Lilia’s POV:

When I entered the knight headquarters of the kingdom, I found the knights in a state turmoil. I was confused for a second but quickly remembered the reason why I’m here.

“Hey you!” I shouted at the person guarding the entrance.

He must have not expected someone shouting at him. Well that’s to be expected. Knights are well respected and feared in the kingdom, even the lower ranked ones. Talking back to them and defying their orders can result in you landing in prison.

“What insolen- Ah. Miss Lilia, What business do you have here tonight?” Seeing who called him, he immediately changed his tone.

“Have you seen a child with silver hair pass through here? And also, why is there no knight in the guardpost near the shopping district?”

“No I haven’t. As for the reason why there was no one in the guardpost, I’m sorry but I don’t really have an idea either.”

Having heard his response, I decided to head to the main office of the headquarters. There I found the current king of the Ludenburgh Kingdom, Edward Leo Ludenburgh III, sitting in a chair behind a desk wearing a serious expression. Deep in thought, he didn’t seem to notice me entering the room.

“Your Majesty!” I shouted. "Is there something wrong?”

“Lilia! I’m glad to see that you're here!” He replied.

“I would like to ask another favor from you.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Alicia was abducted while she was visiting the orphanage.” Alicia Leo Ludenburgh is the princess of the kingdom of Ludenburgh.

“How? Did she not have any knights with her?”

“She did! But somehow, they manage to abduct her without being noticed.”

“Do you have any leads to where and who could have done this abduction?”

“We don’t know..” He held his head with his hand while looking down. He then looked at me and said firmly. “Please find them and save my daughter. For today, I’ll give you the authority to do anything that you must do.” He handed me a platinum insignia.

“Yes Your Majesty!” I took the insignia, placed my right fist on my chest then went out of the room.

At the other side of the room, I met another knight wearing a gold insignia on his chest signifying his position.

“Great timing Commander Augustus. I would like you to gather every knight in the surrounding area in the courtyard.” Hearing my order, he sneered and then gave me a snarky reply.

“I don’t believe you have the authority to order me around Miss Lilia.”

I glared at him and gave a short response. “King’s Orders.”

I heard him click his tongue as I slowly walked towards the courtyard thinking of what steps I should take.

Tens of knights had slowly filled the whole courtyard. I stood at the podium and raised my voice.

“Attention!” As soon as they heard my order, all of them formed ranks.

“I have been given authority by the king to give orders to all of you,” I explained while showing them a platinum insignia in the shape of the crest of the royal family.

“If you didn’t know, the princess has been abducted. We still don’t know her whereabouts and who the culprit is. Our top priority is to find the princess and save her from the hands of the abductors. I order you to close the gates and do not let anyone outside without proper inspections. Check every nook and cranny of each carriage. Separate yourselves in a group of five and start investigating from the slums, shopping district, and the noble district in that order. Spread the word to every knight you encounter. Now go!” Everyone started separating like ants.

“I guess it’s also time for me to go,” I ran out of the headquarters to also look for the princess and Lumina.

*+*

Lumina’s POV:

I suddenly found myself staring at a wall of a dark room.

“Huh? What happened? Wasn’t I in front of the bookstore?” I tried to stand up and walked but found myself constrained with a chain.

“HUH?!? What the heck happened?” I was just sitting in front of the bookstore, why am I suddenly in this dark room chained to a wall?!?

“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” A familiar voice started ringing in my head.

“Uh? Hello?”

“Oh! It connected! Miki- Lumina. You go with Lumina now right? It’s me, your favorite Goddess!”

Favorite Goddess? After turning me into a girl and making me suffer, you really think you’re my favorite Goddess? I didn’t even believe in Gods and Goddesses in the first place. I thought to myself.

“Now, now. You don’t need to be so rude. I know I turned you into a girl but shouldn’t you be happy since the chances of you getting rejected are lower now?” She said while chuckling here and there.

“Annoying. Can you at least not read my mind? Also, why turn me into a demon in the first place? A little one at that? Aren’t the demons in this world heavily prejudiced?”

“I couldn’t do anything about it. It’s the only body that has similar looks to mine. I can’t create a new body just for you, since it’s gonna be against the rules you know.”

“So? Why are you contacting me? Are you gonna save me from this PREDICAMENT?” I said, adding stress on the word predicament.

“You sure do love getting into trouble huh? Sorry but I can’t help you. But maybe, MAYBE. If you sincerely ask for help from this beautiful Goddess, I might think about saving you.” She said in a mocking tone.

“I will then. My beautiful Goddess, please save me from this predicament I’m currently i-” Before I even finished my sentence, she interrupted me. “Just kidding! Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. We, Gods, aren’t allowed to directly mess with anything down in the mortal realm. Not that I would save you though. LOL”

“YOU BI-”

“For the reason why I contacted you. You’re gonna meet someone soon. Make sure you befriend them or whatever. You’ll need them in the future.”

“Befriend? How do you exactly expect me to do that when I can’t even speak the language of this world? At least give me the knowledge or something.”

“No can do. As I said, directly meddling is not allowed. Also, you should be relatively safe as long as you don’t do anything too stupid.” Just like that, her voice is gone as quickly as it appeared. Having nothing else to do, I just thought of some things I can do to befriend that person while in my situation.

A bit later, a rugged looking man entered the room carrying a young girl. He placed the girl on the floor, chained her foot, then left shortly after.

I tried interacting with the girl but she wasn’t reacting. I even tried shaking her and nothing. She was just staring at the wall.

Having no reaction from her, I decided to leave her alone. After a while though, she started looking around confused.

“Oh.. So that was what happened to me.”

Hearing my voice, she immediately looked at me and backed away from shock.

“Sino sika!?!” She shouted at me while pushing herself along the wall away from me.

“Lumina.” Having no way of properly communicating with her, I decided to just introduce myself the same way I did with Lilia. By saying my name and pointing at myself.

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She stared at me but I did not move from my position after I introduced myself.

She cautiously sat down on the floor, not breaking eye contact with me.

“Name?” I said while trying to crawl towards her.

“Layo!” She screamed at me and threw a small rock that was near her.

“Ahh!” It hit me on my arms. I wouldn't blame her. I would probably also do the same when I suddenly find myself in a dark room and someone starts crawling towards me saying things I can’t understand. But that still hurts damnit. I rubbed my arm trying to ease the pain.

“Pa - pasemasiya!” She shouted at me. Was she saying I deserve it? I’m sorry then.

Once again I tried introducing myself.

“Lumina.” I pointed to myself then at her. I think she finally got what I was trying to communicate as she started saying things while also pointing at herself.

“A- Alicia!” She shouted, still keeping her distance from me.

This sure is difficult. What are you even supposed to do to get close to a child? Ah! I know! A bright idea came to mind. I put both my hands in front of me, my palm facing towards me and did the magic trick where you seperate your thumb from your whole hand.

“Umm..” She looked me straight in the eye, not showing any kind of reaction.

AHHHH. I turned my back to her and placed my hands on my face. What the hell am I doing? After seeing what I was doing, I heard her starting to chuckle. I know that we’re in a very serious situation but lightening the mood wouldn’t hurt.

After quite some time, we were sitting next to each other. I don’t know how it happened. I just noticed that we’re somehow next to each other now. She realized that I couldn’t understand her quite fast so we ended up being silent most of the time. I managed to teach her how to play rock-paper-scissors though and we ended up playing a lot of rounds with me winning 46 to 32. At the beginning, I won 5 consecutive times. She was quite the competitive person and didn’t want to stop until she beat me so we ended up playing almost 80 rounds. We just stopped because she started yawning, showing her sleepiness. I think I’ve had enough rock-paper-scissors for a while.

As the night got deeper, the temperature in the room started to get lower. Since we didn’t have any blankets or anything, we huddled up together to fight the cold. It was uncomfortable but our tiredness managed to beat the lack of comfort that we were feeling and we managed to fall asleep

I woke up from the noise outside of the room we’re in. There was still no sun coming from the window so it’s probably still the middle of the night. Before I can finish thinking about the time, the rugged guy from earlier entered the room with what seemed to be two circular metal in his arms. Alicia was also woken up from the loud opening of the door.

He made his way towards me. As he got closer, I noticed that the circular metal in her hands was similar to the metal collars the slaves were wearing in the shiopping district earlier.

This was just my third day in this world. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life as a slave. I tried fighting back, but this only proved to be an annoyance though. He pulled my hair up in the air lifting me from the ground.

I screamed in pain. I grabbed his hands, lifting my body up. I tried kicking him so he would let go of me. The kick connected, but that seemed to only push him over the edge. He dropped the metal collars in his hands then slapped me. It woke me up from the stupidity that I’m currently doing. What could a measly child do to a fully grown adult? After the slap, I stopped resisting and let him put the collar on my neck. He placed it around my neck then, *Click* It was now locked. My fate has been sealed.

After putting a collar on my neck, he walked towards Alicia and also placed one on her. Seeing what happened to me, she didn’t show one bit of resistance.

A scrawny looking man followed to the room with a rope in hand. He said something to the rugged man and the already sour face of his turned even more sour. He glared at me then the collar on my neck suddenly tightened. I tried pulling on it but it wouldn't budge. It only tightened for a couple of seconds but it was enough to make me gasp for air after it loosened. He smirked at me then left the room. The scrawny guy tied both my hands and Alicia’s with the rope with him then pulled us out of the room.

He continued pulling us out of the small building and into an alley behind it. At the end of the alley was an entrance leading underground. The stench coming out of the hole was horrid. At the entrance was a ladder going deeper into the hole. While the scrawny guy was going down the ladder, I thought that this was the only chance for us to escape so I kicked him down the ladder. He slipped his footing and fell.

When I looked at the girl with me, her eyes were moist and watery. She was probably afraid of what’s going to happen to her. I quickly attempted to untie the rope with my mouth. Luckily, the rope wasn’t tied that tightly and I was able to untie it relatively easily. I then untied the rope on Alicia's hand then smiled at her, reassuring her that she would be safe. I pulled her hand leading her outside the alley that we entered. There we encountered another guy wearing an eye patch. This guy was a bit more muscular than the scrawny one but less than the rugged one. He shouted after seeing us. I knew what I was gonna do. I needed to buy enough time for Alicia to escape. The goddess said that I wouldn’t die here so I’m probably gonna be fine. I charged towards the man and hugged his leg.

“RUN!” I screamed at Alicia. I don’t know if she understood me, but she started running away out of the alleyway. I looked at the man straight in the eye and smirked at him. This must have made him really irritated as he started pushing me away from him. I pushed him with all my strength and managed to trip him. After falling on the floor, he started punching my head out of anger, even resorting to kicks at times. I still didn’t let go though. I needed to buy as much time as possible. Coming from a peaceful place, I just can't bear the thought of a child I met falling into slavery. I bit his leg with as much force as I could.

He screamed in pain, took a small dagger and started swinging at me. His first swing made full contact on my head. I heard a loud clang then a sharp pain spread through my whole body and I lost even the strength to stand. Another swing of his managed to slash my chest as I was falling to the floor.

It's warm. My chest felt really warm. I placed my hand on top of it, discovering the large amount of blood coming out of my chest.

"Is this game over for me?" I laughed at myself. I guess I'll be seeing you again soon you dumb goddess.

When I thought my suffering was about to end, the man that put the collar on my neck arrived and was furious after learning what had transpired. He shouted words at me.

"Jokes on you I didn’t understand a single thing that you said." After hearing my reply, the collar on my neck started tightening again.

"H- elp me. Lil-ia" I forced myself to say even if I knew that it wouldn't make her magically appear in front of me.

Lilia’s POV:

I’m almost finished inspecting the area around the shopping district, checking every carriage that crosses my way. The disappearance of Lumina and Princess Alicia was not that long ago so they should still be inside the Kingdom somewhere.

“Please be safe, both of you..” I whispered to myself as I continued running around, checking every alleyway I came into. I checked everywhere but nothing. As I started walking back to the headquarters to rethink our approach, I heard someone screaming for help. I immediately sprinted to the source of the sound as fast as I could. When I got close to the source of the sound, I discovered that it was Princess Alicia, running, while crying for help.

“Princess!” I shouted at her to grab her attention. She noticed me and started running towards me.

“Miss Lilia! Please help us! He- Help Lumina!” Her voice quivered asking for help. Then suddenly Alicia started grabbing at her neck. I noticed that there was a slave collar on her neck. Who in the world would have enough guts to put a slave collar on a member of the royal family? I took my rapier out of its sheath, lowered my stance, and aimed at the collar at her neck. Slave collar are tough to break, but it’s not impossible.

“Please stay still princess. I’ll take that thing off your neck,” She momentarily stopped her breathing.

“Haste!” The handle of my rapier glowed. At that moment, I thrusted my rapier at the center of the collar as fast as I could. The rapier accelerated thrice as fast as what I can normally do. It did not break, but it showed signs of damage. Again, I aimed at the collar and did another strike.

“Haste! Haste!” I struck the collar two consecutive times and managed to break it off her neck. She gasped for air then continued asking me for help.

“The- There was another person with me! Please save her!” She held my arm while looking up straight into my eyes.

“Please lead me there.” Upon hearing what I said she pointed at the direction where she came from, towards an alley. I picked the princess up and started sprinting towards the alley. Before we could enter though, a man wearing an eyepatch came out of the corner. After he noticed the princess in my arms, he immediately unsheathed his dagger and pointed it at me.

“Look here, Miss. I don’t know who you are and how you managed to remove the slave collar on that little girl, but I suggest you give her to me now. If you do, I’ll allow you to leave this place scott-free!” He said to me arrogantly.

“Do you have another child with silver hair in your custody?” I asked him without looking away all the while lowering the princess to the ground.

“Yes we d-”

“Haste!” Before he could finish his sentence, I immediately casted a spell and dashed in front of him, my rapier only inches away from her neck.

“Where is she?”

“I- I don-” His voice was trembling, clearly terrified at the rapier near his neck.

“Where is she?!” I raised my voice.

“I- In the alley! She’s being handled by the boss!” He replied, intimidated. After getting the information that I needed, I quickly knocked this man out.

I quickly dashed to the alley to find a big man with overly big muscles waiting for me. He was forcing Lumina to stand up by pulling her hair. She was clearly struggling to even stand up. He was also aiming a small dagger straight at her eye.

“Hold it right there, miss. Where do you think you’re going?” He pulled Lumina’s hair higher making her cry in pain. I stepped closer towards them revealing Lumina’s current state.

There was blood in her whole front, coming out from a slash on her chest. Blood was also falling from her head. There were even bruises on her arms. The little girl who was already struggling to stand up staggered even further as the hands she was using to pull her hair up were now on the tightening collar on her neck.

“Now look at what you’ve done. The collar is now tighter because of you. I would suggest stepping back a little if you want this little kid to see another day.” He laughed then gave me a smirk.

I was seething with rage. All the thoughts in my head are telling me to get rid of this guy. Dismember him. Kill him. Murder him. I didn’t want a repeat of what happened in the past. If I just let it happen again, then what would be the purpose of my years of training, and studying? I did not want a repeat of history. KILL. KILL. KILL.

“Li- lia..” Lumina quietly mumbled as she reached her arms towards me. That was the final straw. I already lost someone because of my powerlessness. But it’s different now. I’m not the same, weak elf I was once before.

“Accel.” Before even the man could react, there was already a long metal piercing between his eyes. He looked at the rapier, then to my eyes, before slowly falling to the floor.

I quickly grabbed Lumina to see her current condition. Her breathing was weak, and her body temperature has fallen a lot. Her left horn has also been broken.

“Li-lia..” She muttered my name one last time before losing her consciousness.

“A demon?” The princess, seeing Lumina’s exposed horn, slowly backed off.

“Princess, this is not what you think!” I said, covering the horn of Lumina.

She was still hesitant and did not want to move closer towards her. As Lumina’s condition worsened, I had no choice but to carry both of them towards the Knight Headquarters.

“Please keep this a secret princess. I beg you!” I asked her for her cooperation.

“Allright..” She replied hesitantly.

When we arrived at the Headquarters, we were immediately faced by the King near the entrance.

“Alicia!” He knelt to the floor placing both her arms in front of him. Alicia quickly jumped to her father’s arm and hugged him.

“Father! I was so scared!” She was crying.

“Excuse me, Your Majesty. I don’t want to ruin your reunion, but may I request that you arrange a doctor immediately?”

“Lilia? Who’s that little girl?”

“I’ll tell you later, but please! A doctor please!” Sensing the panic in my voice, he quickly ordered a knight nearby to call Dr. Gustavo, the personal doctor of the royal family.

“Lay her down in my office for now.” I quickly went upstairs and laid her down on the sofa in the king’s office. I quickly tied her hair to hide her exposed horns.

A few minutes later, King Edward entered the room followed by an old man wearing glasses and immediately tended to Lumina.

“This is quite serious. It's a good thing that I managed to arrive here on time. A little bit later and she might have not survived”

He took a staff from a case that he brought along, held it parallel to Lumina’s body.

“Closure!” Light began forming from his staff and around the open wound on Lumina’s chest. The wound on her chest began to slowly close. After continuing for a while, her big wound turned into a small wound comparable to a graze.

“Regenerate!” Again, the staff emitted a light which also covered Lumina’s whole body. The small scratches on her body slowly began to disappear. A bit later and all the wounds and grazes on her body were gone, like there were not even any wounds in the first place.

After checking Lumina’s body for a while, the doctor finished up and faced towards me.

“She should be fine now. You still need to let her rest though. Her wounds and injuries might be gone but I can not regenerate the blood that she already lost.”

He bowed his head at me and the king and proceeded to exit the room.

“First of all, let me thank you for saving my daughter.” The king bowed his head at me.

“Your Majesty, you don’t need to bow to me.”

“I’m not doing this as a king of Ludenburgh. I’m doing this as a father.”

“Well.. It’s my pleasure.” I also bowed my head towards him showing my respect.

“Did you find out who the culprit was?” He asked in a serious manner.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t extract any information from them.”

“So, who’s this child?” He immediately asked after thanking me.

“I’m not really sure either. She could not speak the common language, but she introduced herself as Lumina.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure?”

“I found her getting attacked by Obsidian wolves not that deep in the Evergreen forest.”

“Obsidian wolves? And not that deep in the Evergreen forest? Tell me more about that.”

I proceeded to explain everything I encountered that day to the King.