CHAPTER 16

As her words echoed through the small room, nobody said anything. Grey looked on with a begrudging yet helpless expression, Lyvia’s face was filled with anger, and Celeria’s face was filled with shock.

As silence reigned, its hold on everyone on the room was quickly broken, as someone spoke up. Surprisingly, it was Daelyn. He locked gazes with Ania and with a voice of disdain and irritation towards the small girl, he said: “I might be a monster, but at least I don’t stab people.”

Ania’s jaw fell to the floor after hearing this remark. She could not believe the words that came out of that abominations maw! How dare it speak to her like that!

Before little Ania could speak up, her mother Celeria did: “He is right Ania, it doesn’t matter what you think of him. You stabbed him, and you’re going to have to take responsibility for that.”

Ania wanted to protest, but as she looked at her mother’s expression, she faltered. Her mother didn’t look angry or mad, just disappointed. She could see the disappointment and sadness on her mother’s face, and the child decided to suck it up.

Celeria continued.

“We’re going to have to plan out an adequate punishment, but we’re already late to the playdate, aren’t we? Let’s go there first and handle the rest later.”

This was met with nods of agreement of both Grey and Lyvia as they suddenly realised the time. Grey quickly grabbed the bag with toys and books, and they were about to set off as Lyvia stopped the two little girls and Celeria.

“A lot might have happened, but you’re not allowed to tell anyone what happened, okay?”

Lyvia said this with the same bloodlust filled smile she conjured up earlier, causing the two girls to tremble before nodding vigorously as the dark elf before them became scarier by the moment.

“Good girls! Let’s go!” Said Lyvia as she shot up from her squatting position, and walked out the door with a smile on her face.

It took quite some time to actually arrive at Elrieden’s house, since their house was quite far off, and traveling with three children is bound to be slower than normal. As they finally reached Elrieden’s house it was long past noon as the sun was moving more and more to the west.

Lyvia knocked on the door, and it was soon opened by Nero.

“Ah, hello Lyvia! It’s good to see you guys, come in!” He said with a cheerful smile as he opened the door and let them inside.

Nero led them through the house towards a large room filled with all kinds of toys, board games, and other kinds of toys. There were about 14-15 children running around and playing with each other.

While they were all playing, it was clear that some groups had been formed. This became only more prevalent as the two sisters walked over to different groups.

Ayda walked over to a larger group of children of both boys and girls. The group was the biggest in the room, but it was also comprised of the youngest children, the eldest in the group being around five years old.

Ania walked over to two girls standing in the corner, she seemed acquainted with them as they welcomed her.

Finally, the third group consisted of four boys. This group had the eldest children in it, with most of them seeming to be around six years old.

As Daelyn entered the room together with his parents, all of the attention was drawn to them.

They received some attention already as Ania and Ayda entered, but as the gazes of both the children wandered, they quickly found Daelyn, and they were captivated. The children hadn’t ever seen a human, only heard stories about them. Either as heroes, or as villains. They had heard the stories of humans helping to protect the forest, and trying to destroy it. They had heard the stories about the arch lich that had threatened the forest with destruction, and also the story about the human that saved the forest from an orc horde.

However, as they saw one in front of them, they did not know what to think.

While most of the children gazed at him with curiosity or apprehensiveness, two glares differed.

One glare was filled with disdain. This glare belonged to a young dark elf belonging to the boys group. He glared at Daelyn with hatred in his eyes, as he remembered all of his father’s stories. He saw the human as a vile creature, as an existence that should be eradicated, as a monster.

Another glare belonged to a boy which resembled the first one, however this wasn’t a glare of hate. This was a glare of indifference. He did not care for this human, he just wanted to continue reading. The small boy was situated close to the larger group of children and seemed to be about the same age as Daelyn, he sat there with a book in his hand, and just wanted to continue reading.

As Daelyn observed the room, he was astonished by the looks the children gave him. They were looking at him like he was a rare animal, something for sight-seeing. While he did not notice the first glare, he clearly saw the look of indifference, because the child was situated in the middle of the room.

He noticed that the child was reading something. It was the story of Alberricht! The book seemed quite worn, and the child seemed to be completely absorbed in the story after giving Daelyn only a quick glance.

Daelyn was excited at the prospect of talking about the story. He quickly trotted over to the group of children, they seemed to back away a little as they had not expected him to approach them so quickly.

Daelyn did not mind them, and instead walked over to the boy. He stood in front of him, extended his hand, and said with a friendly voice: “Hello, my name is Daelyn. Do you want to be friends?”

The boy was astonished at Daelyn’s question, as he tried to say something he could only stammer a soft ‘why?’.

Daelyn heard this, and answered his question with a smile on his face: “The story, I saw you reading it, do you like it?”

The boy looked down at the book, and understood what Daelyn meant. He regained his composure, and said with a calm voice: “Yes, do you like it?”

Daelyn replied with a cheerful and enthusiastic voice: “Like it? I love it! I especially love the part at the end, the battle between the two!”

The boy’s eyes started shimmering as he hear Daelyn say this. He had found someone his age he could talk to about books! The other children either didn’t like him, or hadn’t read a lot of books, but this kid had!

They almost immediately started a fervent discussion about the heroic tale, which bled over to a discussion of several tales, and which had a more powerful main character. They actually seemed to get into an argument as they started to compare their two favourites.

The other children looked on in fascination as the two of them continued their discussion, until Ayda interrupted them.

“Hey! You two! Listen!” She said with a soft yet demanding voice.

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The two boys were snapped out of their literature imbued stupor, and quickly turned towards the rest of the group with embarrassed expressions.

Ayda turned towards the group and made a proposal.

“These two know some very cool stories, right? Why don’t we play those out!”

The eyes of the other children shimmered at the opportunity to be the hero of a story, and the eyes of the two boys were filled with joy as they saw the enthusiasm of their peers.

One of the older children in the group was excessively happy, and shouted: “Let’s do the story of Alberricht! You two know that one, right?”

The two boys looked at each other before turning back to the group and nodding in agreement.

As they were about to start, the other boy stopped in his tracks, and he shouted: “Wait!”

The other children turned towards the boy with questioning gazes, and the boy responded with a thoughtful voice: “Daelyn doesn’t know our names.”

The children’s expression turned to one of understanding, and they could not help but laugh. They forgot to introduce themselves!

The boy quickly turned to Daelyn, and said with a confident voice: “My name is Cyrus Tyrrith, I’m three years old. Let’s be friends, okay?”

Daelyn could only smile as he responded with a cheerful ‘Yes!’.

The other children also introduced themselves.

The first two to introduce themselves were twins. They looked very much like each other, but there were some subtle differences between them. They were from the Ulindil family. They both were clad quite simple as their clothes seemed quite worn, and not as refined as the others in the room.

One of the twins was named Bairo, he was very cheerful and seemed a bit impulsive, he had short hair, and a small scar on his forehead. The scar was angled from the right top of his forehead towards the middle.

The other twin was named Ralm, he seemed a bit more observant and thoughtful, but he was just as energetic as his brother. He had a bit longer hair, and also a scar on his forehead. This scar was mirrored from his brother’s, the scar was angled from the left top of his forehead towards the middle, as it mirrored his brother’s.

The second pair that introduced themselves were cousins with the same last name. They were from a family of blacksmiths, and the parents had taken in the niece, because her parents were very busy with their job as master blacksmiths. The last name was, Valkyr.

The smaller of the two girls was the cousin. She introduced herself as Myrin, and was three years old. She seemed quite stout, and a bit wide for her age, but she did not seem fat or even chubby. She had a nice white blouse with a small floral print on it, together with a leather vest, and topped off with a chestnut brown skirt that went to her knees.

As Daelyn was introduced to the older of the pair, Caeda, he felt a gaze standing next to her glare daggers at him. He decided to ignore it, and focused on the girl in front of him. She was the daughter of the local blacksmith. She seemed quite nice. She had quite normal clothing on, but her face topped it off. She herself seemed like a masterpiece, as her cheekbones beautifully contoured her face, while her eyes were able to captivate anyone.

Daelyn was shocked by her beauty for a moment, before his attention was directed towards the next and last member of the group.

She was quite a beauty for her age. She would most likely blossom like a rose as she grew up.

She introduced herself as Ryllae Felor, she was the youngest daughter of the local baker family, and liked to cook herself. She seemed to take the lead in the group, as she was the one that had made the proposal for the Alberricht story. She was quite confident, and could conjure up a lovely smile.

After they had introduced themselves, Daelyn and Cyrus started giving out the roles. There were actually quite a lot of characters in the story of Alberricht the hero, and more than enough to fit the eight children playing it.

In the end, Daelyn and Cyrus ended up with the most important roles. Cyrus as the hero, and Daelyn as the villain, which was quite surprising, since they had thought that Daelyn would be the hero. But Daelyn never had any real interest for the hero, and wanted to play the villain instead.

They actually performed some quality acting as they progressed through the story. Daelyn and Cyrus were quite adamant about the storyline, but they did not want to re-enact the book, they wanted to have fun.

They made the action scenes a bit cooler, as the children played the warriors that defended the village bravely, but ultimately died. They fought as the hero’s party against a goblin king, they fought as the undead minions of the villain as he fought against an army, and they fought as the heroes and villains against each other.

Their little play had attracted the attention of the parents, and they were watching, full of emotions. They loved to see their children play like this, and could not help be sucked into their play as a result of that. They sympathized with the characters as the children portrayed them, and they could not help but be a little sad at the end, as they themselves had fond memories of that story.

As Cyrus fell to the ground, signalling the end of the play, the parents were taken by silence, before they started clapping.

The children looked up in surprise from the play. They had not noticed that their parents had been observing their act, and were a bit embarrassed yet overjoyed by seeing their parents cheer them on.

The group stood there fidgeting for a moment, until Ryllae bowed. The other children saw this, and quickly followed her example.

As the adults’ clapping started to subside, the children started to huddle together, and congratulate each other. They had fun performing a play, and they had made their parents proud in the process. They were overjoyed at this.

Especially Daelyn and Cyrus were congratulated, because they were important characters, and because they had orchestrated the whole play.

The two of them were proud, but both thought that the other had done more, which resulted in a short discussion between the two, but it was quickly laughed off as the other children wanted to play more. The group decided that performing such a play was fun, but tiresome, and they tried to think of another game to play.

As they were deciding, the group of four older boys were whispering among themselves, and pointing at Daelyn’s group. Lyvia watched them, and she saw that they were planning something, because they were pointing at Daelyn. She was about to call Daelyn, as her attention was diverted. Misses Tyrrith had seen the same thing, and seen Lyvia’s expression.

Her son was about to teach that human some manners, and she would not let some retired adventurer get in his way. She grabbed Lyvia’s attention by praising her son’s play, and said that she was proud of her own son for his part in it. She tried to hold her attention long enough to let her elder son go undisturbed.

As the two adults were conversing, the group of Fern and his friends approached Daelyn’s group. Fern took the lead and interrupted their discussion of whether to play a board game or not.

“Hey! How about you play with us instead of a boring old board game?”

The group of children looked at him with apprehensive gazes, except for Daelyn. The children knew his reputation and knew the group of boys he was with. He was quite a troublemaker, and would regularly be scolded by his father.

Cyrus replied to him with a sharp and questioning tone: “Then, what do you want to do?”

Fern revealed smile, before saying with a generous tone: “We wanted to spar with you kids. You’re going to train either way from your seventh birthday, so we thought we would give you some pointers.”

Daelyn turned towards the group and said with an excited voice: “That sounds cool, right?”

Before anyonw of Daelyn’s group could say anything, they heard a voice from behind Fern, a voice filled with disdain: “Why would we teach you, you damned human? Go mingle with your own kind.”

As the group heard this, Ryllae immediately spoke up: “Hey Minos, that isn’t nice! Daelyn has been very nice to us, and hasn’t done anything wrong!”

Minos snorted before saying with a voice filled with disdain: “All humans are the same, they are all rotten inside. He is going to do something horrible to you sooner or later! That is true for all humans! Right, Cyrus?”

Cyrus could only look at the ground as his brother said that. He knew this would happen, but in the small time he had come to know Daelyn, he really liked him. He had finally found a real friend, and he wasn’t going to lose him to his brother.

Minos waited for his brother’s answer, until he heard some soft mumbling.

“Speak up Cyrus, I can’t understand you.” Minos said with a commanding voice.

Before Cyrus could speak up, before he could muster another word, Daelyn walked towards the group. He walked directly towards Minos, and as he stood in front of Minos, he extended his hand.

“I’m sorry for everything that has happened to your family, but I can’t do anything about that, and being rude to all humans won’t help you. I apologise for the things humans have done to your family, but can’t we just become friends?”

He ended his little speech with a smile as he extended his hand as a symbol of goodwill. He truly hoped that they would forgive him.

His apology and his offer were quickly cast aside, as Minos could not hold in his anger anymore. This damned human thought everything would be forgiven with an apology? No! They would pay in blood! Starting with this one!

He put his will behind those words as he raised his fist. He wanted to strike Daelyn as hard as he could, and with his strength, it would be quite the impact.

He pulled his right arm as far back as he could, before launching it towards Daelyn’s face. It was like a cannonball directed straight towards Daelyn’s face.

Daelyn couldn’t possibly dodge, because of his slow reaction time compared to the dark elf. They were physically superior in almost every way, and Daelyn is going to feel the brunt of it in only a matter of seconds.

The only thing Daelyn could do to brace for impact is close his eyes, as he had too little time to even try and put up his arms as a defence.

When he thought that he would be pummelled by the dark elf, once again attacked for being a human, once again being rejected despite his most earnest efforts, he felt a heavy pull.