My head was pounding relentlessly, added to by what felt like a sharp peck on my forehead. It was a Gilded Woodpecker, an ordinary beast lightly touched by mana, making it larger than otherwise.

"Come back, Yellow Feather," I heard Hadrian call out, his voice softer than I had ever heard. His sense for naming was just as uninspired as most people's.

Despite his earlier protection, I still found it hard to trust him entirely. I struggled to trust anyone at all, except Kidra. Too many past mistakes had obliterated any traces of my naïve trust.

There was also the way he had taken me away without so much as a word. Granted, I had agreed to come with him, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that he would have taken me regardless of my agreement. To top it off, he was being pursued by a Grand mage. A Grand mage, of all people!

Each of the four nations had but a handful of them, all due to the constraints of mana. She had almost killed us, and that was when her spell had been wildly off-target. A direct hit? Undoubtedly, it would have spelled our doom. The forest would've been my grave. Better than the city, at least.

I had a hunch that Hadrian was hiding something. If I hadn't been with him, he could have escaped unscathed. With that in mind, I swallowed the foul words on the tip of my tongue and instead asked, "How bad is it?"

I asked this because I could sense the state of my body. My right arm was completely unresponsive, and my left arm was barely functional. My legs were also severely injured, but at least I could bend them. Regardless, getting up was an impossible task. Even if someone were to hold me up, walking was not going to happen.

My torso was quite a sight, with parts of it mangled and the areas that weren't bleeding covered in scars and scabs. If there was something I could be grateful for, my face wasn't too damaged, and my neck was primarily unscathed, save for a sprain. The rest of my body, however, had severe damage dealt to it.

Before Hadrian responded, he sent the small bird off. He was more considerate towards the creature than he had been to me; he had a soft spot for animals. Who would have thought?

"Bearer of the Moth," he began, "I bothered to send our little avian friend to see whether I had managed to save your life. If you didn't possess a strong will to survive, considering the injuries covering your body, you would not have woken up again. Something drives you greatly."

I found no words to respond to that; the agony coursing through my body made it nearly impossible to think. The power within was seeping into my vital organs to keep me alive. If all this had happened before encountering that pond, I'd be as lifeless as the stone next to me.

"It appears you've grasped the severity of your condition," Hadrian continued. "At least, for now, we won't have anyone tracking or chasing us. I'm going to have to leave you here while I go and search for medicinal herbs. Whatever else we had on us is destroyed or lost after that grand spell."

Just say it if you're going to abandon me. Everyone else does," I blurted out, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.

"I won't comment on that. Your body's been pushed to its limits and your mind even further," Hadrian replied. "Concentrate on circulating the aura in your body. You'll still die if it stops before I return with the necessary herbs to treat your most severe wounds. As for the risk of being discovered by anyone or anything, I've shrouded you in the same aura as before. I relocated you next to the root outcrop of this obsidian pine tree before you regained yourself. Off I go. Don't die on me just yet, idiot."

He did leave, making me feel genuinely abandoned; all I could do was stare at the clear sky and struggle with my internal whirlwind. The weather wasn't too bad, neither scorching hot nor chillingly cold. My desires had significantly changed since I received the exile letter from my family at the age of ten. Mana had become an obsession, a goal almost unattainable.

Life was no fairy tale. Surviving at the bottom of society, without any magical talent or exceptional skills, was an uphill battle. I often found myself on the verge of giving up to the bitterness of it all, to the cruelty of those bastards who had cast me aside like an unwanted toy. Yet, a part of me wanted their acceptance. I had to prove myself worthy and regain my place in the family.

Usually, I would suppress these swirling emotions. However, as Hadrian had said, my mind had exceeded its limits. The filter holding back my desires would be out until my mental state improved. Was it my fault for being cursed? I never asked the God of Magic, Cenedros, to strip me of my mana and any ability to benefit from it. What sin had I committed? What must I do to earn this world's acceptance?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

My racing thoughts were interfering with the circulation of my aura, causing it to slow down. Fear took me, and I pushed my worries aside with great effort, if only for a moment. Carefully, I directed the aura from my head to my heart and then to each limb based on the severity of the injuries. The aura took longer to move through the more severely damaged limbs, so I didn't force it. Putting additional effort into ensuring the energy reached my wounds, I observed the bleeding slowing. The bleeding ceased entirely for minor injuries, and the wounds began to form scabs.

With that, I shut my eyes and focused wholly on this inner circulation, even shutting out my senses. My mind was consumed in a forced state of intense concentration. Hours slipped unnoticed until a sentence was forced upon me, as though transported straight into my mind. A voice echoed around me, resonating with the surrounding nature, a sound more beautiful and feminine than anything I'd ever heard. It held an unintentional seduction that altered me. Her voice filled my senses, beautiful and feminine, a sound unlike anything I'd heard before. It was soft, almost seductive.

Slowly, I opened my eyes to see a tall, well-built elf standing over me. The elf looked down at me with a mixture of worry and suspicion. Her green eyes were bright and full of power. Her light brown hair contrasted sharply with her pale skin. Despite my pain and grim situation, I couldn't help but notice her striking beauty.

But my body was hurting, and my mood was low. Despite what Hadrian said, this forest elf had found me. The belief that elves no longer lived in the Naien Forest was wrong. Had some of them come back without anyone noticing?

My parched throat managed to squeak out a weak "Hello."

My distrust of her was evident, but I could only hope she wasn't hostile. I could do nothing to stop her if she wanted to harm me. I was utterly defenseless. But rather than launching an attack, she asked a question that puzzled me.

"You... you're human, right?" she queried, her voice full of disbelief. "You don't seem to have any mana in you. It's as if you've never had any mana in your life. And yet... those blue veins all over you. You've tried to force mana into you several times, but it won't combine with your body. Where does all that mana go?"

Realizing I had no choice but to speak the truth, as my life was literally in her hands, I confessed.

"I've never been able to use mana. You're right, in a way. In my kingdom, Reverent, I'm not considered human. I'm just a filthy cursed."

"A cursed? Is that what they call you?" she repeated, intrigued. "You don't seem cursed to me. You're different from all the other humans I've seen in this blessed forest. Like those bearers...but not quite."

"In human society, to have mana not useable at all on you or any mana ability means you are "cursed," a failure, less than human."

"A blessed calling himself a cursed? How interesting," she replied, a playful tone in her voice. "Remember, women don't like men who wallow in misery."

The aura I was circulating was healing me, and the heightened senses had come back now that they were no longer blocked up by focusing solely on the circulating aura. Despite my pain and exhaustion, I felt anger and embarrassment at her playful comment. I momentarily forgot she was only teasing, and without thinking, I snapped back, "What would you know?" The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them, sounding harsher than I intended.

She was taken slightly aback by my swift attitude change. "You sure do get emotional very quickly," she remarked with a hint of mockery. Her voice, however, still carried a tinge of amusement.

"I'm not 'you.' My name is Falond," I clarified.

"Failure?" Her eyes looked perplexed.

"No, Falond. And your name is?"

"Verdenia. Don't tell anyone; my clan told me not to reveal my name to strange humans." A hint of joking was in her tone, missed by me.

"What do they take you for, a five-year-old?" I retorted.

"Such a negative human, I mean Falond," she teased.

"Okay, Verdenia, so what is it that you want? I'm sure you don't just introduce yourself to any random human, no matter how negative he is." I asked, cutting to the chase.

"I was curious if you were still alive after such severe wounds, and secondly, I could sense that you had no mana in you at all. You're almost like an elf, but not quite the same," Verdenia explained, tilting her head as if thinking on her own words.

My life had taken an unexpected turn. I was caught up in an odd encounter with Verdenia, a strange forest elf. Her comment about me being "almost like an elf" interested me and raised questions in my mind. That gave me the courage to ask what she meant.

"Almost like an elf?" I repeated her words, my brow furrowing in confusion. "What exactly does that mean? Sure, elves can't use mana; what can they use then?"

"That, Falond, is a secret for now.". This elf maiden, Verdenia, took some work to get used to.

Feeling flustered, I realized I wasn't handling the situation well. With half of my attention focused on using aura to prevent myself from bleeding out, it wasn't easy to maintain control over my emotions. I realized that getting too emotional lowered my ability to circulate aura effectively, so I tried to suppress my feelings.

After a brief silence, Verdenia seemed to grow bored and proposed a bet. "Say human, no, Falond, let's place a bet!"

Verdenia's proposal caught my attention, and a sense of foreboding washed over me. I cautiously asked, " A bet?"

With a mischievous smile, Verdenia replied, "The reward is simple: your life. If you win, I'll take you back to my clan's encampment. For free even!"

Her tone was light, but her eyes were the opposite.