After being teleported into the elven forest, Arthur begins his journey to return home. But while he is walking, he suddenly hears a bloodcurdling scream from across the woods. It sounds like it’s coming from a little girl, so he immediately gathers Mana in his feet and begins racing to check it out. He jumps up into a tall tree for a good vantage point, and once he is up there, he can clearly see a group of bandits kidnapping a little girl. She tried getting away from them, but the bandits have already grabbed her and are covering her mouth to stop her from screaming anymore. Since the girl is an elf, they plan to sell her as a slave on the black market for a huge profit as soon as they leave the forest. So they tie her up and stuff the girl in the back of their carriage. As Arthur watches the whole thing unfold, he has flashbacks to the moment he and his family were attacked by bandits as well. He recalls hearing the bandits mention something about keeping him and the women in the group alive so they could be sold as slaves later, and it really pisses him off. The first thought that comes to mind is that he should slaughter all the bandits for committing such a heinous crime, but he remembers what Sylvia told him about controlling his rage, so he takes a moment to think and calm down.
He realizes that if he attacked right now, it would put the girl’s life in danger, so he decides to be patient and wait for the right chance to strike. All the bandits get in their carriage to start riding out of the forest, and Arthur follows them closely from the shadows. By nightfall, the bandits are forced to take a break and set up camp since they can’t travel in the dark, and Arthur is contemplating whether he should continue following them until they get to a human town or attack them now. But then he overhears the bandit talking about how his favorite race is elves, so Arthur realizes he can’t risk leaving them alone with the girl any longer. However, he still needs to wait for it to get dark before he makes his move. So Arthur sits down and starts meditating to prepare himself for all the murderer charges he’s about to catch. Once it is sufficiently dark, Arthur opens his eyes and begins planning his attack. He notices that the bandits have a group of horn wolves on a leash, and he finds it odd that the wolves are obeying a group of humans with no resistance. He takes a closer look at them and realizes that they are wearing magic collars to force them to be obedient, and he can use this to his advantage, so he throws a couple of rocks at the wolves to rile them up.
The bandits hear their wolves howling over there, and the leader orders one of his men to hurry up and go shut those damn wolves up. The bandit immediately gets up and kicks one of the wolves in the neck to get it to stop barking, and the second the bandit is distracted, Arthur seizes the opportunity. He summons a monoblade before jumping down behind the bandit, and within a few seconds, the bandit has been slashed to death. Arthur then takes the bandit’s weapon, and as another one comes to check what all the commotion is, Arthur jumps on his back and slits his throat. That’s two bandits down already, but Arthur’s body is already getting exhausted, so he needs to end this quickly. Just then, another bandit comes to check why the other two are taking so long, so Arthur tries to instakill this one as well, but unfortunately, he missed the vital organs, so the guy screams and alerts the other bandits of Arthur’s presence. The bandit leader realizes that Arthur is a mage, so he knows this isn’t going to be an easy fight, but he also doesn’t want to kill Arthur because selling a mage kit on the black market would earn him even more money than the elf girl.
The bandit leader begins channeling magic into his arms and swings at Arthur, so Arthur jumps back and tries to counter with a kick, but the bandit leader managed to dodge. Arthur tries to catch him off guard by throwing his knife at him, but the bandit catches it and uses it against him. As a result, Arthur is knocked to the ground, and the bandit lifts him up by the ankles to taunt him. He tells Arthur he is no match for an adult when it comes to strength, and Arthur realizes that the bandit is right, so he decides to attack with his magic instead. He casts a fireball right on top of the bandit’s knee, and while he is screaming out in pain, Arthur stabs him in the head with his knife. Now, all that’s left is to finish off the bandit that Arthur injured earlier, and once he is dead, Arthur goes to check on the girl in the carriage. The girl was blindfolded the entire time, so she has no idea what’s going on. So Arthur tells her he has taken care of all of the bandits, so she is safe now. Her name is Tessia, and as Arthur leads her out of the carriage, he tells her she can go home. But Tessia suddenly notices some blood on Arthur’s hand, and she gets really worried about him. Arthur realizes that it’s normal for children to be horrified at the sight of blood, so it might not be a good idea to let her see all the dead bodies on the floor.
He asks Tessia to wait over here for a minute and goes to cover up all the bandit bodies with a tarp. She asks Arthur what happened to the people that kidnapped her, and Arthur doesn’t want to admit that he killed them, so he just says they got into a bit of an accident, so they won’t be bothering her anymore. The girl doesn’t seem to have any more questions, so Arthur gets her stuff out of the bandit carriage for her and says goodbye because he needs to continue heading home. However, Tessia grabs his arm and begs him to stay because she doesn’t want to be left alone. If Arthur leaves her here by herself, she might get eaten by tree ghosts or something. He asks her if she knows how to get home, and she does know the directions, but she has no idea how long it will take to get to her village. Arthur doesn’t like the idea of taking maybe tour, but he also knows there’s no chance that Tessia will make it home alive if he doesn’t help, so he ends up agreeing to escort her back home. Arthur looks over at the wolves that the bandits captured, and he briefly considers using them for transportation, but he has no idea how to maintain control over a wolf, so he wants to just leave them behind.
However, Tessia says they should at least remove the magic collars on the wolves so they can return to the forest. Arthur warns her that the wolves might attack once she removes the collars, but she thinks she’ll be fine since she hasn’t done anything to anger them. And as a resident of this forest, it is her job to take care of the creatures that live here. She eventually takes the collars off the wolves, and sure enough, the wolves peacefully walk back into the forest. The next morning, Arthur and Tessia begin walking in the direction of the elf village, and after a while, they take a break to eat. Arthur cooks up a little stew and tells her she has to eat it because she’ll need the energy for the long journey ahead. Tessia thinks the stew smells weird, but Arthur isn’t exactly a world-class chef. It’s literally made out of nothing but dried meat and salt, so it doesn’t taste good, but it’s better than nothing. Tessia asks Arthur why he came to the Elshair forest in the first place since it’s rare for humans to come here, much less a lone child. So Arthur explains how he got separated from his family and ended up here. While they are on the topic, Arthur asks Tessia what it’s like to live in the kingdom of Eleanor, and she absolutely loves it here. All of her parents are often busy with work, so she spends most of her time with her servant and her grandfather. They continue their journey, but since Tessia doesn’t know how far away her village is, it’s hard to gauge how long this journey will take. And to make matters worse, those wolves that Tessia released have been following them for a while now, so Arthur is really wishing he had just killed them from the start. That night, Arthur decides to stand guard outside the tent to make sure the wolves don’t attack him and Tessia while they are sleeping, but after a while, Tessia pokes her head out and asks Arthur to come to bed. Arthur tells her that he’s not sleepy, so he’s going to stand guard out here, but she’s way too scared to be alone, so she pleads with him to come inside the tent with her. Arthur eventually gives in, so he decides to just keep watch from inside the tent for Tessia’s sake.
She’s trying to pretend that she’s not scared, but she also demands that Arthur stay by her side at all times. Before she goes to bed, she wants to learn a little about the human kingdom, so she asks Arthur if it’s true that all humans are perverts who marry multiple wives. Arthur is surprised to hear Tessia say that and asks where she heard it from, so she explains that her grandfather told her. Arthur can’t deny that people like that exist, especially in the Grarit family, but for the most part, humans are modest people. Tessia believes Arthur, so she turns over and falls asleep immediately. The wolves didn’t attack, so by morning, Arthur and Tessia got up and continued their journey. Tessia has really been warming up to Arthur over the past few days, and now that she has had a chance to forget about the slave traders, she seems a lot happier. Although she is still pretty hopeless when it comes to survival skills because she can’t even cross a creek on her own, so Arthur has to carry her across. All of a sudden, Arthur is hit with a strange throbbing pain in his chest, and he has no idea what’s wrong with him. Tessia worriedly runs off to go find some medicinal herbs that might help, but Arthur doesn’t think this is a regular illness. While he’s propped up against a tree, the wolf from before shows up, and Arthur is starting to panic because he is in no condition to fight it off if it decides to attack right now. Tessia soon returns with the herbs. So Arthur warns her to stay away because the wolf might be dangerous, but to his surprise, the wolf just drops a dead pig in front of Arthur and walks away. Arthur is confused by what just happened, but Tessia assumes the wolf was trying to thank him for his help earlier. That night, Arthur and Tessia set up camp and enjoy some roasted meat by the fireside.
This tastes a lot better than the stew, so Tessia really enjoys it, and while she was searching for medicinal herbs earlier, she happened to find some mushrooms, so she offers some to Arthur. But he probably shouldn’t have accepted the strange mushrooms because it gave him a bad case of diarrhea. After Arthur is done emptying his guts, he is really tired, so he is seconds away from passing out, but Tessia keeps talking to him. She is telling Arthur about how her grandpa used to read her storybooks about the human and dwarven kingdoms, so she always wanted to visit those places, but she was never allowed to since elves don’t trust people from the other races. Just then, Tessia realizes that Arthur hasn’t been listening to a single word she said, but she knows he’s just sleepy, so she covers him with a blanket and wishes him a good night. The next morning, the two continue their journey, but the pain in Arthur’s chest is getting worse. Tessia apologizes for not being able to help, but Arthur tells her it’s not a big deal. Changing topics, Tessia asks Arthur if it’s all right for her to call him Arty since she thinks of him as a friend after all. They spent so much time together, and the two of them have gotten really close. Arthur says he doesn’t mind being friends with her, and Tessia is surprised that he didn’t react much. Arthur then jokingly swears to cherish every moment the great Lady Tessia thinks of him as a friend, but that makes her upset, so she tells Arthur to stop acting so childish. Arthur thinks it’s funny that she would say that when she was the one begging him to stay by her side at all times because she was scared, but Tessia says that’s an entirely different thing. Jokes aside, now that Arthur thinks about it, Tessia is the first friend he has ever made. Even in his old world, people were so scared of him that he never truly had anyone whom he could call a friend till now. Just then, Tessia spots something that looks familiar, so she tells Arthur to come take a look. Arthur comes over expecting to see a cool-looking stick or something, but to his surprise, he is standing in front of a huge tree with a portal in the middle of it. Tessia tells Arthur that this is the entrance to Elf Village, so she extends her hand and tells him to come with her.
Leave a Reply