Elliot was given a rather… peculiar answer.

And although the panic that came with hearing such ominous words had started to set in, he still tried to remain calm. “Ah… um, ok? So do you guys have a telephone or something? I can just get a buddy to drive me home, how the hell did I get here anyway... ” His question brung another bout of confusion.

One of the guards looked at him in confusion. “Telephone? Is that an object that uses telepathy? This is merely a village, sir. we… don’t have accommodations that extravagant.” What the hell is happening? Telepathy? Is this some shitty rolepl- “Gah… what the hell…” He lurched forward, causing the two girls and guards to move back. The old man simply stared, without reacting.

“Ugh jeez, my goddamn head. Y’all don’t have pain pills, right?” He started feeling the throbby woozy feeling again, and he knew that came moments before a mind numbing headache.

The old man noticed his discomfort, and brought a hand out to help. “Oh, how foolish of me, let me fix you up, boy.”

And then a thought hit him, he didn’t get hit by a tranquilizer or anything the last time he was knocked out… and the girl didn’t look like she could take him down either. What the hell knocked him out? His answer was semi-answered by the man’s voice taking on an ethereal tone, as the light took on physical form and started swirling in circles towards him.

“Heal”. What proceeded to happen was the second most horrifying thing to ever be done to him, the light instantly connected to him… and then he felt absolutely brain-crushing pain.

Now, he could have said he took it silently as a man, but in reality, he couldn’t even let out a squeak. It was like an electric current running through his body as he entirely tensed up. He felt like he was being tased in the head while eating every pepper in the world at once. The man frowned at his ghastly appearance and stopped before he caused any actual damage.

“This… how old did you say you were, child?” With all the grace Elliot could muster, he responded... by swinging his fist at the old man in front of him. “If I was going to be taken down by fucking magic I’ll take the weakest looking ones with me.” was what was going through his now semi-delirious mind.

Then something quite surprising happened, the old man blocked his shot. This… this old skeleton with skin hanging off it blocked his fist… And as he tried to pull his arm back, he realized the grip was way too tight for him to even attempt to try again.

At this point, he knew he was screwed. With the last of his dignity, he proudly uttered his name. “My… My name is Elliot. Elliot Newmaker. I am 19 years old.” The old man nodded grimly before waving his hand in front of Elliot’s face and muttering a word under his breath. Elliot thusly passed out.

__________________________________________________________

The old man never saw something quite like this… a boy who seemed to be of royal descent. The royal part shook him, and he hated how much trouble just that meant. After all, if he was treated wrong he could have easily have had this whole village burned down. This worry was completely offset by the fact that this Elliot fellow seemed like he was crippled and exiled into these lands.

After all, even with the darkness attribute the kid had, any person past the age of ten could have easily gained the resistance to most non-harmful light spells. He was most likely meant to die in this forest, after all, these weren’t considered a no man’s land for nothing. Magic beasts lined the areas, searching for anything that could help them grow into more savage creatures.

He could already picture the situation… a child born with a strong darkness attribute, shunned in a light-attributed royal family since they probably thought the wife was being unfaithful. While a child could be born with a new attribute, it was extremely rare. Especially so with extremely strong blood.

It was why commoners didn’t have very strong attributes, but instead were pretty diverse. Without proof, they had probably kept the kid until he grew up to look nothing like his father, and was exiled the moment he even so much as sneezed wrong.

Though, that did raise more questions… how had he not noticed any groups passing by? It was as if as if Elliot had come falling from the sky. The group he was associated with must have been quite powerful, which is all the more baffling since they hadn’t seemed to have noticed the village.

All this was made much more awkward since Elliot didn’t even seem to know what happened to him. It’s as if all this held no substance in his eyes. Well, that could easily be chalked up to shock. But it’s how he dealt with this pressure that scared him… as if he had no trust in anyone.

Elliot had manipulated one of Gerald’s precious students into leaving him and immediately after attacked his other, even though she had been the one to mend his wounds. As if the whole village was against him, to the point where he thought them to be a cult.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Well, all these questions could easily be answered as soon as Elliot woke up.

“Someone… turn off the lights…” Elliot muttered as he grabbed the nearest blanket to pull over his head, unfortunately, he made the mistake of grabbing the robe of the old man, earning him a thunk on his head as persuasion to properly wake himself. “Huh? Oh yeah… could someone here explain the situation to me?”

Elliot wasn’t about to show weakness in this situation, they obviously didn’t want him dead, and by the confused and pitying looks the group was giving him he assumed they didn’t mean to intentionally harm him either. “I… I don’t know where I am, and I’m not even sure if I can get back home… could you all please help me understand this situation better?”

Show a pitying look, and tell the truth but never reveal your hand. Faking emotion was how he got through high school and work, and by god, he wasn’t going to let this be the exception. Immediately most of their faces softened, the little priest girl seemed to be the most affected, noteworthy.

This seemed to work on everyone except the one guard in the back, the one that was handsome looking. He seemed a lot more… rugged than the rest. Well, hey, a captive audience was a captive audience. He wasn’t going to let one guy affect him. “I’m… sorry about acting the way I di-”

“No, he’s not.” Interrupted the stupid girl with glowing eyes. Damnit, that was right. Mrs. Lie detector existed. “Ok, ok, but that’s only because I was hit in the head by your friend over there. I wasn’t in the best state to think rationally, so don’t blame me. Ah, and what might your name be, oh child of the wondrous eyes.”

He hated that he had to praise her even though she talked like that. It made him feel like he was a child. Still, she seemed plenty naive when it came to praise.“My master is the one who… who taught me that…” She said, still clearly not used to compliments. “Is this your… teacher then?” Elliot looked at the old man who stopped my punch with as kind eyes as any eye could muster.

“Do I have the pleasure of knowing your name, good sir?” Elliot was tense all over, it was five against one and this old man could take him all on his own, he needed to make a good impression. “My name? You must realize the situation you’re in, child. Aren’t there more important questions you should ask?” The old man dodged his question like a pro, and he cursed in his head.

It seems like no one was going to answer Elliot’s questions until he answered some of theirs…

So he took a bolder approach. He stood up from my bed in order to seem more imposing, confidence is key when it comes to making others accept you, and he needed every little thing in this situation. “Questions? I only have a few. Do you know where I am? Where is the nearest place I can rest?”

Elliot... he already realized he wasn’t on earth. Nothing on earth was ever this confusing, everything seemed to subvert his expectations. These “people” were much stronger than those on earth, and it seems they only got stronger as they grew.

If this old man’s strength was anything to gleam off, at least.

“I… I also need time to rest…, I haven’t gotten any rest from any of the times you guys knocked me out…” Elliot was getting embarrassed, having to ask for handouts from the people holding him prisoner. “I need food as well… if you don’t um, mind I mean.” This earned him a chuckle from the blonde child. She ran out of the room, only for her to come back seconds later with plenty of fruits and nuts… cheese too!

Before Elliot sullied their thoughts of him with the drool escaping his mouth he started talking. “Uh… Could you all please leave me to rest? I promise I won’t try to escape…” This garnered a look of surprise from everyone in the room, to which the black-haired child spoke up first. “You’re no longer in containment, we were just trying to repair our earlier… misconceptions.” She said looking towards the guard, who could only look down in shame.

“You’re not considered to be a threat to anyone in our village, you should understand.” He couldn’t help but hear the mocking tone in her voice in the last part of her sentence.

Still, that was quite the good news. Elliot didn’t expect to hear that after everything he’d done. “O-oh, thank you. I won’t waste much of your time, I’ll merely stay to eat and rest then I’ll be out of your hair.” …Oh no. no one was leaving, he knew it couldn’t have gone that smoothly, they looked like they were trying to tell him some really bad news.

Once again the black-haired girl, completely unaware of the tension in the room, spoke up. “Hah! That’s not going to be possible for a few years at least! Don’t you even know where you are! It’ll take months at least to- Gah!?” She was grinning from ear to ear, something that made me want to smack her upside the head, he took back his earlier statement of her being the more mature of the two girls.

Fortunately, the elder fulfilled Elliot’s desire and bonked her on the head with his closed fist, earning a strangled yelp and confused look from her. The old man sighed, looking at him with exasperation. “Unfortunately, that does seem to be the case, boy. Merchants don’t usually travel here, and you aren’t suited for teleportation… You’ll have to live in the village, meanwhile.”

What?

He had questions, of course, no one was keeping him anywhere unless they had a good reason. “With the magic beasts so dense in the area it’d be a wonder if you could make it more than a mile out the barrier without being torn into shreds.” Ok that seemed like a pretty good reason so he just shut his mouth to not seem too like a fish out of water.

“I’ll… ask more when I’m better, could you all please leave me alone for a bit… I need to sort things out. Ah, wait, leave the cheese.”

And like that, everyone went outside, they were probably doing so out of sympathy since something like this would freak anyone out. After all, something like this meant he lost all his friends, family, reputation, and standing in his old world. Speaking of, Elliot was definitely that percentage of anyone, and as he was left alone with his thoughts for the first time since this whole debacle started… he began to cry.

The food would need to wait a bit.