The lady was surprised when I cast [Earthen Spear] but quickly sneered and shouted, “Guards! There’s an elven spy attempting murder!”

I frowned, Simon said murder was bad and I shouldn’t do it so clearly the lady was trying to get me punished. However, I hadn’t murdered anyone so why should I be punished?

It only took a few seconds for the guards to arrive. The one that I had memorized the appearance of wasn’t here but there were more than I was expecting.

“Dispel your magic and surrender or we will use force.” The guard closest to me spoke.

Hm, surrender means I accept defeat and don’t fight but still get punished. Is there a reason why I should surrender? The guard said he would use force but didn’t Simon say that harming people who didn’t do harm was a bad thing? Why can he do it?

Also, I’m not sure how to dispel my magic. I might need to learn that soon but for now I can just deal with it in a separate way.

I pointed the spear downwards and pushed it with as much force as I could. It got stuck in the ground although it didn’t go very deep.

Now then, how exactly do I speak? I could speak a few words using [Basic Communication] but can I speak in full sentences now that I’m a Half-Elf? Hm, I’ll start by making noises with a specific intent? That kind of mixes [Basic Communication] with [Telepathy] so it might work.

“I don’t want to.” I made noises that reminded me of growling but I could understand their meaning in the language that the guard spoke.

The guards were all tense. They were already vigilant when they walked in but after I shoved my spear in the floor they became very tense. The guard who had spoken before spoke once again but his hand was going towards his weapon, a spear.

“Then which House do you belong to? We will take your answer into consideration for our next actions.”

I had read from some books in this library that an elven House was the same as a family except it could include people not related by blood. The more powerful Houses in Levayin had existed for an unknown length of time and controlled almost all of the political and economic events in the kingdom.

I wasn’t part of a House, I was technically in Simon’s House but he isn’t an Elf or Half-Elf so he would have a Family and those only include people related by blood.

I told the guard honestly, “I don’t belong to any House.”

All of the guards relaxed after I said that and reached for their weapons. There were four types of weapons that the guards had, spears, shields, staffs, and books.

The ones with staffs and books were at the back so I assumed they were for casting magic as there were a few books that were about advances in magic and how certain items could increase the effectiveness of magic.

While the guards readied their weapons, I had a decision to make. I could remain in this Half-Elf form or return back to my wolf form. Both had their own benefits, the Half-Elf form gave me knowledge about how mana worked and how I could use it while the wolf form was more familiar to me.

Hmm, it would take a bit of time to switch to my wolf form wouldn’t it? I’ll just stay as a Half-Elf then.

The guards had readied their weapons and were about to move closer but one guard spoke, “We will give you one last chance to surrender before we attack. This is the final chance for you to escape a life in prison or death as even your wealth and connections won’t be able to save you.”

What? Wealth and connections? I know what those are but I don’t think I have any. Why would they assume I have either wealth or connections?

Hm, those people I now know are officers in the military wear more extravagant or elegant clothing so perhaps it has something to do with my clothing?

Looking down at what I was wearing showed me that my fur that had covered me as a wolf had become my clothes. I was now wearing a white suit with some pale blue threads in areas such as the cuffs and outlining the suit.

According to most of the books I had read about the nobility and the few about clothing, suits were one of the clothes that showed a higher status in society. Nobles wore suits often and the peasants wore suits on very rare occasions.

I’ll assume these guards thought I was a noble since I was wearing a suit to a library. Well, I’m still not going to surrender.

I started casting [Dense Earthen Spear Barrage] since it is my most effective attack and it won’t damage too many books like [Lava Ball] would.

Unfortunately my [Quiet Casting] couldn’t hide all of my mana usage and the mages in the back of the group responded with a spell.

It didn’t seem to do anything but I felt my control of the mana slipping away and the spell crumbled. There was a secondary effect, I felt a moment of dizziness for some reason but it passed.

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The guards with shields were in front of the guards with spears as they approached. The spears sticking through the gaps between the shields.

The guards with magic cast another spell. Like the one that stopped my spell, it seemed to do nothing.

Soon however, there were noticeable effects.

My ability to sense mana vanished and it felt like it was blocked by a wall. That was only the beginning however, soon the dizziness returned and it didn’t pass.

After the dizziness there was another change, my hand dissipated into mana. This was very strange as while my body was just physical mana, the mana my hand turned into was more similar to the natural mana but was completely under my control. Even with it being under my control however, I couldn’t reform it into my hand again.

So, as the guards looked on with horror and confusion my body turned from physical mana to sentient natural mana. I experienced very strange changes, the first being that I saw everything around me and inside of me most likely due to me just sensing it with my mana rather than using light to see. The second change was that I didn’t lose the knowledge I had gained from being a Half-Elf. The third change was that I could feel a connection to something somewhere but I had no clue where it was or what it was. The fourth and final change was a sense of being observed by something quite far away.

The guards at the front proceeded to turn around and look at the mages at the back.

“What happened!?” One of the guards shouted.

“It- it was just a- a simple sile- silencing spell.” A clearly terrified mage responded.

“You think I’m going to believe that?! I know silencing spells, they don’t disintegrate people!”

“Calm down sir, I was watching this mage and his spell was a silencing spell. It’s possible that a strange reaction occurred due to something with the person rather than the mage or the spell.” A new person spoke, this one was dressed like an officer but had the more elegant clothes rather than extravagant. I assume there’s a difference between what the two signify but I don’t know what it is.

“Well you just removed a noble from existence! Fix it or you’ll be given up as a sacrifice instead.” The guard who had spoken to the mage at first spoke again and walked away.

Most of the other guards followed him until only the mage and the elegantly clothed guard were left.

“I’m… I’m sorry sir. I didn’t mean for this to occur.” The mage stared downwards as he apologized to the other guard.

“It’s fine, you didn’t mean to cause this and what happened was unexpected. Now, let’s try and fix it before more issues occur. First of all, can you dispel the silencing effect?”

“No sir, I haven’t learned any supportive spells yet.”

“You don’t need to rely on spells to do things. You can easily reverse your own spell’s effect by undoing what your spell did. [Silence] effectively places a wall between something and mana. This wall is made of your own mana. If you remove the wall then you can dispel the effect.”

“Alright sir I’ll try but, there isn’t anything for me to remove the silence from, the Elf disintegrated.”

The elegantly clothed guard smiled, “Well, not exactly. They didn’t break apart into pieces but rather they turned into mana which can’t be sensed with physical senses normally.”

The guard then turned away from the mage and looked towards me. Although that wasn’t difficult when I was much less condensed and spread apart.

After turning to me the guard made some sounds I couldn’t understand and then it felt like something fell around me and stuck to me. Soon this became more clear as I couldn’t see any more due to an orange wall completely covering me.

“This is merely a spell that can attach mana to whatever is specified. I specified that it must attach to mana that has the silence effect applied. Now get to work on reversing the effect.” A voice I recognized as the elegantly dressed guard said.

“Yes teacher!” The mage replied.

*****

It took quite a while but the wall around my mana was eventually removed and I could sense and use mana once more.

I immediately used [Self Reality] and switched into my wolf form as I was most comfortable with it.

I did finally lose the knowledge from being a Half-Elf when I switched however.

“Um, did… did… something… wrong?” The mage asked his teacher, I assume.

“Nope.” The teacher replied and continued to stare at me.

Then I heard a voice in the same way I hear [Telepathy] say, “Hello there, I’m Maria. Do you want to explain who exactly you are or should I just use [Identify]?”

“My name is Salem. I am Simon’s companion.” I replied.

“Oh? You’re Simon’s companion? That makes this easy then. Can you explain why you were a Half-Elf and threatened someone?”

“I wanted to go into this library and that person wanted to stop me from learning knowledge.”

“So you threatened someone for trying to prevent you from reading. A bit extreme but somewhat understandable. However, do you mean you were a Half-Elf because you wanted to go into this library?”

“Yes, is there something wrong with that?”

“Sigh, I’m not going to question how you became a Half-Elf but you should have been told that Elves and Half-Elves aren’t the most welcome here. Why didn’t you become a Human?”

“I tried, it hurt a lot and took away my mana constantly.”

“That’s… odd. Monsters with transformation abilities are rare but not unheard of, however all of them that are able to transform into a human can do so without any issue. Now then, it isn’t a good idea for you to stay here and since Simon isn’t looking for you he either told you to do something or hasn’t noticed so why don’t you stay with me and my student for a while?”

I thought about this offer for a moment, and decided to accept since I would be able to learn more from this person seeing as they knew how to do something like dispel a spell’s effect.

“Wonderful, just follow along with us for a bit. We’re going to be heading back towards my home.” Maria then turned and started walking away. Her student followed and I did as well.

As we walked towards an unknown destination I decided to use [Reality Sight] on Maria.