Hello! Useless author here! I'm currently trying to rewrite everything, meaning that all the content in the chapters will soon* be completely changed, my desire to bang my head against a wall will increase and the synopsis will certainly get a little face-lift aswel. So if you had previously read the chapters or about to do it, just forget. Thanks for the attention.
*take note that the meaning of the word 'soon' is extremely relative, could be a month, three months, half a year...Dependent on my ability to write something of acceptable quality which is extremely uncertain.
Chapter 2: Presentation, Mature child and Racism.
"Phew~, those fronch tost were truly delicious. I'm completely full now." Said the woman with pointy ears in front of me.
"Really Tasty~, to bad they are not any room left" echoed seated the little girl next to her.
We actually were seated at the table in the dining room, the two girls were sprawled on their chairs with a smile of content and a inflated belly in front of me.
"It's frENch tOAst and ofcouse you must be completely full! you two ate everything! I only had one because i risked my hand to grab one!"
I nearly lost it by the way! It was one of the most frightening experience in my life! I couldn't do anything, they just kept assaulting the plate again and again. They even asked for more! Thus i had to prepare a second serving and push another thirty pieces of bread toward their unfathomable and brutal digestion.
"Don't be like that Zell~"
"I'm how i want to be, you starving hyena!"
"What's a hyena?"
"Tch, don't matter"
Fun fact about those two, they are ventriloquist. Even with their mouth overflowing with food we could have something close to a discussion if you omitted the noisy *munch*, *baffre*, *nom* and *gulp* coming from their delicate mouths.
Seriously how can a beautiful woman and a cute child be so barbaric when it comes to food?
Ahem I'm losing myself. Like i said we were able to somehow discuss and introduce each other, the woman i put in the couch is named Mya, she is a kind of apothecary and the girl who started the slaughter is Elik, Mya's apprentice. Both of them live in this house at the edge of the CaelCirk town in the Hexas forest.
Just for the little story, at first they were in the central part of the town but because of an accident; some vapors which weren't that healthy to breath leaked from her workshop and nearly fifty person lost consciousness, thus the town chief forcefully relocalised them here, there shop and ingredient storage didn't move through.
The expression on Mya's face suddenly changed and she straightened her pose on the chair before speaking like if she thought about something important
"Oh! I just remembered! How is that possible that you can move Zell?"
What with this question?!
"Eh?"
"Well you know, when Elik, Moss and Lythe brought you here last night, you had multiply fractured arms and your legs broken with some other minors injuries here and there on your body. I just put everything back in place before painting you all over with anesthetic as well as cicatrising pomade and rolling you in bandage. Thus you should still be in your bed recovering."
I wut?! This Landar asshole!!! I could have died, you fucking psycho!!! Don't throw people in the air like that!
"Are you alright mister Zell? you have a strange expression"
Elik tugged my sleeve while looking interrogatively toward me.
Finally noticing that i was still in the middle of a discussion i stopped my inner cursing and responded with a humble and serious tone after clearing my throat and making my bloodthirsty expression vanish
"Hum, don't worry I'm okay. As for why I'm out of the bed and as good as new, let's say that I'm a fast healing person.
Yeah~ fast healing...
Ahem, Now that we are at it, i wanted to thank you. even though you aren't for much in my recovery, you still gave some care as well as a bed to a stranger like me, I'm really grateful toward you and if i can do anything to pay back your generosity, i will do it willingly."
"Ho ho~. if you want to thank the people who helped you, you should first thank Elik, that's her who convinced Moss and Lythe to bring you here. And i don't need any thanks after being able to eat such a tasty breakfast, if you really want to give me a gift, give the recipe of those wonderful things to Elik, like that she will be able to make them next time~"
"Is that so? you don't need anything else?"
"Yes, don't worry about something like that. *Yawn* Arah? Looks like I'm still a bit sleepy...i will go back to sleep then, Elik i leave the rest to you-*TacTacTac*"
She got up and walked toward the corridor but when she neared the doorframe while waving her hand, the head of a man with dog ears appeared behind the window and he knocked lightly on the glass to get our attention before shouting a muffled
"Baba Mya! Please we need you! Monsters attacked the morning patrol and we need you two treat the injured!"
Recognising him, Mya rushed toward the window with an unwilling expression and opened it while saying
"No no no no! *Clack* Not today! Why is it always me who get to heal smelly guards?! Why aren't the healing magic user doing it?!"
"They already are trying to heal them but they can't keep up with the number of injured! Please! it's the chief who sent me, he even offered to pay you twice the usual price!"
Mya's eyes suddenly got a golden shade, to the point that i nearly heard a *kashing* like sound coming from her.
"Twi-twice the price.... Where are they!?"
She jumped through the window and grabed the surprised man by the shoulders
"Woah! Calm down Baba, they are at the north-west gate's baracks"
"Thanks... Hey! Don't call me baba! It make me look old!"
Vexed, she grabbed him by the ears and pulled him with her along the road.
"Awawawa don't pull the ear! I am not a child anymore!"
But realising something, she stopped and turned toward the two of us who were curiously looking at the scene from the window.
"Shut up and endure!
Elik, you will have to do the morning shopping without me, and Zell, be a good boy and accompany her today, if you follow her you might be able to meet and thanks properly the two persons who dragged you here last night.
Well then see ya!" And like that she walked while singing toward the center of the town, pulling a man who begun to have tears gathering around his eyes
"Money money money!"
...
"..."
"..."
After a long time of awkward silence, Elik and i slowly faced each other before i asked
"Does she like money to this extend?"
Her expression was as dead serious as mine.
"Money and everything sweet are what make her move the most..."
Am i the only one finding it wrong to hear something like that coming from a child's mouth?
"Must be hard on you"
"You don't even imagine"
"Oh and sorry about earlier, when i scarred you"
"Don't mind it, i got my revenge anyway~"
When she said that a mischievous smile replaced her serious face and i came to a realisation.
"That's why you brought her back to life!? You are frightening for a little girl!"
Her smile grew even wider and she responded
"I will take that as a compliment. Can we go to the market soon? There is a lot to buy and transport"
She really insisted on the 'transport' word.
Wait...
"You know that i should still be crippled?"
"But you walk just right, where is the problem?"
No there definitely is a problem with your way of thinking.
"Are you sure that you two didn't swap body? You're far to mature and Mya is... what she is"
"What are you talking about? I'm just a child~"
What with this threatening tone?!
"*sigh* Yes, you are. We go when you want, I'm ready."
"Let me just take a basket and we can depart"
Doing a small detour in the kitchen to grab her basket, i followed her toward the exit of the house, which made us pass by the other side of the corridor and a room looking like a living room.
Once in front of the door i asked
"You didn't forget to take money?"
"No, don't worry"
As to assure me that she had the necessary, she opened the small bag hanging at her side, took a little purse from it and showed it to me while she slightly agitated it, producing an enjoying *clingcling* like sound.
"Then lead the way miss"
Rassured, I opened the door while making an exaggerated bow and inviting her to step forward.
Taking my invitation with a smile, she went in the street with me following suit.
Letting her lead the way, i stared absentmindedly at the vicinity but still cautiously tried to keep the same pace as the one her small legs could muster.
The city was, as expected, medieval looking however there was a subtlety, most of the things here were made of natural element such as wood, dirt and little bit of stone here and there, you could even see some trees growing on the houses and between the white pavements composing the street.
Branches and vines were invading the walls, giving green shades to the brown of the bark, puncturing the surfaces with flowers of various colors as well as making the monotonous walls look more 'fairy-like' with all the insect flocking around.
A thin leaf canopy was bridging the roofs. Creating an outdoor veranda substitute If you don't think to much about the pavement you would feel like if you were marching inside of a huge tree.
Even if it was a city, build like a city and made to be a city it didn't have the depressing and oppressive vibe the pure stone and wood made medieval city or even the modern city from earth usually give. Everything was so lively and close to nature...
The air here is so pure and perfumed by all those flower blooming all around, judging from the shade of green covering everything and the appearance of the flowers it should be spring right now.
It's beautiful, like in my dreams...
Valak, Michael and Gabriel thanks you all for enabling such a thing to happen to me, heck i feel so happy that i don't even ressent Landar anymore.
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*sigh*
Marvelous...
Ow, i think i got carried away, sorry.
Ahem, now about the direct location of Mya's house, it was like she explained, at the edge of the town, in a street next to the main one connecting the center and city's doors. Those doors were easily noticeable from here as they were made of two wooden panels six meters in height and three meters long reinforced with metal frame shaped like vine as to not clash with the ten meters high stone wall covered of thick a thick layer of vines and trees, on this side atleast.
Quite the fortification, isn't it? The use of such a huge protection is justified because their city is the nearest of the dangerous part of the Hexas forest afterall.
What dangerous part, you ask?
It's true that i hadn't explained the geography of this place.
To put it simply, the Hexas forest is a relatively big forest bording the Scion mountains with most of its surface belonging to the Lerass country, a country ruled by a beastmen council mostly constitued of the chiefs of the most influental clans.
This forest can be distinguished in two distinct layers and several specific biomes in each layers, easily recognisable by the sort of plants that you can find and the level of mortality of what lurk between the plants.
For the layers there is the 'external' part, it is the part that take the most space of forest and where this city is located, in the 'common' forest biome. Ofcouse there are monsters, like everywhere on this world, but only a minority is dangerous and only half of this minority attack without provocation, the two more explicit exemples of agressives monsters should be the clawers and the karoulgars.
The clawers are monster which look like raptors but like the names induct it possess really long claws (three the length of a dagger and another one the length of a saber on each 'hands'), however the most dangerous things about them isn't their claws. It's the fact that they always move in group of five or more to hunt and that they rely on a 'pack' system. If one of them find a prey that its hunting group can't take on on their territory, it will call the whole pack to hunt it down, taking into account that packs are made of atleast fifty individuals and an overgrown clawer acting as an alpha, whatever big enough to constitute a meal wander in their territory have little to no chance to survive.
As for the karoulgars, there are five meters long bears with panthera like morphology, extremely agile and smart they will lead you into dead end or wait to be in your blind spot to attack you in a blink of an eye.
As for the vegetation, everything is pretty common, trees that look like trees, flowers that looks like flowers, etc, just like i like it in a 'common' forest biome.
If you forget the clawers, karoulgars and the other predator living in the other biomes, You can say that in overall it's a big peaceful forest.
However it's not the case.
There is the other layer aka the monster den aka the death forest aka shityourpants jungle, the 'central part'. It's where everything become fucked up. a whole bunch of nasty shit lurk in there, like crusts, Imagine a T-rex, make it a quadrupete, put more pointy thing here and there and BAM you have a super predator of 6000 kilograms running faster than a horse which possess a fus roh dah like shout.
There are fifty meters long serpents able to become invisible in the vegetation and paralyse with their eyes, the real name are bothersome to say so let's call them Basilisks
There is the Kirels, it's akin to squirrels but alienised, can climb on everything and collect skull like a squirrel would collect nuts, they spat acid too by the way.
Ofcouse there are more, i only quoted the first coming to my mind however i don't really feel like giving a monstrology lesson right now, But don't think that monsters are the only things that want your hide in this damned place.
The forest itself want to kill you!
Carnivorous plants everywhere, strolling trees transforming your direct geography into a moving maze, vines able to trap you and transform you into cocoons to spread threir spores, zombification mushroom, spikes grass that would make Vlad the impaler kill for having only one strand of those and every damn killing plants you can imagine.
And guess what? This jungle's edge is just five kilometers north from here!
But apparently everything is fine because nobody looks scared or anything, if i had to say something about the town's ambiance is that it's rather joyful and festive. There even is people decorating their facades with green wing patterned flags.
"Say Elik, why is everyone like this?"
"You mean why everyone is in good mood and hanging flags together with green decoration?"
"Yeah"
"It will be Imperos festival soon, so everyone is pretty exited about it thus some early birds take out their decorations right now "
"Imperos festival?"
"You don't know about it?"
"Nope"
"It's supposed to be relatively known around here though.
Not helping it, i will explain as we walk.
Imperos is the guardian of the Hexas forest, a superior air elemental ruling this place. He live secluded in the very center of this forest and don't interact much with the exterior.
Long ago he erected a barrier which stopped the dangerous monsters to wander out of their territories and pacified the whole wildlife present under his influence, bringing a make-shift order in the forest and enabling the construction of little city like this one.
But during the great war a century ago, the barrier vanished for an unknown reason and the monsters wrecked havoc everywhere before the barrier came back as quickly as it disappeared. Some people thought it happened because Imperos was disappointed of our lack of gratitude toward him and gave us a warning. Thus they created this festival to thank him of his hardwork and don't enrage him"
It could be logic but there is a misconception somewhere...
Guardians don't act how they want on their territories, there should be legislations and laws between them that stop them from acting rashly and doing things like opening the doors of their jurassic park to get a celebration in their honour once a year.
There must have been another reason...
Meh, don't know.
"That's quite the story-Wait, Why did you link our hands?"
Unbeknown to me, Elik holded my hand and pulled me like if i was a clumsy child through the crowd which was beginning to thick since earlier.
"We have arrived at the market, there is a lot of people around us so i hold your hand to prevent you from getting lost in the crowd. You should be grateful." She responded with a big bright smile.
Do you enjoy holding the hand of someone you just met?
But what she said was true, i was too occupied thinking to notice that we had arrived on a big place with a wide variety of stalls and people shouting around things like "rainbow bellish fished this morning!" or "selling juicy delir meat, very cheap!"
Seriously why didn't i notice anything when i am thinking?!
Wait...
"Why are you acting like you are the most adult of us?! Beside..." i looked around me and noticed that people were eyeing me with suspicious gaze and keeping a safe distance between me and them.
Some were even whispering between them and looking at me with disgust.
Madam why are you putting your hand on the eyes of your baby?
"...It's not like i could easily go unnoticed with all those people looking at me like that. By the way, why are they acting this way? Is there something wrong with me?" I asked interrogatively meanwhile pointing at my face
In my own standart i find myself rather common so it don't have anything to do with my face.
I wear something relatively plain even if you don't usually find jeans and modern quality shirts in this place, however there are people more excentricly clothed than me, like the old woman with bunny ears wearing something too tight for her age trying to seduce a young seller to get a better price.... madam, why don't you put your hand in front of your child's eyes for something like that?
Elik responded in a half sigh, rubbing her big eyes with two fingers from her free hand
"That's because you are human, even thought the war ended long ago, the fear of the human's imperialism is still here. And the fact that not many humans come in the vicinity don't really help ease this fear thus they get really nervous around you because they are influenced by bad rumours circulating about humans."
We can all agreed that it's not a speech that a ten years should do, right?
"You know that you spout too much sense for a brat your age?"
"Yeah, i know... Oh! hello miss Melsy!"
Just when i was going to ask where she got to be so knowledgeable and mature in her thinking mechanics, we arrived at a stall selling vegetables and spice owned by a strong woman with used brown hair giving a 'gentle motherly' vibe, effect amplified by her big smile and light wrinkles beginning to form on her front and in the corner of her eyes.
"Hello Elik, how are y- who-who is this thing with you?!"
Scratch the 'gentle' part in the 'gentle motherly'
"He is someone-"
"Don't care about who he is! he will make the customers flee, ask it to go away!"
I can hear you and I'm someone sensible! Be a bit more subtle please!
Being a bit red of shame or was it from anger? Elik turned my way and asked in a apologetic tone
"It's not against you or anything but Zell could you-"
Understanding where we were going, i cutted her in her sentence
"Go away and leave a little girl on her own in the middle of a crowded place? Where is the 'i am going to hold your hand but it is not because i want it but because you would be lost without me pulling you around'?" I responded by mimicking her high pitched voice before continuing with a sigh on a more serious tone " i understand. I will take a little stroll around the market. If you need to find me, follow the stares~"
And after saying that i turned toward the other side of the place while raising my hand in a 'see ya' motion to the little girl and the old hag in my back.
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if you find any mistakes don't hesitate to correct them in the comment,
thanks for reading me [th_084_.gif]