Warning: Heavy swearing!!

===================================================== Awarang, a small elven town in Gretharea Kingdom, 47 Gearro 3982 I came out of the Temple of Dawn after placing a couple of silver coins inside the donation box. My business in this place is done. I stretched my body leisurely. I had received my name. Should I go to the Temple of Day right now for my waernei? Waernei… if translated literally it meant: coloring. It was another cultural thing for elves. It was basically choosing magic specialization. The reason it was called coloring is because… well, magic specialization changes the color of an elf’s pupils. The color of my eyes was grey right now, a sign of an unspecialized mage. Mage here was simply a term for magic user, not a class. Every elf, in certain degrees, could sense and use manna… magic, so all elves were pretty much magic users… mages. Not many of the elves chose real “Mage” as their class though. It was because without the right specialization, elf’s magic was actually quite… weak. Anyway, I decided that I would get my color today. There was no benefit of postponing it. Besides, I’d had at least six years of extensive study related to these magic colors and I’d had already planned many different power-up strategies depending on what color I would get. I was ready, whatever random specialization I would acquire. I walked slowly to the town center, where the Temple of Day is located. It was about an hour walk from the Temple of Dawn, which was close to the northern gate. It was a pretty long walk, with lots of natural objects and few artificial dwellings. Well, this town, Awarang, was an elven town, which meant that other than the surrounding town walls and the rather dense business district in the town center, the other parts of the town looked really natural and more village-like. There were lots of huge trees, open fields, a large variety of shrubs, well tended orchards, natural rocks, clean springs, rapid rivers, and secluded wooden houses. Many of those houses were even located on trees. Awarang looked exactly like a fantasy elven villages in movies or games. That was if the each of the villages in those movies or games had an area of more than two hundred square kilometers and a population of a little less than thirty thousand sentient inhabitants, which included the huge percentage of elves (dusk elves and half-elves mostly), as well as a tiny percentage of dwarves, dryads, fairies, ogres, goblins, were-beasts, half-beasts, and humans. I kept walking on the unpaved road while reviewing my plans within my mind. However, when I was close enough to the town center… BANG…!! An explosive sound pierced my ears, followed quickly by many panic-stricken cries and terrifying roars. What the hell was happening? Right when I was still being bewildered by… whatever had happened, a shadowy figure suddenly appeared in front of me, just about ten steps away from me. A black… huge crooked wolf-like thing with ugly scales, razor-sharp teeth, and jagged claws. It was… a… damned… MONSTER! “Gyaaahh…!” The few people around this place screamed loudly and quickly ran away. Wise move! That was what I would be doing as well. Quickly I turned around and sprinted away as fast as I could. That was a monster, damn it! And I was just a twelve-year-old boy. A deafening roar, followed by rapid sound of claws piercing the ground, reverberated behind me. Oh, shit! Shit! Shit! Even without looking back, I knew it. The damned monster chose me as its prey… It chose me, the smallest and weakest creature here… Then… feeling my survival instinct blared extremely loudly within my mind, screaming the word DANGER at full volume, I put logic away and threw my body sideways, rolling on the grassy ground until my backside hit a big tree. Damn! It hurt… a lot… But following my instinct blindly turned out to be the right choice. A loud crash destroyed the place where I would have been, had I not changed the direction of my movement. The damned monster tackled it with what seemed to be all of its might. I was so glad that I chose high sensory ability before I was reborn and that my race was an elf, a race that has much purer survival instinct outdoors compared to humans or dwarves. Shit! It was not the time to relax yet… I quickly jumped up and sprinted away again… leaving the normal street, jumping over who-know-who’s garden fences, sharp turning sideways whenever I could, sliding or rolling under low tree branches to pass through, zigzagging across or somersaulting over wild bushes to escape from the chase… In short, I started utilizing all parkour skills I have with really… really scary improvement. And… that damned monster was still right behind me, crashing the obstacles away as if they were made of frail potato crackers. Shit! Shit! Shit! I kept running and running… While the freaking monster kept chasing and chasing… Damn it! My extreme hard work of exercising everyday… It seemed that they were not enough. The monster was getting closer and closer. But it was once more a great luck for me that I chose high psychomotor ability and high emotional control before I was reborn. I could rely a bit on my high speed to escape and my tense yet strangely still pretty much composed mind to make a sensible plan. If I were running without any direction, sooner or later I would become the prey of this stupid monstrous beast. But, I did not just run without any plan. I knew exactly how I could escape from this stupid game of cat and mouse. I needed to find someone who could take care of that crazy monster. And that someone was of course… an elven guard, anyone of the town guards. Over there! Just after that huge jadewood tree... I just needed to turn left, and… Damn! Nobody was here. How the hell could this happen? This was a damn training ground for the guards, dammit! This should never be empty during the daylight. Shit! Shit! Shit! A loud crash and furious roar behind me kept me from stopping my legs. I could not stop here. My life was on the line. Even though the muscles on my legs started to ache badly, I kept running ... aimlessly this time. Where were the guards? The barrack? Perhaps. But, it was too far from here. So, … My survival instinct blared again… extremely loudly, screaming another DANGER at full volume. I instinctively threw my body to the right, breaking through thorny bushes. That was the right choice… again. A loud crash destroyed the place where I would have been. That damned monster used its old trick of tackling again. I dashed away once more, ignoring the pain of hundred small cuts all over my body caused by the thorny bushes. Where should I go? One of the town gates? Too far… I jumped over a small ditch, and then quickly rolled under a low branch. The nasty sound of the chasing monster was still resonating behind me. Should I… return to the town center? Perhaps the guards were there. It was the place where the chaos started after all. I made an acrobatic climb and jumped over a big blocking rock. Wow! I didn’t know I could do that. But… this wouldn’t be enough to stop that monster. I jumped down to the other side of the rock and continued running. The damned monster was still chasing behind me. Alright! I would return to the town center. First, I just needed to turn left after that small meadow over… What the hell was that thing over there? Shit! Another monster! The damned other monster I saw on the edge of the meadow noticed me and crouched down, ready to pounce upon me. Like I’d let that happen… I turned sharply to the left and broke through some other thorny bushes. Dammit! It hurt… a lot. My ankles ached badly due to the sharp turn, and my whole body was pricked by uncountable thorns. It hurt! But I could not stop… I jumped over another narrow ditch and jumped again over a large tree root. Two nasty monsters followed close behind me… too close… That tree over there… I might be able to climb it quickly. I dashed as fast as I could and jumped with arms stretched… I managed to grab the lowest branch of my target tree, swing myself in what must be an ugly arc, and somehow… perch on the branch of another tree. How in the hell did I manage to do that? Just when I was about to take a deep breath to calm myself, the tree I was on shook violently. What the…! I had to clutch the branch I was perching on tightly to avoid falling down. Below, the two ugly monsters viciously destroyed the tree trunk with their teeth and claws. Holy mother of all cows! They wouldn’t let me rest for a bit, would they? Strengthening my determination to live on, I hopped onto another branch of the same tree I was on now, and then jumped with all my might to a rather far away branch of another tree. Yes! I managed to grab the branch I aimed at, but… It was too weak. The branch was too weak and… broke down. I fell down with a shock… without having a chance to think even a single thought of screaming. My hands grasped wildly around… and managed to hold another one for a fraction of a second, before it broke down too… My butt hit the ground loudly. It was a painful and embarrassing fall, but I didn’t even have time to wallow in embarrassment, since I knew danger was coming really close. I could already feel it. I rolled sideways and jumped up. A snap of muzzle filled with sharp teeth clang a few centimeters to the right of my face. Damn! It was too close… I dashed away wildly… and my body hit a huge tree trunk, which made me bounce uncontrollably to the side. Damn my rotten luck! Fearing the monsters taking advantage of my unbalanced form, I quickly jumped and rolled away through thorny bushes… again. What the hell was going on with these thorny bushes and me today!? But this was… great! I knew this place. This place was not very far from the town center. I just needed to… My danger sense was blasting the word DANGER inside my head again. I quickly used my last drop of stamina to sprint over my normal speed limit and made a dive jump over a thick hedge of medium height in front of me. I landed with a roll on the main pathway not far from the town center. At the same time, a loud crash destroyed the thick hedge behind me completely. I escaped from the clutches of death once more… but I was running out of stamina. “Over here, Kid!” A loud shout made me turn my head to the right. Great! Three elven guards were running to my direction with their weapons drawn. But the monsters were closer to me than the guards. I couldn’t rest yet. I forced myself to stand up and run to their direction. I didn’t know how… but I managed to run faster than what I usually did, even though my stamina was supposed to be empty. This must have been the adrenaline rush people talked about. Everything around me seemed to slow down as I was getting closer to the guards… I saw the front-most guard raising his sword in slow motion, followed closely by his two companions. I knew they were aiming at the monster instead of me, but I couldn’t help feeling intimidated. I slid down the earth, in what I assumed a cool style, for the last few meters separating the guards and me. Damn! I did it in slow motion too. If I could move like normal while others were in slow motion, facing enemies would be a real piece of cake. Oh, well… Getting overpowered was not that easy I guessed… The front-most guard jumped over my sliding body and crashed into something behind me, which should be one of the monsters. I turned my head and saw the two monsters behind me were slain easily by the guards with few slashes and thrusts of their weapons. What the heck?! Were these nasty two monsters chasing me just low leveled mobs? Come to think of it, now that I could see them clearly… those slain monsters were just Sragallae, a low leveled scaled wolf. Great! I ran away frantically just from low leveled monsters. That was really a great start for a legendary adventurer I was aspiring to be… Damn! “Running daily keeps your life intact, doesn’t it, Kid?” One of the guards said casually with wide grin in his face. I knew this half-elf guy. He was Laertreon, one of the members of the unnamed parkour club. “Yeah… I wish I’d been practicing harder. Anyway, thanks for the help, but… what the hell is actually happening here, Laertreon-ka? I almost died there,” I replied with heavy breath. The suffix -ka is an elven polite term for refer to someone respected, or someone older. “You know this kid, Treon?” Another guard, the guard leader if seen from his uniform, asked. “Yeah. He is Kerbruan’s nephew, a runner like Maika and me,” answered Laertreon. “I’ve got a name now, you know. It’s Khael.” “Oh, so you’re twelve already? Khael, huh? Looking at your skin and clothes, that is indeed a fitting name,” said Laertreon with wider grin. “What do you… oh, right… I probably… should have chosen another name,” I said, realizing what this jolly guard meant. Khael could mean thorn, and… well, my tattered clothes and bloody body showed how ‘connected’ I was with thorns today. “You should stay here for a while, Khael,” said the guard leader. “We’ve slain most enemies terrorizing the town, but it might take a little bit more time to completely annihilate them.” “What happened, Guard Leader-ka? I thought monsters could not penetrate the enchanted town walls.” The guard leader showed a tired face. “It’s that crazy group, Bhalafaeth.” I winced hearing the name mentioned by the guard leader. It was quite an infamous name. I guessed in any era, any place; there were always people who stood against the established society. They might have called themselves patriots, or saviors, or liberators, or heroes, or whatever else. But, people in general knew them by another name, a simple name… terrorists. Here, in this world, in elven community, that was the ugly role taken by Bhalafaeth, whose name actually meant the Protector of the Elves.