The young man that was standing in front of us gave off a familiar feeling as if I had seen him somewhere before but I couldn’t put my finger on it. He looked at Glad and Scarlett and then his gaze fell on me. I could feel something weird crawling inside my body as if hundreds of small ants were running on my skin.
But before I could even react I could hear something *snap*, not sure where that sound came from or what it was but it sounded as if the sound came from my head even though I didn’t have a head, the weird feeling immediately disappeared after it.
Just as the weird feeling disappeared, the young man held his head with his left hand while having an unpleasant look on his face as if he got a sudden headache. I could even swear that a little blood had dripped out of his nose but it was most likely my imagination.
”What a weird monster...” He murmured, but I only was able to understand one word from the sentence and it was a “monster”, he changed his gaze back to Glad.
”It's a great honor meeting a high elf.” Glad said as he gave a small bow, his usual smile had a little bit of a surprise to it, Scarlett didn’t utter a single word and only nodded her head as a greeting.
The young man looked at Glad and Scarlett as if he was looking at children, “We are the head of this village, we guess thee came for business, what is thee desire?”
”We are members of the New Order, we have acquired weird rumors of the power decline of the Great Spirit.” Glad gaze changed to a serious one and his smile vanished, he drew out the white stone that was presented to the guards before.
The young elf gave the white stone a fast scan and murmured something to himself, but it was so quiet that I was sure that no one of us could hear it.
”We should talk inside, but before that can we ask what is that monster that is following thee.” His gaze fell on me once more and I could feel some hostility towards me.
”Oh this is a really intelligent monster that we captured not far away from here, most likely a samplings of one of the followers.” Glad smile returned yet again.
”That’s not a sapling of a follower, that we can say for sure. We hope you understand that bringing something like that to the village is a little unsettling.” I could understand two words this time it was unsettling and follower.
“Is this my new owner? Unsettling why? I am not unsettling, is it because I am a monster, and what followers are they talking about?” I started to understand that this rich young elf wasn’t so keen on me.
”Don’t worry as I said before this small monster is really intelligent and friendly as well.” This time another word popped up it was friendly but for whatever reason, the hostility of the young elf didn’t change.
A thought crossed my mind if I should try to stay in this village or try to escape. "I will be protected here, no monsters will get into the village and people here won't try to hurt me for no reason... But being a pet it's a little."
After considering the positives and negatives of being a pet of a young elf I came to the conclusion, “It's better to be safe and secured behind a thick wall without freedom than being free while living each day on the edge of a knife.”
“Friendly, I really need to show him that I am friendly or he won't accept me…” I started to pluck some berries from my body and handed them to him as I did in the past to Scarlett. I didn’t know if I would escape from this village in the future but I knew for sure that being sold to some rich youngster as a pet wouldn't be so bad.
”See.” Glad released another smile.
But to my surprise not only did the young elf's gaze haven’t softened, his eyes showed even more cautious than before.
“Fine, but if we see this little monster running in the village freely or it would try to dare to hurt someone in our village, not only would it be killed as well the New Order won’t be welcomed in this village anymore.” The young elf said with a threatening tone.
”Don’t worry I am giving my word that nothing bad will happen because of this little fellow, and he won’t be able to roam around freely at all because he is bound with a monster binding rope.” He said with confidence.
The young elf pondered while looking at the rope and gave out a small nod before he entered the house as we followed behind.
The house's insides were circular in shape, there was quite a lot of space. The first floor was spread open and had only a few rooms, the biggest room was the living room, and the ceiling was at least four meters from the floor.
In the middle of the room, there was a huge bloody red circular table that reminded me of a roundtable of Arthur knights, for some reason its color gave me a really unpleasant feeling that I couldn’t shrug off no matter what I did.
The kidnapper duo sat around it while the young elf went to bring something from the kitchen. I looked around the living room with a dazzling look, it was my first time being inside someone's house. As I looked around I saw a few paintings on the walls, many bookshelves full of books, and a few flowers and plants scattered around the room.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
After a few minutes, the young elf came back with a teapot and a few cups. As he came back I sat on one of the chairs, he sent a scary gaze in my direction seeing as something dirty sat on one of his precious chairs but in the end, just chose to ignore me.
“Man, he really dislikes me…” I thought about getting down from the chair but after thinking it through, it's better to show how smart I am and give a few points to myself.
Glad saw that the young elf was glaring at me but he didn’t do anything and only smiled like always.
The young elf started to talk as he poured the tea into three cups, ”We call ourselves Fortis, currently we are the head of the village, and as you said before we are indeed a high elf, may we know your name adventures of the New Order.” I didn’t notice before but surprisingly every word the young elf said had some kind of magical power to it as if it was made to be pleasant to the ear.
“For some reason, it's really easy for me to understand when someone says a name, it's like I just know that it's not a word in their language.” I now knew the rich youngster's name.
”Nice to meet you Fortis, my name is Glad and this is Scarlett, as said before we came from the Deres country as members of the New Order for the concerns of the weakening of the elf race and the increase of invading monsters from the Great Forest Of Dusk.” Glad said with a serious tone as the air in the room became heavy.
The youngster looked at Glad but his expression haven’t changed as if he didn’t hear what Glad told him, ”Hmm, Gladius the slayer of the bloody overlord we heard about thee and of course how couldn’t we hear about the red-handed thief Scarlett.” He passed a cup of tea to Glad and Scarlett.
”Your knowledge is vast.” Glad said with a humble smile on the other hand Scarlett's face was a little complicated and it was filled with surprise.
”Thanks for thy compliments but we would ask to stop with them, as for the problems of the elf race thee shouldn’t be bothered by them we can handle them by ourselves, and the monsters' quantity just increased slightly that is all.” His tone didn’t change but for some reason, it sounded threatening and annoying.
Glad thought for a moment before opening his mouth, ”I understand that the Great Spirit will protect you from any harm but we are still really concerned about your situation, we don’t want something like the dark times to return for the elves.”
”How dare thee remind us of those times! Don’t forget that thy kingdom had a part in them as well!” Fortis slammed his hand on the table and said with a furious voice.
”We know that and we are deeply ashamed of our past deeds, that's why we don’t want them to return, we just want to be sure that all of you are safe. Hearing the reports of the decline of the followers and increase in monsters were already a huge concern for us but then we even heard that the Great Spirit is weakening.”
I looked at both of them a little confused. “Why are they fighting about me, can’t they just settle on a price?”
”Nonsense our Great Spirit is strong as ever, if thee continue to insult us further we would only be able to show you the door!” The young elf continued to shout.
”But…” Glad murmured in panic and had nothing to rebuke he could only stay quiet as he didn’t want to offend the other party, but thinking it through Glad didn’t back off and continued to argue with the young elf, this shitstorm continued for half an hour till an awkward silence replaced its place, both of the parties couldn't come to an agreement.
“Is it that I am so rare that they can't come to a good price? Or does the youngster don't think I am worth it?...” After more a few awkward moments of silence, I looked at the untouched teacup of Glad and took it sneakily with one of my longer branches, and held it in my hands, all that I wanted to do is to show off a little bit so I inserted few of my roots into it and tried consumed the tea.
*Skill discovered “Forced Absorption”*
“I am not a smart person… Why didn't I do something like this before!” Just in a few seconds, the teacup became empty, and I could feel a warm tea going through my roots. Sadly I couldn’t feel any kind of taste from the tea, I could only smell a very weak aroma that came from the teacup.
“Inspect *Forced Absorption*.”
***
*Forced Absorption* - Let the user forcefully absorb into his body large quantities of food, water, or minerals with great speed. The absorbed material will be immediately transformed to being part of the body, but if used too much the overall structure of the body will be damaged and will collapse if not given enough time for the materials to integrate completely into the body.
***
“Useful skill, wait does it mean that this skill is not only used for plants it's used in animals and humans as well. Oh man, that will be really useful if I run out of stamina I will be able just to force it down from food. *Self awareness*.” I wanted to check how much stamina I had.
***
*Self Awareness Status*
-Visavil Bush Lv3-
Experience: 37/60
Rarity: Uncommon
Health: 9/12
Mana: 31/40
Stamina: 2/9
***
“That explains why I started to feel bad, well I just need to replenish it again.”
All three people looked at me a little shocked because I went up from the chair and tried to get another cup of tea from the young elf as I poked him with the cup. Fortis frowned as I did that but still picked up the teapot and poured some tea into it.
”It’s really a funny little monster, where did you say you found it?” He said as I returned to my chair, and sat there enjoying the aroma from the tea while taking my time in absorbing it.
“Not so far away near one of the ponds.” Glad answered.
“It’s really rare for untamed monsters to behave like this near people, is there a chance that it’s a tamed monster that lost its master?” I could feel some change in the gaze of the young elf, he still was cautious but the hostility that was present before was lessening a little bit.
”Maybe, but are you sure it’s not a sapling of a follower? They are from the same family aren't they?”
”We are one hundred percent sure, the sampling of the follower is much larger in size and comes from the family of large trees, in that way, they can survive in the forest.” He took a sip from the tea and continued.
“On the other hand, this monster is some kind of a mutated Visavil bush that somehow got his hands on a strong life force, just a new monster that was born into our world, nothing new or surprising.” The hostility in his voice got stronger and stronger as he finished the sentence and glared at me.
”Well enough of that we shall continue our talk tomorrow, for now, we will make thee some food we can see that you are quite hungry, after the meal thee should go and rest. As for the creature, it's best for him to sleep outside in the garden, tied down to a fence.” Fortis pointed to one of the windows that looked into a beautiful garden.
Glad looked at me and back at Fortis and nodded his head. The only word I could understand from that sentence was “rest” so I guessed that they would leave me outside as a normal person would do and that is really what has happened. Glad took me outside to a big garden that was behind the house of the weird young elf.
“I am a little disappointed that I couldn’t meet the goddess in the village but if all goes well and I will be living here there is a chance for me and her to meet once more.” I was quite happy for the chance of meeting the goddess once more.
“For a while, this will be my home till I escape from here. I should think of a way to scout the village but for now, I better go and rest…”
I deactivated my *Magic Perception* and returned to my small dark world, completely forgetting about the disgusting feeling that was still pulsing from the mark of the devil cat, as I was overwhelmed with the feeling of security after I entered the elf village.