Clair POV:
I walked back to the summoned house and informed the rest of the departure of Qui Lo.
“So what kind of things were inside the ring?” Drull asked interestedly.
“A lot of money, a few books, female underwear, and other things. Also some weapons,” I said and took a panty out.
“This kinda looks used,” Ilza said with a disgusted face.
“Yeah, this guy was a real creep,” Lilia said.
“Well, I'll use the design for some of my own,” I said and burned them after memorizing their design. They are really good. With that said, we finished the day and resumed our journey.
I sorted through Lu Tai's things during our trip to Schwarzwald, I finished as we came near the border of the forest. Most of his things were not really useful. The books were interesting and there were some techniques, however, the rest was almost useless. I don't need the weapons, money or poisons. I still kept them, I'm some kind of messy with my unlimited inventory. I always liked to gather things in games.
“I see the trees!” Ilza shouted from the front. And shortly after giant trees were visible.
“These things are huge, how can they grow so high? I once heard that normal trees can only grow 120 metres. After that it gets impossible for them to pump the water upwards,” I said amazed by the trees. [Distant View] showed that they are higher than 300 metres and as thick as a small bus.
We got nearer and I noticed that the trees use magic.
“So they use water magic to bring the water upwards?” I spoke my thoughts out loud.
“Not only that, they also use earth magic when they are in danger. That's one of the reasons why they can't get cut down,” Lilia said.
“Is their magic so strong?” I asked a little confused. Surely one tree can't be so strong.
“The surrounding trees are also attacking the source of danger. A normal wood lumber would get killed before he makes his third hit,” She said while we passed the boundaries of the treeline.
It instantly got a few shades darker.
“Let's stop for a moment, I have to change the wheels for the new terrain,” I said and stopped.
We changed the tracking wheels to mountain bike wheels and continued.
“Let's visit the graves of your parent,” I suggested and Lilia got in the leading position.
“The village is around 20 minutes away with our current speed,” Lilia said.
Twenty minutes later we reached the village though it was not like we expected it to be. We expected a small village, bustling with activity of the daily life, what we found was a destroyed group of houses. Mangled skeletons lay on the floor, visible bite marks were on their bones, most even had some meat on them.
Here and there were some in armour and signs of a battle were all around.
“What happened?” Ilza asked a little shocked.
“Probably a human raid. They sometimes form raid parties and attack villages, the women and children get enslaved, while the men mostly get killed on the spot,” Lilia said with a sad face.
“Let's bury the bodies,” I suggested and Lilia nodded.
Drull searched inside the houses while the other began to carry them to the village square.
I laid my fifth person down, as I felt someone watching us.
I looked around and saw something hiding behind a window, so I stood up and walked out of the viewing range. I then sneaked around the house, through the back door, and to the window.
There, crouching and only peeking out of the window was a small child. It's a boy. I sneaked next to it and looked out. I saw Lilia, who placed another body next to the others.
“Interesting?” I asked the boy next to me. The boy screamed up, jumped to the side and pressed his back against the wall. His eyes were wide open and he looked as if he has seen death in person.
“Clair?!” Lilia asked from outside.
“I've found someone!” I shouted back, still looking at the child.
“Hi, I'm Clair,” I said with a smile.
“Du bist ein Elf!” the child said and then hugged me.
Skill:
Language of Driala
The common language of the elfen people, it's a
derived version of Pralara. LV: 0
And LV: 10....
“°Hicks° Are you... here to save...me?” He asked and then started to wail. Ugh, I hate crying children. And boys aren't cute enough to hug.
I tried to step back, but he stuck to me like glue. Ilza and Lilia came inside and saw the crying mess of a child and the helpless me.
“Can someone take that off of me?” I asked and pointed at the child.
“You're heartless,” Lilia said with a frown and stepped near us, she patted the head of the boy and said.
“It's okay, come here.”
The boy looked up, saw Lilia and then hid behind me, where he started to quiver like jelly. Lilia was shocked and then looked at me with teary eyes.
“What? You look like a human,” I simply said and it seemed like she realized the problem.
“Hi, I'm Ilza and we won't harm you. Could you tell me your name?” Ilza asked, who walked up to my side.
The boy looked her in the face, saw her pointed ears and then mumbled, between hicks and sobs, “My name °hicks° is Ran'ko, please don't let the human take me away.”
“That human is Lilia, and we won't harm you. Would you like to come out and tell us what happened?” Ilza asked and hugged Ran'ko, effectively getting him off me.
He gave a weak nod and Ilza picked him up. We walked out and Drull came to us.
“Who's that? A snack?” He asked with a grin and Ran'ko's teeth chattered out of fright.
“He's not a snack. That is Ran'ko, a survivor,” barked at him angrily.
“Okay, it was a joke, a joke,” Drull said with raised hands.
“Ran'ko, are there more survivors?” Lilia asked in a soothing voice.
“The others got eaten by the monster,” he said while shaking his head.
“He's lying,” I said.
“I'm not,” he said back.
“My skill tells me he's lying. Most likely he's a scout to look who came to the village,” I said what I thought. He looked pale and tried to hide his face. I activated [Mana Zone] in a 5-kilometre diameter and found three other elf mana signatures. All of them were children.
They were a few hundred metres away from the village.
“Found them,” I said and walked in their direction. Ran'ko began to struggle in Ilza's arms, but he was not strong enough.
“Stay away!” He shouted. I ignored him and began to run, as I felt them also running. They must have heard him.
Each run in a different direction, intelligent but not good enough. I caught up with the first one and simply picked him, or more like her up. I put the struggling child under my arm and run to the next one.
“Hide Ul'tro! She's too fast!” The girl in my arm shouted and the next child stopped. Bad for him that I'm able to feel his presence. I quickly found him inside a bush and pulled him out. He struggled, it didn't help him and he was also put under my arm.
The last child was also alerted by my captives. But this one, also a girl, tried to fight, well tried is the right word. I grabbed her hands and put her under my other arm. They kicked me and bit me while I walked back, but I simply ignored them.
Ran'ko was still struggling in Ilza's arms as I came back. I put my luggage down and Ilza did the same for Ran'ko. They run up to each other and began to wail in a group hug.
“You were not really soft in catching them,” Lilia noted.
“It's quicker this way. You two can consult them while Drull and I bury the dead,” I said and conjured a house around us. The four stopped crying and had a shocked face.
“Fine,” Lilia said with a sigh and kneeled next to the trembling children. None of them was older than 8, the youngest only 4. And their status already said they're orphans. It's their occupation. Don't know how that can be an occupation, but who am I to question the system?
Anyway, Drull and I went out and finished with the dead bodies. I made graves with magic, we put them inside, filled them up and made a small tombstone, also with magic, on top of each grave. Each grave had one and there were 40 in total as we finished. We didn't differ between the people in armour and the obvious villagers. They all also had the same inscription.
Here lies an unknown
victim of a village raid.
That and the date was all. We walked back to the house and heard noises from the bath. The two boys were already sitting at the dining table. They wore t-shirts, which looked more like a dress, but it's better than their old dirty clothes.
I began to make food. Chicken soup with freshly baked bread. The two girls, Lilia, and Ilza came half an hour later out of the bath. They too wore t-shirts.
They all quietly sat down and stared at the desk, sometimes peeking at Drull or me. They are still frightened of us. Drull because he looks like a human male and me because I was rough with them before. But they forgot about us, the moment I put the pot of chicken soup and the bread on the desk, they all stared at the food and gulped. Hunger was visible in their eyes.
We sat down and I said, “you can eat, it's enough for everyone.”
They first looked at me, trying to find a lie of deceit, but then started to wolf the food down, as if there is no tomorrow. Good that I made soup, they didn't bite properly.
We ate in silence and they asked for seconds and then thirds. After that, they looked satiated and sleepy.
“Who wants cake?” I asked and took a German chocolate cake out of the oven.
The half asleep children woke up from the smell and all of them even managed to eat a piece. All except the four-year-old, it's a girl and she fell asleep while eating. Lilia had to clean her face because she fell face first into her piece of cake.
All but Ran'ko fell asleep. He was the oldest and I think he thought himself as the protector of them.
“Let put them to bed,” Ilza suggested and they carried them to a large bed, where all of them can sleep together.
Ran'ko watched over them and then came back to the kitchen and sat down.
“What will happen with us?” He then asked in a serious tone.
“I thought of taking you with us to the capital of the elfs, where we will find an orphanage for you. That or I could take you to an orphanage in Aeron. It's far away and there aren't many elfs, but it's nice there and a lot of different races live in peace. There won't be any raids from humans, however, there will be humans. What do you want?” I said and gave him tea.
He drank a bit and then said, “Could you please take us to the capital? We don't want to live with humans.”
“Sure, oh and just for the records, none of us is human. The woman named Lilia is a half-elf and the man is an arch demon,” I said. I shouldn't have said that Drull is an arch demon. His eyes got wide and he looked at Drull.
“W...will he eat us,” he asked fearfully.
“Only if Master allows it,” he said with a grin and got a smack from Lilia.
“He won't eat you,” she then said and patted his head.
“Really?” He asked.
“Yes, Drull isn't allowed to eat children without my consent,” I said.
“Am I right with the assumption that your village was raided by slavers?” I then asked.
“Yes, they came at night. Our parents hid us and we were to scared to come out for two days. We found many dead villagers and some human soldiers as we came out. No one was alive anymore. We weren't strong enough to bury them, so monster came shortly after. I didn't lie as I said that other got eaten by monster. We were 13 at first, but 4 were eaten in the first night and 5 more in the second. We deemed the village to dangerous during the night, with all the corpses laying around, so we hid in the forest and only came to the village for food. There is not much left and we had to ration since four days. Your soup was delicious,” he said and smiled weakly at the end.
“How long did you hide?” I asked.
“Three weeks,” he said. It's a wonder that they didn't die inside the forest.
“I hate it to say, but your parent's are already dead, I'm able to see your status and you are orphans according to it,” I said.
“I think that's better than the other option,” he said with tears in his eyes. Lilia hugged him and he silently began to cry. He fell asleep while crying and Lilia carried him to the other three.
“I'm sorry for them. No one deserves to witness such a thing, especially no one so young,” She said as she came back.
“We can't change what happened. We can only bring them to the capital, find an orphanage for them and perhaps give them some money,” I said.
“It's good that we came by, they might have starved to death or get eaten otherwise,” Ilza said.
“Yeah, let's go to sleep,” I said and we all went to bed.
Later at night, I woke up from someone speaking. It were the children, so I activated [Eavesdropping] and listened in.
“You think we should flee?” the other boy, I think his name is Ul'tro, asked.
“I don't know, they seem friendly. At least the blond woman and the blond elf are. I'm not so sure about the silver haired one and I don't trust the man,” Ran'ko said.
“Food was good,” a girl, probably the four year old one, said.
“Yes and she said that they will bring us to the capital into an orphanage,” Ran'ko said after a short pause.
“I think we should go with them, they gave us food and we wouldn't survive much longer without them,” the older girl said.
“But what if they sell us to slavers?” Ul'tro asked.
“They don't look like slavers and they wouldn't treat us like this if they were,” the girl said.
“Ilza elf, no human slaver,” the four-year-old said.
“I also don't think that they are slavers. It would be easier for them to simply capture and tie us up. They are too friendly for slavers,” Ran'ko said.
“The silver-haired wasn't really friendly as she caught us,” Ul'tro said.
“You wouldn't have stopped if she had asked,” Ran'ko said, surprisingly defending me.
“So who's for trusting them?” the older girl asked.
“I think we can trust them,” Ran'ko said.
“Trust?!” The four-year-old said, but it didn't sound like she knows what it means.
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“I think we should flee,” Ul'tro said.
“So two for trusting and Li'ra can't be counted. This means we will trust them,” the older girl said.
“Hmpf, you'll see,” Ul'tro said.
“Let's sleep,” Ran'ko said and they went quiet.
Their behaviour is way past their real age, must have been the traumatizing events during the three weeks.
We ate breakfast on the next morning and the children seemed to really like pancakes.
“So let's introduce ourself and what will happen from now on. My name is Clair, this is Drull and you already know Lilia, as well as Ilza. We are on a trip around the world and wanted to visit the grave of Lilia's parents. That's why we are here. Ran'ko talked with me yesterday and said that you want to an orphanage in the capital. That is our next destination and you'll tack along. We have a special method of travelling, so I will build something for you to come with us. We will travel at a fast pace, but don't worry it won't be tiring. Could you tell us your names?” I said.
“I'm Ran'ko, this is Ul'tro, the small one is Li'ra and the older girl is Fa'en, thank you for taken us with you,” Ran'ko said and they all thanked us.
“You can gather things you want to take with you, it doesn't matter how much we can take it with us. I'll build your transport in the meantime,” I said and stood up.
They also stood up and Ilza and Lilia helped them to gather keepsakes of their family while I build small bicycles with runes.
The runes will let them follow us automatically. They are more like a ball with a seat, than a bicycle. Each bicycle has one seat and is equipped with a seatbelt and safety measures in case of a crash. But I don't think that will happen. They are comfortable and programmed to follow us while evading any hindrance. The ball will make rapid manoeuvre possible and keeps the whole thing constantly upwards and pointed in one direction.
I wish I had some sort of flying metal or a rune for that, it would be way cooler.
I'm working on a rune for flying but the current one only lets something hover. It's not yet ready for further tasks, like following and don't even speak about evading.
They finished with their keepsakes and we walked to the graves of Lilia's parents. They were overgrown, so we cleaned them. They were two stones with their names and some inscription about their names and that someone loves them.
“Hi mom, dad. I'm sorry for not visiting you for so long, I had much to do and was afraid to come to the village. ...I'm fine as you can see. I finally found real friends and even someone I love, so you don't have to worry about me. I hope you are fine, wherever you are. I miss you, but I'll do what you said mom and live on,” she said with teary eyes and then laid some flowers down.
We all watched in silence and waited for her to finish.
After around three minutes of silence, she turned around and said,” I'm fine, we can go.”
“You just have to sit down, and put the belt on. The bike will do the rest,” I said as we were back in the village and helped Li'ra into her bike.
“Is this safe?” Ul'tro asked unsurely.
“Jup,” I said confidently. I didn't test them but it surely will work. They must work, they will work, do they work?
They all sat down and we started to drive away. At first slowly, to test the bikes, but they worked, so we steadily got faster.
“UUUAAAA, what is this thing?” Fa'en asked while screaming.
“HIHIHIHIHIHIHI” Li'ra just giggled and raised her hands.
Ul'tro looked green and Ran'ko tried to look cool and confident. But he twitched with each sudden turn.
“The trees are only blurs!” Fa'en screamed.
Indeed, we were so fast that they couldn't see the trees clearly. Driving inside the forest is fun, jumping over roots, sometimes driving on the trees and jumping over small creeks.
We drove for the the whole forenoon and then ate some sandwiches. After that, we continued till evening and I made a house.
“How can you do that?” Ran'ko asked amazed by my spell.
“It's a high Tier spell,” I said and went inside.
“What do you want to eat?” I asked as we were in the kitchen.
“You mean we can choose?” Fa'en asked unsurely.
“Sure,” I said.
“Then can you make kebab with lots of meat?” Ul'tro asked.
“Or these pancakes from today's breakfast?” Ran'ko asked.
“Cookies!” Li'ra shouted.
“Would it be possible to make vegetable kebab?” Fa'en asked shyly.
“Okay, different kinds of kebab and cookies. Sorry Ran'ko but pancakes are for breakfast, I will make them tomorrow morning,” I said.
“”YAY,“” all of them shouted in union.
I started to cook and they went to the living room.
“You are way friendlier now,” Lilia said when they were gone.
“I just don't like to hug male children or males in general,” I said while cutting.
“Why? Aren't they cute?” She asked.
“I don't find them cute. Don't know but I see male children only as brats, I can't think of them as cute,” I said.
“Strange,” she simply said and then helped me.
They ate with gusto and the cookies were well liked by Li'ra. She must have a second stomach or my way of dissolving food through [Mana Manipulation]. Otherwise, it's impossible to explain how she ate 6 of them. I mean the cookies were large, around ten centimetres in diameter.
Afterwards, they slept like rocks. But they didn't sleep silently every night. Sometimes they cried in their sleep.
We travelled like this for four days, when we found a small lake.
“Let's go swimming,” I said and stopped.
I quickly made swim trousers and bath suits for the children and we changed behind a raised wall. Naturally I changed with the woman, HEHEHEHE. Lilia's and Ilza's bikinis were stunning.
“I heard that there are monster inside lakes,” Ran'ko said.
“Don't worry we have an anti-monster trick,” I said.
“Trick?” Li'ra asked.
“Yes, you simply take him,” I said and grabbed Drull, “ And throw him inside,” I further said and hurled Drull in the middle of the lake.
“No Master, no no noooooo,” Drull screamed.
°SPLASH° a fountain emerged as he connected with the water.
“And now you wait,” I said with a smile. The children just looked at me with an open mouth.
°BOOM° a giant fountain grew where Drull was and a fish monster flew out of the water.
“A monster!” Ul'tro screamed and they hid behind us.
A few more booms and a few more monster flew out of the water. Then suddenly the water turned black and shortly after blue again. A few seconds after countless fish and monster floated to the surface.
I put them in my inventory and Drull emerged from under water.
“Why always me Master?” Drull asked in a complaining tone.
“Because you can use AOE attacks and it's funnier than with Ilza or Lilia,” I shouted back and jumped inside. I jumped next to Drull, so he got splashed.
“You can come in, there is no longer any monster inside,” I said and waved to the children. Lilia and Ilza also came inside.
The children followed shortly after but stayed near the shore.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“We can't swim, we never were near a lake,” Fa'en said.
“I'll teach you,” I said and swum up to them.
“Look, you have to push the water away, like this,” I said and showed the movements in slow motion.
“You won't sink when you have air in you, you can simply let yourself float,” I then said.
They tried it and failed like expected.
“I'll give you something to float,” I said and conjured some of these worm-like plastic floats.
“Here, you just have to sit on them and they will let you float. Use your arms to move around,” I said and showed them how to do it.
This was easier and they managed to float around. I also conjured water pistols and we played. They laughed, all of them. That was the first time since we left the village that they laughed. Li'ra might be too young to understand everything, so she laughed before, but the other three laughed for the first time.
“Why are you travelling?” Fa'en asked while floating next to me.
“We want to see the world,” I said.
“What did you see up till now?” She asked interestedly.
“Hmm, we started in Aeron,” I began.
“Aeron? Where is that?” She asked.
“It's a new country, do you know the dragon forest? It's inside of it,” I said.
“I heard of it, what about the dragons?” She asked.
“They are gone, we build a country on their nest,” I said.
“We?” Ul'tro asked.
“Clair founded the country, she's also known as Goddess of Carring,” Ilza boasted.
“You are a queen?” Fa'en asked with sparkling eyes.
“I let someone else be the queen,” I said.
“Why? Isn't it nice to be a queen?” she asked.
“I couldn't travel if I would be the queen,” I said with a laugh.
“Anyway, we started in Aeron and then visited Lichtstadt and the empress of Raska,” I continued.
“Grandpa once said that Raska is a country full of bad people,” Ran'ko said.
“Not all of them are bad, but it's true that many of them don't like any none humans. After that we visited a dungeon and saw many beautiful places between here and there,” I said.
“Was the dungeon full of monster?” Ul'tro asked excitedly.
“It was, but we have beaten them all up,” I said.
I told some more stories about our travel and then made the house near the lake, where we stayed for the day.
Three weeks later we reached the outskirts of the capital. It's called Gura`lan. The town is elf-like, almost all the houses are built inside the trees and a gigantic tree was in the middle. The gigantic tree looked like a world tree so large was it. Elfs and Farys were walking and flying around.
Farys looked like you would expect them, small humanoid, flying figures. However, they didn't glow, there were male and female and they wore clothes.
“We're here, that's Gura`lan. We find an orphanage and then our ways part,” I said. We were allowed to go inside, but Drull and Lilia had to pay a large sum because they look like a human. We paid and asked for the best orphanage in the town. The guard directed us to an orphanage called “Children's Home”. We found it after asking a few more times. It's also a large tree with stairs that lead upwards. The houses are build inside hollow parts of the tree.
The first hollow part was at ground level, so I knocked there at a door.
A boy of around 13 years opened the door.
“Yes?” He asked.
“Are we at “Children's Home?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Could we speak with the manager or director of this orphanage?” I then asked.
“Follow me,” he simply said and we did as he said.
“Miss Fu'ta, two elfs, two humans and four children are here, they want to speak with you!” He shouted loudly.
“I'm coming,” A woman replied from one floor above.
She came down shortly after, she looked like 40, thin and had red hair.
“Hello, my name is Fu'ta, how may I help you?” She asked with a smile.
“Hello, my name is Clair, this is Drull, Lilia, Ilza, Fa'en, Li'ra, Ul'tro and Ran'ko. We're here because we want to give the children in your care,” I said.
“Nice to meet you, may I know why?” She asked and led us to a large desk. The boy led the children upwards, after a gesture from Fu'ta.
We sat down and I told her the story of how we found them.
“This is such a sad story, and thank you for helping these children,” she said with teary eyes at the end.
“We aren't able to take them with us and they don't want to live in Aeron, so could you take care of them? We're ready to give some money as compensation,” I said.
“You don't need to give me money, it's my job to help parentless children,” she said.
“But we want to, is the currency system the same as in the human countries?” I asked.
“It is,” she said as she saw that a no is not allowed.
“Then here are a hundred gold for each child, please use it for their education and maybe for a head start in their future life,” I said and put four sacks with gold on the table.
She looked at me as if I was lying and then opened one sack. She then looked at me, her mouth already fell open.
“That is way too much money!” She almost screamed in shock.
“Take it. We don't need it,” I simply said.
“A...are you sure? I...I mean that is an awfully large amount of money. It...It's so much that we can live with it for a long, long time,” she said, in an unbelieving tone.
“As I said, take it. We have enough and you can use it,” I said with a smile.
“Thank you, thank you very much. They can stay and I'll do as you have said. The money will be used for education and for the children,” she said now crying.
“Thanks, our journey is too dangerous for children of their age,” Lilia said with a smile.
“Do you want to stay and eat with us?” She asked after a moment to calm down.
“We'd like to,” I said. I annexed the kitchen and made a lot of food and sweets for the children. All in all, there were 50 children and four caretakers.
Everyone liked the food and nothing was left. Fa'en, Li'ra, Ul'tro, and Ran'ko came to us after dinner.
“This is the moment we're going to part, Fu`ta will take care of you and we gave her some money for your future. If you ever come to Aeron, ask for us at the palace,” I said.
“Don't leave,” Li'ra said with tears.
“It's okay, you'll have it good here,” Lilia said and hugged her.
“Thanks for helping us and bringing us here,” Ran'ko said and bowed deeply.
“No problem. Remember, ask for us at the palace in Nahar, that is the capital of Aeron,” I said.
Each of us got a hug, even Drull and we left with them waving at us.
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SURPRISE! You didn't expect a third chapter did you?^^
An imaginary cookie for those who now the innuendo about the German chocolate cake. Write it in the comments if you know what I mean. I'll send you a pm if you're right or wrong.