“The true science of martial arts means practicing them in such a way that they will be useful at any time, and to teach them in such a way that they will be useful in all things.”

Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

The Forest of the Untamed, as befitting of its name (this author didn’t feel like trying to think of something more clever here) was a massive forest that stood at the edge of the Kingdom’s declared borders, filled with all sorts of creatures and monsters. It was said that for every dozen people that entered the forest, only ten would make it out. On top of that, it was common knowledge that to travel through the twisted forest trails not in a caravan would only increase your odds of death ten-fold. The guards at that gate upon seeing an unarmored man and child walking casually out of the gate towards the forest made a few warding gestures, but upon seeing the cold gaze of the man, and the notice that had been given to the guards at the start of their shifts, they allowed the two to pass unimpeded.

Where the weather had been a comfortable twenty degrees (yes this is Celsius, while I could use American units, most of the world should be able to understand this a bit better methinks. If you don’t know the conversion, open your calculator in windows and there is a temperature conversion option. The more you know…) with only a few clouds scattered in the twin sunned sky, entrance into the forest dropped the visibility down to only a hundred meters or so, with a dark gloom seeming to settle over them. The fifty shades of purple that the vegetation around them had seemed to dip further down towards a dusky almost black, making the forest seem a bit more eerie.

Well, it was a bit more eerie for Eli, who after the first few hundred meters into the forest, slowly stopped singing and instead found herself walking closer and closer to Grey. Off in the distance, a tree branch broke off with a loud echoing crack and a thunk as it hit the ground. Eli let out a quick eek, and reached to hold onto Grey’s hand. For his part, Grey merely cataloged the disturbance and reassured Eli.

“Don’t worry. Nothing around here is going to be able to hurt you while I’m here.”

“Eli knows.” She said jutting out her jaw a bit in defiance, trying to act as though she wasn’t scared in the slightest.

“Hmm… that being said, I think we should look for ways to try to help you level up a bit. This might be a good place to start some of your training.” Grey pondered on this thought as they kept walking down the trail following the map that they had been given from the guard station.

Eloise’s attempted look of normalcy quickly went to one of shock as she heard Grey’s musings. She looked up at him, seeing only his normal expression. She quickly decided that if this is what Grey thought she should do, then she would do it and make him proud. With this she tried to wipe the look of shock off of her face and be casual or stoic just as Grey was. While this was her intention, it led to a look of mild constipation. Fortunately for Eli, Grey was too caught up in his own head to realize her distress and by the time that he was ready to talk to her again, his head suddenly turned to look off in the direction of the undergrowth to their right.

“Well, it looks like we’ll be able to start your training a bit earlier than I thought.” He mentioned off-handedly. The grip on Grey’s hand tightened as Eli looked up at him, unsure of what was to come with a look of mild horror.

To Eloise, training was something that only the guards and adventurers did. While she was off picking flowers for the orphanage to sell at the edges of the town’s walls, she had watched the different groups find and attack the different creatures that plagued her little village. While most of the time, the groups would attack things such as slimes and horned rabbits (give this author a break, her original world is going to be a bit of cliché), the monsters would still occasionally be able to hurt or even kill the unaware trainee. Most of these trainees were much older than her too, they had to be close to adults at least close to thirteen or fourteen years old (again, medieval society. In a typical medieval society, average life expediency was around thirty years old. While this number was partially due to the high infant mortality rates, it wasn’t uncommon for you to not to make it to the age of this author, and therefore once you were physically capable of having children, you were pretty much considered adult enough. That said, this author encourages safety in all things and wait until you’re ready to have kids, they are much more work than you think.) and some of those trainees were still hurt badly and some even died. For her, training was something that was frightening and for someone much older than her.

“Does Eli have to?” She asked in a cross between a whisper and a whimper.

Finally realizing her distress, Grey brought himself out of his own thoughts. Seeing Eli shaking a bit with the prospect of him suggesting that they start her training, he mentally facepalmed himself.

Okay, need to stop spacing out, I’m not alone anymore. Also, explain things so Eli doesn’t get worried.

With these thoughts, Grey turned himself and looked down at Eli.

“Now, you don’t have to worry. What I want you to do is to work on your Enchanting Voice and trying to either talk or sing to the creature that is coming. I’ll make sure that it can’t hurt you and hopefully, this will help you to level up and to work on increasing your proficiency with your skill.” Grey gave her a bit of a lopsided smile (think Harrison Ford in the original Star Wars or Indiana Jones) and patted her gently on her head.

Eli stared into Grey’s face for a few moments longer before nodding quickly to herself and Grey.

“That’s my girl.” Grey said mussing up her hair. “Are you ready? It should be here in just another few seconds.”

Swatting aside Grey’s hand, Eli reached down and too the Nullification Ring and jerked it off of her finger, quickly sliding it into one of her pockets. No sooner than she had completed her action, than the bushes right around them started to shake and the creature jumped out from them onto the path our intrepid duo was traveling.

It was, from Grey’s perspective, a fox. The name and general appearance was about the only thing that could be said to be the same as a normal fox. Foxes back on Earth were generally around five to eleven kilograms and depending on the environment, were colored to approximate it. This creature was easily fifteen to twenty kilograms and was predominantly of a dark purple similar to many pansy flowers from Earth, with a lightened underbelly. The Purple Fox as Grey had decided to call it for now, eyed the duo and pulled back it’s lips in a snarl at the two.

For her part, Eli had only jumped slightly upon the fox’s intrusion to their travels. She even managed to not run to hid behind Grey. Inside of her mind a tiny almost animated version of herself was doing a bit of a fist pump in the air for her ability to not run away like a little baby.

“Alright Eli, I’d like you to try to sing a nice calming song to mister purple fox. Think you can do that?” Grey asked, breaking her from her internal animations.

Eloise nodded and began to sing one of the lullabies that she remembered her lost mother and the other caregivers at her orphanage singing to both her and the other small children when they were having problems getting to sleep at night. The notes came out hesitantly at first, as if testing how they would fair in the cruel world they found themselves in, gradually growing stronger as Eli began to find her voice and confidence. For it’s part the snarling purple fox lost its scowl, becoming a bit more docile and generally looking like it was thinking about spinning around a few times and curling into a ball to sleep. After taking an unconscious step forward and another to the side, the fox seemed to shake its head briefly and reorient itself onto Eli as the source of the noise that was causing it problems.

Having made it’d decision, even while still struggling a bit from the effects of Eli’s lullaby, the purple fox decided to do what it does best and leap to attack Eli. It was at this point that a pale bluish white needle seemed to instantly appear in the forehead of the fox, instantly destroying not only its brain, but also the brainstem, wrecking any and all motor functions that the fox had in life. The corpse of the creature crashed into the ground crumpling on itself, digging a small trench into the ground as it went, coming to a rest a little over a meter away from Eli and Grey.

Eli, who had been watching the creature leap towards her, jumped and ran to hide behind Grey as the dust and random foliage started to blow past them. Peaking from behind his legs, Eli saw the dead fox and hid her face back into Grey’s legs again.

“Scary” Was all that she mumbled as Grey watched her reactions trying to figure out just how to go about adjusting her to this world.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad was it. You’re really talented with your singing there Eloise. “ Grey managed to praise her awkwardly. While it was true that her singing had impressed him, he knew that her always having to hide behind him would only lead to problems later on. Well, it was something to work on at least.

“Really?” She asked while quickly tugging her nullification ring back on her finger.

“Really really” Grey intoned attempting to pull off a bit of an accent, quoting one of the kids movies that he had watched so many times with his nieces and nephews that he thought his ears would bleed if he even heard a few lines from the movie. Turns out, even unaccountable time locked away couldn’t burn those memories away.

Grey quickly cast Observe on Eli.

Name: Eloise Rhine

Level: 2

Class: Singer

“Congratulations Eli! You leveled up to Level 2!” He said enthusiastically. Eloise’s eyes went wide at Grey’s proclamation. She quickly brought up her status list and sure enough, Level 2 with only 400XP more needed to get to Level 3. It was safe to say that she was shocked, and the +5 attribute points were shining brightly just under her status as if asking her to use them. It was at that moment that she realized she didn’t know what to do and quickly looked back to Greyson to see if he could help.

“What should Eli do with her points?” She asked in an almost pleading tone.

“Oh, I forgot about those.” Grey brought his hand up to rub at his now perpetual 5 o’clock shadow of a beard. After the cultists and leveling up himself, he had promptly forgotten about his attribute points. It wasn’t as if he really needed them at this point, and he was still trying to figure out how to apply his strength with this world. It seemed like tossing a can of gas onto a bonfire just to see what would happen, so he decided to just let them sit until he found himself in a situation where they could be useful. Eli, however, was in a bit of a different situation, and he wasn’t sure in which way he should have her grow. So, when in doubt, punt. (what?! Are you saying that this author is just making this easier on himself when he doesn’t have a plan! How dare you suggest such a ridiculous thing.)

“How about we wait for a bit, and we’ll talk about what you want to do okay?” He asked while scratching the back of his neck.

The rest of the next two days were filled with many of the same situations, although they seemed to be rather spaced out. At night, Grey would pull their equipment from his storage ring and set up a camp site, roasting one animal or another over an open fire and then have them curl up in their sleeping bags in the tent. As an added safety measure, Grey would set up a protective mana shield around them at night if for no other reason than to keep the random bugs he was finding away from their sleeping abode.

It wasn’t until the third day that Greyson really began to start opening up his senses to see if he could pick up on anything from the delegation. While they theoretically could have found them sooner, based on the information and the terrain that he had looked at, this was about the earliest that he expected to find them.

It wasn’t until after they had finished up their picnic under a large tree that resembled a willow tree in the midst of a clearing that something changed in the wildlife around them.

“Do you hear that Eli?” Grey asked while beginning to scan the area past the clearing. For her part, Eli closed her eyes and tried to settle into the world around them as Grey had been trying to show her. It was only after almost a full minute of listening that Eli opened up her eyes again and peered up at Grey.

“Eli doesn’t hear anything.”

“Exactly, even the animals have stopped making noise. I’d bet that there is something going on up ahead of us that has them all a bit scared. Maybe it’s this mystery delegation we’re supposed to be finding. I think we’re going to have to move a bit faster for a little bit. Feel like riding on my shoulder’s again?” With a bit of conflicting emotions, Eli finally settled on happy and quickly scrambled up to sit on his shoulders.

As soon as she was set, Grey began a lazy jog, making sure to keep listening around him. Every time he started to hear the sounds of life in the forest he would turn back into the silence. It wasn’t long before he found what he was looking for, and what he say left him honestly a bit speechless.