*”Magic Perception” leveled up to Lv4*

While I was sleeping something popped out inside my head, I checked it out while I was half asleep and continued to rest. While I was sleeping something weird happened, I started to hear sounds something that never happened when I turned off my *Magic Perception* skill.

I could hear the sounds of birds, sounds of the rustling of the leaves on the tree, and there were sounds of cracking of the branches of the forest, for some reason, I could hear them stronger and stronger. I woke up with the fear of it being my own branches, but as I woke up and turned on the *Magic Perception* skill I was safe alone in a beautiful garden.

There were many beautiful flowers in the garden, and many small trees with fruits and even vegetables could be seen further away in the garden.

“Hmm, that was a little bit weird. I guess my *Magic Perception* skill entering the intermediate stage, but how did it level up while being turned off?” I pondered a little about it and even inspected the skill but in the end there were no changes shown.

“Guess the skill entering a change where it is passively active… So what were those weird cracking noises?” I looked around and saw a few big trees from the garden, now and then some cracking sounds were coming from them. It reminded me of the normal sounds of a forest, but the cracking sounds were too frequent and a lot stronger.

I still was bound by the rope so I didn't care much about them as I continued to examine the garden but six hours passed and nobody came to greet me, and not even one person walked nearby.

While those cracking noises moved around from one tree to another while sometimes getting stronger and other times getting weaker, they were making me a little annoyed and at the same time, my curiosity was growing stronger and stronger with every passing moment. In the end, I couldn't take it anymore.

“That's enough I am getting out of here.” I unrooted myself from the ground and went closer to the big trees to see what made all the noise. I took a few steps and felt a strong pulling force coming from behind me, it caught me by surprise and I fell on my back.

“Oh, right the stupid rope.” I said as I looked at the golden rope that was extending from my body to a nearby fence.

“They think a lousy rope can hold me!” I said with glowing eyes full of determination, as I grabbed a nearby sharp rock and started to do my best to cut the rope with it.

After five minutes I completely dropped the idea. Not only that the rope didn't even have a scratch on it, the rock that I was using started to crumble from friction as if I was trying to cut the rock with the rope and not the other way around.

“This is not working at all.” I said as I looked at the small rock that I was holding in my hand that was almost completely grinded to powder.

“Well, I guess I need to find another way.” Half an hour passed and no matter what I did the stupid rope didn't loosen even a little bit.

“Fuck! I tried cutting it, pulling it, crushing it, and even tried to slip out of it but for some reason, it just changes its grip back to my size no matter what I do…” I lay on the ground while cursing at the sky.

After a few minutes of calming down, I looked at the fence and said. “I didn't want to do it but I guess I have no other way.”

*Break* *break* *break* *Crash!*...

I was moving really slowly in the direction of the big trees in the area, I was still puzzled by the continued sounds of cracking that was coming from it. As I was getting closer and closer I started to see a silhouette of a person standing near it, and what surprised me is that a faint green glow was escaping out of his hands that were placed on the tree.

“Of course, it was an elf.” He wore green shorts that looked like a poncho over a brown and gray cloth. At the top of his head, he had a green bandana with a red feather in it.

“What is he doing?” I asked myself as it piqued my interest, I slowly sneaked closer and closer to the person. As I came closer to the tree I could hear a lot of weak cracking sounds coming from it and sometimes a few stronger ones were released as well.

Suddenly a feeling of realization fell upon me. “He is accelerating the growth of the tree!” As if my eyes had sparkles in it I came closer to watch.

“Are those magical circles? I couldn't see them from far away.” I remembered Luna using magic to heal me but there weren't any magic circles when she used it.

“Magic I wanted to learn it for so long now it's my chance!” He was so dedicated to his craft that he even closed his eyes so it was easy for me to sneak to his side. I rooted myself two meters away from the person and started to observe him.

Half an hour passed but no matter how much I was looking at him I couldn't get even a little of magic understanding.

“This is useless I guess I just inspect the fellow, *inspect*.”

***

-Rome Lv18-

Health: 85/85

Mana: 20/42

Stamina: 19/25

Race: Elf

Jobs: Gardener/Builder

***

“That's what you call a gardener…? Well, technically it's not wrong but…” Just as I finished that thought the fellow opened his eyes and stared in my direction.

”What the? A bush… I don't remember this bush being here and why does it have a fence pole stuck into it with a rope?” He looked at me confused.

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“Don't look at me like that, it was the only way! But more importantly, it looks like people really can detect the *Inspect* skill.” I pondered a little about that and thought that I should be more careful with the skill.

“Eco is that you again with your stupid pranks?!” He shouted something but of course, he didn't get an answer.

He continued to look around while slowly becoming more and more confused.

”Wait, Eco doesn't know any skills that can look into my stats, and the only one that can do it without a backlash in the village is the village head, but he would never mess with people like this…” He murmured something to himself as he became more and more confused.

“Well, should I wait till he leaves? Or it's alright if I just move in front of him…” I was so sneaky in the forest that I didn't really know what to do now, but thanks to this fellow I didn't have to.

”Screw this I finished here anyway.” He departed immediately after saying that as he continued to give me weird glances and to look around as he left.

“Lucky, well should I go back to the garden or look around the village?” I asked, thinking it through.

"Eh, wouldn't my new owner be angry at me that I sneaked out though? Na surely he wouldn't care or notice." Without further ado, a small bush could be seen slowly moving through the village with a fence pole stuck on his back.

After thinking for a while I didn't really have any reasons to be sneaky around the village, but I still was careful so I didn't start to walk on the main road like a retard. Sneaking about here and there I saw how the village was working and even leveled up my *Stealth* skill to level four.

*”Stealth” leveled up to Lv4*

The village was separated into a few parts, the market was closer to the village gate even though I didn't see any human traders in there I could see a few elves traders entering and exiting the village.

There were farms here too, fields of golden wheat and other weird plants. I didn’t see any cattle here but it wasn’t that surprising as most elves were vegetarians.

In the end, I understood that the village was separated into three areas, the farms, the living area, and the market place all of them were connected to the plaza, which was the village center. There was the huge ceremonial tree with the red leaves and the white flowers that I saw before, in front of it was a small temple, at least that's what I thought it was.

Right now I was located in the market area, where there were a bunch of different stores such as bakeries, blacksmith stores, a pharmacy, and more, but even all those buildings were built into or around a tree.

“Even though the village isn’t that big, its population wasn’t that small either I would say that it was closer to a thousand or so, it can almost be called a small town.” I said as I looked around at all those different elves walking around doing their daily routines, it reminded me of a lot of fantasy human towns of course except the weird housing and the lack of cattle you could barely tell the difference.

“Even the stores looked like a bunch of trees that grew in buildings.” It was really beautiful to look at this street even from the alleyway I was located in. “I bet that the aerial view of this village would be amazing.”

I was in my thoughts as always looking at the road from the alleyway when suddenly I heard a sound from behind me, I wanted to root myself in place but it was too late because the group already saw me and what was even worse it was a group of kids.

“Shit, they saw me move.” I said as I looked at the two boys and one girl that looked at me with surprised faces, one of them pointed at me and shouted.

”Look, look I told you it's a follower!” The kid wore green pants and a brown shirt, he had short brown hair and he had a huge smile on his face as if he saw the most awesome thing in the universe.

“Should I just pretend to be a normal bush? No, it's too late. I guess I should just go back to the garden or it could get weird...” I started to slowly back off to the direction I came from, but the damn kids chased after me, and the one that shouted before even started to touch me.

”I can’t believe it's a follower, don’t they come out only in a disaster, does it mean that our village encountered a disaster?” The kid said while having a worried expression on his face, the kid had blonde bowl-cut hair and he wore glasses he wore almost the same cloth as the first kid but he had a blue shirt.

”Nonsense, he surely just came to see if everything is alright in the village, that's why I saw him sneaking around this whole time.” The kid's smile reminded me for some reason the smile of Glad.

“Is he always the smiling type as well?” I asked myself as I tried to make some distance from the kids but with this pole on my back, there was no way I could do it.

”Why does he have a fence inside him with rope, and why is it even sneaking around? don’t you think it's fishy?” The girl had light brown hair and she wore a yellow one-piece dress.

”I do!” Shouted the kid with glasses.

”You think too much, when did the followers were bad to us? Forget that, look how slow he walks. Maybe he got stuck with that fence and can’t get it out. We should help him!” The kid shouted something and grabbed the fence that was inside me, without even asking me.

“What the hell is he doing?” I said as I got frightened that he would tie the rope tighter around me and shrugged him to the side, he fell to the ground on his butt and started to cry, the other kids surrounded him and started to shout at me.

”Minie!” The blonde kid shouted.

”You pushed him! You are a bad follower.” The girl joined him.

“Eh… I didn’t mean to…”

I was lost for words about what to do, even though I didn’t understand a word from the kids I knew that I was in the wrong here. So without much thinking, I started to pull a few berries from my leaves, I took a few of them and came close to the kids.

”Get away or I, I…” The girl said as he raised her fists, it looked like she was the oldest one of the three.

“What a cute little child trying to protect her friends.” I laughed inside when I saw that, if I knew that the kids had tripled my health I wouldn’t have laughed like that.

I came closer to the crying kids and threw a few berries into his mouth to make him calm down, but with my great luck, the kid started to choke on them. Not going to lie I was scared shitless and of course, the other kids were as well, but after a few coughs, he calmed down and said something with a big smile.

”So tasty!” He shouted.

”Are you alright Elliot?” Asked the girl while looking with concern at the child.

”Of course I am, I am a man after all.” Elliot said with a big smile.

The other kids calmed down as well after he said that.

”The berries were so tasty I had never tasted something like that before. They feel cool and sweet at the same time, can I have some more?” He asked me something while looking at me with puppy eyes.

The other kids weren’t as eager as him but after seeing him so enthusiastic about the berries they changed their mind and slowly reached with their hands as well.

“*Sigh*...” Of course, I understood what they wanted, and as I already started it I couldn’t just back away so I plucked some more of my berries and gave them to the kids, after doing that I stood up and pushed them with my hands a little indicating them to go home.

For my greatest pleasure, the kids understood me and started to leave while waving goodbyes at me.

“Thanks, mister follower.” Said Elliot.

”Bye, bye.” Smiled at the blonde kid with the glasses.

”See you later.” Smiled at the girl for the first time.

I sighed again and continued to go back to the garden. It was already afternoon and surely Glad already found out that I escaped. I was still weighing the positives and the negatives of being a pet of that rich youngster, but living in this peaceful village was a big plus I couldn’t miss.

“I will be protected by the walls of the city from the monsters and most likely they will release me from this rope and let me roam around freely here. Slowly I will level up their language and maybe even find a way to communicate with them and well the kids here aren’t that bad.” I smiled inside while thinking about it.

I was moving to an alley corner and just as I was about to make a turn I heard the crying of the kids coming from behind me.