“You decided to take a risk? How is taking me in a risk? Also, yes I am very much a human.” Gunther replied, a bit annoyed at the hesitation this Tenli displayed when calling him a human. He was a human and he was proud of it. It shouldn’t be too hard to see right?

“Forgive me for my hesitation, we don’t see many of your kind around here, so I wasn’t entirely sure. As for why taking you in was a risk. Well, let’s just say you humans aren’t known to be that great with nature. You tend to destroy most of what you come across, you see…” The arborling replied, looking a bit apologetic while doing so. It was almost as if he, she, it? was afraid of Gunther’s reaction.

Gunther thought a bit about what he knew about humans from Earth and couldn’t help but grudgingly admit the guy was right. Humanity had pretty much been on a straight course towards the complete destruction of their own home planet. Gunther had kind of hoped it would be different in this world, but it seemed to be human nature to take whatever they could without caring about giving back.

“Uhm, are you alright?” Tenli asked tentatively when it took Gunther a while to reply.

“What? Oh, uh, yeah, sorry, I spaced out a bit. I guess you’re right about humans destroying whatever they come across. As much as I hate to admit it.” Gunther replied with a slight frown on his face.

“Come now, cheer up a bit. It’s not as if every human is some heartless monster out to destroy the world. You’re existence alone proves humans are capable of creation as well as destruction. Now back to you, what were you doing so far away from human civilization, all on your own?” Tenli said smiling, but also a bit pressingly at that last bit.

“Well, that’s kind of a sensitive topic.” Gunther replied vaguely, not quite sure how much he should tell this stranger. Just because he saved his live and seemed nice enough, he was not necessarily trustworthy. For all Gunther knew, this Tenli could be an evil necromancer who would experiment on him some more.

Tenli frowned at this response and replied angrily, “Listen, I don’t know what your circumstances are, but understand that this matter concerns the whole of Ardoricum. If you are going to wander around the city, I must know if you are to be trusted.”

“Okay. If you insist, I will tell you, but I ask you not to share this information with anyone else, if you decide I am indeed trustworthy.” Gunther answered still a bit doubtful, but understanding he had no choice.

“I can give no guarantees, but if your information does not concern the rest of us, I will keep it to myself.”

“Thank you, I understand that is all I can ask of you in this situation. As for why I was alone in the forest, it was because I am not of this world. I guess I was summoned here by necromancers and put into this body after I died on my own world. I don’t know how people will react to this, so I try to keep this information to myself as much as possible.” Gunther explained.

The arborling looked at him with a shocked expression, at least Gunther thought it was a shocked expression. Gunther found it quite a challenge to read the face of this mysterious creature, that was to be expected though, considering he had never seen an arborling before.

It took a while for Tenli to recover, he just stood there for a while, gaping at Gunther. When he finally did recover, he said: “I can certainly see why you would keep this information to yourself. I appreciate your honesty and promise to not disclose this information to anyone unnecessarily. Since you don’t seem to have any reason to harm us, I think it will be safe to let you stay for a while. We won’t let you stay for free though, you’ll have to pay for food and shelter just like anyone else.”

“Thank you.” Gunther replied relieved. He had been afraid that Tenli would attack him or throw him out when he heard who, or rather what, Gunther was. Everything he had seen about the arborlings so far made him believe they were quite close to nature, so it wouldn’t have been that strange for them to hate everything that had anything to do with necromancy.

“Now that you trust me, what am I supposed to do next? I have no place to live and don’t know how to make any money either.” Gunther said, after contemplating his options for a while. If at all possible, he would like to stay with the arborlings. It was not like he had anywhere else he could go and it would get quite lonely to just stay out in the forest alone for much longer.

“You could stay at my place for a while if you’d like. You will have to help out around the house in exchange, but I won’t ask for anything unreasonable. As for making money, you could try your luck at adventuring. We don’t know what caused it, but a couple of years ago, the animals began to change. They became increasingly aggressive and more powerful. The rabbits are just one example of this. Most other herbivores are also attacking everything around them without much care for self preservation. The carnivores are also changing, but less fast, which is why this Wood Panther is still quite normal. The city has set out a bounty for all the mutated animals and this has led many younglings to start to form teams and go out on adventures to kill as many of them as possible.” Tenli suggested.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Before any of that though, you will need to decide what to do with your little buddy there. I suggest you take him as your familiar, he’s both fast and strong and knows his way around the forest. It is not easy to gain the trust of a feline creature, so think carefully before you decide.” He continued in a serious tone, looking at the Wood Panther, who was still sleeping peacefully on Gunthers bed.

“I’ve always liked cats and this little guy looks quite adorable now that he isn’t trying to kill me. I guess I’ll take him, so how does this work?” Gunther asked looking over at the cat in question as well.

“For the bond to form, you simply need to let your mana flow into him. If he accepts, you two will form a special connection that lets you know of each others conditions and gives you a each of you general feeling towards the locations of the other. If either one of you gains experience, the other will also gain some, letting the both of you level up slightly faster. Some Classes can also gain Skills to boost your familiar, but that completely depends on your Class and luck.” The arborling explained. “If you want to share your Class with me, I could tell you if I know of any Skills it could give you.”

Gunther flinched a bit at that question, but tried to hide it. “No, that’s alright, I like the element of surprise that comes with not knowing the Skills I will get.” He quickly answered. Too quickly maybe, because Tenli narrowed his eyes a bit.

“Should I wait for him to wake up, or can I just wake him up now to get started earlier?” Gunther asked, trying to sound as excited as possible to distract Tenli before he could get too suspicious.

Tenli laughed at that, “It is nice to see that youthful spirit of yours. It reminds me of myself in my younger years. Just go ahead and wake him up, I think he is just being lazy right now and does not actually need to sleep anymore.”

Gunther grinned at the arborling and stroked the back of the Wood Panther still lying next to him gently. The animal stretched itself out a bit and mewled cutely. It then looked at Gunther, both a bit annoyed for his sleep being disturbed and excited at seeing that Gunther was alright. It seemed like the excitement won in the end, because he walked up to Gunthers face and began to lick it with its course tongue. Gunther laughed and pushed the cat away.

“Easy there buddy, I’m glad to see you care about me, but we have something more important to do right now.” He said with a smile. He then proceeded to put his hand on the Wood Panthers head and pushed a little bit of his mana into him. After a moment, Gunther felt some sort of connection form in his mind. He felt another presence in his mind and realised it was the cat. It was like he could feel a bit of its emotions kind of leaking through and he guessed it was the same for the animal. Right now, there was one feeling that was very present on both sides of their link: hunger.

“With that out of the way, how about we go and get you two something to eat. You must be quite hungry after not having eaten for two days, Gunther. The little guy has not had the chance to eat much for a long time too, judging from his condition.” Tenli said with a smirk. The two hungry wolves looked up at him grinning madly, both knowing exactly how the other felt.

Tenli walked to the door and motioned for Gunther to follow him as he pushed aside the leaves blocking the exit. Gunther left the bed and only then realised he wasn’t wearing pants or a shirt. Before, when looking at his bandages, he had still been pretty tired so he hadn’t really registered that little detail.

“Uhh, do you perhaps have any clothing I could wear?” Gunther asked, feeling a bit awkward. He didn’t think of himself as especially prude or anything, but did also not like the idea of walking around town in only his underwear.

“Oh, of course, excuse me. I had forgotten that you mammals like to cover up your bodies, let me go get something for you.” Tenli said apologetically. He walked away and returned a while later with a bunch of leaves that were bound together in his arms. Gunther, who had decided to sit on the bed and pet his new familiar a bit, quickly stood up and accepted the strange clothes.

After a bit of fiddling, Gunther figured out how he was supposed to put the bundled leaves on with the help of Tenli, who also did not have any experience with these clothes. The clothes turned out to be a sort of skirt and vest made of leaves. It made Gunther feel a bit ridiculous wearing them, but it seemed like it would be a lot easier to move around in than his previous clothes at least.

“You are lucky we even have these things.” Tenli remarked. “They were made for some elves who come and visit us on diplomatic missions every once in a while. In the end they decided they liked their own clothing better and left them here in case we might need them someday.”

Now fully clothed, sort of, Gunther followed Tenli outside. He looked around and his eyes widened in surprise. There was an elaborate system of suspension bridges and stairs spiraling around trees connecting an entire city’s worth of rooms. He saw signs hanging above some of the doors with carvings like a sword or potion, but also just a bread, probably meaning those were shops that sold those things. Some of the bridges were kind of rolled up to isolate the tree they were connected to, probably to secure the privacy of whoever owned the rooms in that tree. What baffled Gunther the most though, was how high up on the trees they were right now. He almost couldn’t see the ground when he looked down. He could, however, see some elevator like constructions that lead down to the ground.

Gunther looked at Tenli with an amazed expression on his face and saw the arborling look back at him with a smirk. He spread his arm sticks in a grandiose gesture and said with as impressive a voice as he could muster:

“Welcome to Ardoricum, the capital of nature!”