“A human?” I asked as my imaginary eyes grew bigger and bigger, it was the first time I saw someone intelligent in this world. This person was a young man at the age of twenty, he had green eyes and short brown hair.
He wore light armor and under it, there was a light gray shirt, as well he had a white one-handed sword on his belt. The young man approached me and made a big smile. He turned around and shouted something out in an unknown language, “Luna you won’t believe what I found!”
“What did you find Ray?” A sweet voice could be heard from behind the trees, just a moment later a beautiful young lady came out from the woods.
She was wearing a long white dress that covered her hands and legs, it reminded me of a kimono but was somewhat different, as well a bluish moonlike amulet was around her neck.
She had beautiful white skin, her hair was long and its color was silver white, in them a white flower could be seen. It was the same flower from the Purus Tree that I saw not that long ago, but what was most surprising is her ears. Not like the normal ears of the young man, her ears were really long and pointy.
“A snow goddess?” I was a little stunned by the beauty of the young lady in front of me, but then a random word came to my mind. “An elf?” I asked myself a question that just popped into my mind without an explanation, but I brushed it away as always and continued to observe the duo.
“What is it, Ray?” The girl said with a gentle voice, I could swear that the area around her started to sparkle.
“It's a Visavil bush.” He said with a smile.
“How did a Visavil bush grow so far away from the center of the forest?” She looked puzzled as she talked, but of course, I couldn’t make even one word from their conversation and just looked at them with an awkward imaginary face.
“Who cares, the important part is that we can try to get you a short staff once more.” He said as he grabbed one of my branches and for some reason, I had a bad feeling about this.
“I don’t know...” She furrowed her brows as she thought.
“Didn’t you want to leave the village and travel the world? You yourself were so eager to learn magic and now that we have another chance to make you a staff you get cold feet?” Ray was shaking his head as he talked.
“But we already tried many times to find a suitable staff and there are the traditions too, look at this bush it’s already damaged...” Luna still hesitated as she looked sad for some reason.
“Yes yes, I remember our traditions, and don’t worry we won’t kill the plant, we will just get one good branch from it. Even though I don’t think that the monsters around here will leave it alone, the traditions must be kept. Right?” He looked at the girl and gave her a gentle smile.
She hesitated for a while but then released a word and nodded her head, “Alright.” I had a really bad feeling about this nod.
Ray started to approach me once more while having his hand on his sword, “What are you going to do with that?...” I asked and started to panic, Ray drew out his sword and pointed it at one of my branches.
“This one will do.” With a swift motion of his hand, the sword flew down, I barely had time to react but I still didn’t move an inch. I could see that he didn't want to kill and just wanted to get the branch, and even if he continued to attack me, I wasn't that sure that I could stop him even if I wanted to.
It was so simple and so easy for him to do, but in my eyes, I barely even could see the sword shadow, it gave me the idea that this person wasn’t so weak and maybe even more dangerous than the devil cat.
A piercing pain came from my branch and all I could do was glare at Ray with the thoughts of killing him but I immediately stopped, I didn’t want my *Killing Intent* skill to trigger.
Ray picked up the branch and smiled, then his facial expression became surprised as he said something, “There is a mana crystal inside the bush...”
He looked back at Luna and said with an eager voice, “This is great if we use it to make your staff, its affinity with mana will increase by a lot.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” She hesitated once more.
“Why? It’s not like he needs it.” Ray continued to look at the crystal with his greedy eyes as he said that.
“Maybe only because of this mana crystal he could grow here, we shouldn’t interfere with nature's growth.” Luna shook her head, making her beautiful long white silver hair dance in the wind.
“The tradition... Don’t forget that I know everything about it as well and there is nothing that says that we can’t take something from nature, just not to damage it, kill it for no reason and respect it. Even if the crystal helped it grow till now it's already done its job and won’t do him any good in the future. It could even attract monsters to it so we are doing it a favor.”
After saying that he sent his hand to take the crystal, I immediately understood that he wanted to take it and said to myself, “Oh no you don’t!” I held the crystal tighter with my branches and didn’t let the annoying brat take it.
“Eh, what?...” The brat tried to pull the crystal stronger but failed, “Looks like the branches grew around the crystal, I guess it will be better just to cut it out that way we will even have more material for the staff.”
The brat pulled a short knife from one of his pockets and swiftly cut the branches that held the crystal.
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“No, my crystal!” I screamed but couldn’t do anything, I looked at the face of the annoying bastard and remembered every detail of it, as I promised to take revenge.
“Ah, you shouldn't have done that, you said you would cut only one branch.” She said something with a concerned face while looking at me and at the hand of the annoying bastard that held the crystal.
“Don’t worry he will be fine, just heal him a little and he will be good as new.” Said nonchalantly.
“It doesn't matter if I heal him or not, you still hurt him.” She shook her head a little bit.
“Yes yes, but look at the bush it’s not like he cares.” He looked at me with a careless face, I glared back at him and hoped that my sight could kill.
“But there is a chance that we will anger the Great Spirit.” Luna murmured.
”Stop worrying about that, you are the priestess of the Great Spirit, surely it would want for you to be safer and stronger, maybe the Great Spirit himself sent this bush to help you on your journey.” He smiled as he twisted her words.
“But...” She still felt as if she was doing something wrong.
“No buts, we talked about this already and this bush is not any different from the others that we found till now and you are just fearing the change that will come when you get your new staff.” Ray looked at Luna with a complicated gaze.
Luna hesitated for a second and answered, “You are right but not completely, you know that as a priestess I can see the spirits of the forest, and the spirits they avoid this bush but at the same time they don’t…”
“Now that you mention it I do have a weird feeling, after being around this bush.” He gave me a weird stare for a few seconds and then suddenly shook his head while saying, “Na it’s just my imagination, surely because all the mana inside the Visavil bush just makes the spirits move differently. Anyway just in case I will even use my Herbalism skill just to be sure.”
The bastard came closer to me and gave me another glance while mumbling something, suddenly his smile slowly disappeared from his face.
“It failed… What, how? My Herbalism skill is at the fifth level, there shouldn’t be a plant from the low tier that I can’t understand its properties.” The bastard placed his hand on the hilt of the sword again and a small droplet formed at my imaginary face, “Did I just been discovered?” But then suddenly Luna grabbed his arm and said something with an angry face.
“Enough, don’t anger the spirits anymore, even if it’s you Ray, I won’t forgive you.” She said with a stern tone.
“Alright alright.” He raised both of his hands into the air with a guilty smile and spoke, “I was just a little surprised by the failure of my skill, I guess I need to level it a little bit more.”
“Oh goddess, she is truly a goddess to save me from this bastard!” I said as tears of joy dropped from my imaginary eyes.
The bastard pointed at my berries and said, ”Anyway we should take the berries as well, or do you want monsters to be attracted to it and break all of its branches?”
“No… But let me do it, with your crude hands you only damage it even more.” The goddess shook her head and protected me once more, or at least that's what I thought.
“As you wish milady.” He gave a little bow to the goddess and let her approach me.
The goddess came to me and gave me a small bow while holding a small basket in her hands, said, “Thank you for giving us your precious treasures, and forgive us if we did you any harm, now please forgive me once more because I must take your berries or you will be in danger.” I didn’t understand a word, but somehow her gentle voice made me understand that she asked for forgiveness and that I could trust her.
I was really angry at the annoying bastard but for some reason, all this anger and worry vanished when she approached me and all I could do was look at her beautiful silver eyes as she slowly started to pick the berries with her gentle white hands.
Feeling little pinches here and there, I endured it and continued to stare at the goddess's face as if I was hypnotized.
“You can take as many berries as you want and it will grow back anyway...” I said with a weak tone slowly losing myself in those eyes.
After a few minutes of picking the goddess' hands left my leaves and she started to mumble some words and suddenly light appeared around my body.
“Is she healing me?” The pain that I still felt from the wolf's bite and the cut branches started to fade away and even small branches started to grow out of those wounds.
“You are getting better at this, soon you will be able to grow trees like your dad.” The bastard said with a smile.
After finishing, the goddess gave me another bow and went to the side of the annoying bastard. He picked up the basket that the goddess had in her hands, smiled, and said something while looking at it, “Great now we can make some mana potions for you as well, look what a big hall we got and you didn’t want to go.” A smirk appeared on the bastard's face as he talked to the goddess.
“If father finds out about this he will surely get angry.” She said with a sad tone.
“Don’t worry uncle won’t find out. Alright, we stayed here for long enough, let's return to the village.” The goddess nodded her head and started to leave with the annoying bastard.
“No wait don’t leave, my crystal and the goddess...” I wanted to reach my hand and stop them but of course, I couldn’t.
“At least I will know something about you before you leave, inspect *goddess*.” I said with a low voice.
***
-Luna Lv25-
Health: 53/53
Mana: 75/92
Stamina: 17/22
Race: Elf
Jobs: Great Spirit Priestess, Novice Magician
Status: Blessed
***
Just as I inspected her the goddess let out a small cry, “Ah…” And immediately turned to look back at me with a puzzled face.
The annoying bastard looked at her and asked her, “Is everything alright?”
“It’s nothing...” She gently shook her head, then she released a small smile while looking at me and said something with a low voice as she gave another small bow, “Thank you.” After a few moments, she disappeared with the annoying bastard into the woods.
I was left there speechless for a few minutes, “Did she understand that I inspected her? No, it can’t be...” And so my first meeting with people didn’t end so well for me, half of my hand was cut off, my crystal was stolen and my berries were plucked, looks like it won’t be so easy for me if I met people in the future.
“But I have this strange feeling that if I meet the goddess again and even show her that I can move, she won’t be scared of me…” I pondered for a little about this idea and said only one word ”Maybe...” As I unrooted myself from the ground and started to stumble back to my tunnel.