“Vera, do you know how to use any weapons?”

“Hmm, I use to use a bow to hunt food.”

“You use to hunt? What about your parents?”

I knew I was approaching a very delicate area, but it was information I should try to get sooner or later.

“I never had parent…..My grandma raised me in the forest, but she said I should be self-sufficient and know how to do stuff myself.”

I was happy to see her demeanor didn’t change when I asked about her parents, but I didn’t understand what she meant by saying she didn’t have any parents.

Our walked continued and our landscape alternated almost randomly from a full cityscape to lush grasslands every so often. I couldn’t determine what caused some areas to change while others remained the same, but if the cause of this truly is divine intervention as I anticipated, logic may not matter here.

I did our best to keep us away from anything that set off my danger sense because I wanted to keep Vera safe and I was prioritizing that over leveling up for the time being.

It wasn’t only goblins that needed to be feared anymore. There weren’t any other predatorial monster that I came across or that I detected in this area, but some of the herbivores were very territorial.

While we were walking I was mentally going through my inventory for a bow that would be small enough for her to use. I was pretty sure I had a youth bow in my storage I took from my store. Archery or hunting, in general, was something a lot of parents were interested in sharing with their kids so we kept a few youth sets on hand.

“Ah, I found one.”

Bows were very different from guns that were pretty much on size fits all. Bows had to fit the user properly or it would affect its accuracy and power.

We walked from about 8 am to 1 pm and I decided it was time for us to take a break. I stopped under a tree that provided us shade from the sunlight while I rolled out a blanket picnic style and passed out the sandwiches I prepared beforehand. For such a small frame Vera proved to be a big eater, she wasn’t at the level of being a bottomless pit, but she ate as if she was trying to make up for every meal she ever missed.

While we stopped I took out thirty aluminum arrow shafts, and steel three blade broadheads. These were the highest quality material we had in the store and would cost more than $500 to produce. Any archer would cringe to see these going to a child.

Vera watched every move I made to prepare the arrows in a semi memorized state. The arrows came in two parts. The shaft was the body of the arrow and the broadhead was basically the arrowhead. Different kinds of arrowheads were used for different situation or wildlife, so it made sense for them to be removable.

To make the arrow I screwed the broadhead I wanted on to the body of the shaft, this required a set of tools; I thankful had. Because broadheads were very sharp and designed to pierce thick layers of skin and muscle it wasn’t recommended to use your bare hands to screw them in.

Once I was finished I produced a black quiver bag from my storage where I placed the arrows.

“Vera listen, these are yours. These a very dangerous and not a toy please do not play with them. Also, it will be very hard to get more so always try and retrieve the arrows you can do you understand?”

“Yes, but I don’t have a bow. Should I try to make one?”

I retrieved the compound bow from storage I pick out for her earlier and presented it to her. Her eyes intently assessed the bow.

“This is a strange bow.” She commented.

“Yes, but It should do the job pretty well.”

“Also master has an item box skill. That’s a very rare gift.”

“Yes please don’t tell anyone about it.”

“Yes, it’s best to not. Can I test the bow?”

“Sure, just remember to try not to lose the arrow if you can. Would you like me to show you how it works? And what do you mean by its best not to? ”

“No thank you, I think I got it. Other people tend to abuse people with that skill, some just ask a lot of the user and others would go as far as trying to enslave the skill holder.”

“I see.”

She stood up, and knocked an arrow on the string and tested the draw.

“It’s so smooth, it’s even better than the bow of elven nobles.” She was muttering to herself and I just sat and watched.

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She finally pulled the arrow in and aimed, I looked to see what she was aiming at, and it was a horned rabbit, but it was more than fifty yards away.

She couldn’t be aiming for that right?

She released the arrow and it whistled as it pierced the sky spiraling towards the very rabbit I gave her no chance of hitting. Then a thunk sound was followed by the cry of a rabbit and then silence. I packed our picnic up and walked to retrieve the arrow.

As I approached the rabbit I was taken aback to find not only did she hit it from fifty yards away, but the arrow pierce the rabbit's neck and nailed it to the ground.

“That was amazing Vera.”

“Thanks, Master, but with this bow and these arrows it was no biggie.”

She grabbed the rabbit by the horn and said, “Today, I will make lunch for us.”

This was my first time being so close to one, they were normally pretty skittish and avoided us as we walked. The closest one I have seen was when I was above it the 3rd-floor balcony of the apartment. Its horn was almost twice as long as its body; I’d say about twenty inches and at its thickest point was about as thick as my thumb.

“Thanks, I don’t know how to prepare rabbit, but I’m more than willing to try it.”

The quiver I gave her had a place where the Bow could be strapped and we continued our walk.

I plan was to gently glean as much information as I could.

“So did you hunt a lot in your world?”

“I wouldn’t say that no, not any more than usual. About ten rabbits a week.”

“How long have you been doing that?”

“The last fifty years or so.”

Fifty years……..

“Wow that’s a long time; I guess its true elves do live long.”

Then her demeanor changed, the energy a vibe she had was gone. Blown away like a leaf in the wind and her head hung as she watched her feet while she walked.

“What’s wrong?”

“Master, I have a confession. Please forgive me, I’ve meant to correct you, but I never got the chance. Truth is I’m not an elf.”

Strange she looks like the spitting image of an elf from the books I’ve read.

“Then what are you?”

“I’m what’s called a Halfling. I’m only half-elf.” She didn’t make eye contact or even look at me, she was ashamed of what she was, but I didn’t have enough information to figure out why, so I, unfortunately, had to press the issue.

“Can you tell me more and how old are you really?”

“I’m 435 years old, and I’m a half-elf half dwarf. I didn’t know my parents; my grandma really did raise me. I was raised in the forest away from people. She always told me it was for my own safety, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t figure out until a few years ago why. One day I was hunting in the forest and a small group of dwarven soldiers came to our forest. All I heard them say was “It's her, It’s the heretic, tell the commander! And they all ran. So, I ran home to my grandma and told her about what happened.”

I was listening to her story while still reeling about the fact that this little girl was almost half a millennium years old.

“She got frantic and began quickly packing and screamed get ready! We ran out the door to find a battalion of Dwarves waiting on us. They looked at my Grandma and said “You know why we are here. Give us the Heretic.” My grandma responded with a calming smile and told them “over my dead body.”

Did they send a battalion to capture a little girl? I mean yea her skills with a bow are impeccable but something seems wrong about that. That’s a minimum of three hundred soldiers.

“She pushed me away and screamed at me to run while casting some spell that bought time for me and I ran away as fast as I could for as far as I could with nothing, but my hunting bow. I had to survive on my own ever since. I learned later that elves and dwarves were natural enemies and were not supposed to be able to produce a child so to both races I was a stain on their planet.”

“That’s awful Vera, but I promised you I will always be here for you.”

She walked closer to me and leaned into my arm.

“I know.”

We stepped onto a vast green plain where I saw a small herd of massive creatures.

“What are those?” My AR screen told me exactly what they were, but asking what you do not know was still a force of habit.

“Pentracellas.”

They looked like a cross between a triceratops and an elephant with a sprinkle of ankylosaur mixed in. My AR told me apart from the elephant size babies romping around all the adults were between level 65-75. There was one that looked more ferocious that all the others standing on top of a hill looking down watchfully over the rest that was level 93 and it was labeled as the Alpha Pentracella. It had two separate tusks. One smaller set behind a larger up curving set and on its head was a crest with one larger horn poking out. It had a terrifying appearance that screamed danger; Avoid.

Following my gaze Vera and confirmed what I was seeing, “That’s the Alpha, usually the herds have one alpha male that rules from the top.”

“What is something that big being so watchful for?” On Earth, the largest land animal was an elephant and it had no natural predators, even during prehistoric time’s large dinosaurs like the brachiosaur didn’t have a natural predator.

“The only thing that can kill a full grown Pentracella is a dragon, but not even they want to deal with them most times. They would waste a lot of energy killing it, and then they are too heavy to pick up and carry away, so they would have to eat it where it’s killed, and naturally, the rest of the Pentracellas in the herd wouldn’t let that happen peacefully. Monsters never go for the adult. It’s the babies that are their prime target. They are delicious, big, slow, and don’t have any natural defenses other than their size.”

“That makes sense, let’s keep moving. I’d hate to be caught up in the middle of a big monster hunt.”

“Yes, master.”

“It’s Jordan!”

- After an hour we came across another set of stores that featured a liquor store I emptied; I‘ve never drunk anything apart from a beer with my boss, but I’m pretty sure this would have some value somewhere down the line. An electronic store which was of no benefit to me, we had no power so left it, and another hardware store I emptied. That took me almost two hours.

It was approaching evening and I knew we needed to find somewhere to rest for the night.

The path became asphalt again and we were walking down the center of what used to be a busy eight-lane road with various cars abandoned and parked on the side of the road. However, something else caught our attention; something was in the middle of the road.

“Master, someone is there.”

She reached for her bow and an arrow.

“Someone?”

I came to the conclusion that Vera’s natural vision was better than my enhance vision level 3. I could only make out the outlines of whatever it was.

“Yes, it’s a person. What should we do?”

I used my hand to point her bow down which she was putting in a firing position. I have seen what she could do with that thing.

“Well, there’s no need to commit murder. Let’s get closer and see what it is.”

I took two bookbags out of storage for Vera and me and stuffed it with various things. I put one on and gave one to Vera.

“What’s the purpose of this master?”

“I don’t want anyone knowing about the storage skill, and if that’s a person, seeing us without any belongings it would look strange.”

It stood still as we walked in its general direction; I was still on guard and was ready to draw my machete at any given moment.