“What are you doing in my people's territory?”

I swallowed carefully against the sharp blade then leaned slightly away from it….that smell….a woman?

“Well? Explain yourself, we have a treaty with the four kings guaranteeing that no one will come this far into the forest.”

I raised an eyebrow at that, I hadn’t ever heard anything about a treaty…...but if four Void ranked beings felt the need to form a treaty with these people instead of just conquering them….a shiver ran down my back. I slowly raised my hands and started to gather tears in my eyes.

“I-I haven’t heard about a treaty, Miss, b-but m-my school is doing a training session in the forest and I got separated from the group. I’m blind, you see, so I tend to get lost easily.”

I let big fat tears start to roll down my cheeks and slowly began to turn, the mysterious woman let me move, drawing her blade back and moving a few steps away.

“Your eyes…...it really does seem like you’re blind, you must the devil's luck to make it this far into the forest without being killed…….Hmmm, you haven’t heard anything about a treaty? ”

I shook my head, giving a loud sniff.

“No Miss, there hasn’t been any announcement about a treaty, of course I’m only seven years old so it could have been announced and I just don’t know about it…..”

Yeah right, I have pride in my information gathering abilities, there’s no way something like that would slip by me!

“No…….there was a specific clause in the agreement that ensured that the people be taught not to enter this deep into the forest, because of the treaty, at a very young age…..Those guys must have gone back on their word…...tch, we shouldn’t have let those arrogant weaklings live…..”

Oho, she’s calling void level berserkers weaklings! This is getting more interesting by the minute!

“Ne~ Miss, what are you going to do with me?”

Please, please take me to your village!

“Hmmmm, usually I would just take you back to your group, but it’s already getting dark and the more troublesome beasties come out a night…...It would be hard to deal with them with baggage to keep safe…..Well, since you can’t see, I guess there’s no harm in letting you stay the night in the village, you’ll be going back in the morning though, okay?”

I was called baggage…….But still! I get to go whoohoo!

The strange lady grabbed and swung me onto her back and started to dart through the trees. I settled my head on her shoulder and spoke quietly into her…….pointed ear? She must be an elf…

“Ne~ Miss, you’re moving really fast, you must be very strong, are you at Void level?”

The woman snorted.

“I passed the Void level years ago kid, really, the lower realms truly are weak.”

Ooooooooh, I getting even more excited!

“So Miss there are levels above Void? And what do you mean, lower realms?”

The woman suddenly skidded to a stop on one of the branches.

“I didn’t mean for you to hear that, I just muttered it under my breath, how did you even hear that?”

Whoops!

“Ah, because I’m blind, my other senses have developed to compensate some.”

The woman still didn’t move.

“My people have excellent hearing, and I still said it soft enough for one of them to not be able to hear it!”

Basically, she wasn’t buying it….now that I think about it, she hasn’t made any comment about my appearance either…..

“It helps that I have two sets of ears too….”

The woman gave a slight jerk of surprise.

“You mean those cat ears aren’t fake? and the tail and wings too? I thought for sure someone had just played a prank on the blind kid….”

My tail bopped her slightly on the head in reproach, luckily, she didn’t bring out the spikes.

“Nope! They’re all real…….”

Guuuuu, I really hate that little parasite!

“Wow…...that must quite the story….”

“It’s almost too painful to tell…….guh, no good deeds go unpunished...”

Not that my motives for saving Void were entirely pure….

“I’ve been pranked pretty badly by my student a couple of times, just imagining the effect being permanent…..*shudder*”

We both fell silent after this remark, but there was a comfortable sense of camaraderie between us now……Is this what all the people I’ve pranked felt like when they met each other? Fufufufu it seems I’ve been helping people make friends~

After another thirty minutes of travel, the woman moving at a comfortable speed that out matched my own careful pace, the woman suddenly dropped from the tree onto the ground and ran a few more minutes until I felt the trees suddenly fall away into a huge clearing. The woman let me slide off her back, and I used the resulting thump of my bare feet against the earth to get a clear few of what was in the clearing. The half of clearing itself was full of strangely familiar obstacles, obviously a training ground, the other half was a large lake. In the air far above the training area I could feel a huge village suspended in the air by the trees circling the clearing. A grin wanted to spread across my face, but the lingering familiarity of the obstacle course obstructed it with a shiver of worry. Why was it so familiar?

“Serena! You’re back early from patrol, ah! Who is this cute kid!?”

I heard the woman, Serena, standing beside me slap her forehead.

“Misty, you are a graduated ninja and the mother of the prospective next chief of the village, can’t you properly follow the ninja codes of secrecy and solidity for once!!!”

Ninjas! Fufufufu, I have to get these guys as my allies somehow! Ninjas are awesome toys!

“Mou, Sis, I could never handle being the proper ice block you are, that’s why I was never sent on any missions!”

Serena’s…..sister? bounced happily forward and crouched down in front of me.

“So who’s this little guy? And why is he wearing a costume?”

…….You know, you could actually ask me instead of acting like I can’t hear you…….And what’s with these people thinking my wings and stuff are a costume!!???

“Ah, those are real, not fake, as for his name……………………………………………….I forgot it?”

No, you never asked for it!!!

“Sis…….you didn’t even ask, did you…….and you were just haranguing me about not following the codes!”

Hmmm, it seems she knows Serena quite well, as expected of a sister….

“I do follow the codes, I just occasionally make mistakes, you on the other hand, don’t even make an attempt to follow them! You even slack off on training! I mean look of those useless hunks of meat you have!!”

Ooooh, sounds like sibling jealousy~ Serena’s certainly didn’t take up as much air as her sister’s did….

“Pah, you’re just jealous! Anyway, Miss Code Follower, what is this kid even doing here?”

By now, I could feel a group of people gathering around us, but for now they remained as just spectators.

“Ah, this kid is blind and says he got lost from his training group, it’s going to be dark soon, which would make it a pain to take him back now, so I figured since he couldn’t see, he wouldn’t break rule number 47 about outsiders seeing the village, so he could stay the night and I could take him back in the morning!”

At this point, I felt a figure break from the crowd of people and approach the two women. The whiffs of scent I caught coming off from him indicated he was an old man, but his steps were steady and firm with no sign of weakness.

“I agree with you Serena, traveling at night alone with a child can be dangerous, and it’s rare for us to have a simple visitor, fufufufu, besides, I’d like to know how that little kid had bonded with one of the royal family of dragons at such a young age~”

I stiffened slightly, crap, this old man was sharp! With this kind of guy, it was safest to be as honest as possible! I tugged Void out from under my hair.

“Aha, you mean this little parasite here mister?”

The old man chuckled.

“Ohohoho, yes, though I’ve never heard one of the royal families bonded refer to them as a parasite, you’re quite an interesting one kid, I’ve never seen one of the dragon royals with such unique traits developed either, and that is saying something when it come to the imperial family…..I have a feeling my father eccentric daughter would like you, you would be of legal age when her time limit to find a husband runs out.”

Ahaha, this sounds Very familiar, I recognize the obstacles too, they’re very similar to what Raina had back at school…….A shiver ran down my back, b-best not to ask right now, or i might truly be trapped in a training arrangement…….but that woman! She would have know I was checking out her home…..she must have not have mentioned this on purpose!

“I-I’m just a seven years old mister……..ah, um my name is Felix, what’s your name mister?”

Best option, changing the subject!

“Aha, how amusing, well, I’ll play along kid, my name is Oakun, and I am the chief of this village~”

Tch! He caught on...well, I didn’t really do a good job of hiding it….might as well fish for information.

“Ne~ Mister chief, why does everyone here feel so strong?”

“Oho kid, you’ve got pretty good senses, unfortunately, I can’t tell you that, but maybe one day you’ll figure it out on your own, you’re quite strong yourself for a seven year old kid, not even any of our children reach Sun level at the age of seven, it usually takes them until they reach twelve or thirteen years….”

A few gasps ran through the crowd, and I stiffened for a moment at the old man’s words, but then I relaxed and pouted.

“Eh, Mister, that’s no fair, I was even wearing a ring that’s supposed to suppress my cultivation level…….how could you tell?”

The old man waved his arm and the crowd began to disperse.

“Fufufu, that ring you have is quite good, but it doesn’t hide the gathering of worldly energy that occurs around a cultivator about to enter Void level.”

My ears perked up at that.

“Oooooh, I’m going to enter Void level soon, Mister?”

“I do believe so, judging by the amount of energy you’ve gathered, it should only take about two years~”

I slumped slightly.

“Aaaaah, so I’m going to have to wait another two years before I reach Void level? I’m sure I can speed the process up, but still…..it’s quite disheartening to hear….”

The old man bopped me on the head with his fist.

“Ow! That actually hurt!”

He hit me again.

“What world have you been living in kid, it generally even takes my people a decade to enter Void rank, and we have enhanced cultivation speed, most of the humans in your lower realm take five times as much as that!”

“Yeah Boss, you can’t keep breaking reality like this, I mean, you already broke through several ranks in just half a year because of your crazy training methods!”

The old man froze as Arvid suddenly joined the conversation.

“Oho, you obtained a spiritual conscience kid, you must have trained at a pretty impressive place…..but w-what else did he just say?”

“Ah, I’ve only been to school for about half a year? I started at comet level, and now I’m Sun level~”

The old man’s heart suddenly began to beat faster and he grabbed my hands excitedly.

“You’re Him, aren’t you!”

Ah? That’s right, the elven clan is spaced across worlds like the dragon clan….though they tended to not to spread as much thanks the occasional unfortunate transformations that occurred to them in other world….like the shoe elves, or Santa’s helpers….or even the keebler elves…..poor guys, they have no choice but to act cheerful all the time…

I let my natural evil grin appear on my face.

“Oho, Mister, so the elves tales of me have spread to this world…...but why do you sound so excited about it? Most of the elven clans don’t care for me….”

Oakun snorted and slung an arm around my shoulders, guiding me towards a nearby rope ladder.

‘Geh, those tree huggers, our clan doesn’t get along with them very well, nature, trees, the well-being of the world, we don’t care about any of that stupid stuff they care about, in this world, the only things elves care about are becoming the best ninjas we can! …...Well, most of us, a few get side tracked, like Misty….and my daughter only cares about the training part of our lifestyle…..but every clan has a few exceptions….“

My grin grew even wider as Oakun continued to talk, it sounds like I could get along with theses guys pretty well…...so long as they don’t find out my connection to Raina, then I’ll truly be trapped in a marriage….We climbed up the ladder and Oakun guided me to his house, and showed me where I would be staying for the night. Then I got to join in the clan dinner.

The clan dinner was held on the grounds, fires were not a good idea when your home was mainly a giant wooden treehouse. I sat leaned against a tree on the edge of the clearing with a plate of steaming cooked beast meat and greens that were absolutely delicious. I was chowing down happily when Serena walked over and sat next to me with her own plate of food.

“.....So, you weren’t really lost, were you?”

I shrugged.

“Eh, I was curious about what was in the center of the forest, but I wasn’t lying about the part of the kings not announcing any treaty about your people and the forest, those guys were probably too embarrassed to admit they got beaten, especially when they were supposed to be the strongest people in this continent.”

“I see…..that does make sense...”

“Ummmm, why are are you petting my tail?”

“It looked soft and I wanted to touch it, it’s even softer than it looks...”

She kept petting my tail and Misty trailed over.

“Ah, Serena, with such a happy look on your face, that kids fur must be really soft, I’ve been eyeing it for a while now…...Ooooh, this IS soft…..”

N-not the ears!.....it feels too n...nice……

More women began to drift over and soon I was surrounded.

Rea….lly…...n…..n...nice……..I….hate…..th...that…...stupid…..ch….chicken…..lizzzzardddd….