“Should I even be bothered? We are inside the village so there shouldn't be anything dangerous here.” Even though I didn’t really care for the kids, I still followed the directions of their cries as I felt something itching in my non-existing heart.
I got to a corner of a street and took a left turn, there I saw the three children crying and hugging, the girl was standing in the front trying to protect the two boys as a big scary dog was slowly creeping on them.
“Holy crap it looks more like a guardian of hell Cerberus than a dog, *inspect dog*.” A huge bulldog was standing there scaring the poor children, even if a grown-up stood in their place they would still be scared shitless.
***
-Fluffy Lv4-
Health: 39/39
Mana: 2/2
Stamina: 18/22
***
“Fluffy my ass!”
I ran to the kids and positioned myself between the dog and the kids. I knew that this time I didn't need to kill him and just needed to scare him away. I released my killing intent on the dog but he was unfazed, not only that he even released a low bark as if he was laughing at me.
“This bastard…” He slowly came closer and closer to me, there wasn't much difference between him and the wolves that were outside so he did scare me a little bit but I still stood my ground.
He came so close that I could smell a strong dog stench from it, without thinking much I raised my fists and hit the dog straight in the nose. I already knew that my punches were weak but I didn't expect that they would be this weak as the dog didn’t even flinch.
*"Lesser Hand To Hand Combat" leveled up to Lv2*
“Heh yey…” I looked at the unfazed bulldog in the eyes, his stare was terrifying. I felt like it could see right through me.
“Good doggy... please don't eat me.” I said with a little bit of fear, but the dog continued to stay in place completely unmoving for a few seconds as if he had become a statue.
“Dogy?” I asked in confusion and tried to poke him with my hand, but saw a little bit of blood coming from his nose and before I even could touch him the dog released a few weak whines and started to run away.
“Eh?” I was standing there in a daze not really sure about what just happened, I looked around in confusion but there was nothing scary around us.
”The follower saved us!” Eliot ran to hug me, and the other two kids followed suit and made a hugging circle around me. I still could hear the kids sobbing and saying something to me again and again.
“Little guardian, little guardian…” They mumbled.
“Well, I guess this is some kind of reward for saving them.” I patted the kids on the head to calm them down.
*A new Title has been acquired “Guardian”*
“Oh, a new title!” I shouted with joy and immediately inspected it.
***
*Guardian* - While protecting those that are smaller than you the user gets a defense buff.
***
“What…? Screw you! I am barely a meter tall! Who can be smaller than me?! Even these kids are bigger than me! How did I even get this shitty title!?” I shouted at the system that gave me another useless title.
This circle of hugs didn't continue for long because some footsteps could be heard heading towards our direction. I was started and tried to make the kids release me but they were sticking to me as if they were ticks.
Three people came out from the alleyway, one big sturdy man that was almost two and a half meters in height was in the front, he had a big leather apron in the front and a short but massive hammer on his belt. Just from only one look, I could tell that he was a blacksmith.
”Daddy Daddy!” The ponytail girl ran to the sturdy man while tears flew from her eyes.
“He is her father? No way, someone this cute and small can be a child of this monstrosity…” I mumbled to myself as I looked up and down at this mountain of a man.
The man was furious as he looked at me, I wasn't so sure how he knew that I wasn't just a random bush that the kids were hugging but I did feel some fear inside from only his gaze.
”Did this thing make you cry!” He clenched his fist and looked at me with anger while a vein popped on his head, I reflexively started to back off.
”No it was Fluffy again, the little guardian saved us.” The little girl shook her head.
The sturdy blacksmith frowned a little as he looked at me and said. ”Damn Luke and his stupid dog, I should teach him a lesson.” As he cracked his knuckles.
He came closer to the kids that were still hugging me and said something to them.
”Alright kids let go of that…Ugh, little guardian and let's take you home.” The kids looked at him and nodded.
Then the blacksmith caught me with one of his hands and raised me up in the air as if I was just a small feather, don’t forget that the fence poll was still tied to me.
“What should we do with you little fellow?” He asked those around him.
*”Lingua Language” leveled up to Lv2*
The language skill leveled up and I could barely understand what the blacksmith asked, and joy filled my eyes.
“Soon I will be able to communicate with people! Shit, I still can’t speak, does writing exist in the language skill?” I asked myself not knowing the answer to the question.
”It doesn't look like a follower of the world tree, is this a monster? I think we better take him to the village head.” One of the adult elves said.
”I know.” The blacksmith frowned yet again but nodded his head.
”What are the guards doing? How could they let a monster sneak into the village? And what about the anty monster barrier?” The other elf looked concerned.
”I don't think it's them, you see this rope, it's an adventure rope. Someone brought this thing into the village through the gate, most likely it just escaped.” The blacksmith said as he shook his head.
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”Hmm, there is a duo of human adventurers that are staying at the head chief's house, let's take him there for now.”
The blacksmith nodded and looked at me with a curious look while starting to move to the middle of the village. The other elves took the kids home, and the kids waved goodbye to me as they left, I waved back at them and the blacksmith noticed that and looked at me strangely.
“Looks like I am getting back to the garden…” I looked around while the blacksmith took me back in the direction of the rich youngster's house while holding me as a football under his left hand.
“How did he know that I am staying here, guess the news does fly fast in this village.” We arrived at the same big ancient-looking house, the door opened and there he stood once again the cocky young elf with his gaze of disdain as he looked at me.
”Oh so the little monster that broke my fence came back.” I could swear for some reason he sounded angry.
”Come inside.” He said as he made his way.
We entered the house, Fortis sat at the red bloody round table while the blacksmith stood on the other side still holding me in his grip.
”I guess you already know about this monster, what should we do with it?” The blacksmith asked.
”Burn it…” The cocky youngster said without a change in his expression.
“What why?!!” I understood that sentence perfectly and started to struggle but no matter what I did the grip of the monster blacksmith only got tighter.
”I think this fellow understood you.” They both looked at me with strange looks for a few moments of silence, the first one to break the silence was the blacksmith again. ”I don't think it's a good idea to harm this little fellow.”
”I agree with him.” The door opened and Glad entered the house with Scarlett.
”Have you forgotten what we said? And aren't you at fault that it escaped?” The cocky kid looked at him with an angry expression.
”Yes it was my fault I didn't expect that he would break the fence, but I think you are exaggerating. It's not like this small fellow attacked someone.” He smiled awkwardly in the direction of the blacksmith as if he was trying to get a confirmation.
”He is correct, not only did he not try to attack anyone he even protected Mara and her friends from Luke’s stupid dog.” Said the blacksmith.
”Fluffy the dog that is afraid of his own shadow?” The young elf sneered.
”Yeah but you know how he loves to scare the children.”
Fortis was lost in thought for a few moments while he was thinking about something.
”We are going to leave after we finish our business to check the area around the village just in case, I hope you could let him stay here for this period of time before we return as a favor.” Scarlett opened her mouth for the first time as she came to the village.
Fortis was really surprised that Scarlett spoke and even asked for a favor.
“Well if the bloody thief asks for a favor how could we deny thee, but it will stay in the garden and it will be sealed by us, and don’t forget to tie it to one of the trees this time, I don’t want it touching our flowers.”
”But of course.” Glad nodded with a smile as he gave a fast look in the direction of Scarlett.
”And about our fence... Fix it.” Fortis looked at me with disdain as he said that sentence.
Glad nodded while scratching his head in embarrassment, he had never expected for such a small bush to be able to break such a sturdy fence, well to say the truth it really wasn't that easy to do, I had to use the *Dig* skill and hit it a lot with a rock.
Without further ado I found myself in the garden behind the ancient house, tied to one of the trees.
“It won't be easy breaking that I guess they really don't want me to roam around…” I said while looking at the tree.
”How the hell did you manage to break that?” He said while looking at a broken fence that had one pole missing from it.
I rooted myself into the ground while looking at Glad trying to fix the fence, it was already kinda late because I took my precious time while exploring the village.
I don't even remember when I disabled the *Magic Perception* skill and fell into a deep slumber. A new day began even though I wasn't that tired yesterday and surely a few hours of sleep would be enough, I still slept for at least twelve hours straight.
I woke up in the garden and everything was as usual. I didn’t really know what to do for a while so I just observed the surroundings and enjoyed the view. I didn’t have many chances to take a break from when I came into this world. As hunting monsters to heal myself or being chased by the devil cat can’t really be called relaxing times.
A few hours passed and no one came to greet me or to see how I was doing.
“Did they forget that I exist? Ah, who cares I will just screw around with the stuff in the garden.”
So without much to do, I started to inspect the surroundings. I inspected different plants and flowers but there was nothing that piqued my interest until I found a purple flower with three big petals, two of the petals had a yellow big dot on them making the flower look as if it was alive.
***
*Ostrumfel flower* - A poisonous flower that grows in the shades of trees, usually the flower ingested by lizard-type monsters to increase the poison in their saliva. Used in alchemy and medicine as a catalyst or an antidote for different kinds of poison. The flower can be easily identified by the two yellow spots on its pellets that look like eyes, giving off a feeling as if something is watching you.
Rank: Rare
Effects: Poison(Heavy)
***
“First of all creepy, second of all why does it have a rank and an effect, was it because the inspect skill increased to the fifth level? And why does the elf need a poisonous flower like this for?” While I was looking at the flower a weird idea came into my head.
“Didn’t I get a new skill that lets me ingest things into my body?” Of course, I wasn’t thinking about eating the plant to kill myself or something, what I wanted is to find out if ingesting plants or potions and other items will give me their effects or not. Anyway, the purple flower was too far away from me to check on it so I continued to look around and found the correct thing.
***
*Sanale grass* - A grass that has a weak healing effect, used mostly as a paste to heal small wounds and cuts. If you find a small round metal box with a star on top of it, you most likely find the Sanale paste inside it.
Rank: Common
Status: Healing(Mild)
***
I didn’t inspect it early because it looked just like normal tall grass, I was just lucky to inspect it with the other bunch of useless plants and flowers.
“Hmm, interesting...”
Not thinking much I came to the grass stalk and tried to use the new *Forced Absorption* skill on them, but of course, I didn’t have a mouth so it didn’t work even though I wrapped my roots around them. Thinking it through I pulled up some of the grass and went near the small pond that was located in the middle of the garden, just barely enough for the length of the rope.
I made a small hole in the ground with the *Dig* skill then dropped the grass into it, taking some water from the pond and slashing it onto the grass. After that I took a stone and started to grind the grass with the water into a paste, after the paste was complete I inspected it.
***
*Sanale paste* - Mostly used to heal small wounds and cuts.
Quality: Bad
***
“What do you mean the quality is bad? It's just swimming in mud.” I said mockingly.
I inserted my roots into the liquid paste and used the *Forced Absorption* skill, a weird cold sensation could be felt going through my roots. I checked my status again, to see if I got the healing effect and indeed I have.
***
*Mild healing* - 0.2hp/hour (duration 15 min)
***
“I guess I can absorb only liquids and the effects are mild at best, well at least it works…” I looked at the dried grass paste that was left in the hole but then I heard the sound of weak footsteps from not that far away, I looked in the direction of the footsteps and there I saw the group of three kids from yesterday.
“We heard that Uncle Felix tied you to a tree, so we came to play.” Elliot smiled while holding a ball that was made out of some old rag that was tied with a rope. At first, I was confused and even a little bit annoyed but as the kid threw the ball at me I instinctively caught it and with a carefree spirit threw it back.
And so I played with the three kids for the rest of the day, I saw the young cocky elf look at us through a window. Three days passed before I could even notice that in those three days, I only leveled up my language skill because the kids always came to play with me.
It looked like Glad and Scarlett left the village after my escape and only returned today. It was really quiet in the village so most of my time I didn't do much, so another quiet day where barely anything happened had passed without any trouble until I felt weird poking from the side.