He's called Dan, but his real name is Daniel," Austin replied.

"Alright, let's look for Daniel!" I announced to everybody.

We searched, and searched, and searched everywhere for Daniel, but to no avail. We looked through all the rooms on the second floor, which is not a lot. Only their dormitory and some rooms where they can play with toys. 

"I can't find him," I bark frustrated, after 30 minutes of searching. "He might be outside," Austin remarked, pointing out towards the forest. Oh, man.

"That's not good," I uttered under my breath. "Let's look for the caretake-''

"She has a name, and it's Lydia." Raphael butted in.

"Right, right, let's look for Lydia." I corrected myself as I cleared my throat.

We headed outside to the garden, where Aria was singing beautifully around the children while Lydia was sitting on a bench looking after the children. "My, you are already here, did you find everyone?" Lydia said with a joking manner. 

"Well, not everyone, we are missing Daniel. And we suspect that he is outside." I said with a low tone. 

"My goodness, that is not good. We haven't seen him since we saw them running to us in the living room." Lydia announced starting to look a bit nervous while holding her chin. "He might be in the forest." Lydia followed, looking on the ground.

"He likes to be outside under the tree over there," she said, pointing towards the tree standing on the hill. 

"But in the forest, he has never been there before." Lydia included a more worrying look on her face.

"What's going on?" Aria asked after seeing Lydia's face began trembling. 

"There are mana beasts in the forest," Lydia muttered under her breath, as her eyes started to hollow out and give out a distressed aura. 

"Calm down, calm down, Lydia. You might scare the kids if you look like that." I say pointing towards the children sitting around the Aria and towards the children behind me.

"You're right, it's unsightly from me," she replied, calming down. 

"Don't worry, Aria and I will find Daniel," I told her, reassuring her worries.

"Thank you" she replied with a scrawny voice.