Author: Again, I really wanted to post a chapter a day, but my time seems to be really constricted. So, I'll try my best to update as soon as possible. Please fill out the poll - whether or not you want me to write a Valentine's Day Special!

Also, on the subject of the tables, I found out that I don't have M*crosoft Silverlight, and I can't get the extension for chrome, since chrome doesn't support the extension anymore. I'll try to figure this out, but please be patient with me!

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Here it is, and thanks for reading!

Chapter 3

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Celea's POV

My plan is ready to be executed. I've planned this excruciatingly throughout my life, even before I became I slave, and even that I had predicted. I am actually a dark elf, my darker complexion hidden by my magic. I had once been part of a large, happy family, worshipping the God of Death. I put my heart and soul into praying for Nex, but in return, I was only given pain. Now, my 'master' is a man named Roran, and since he looked like a demon, my suspicion that he is one of the dark affinity arose. While my hate for him is ever growing, I had already prepared for the worst possible outcome. I will escape today, with or without Evie. I tried convincing her, but she never responded to my words, so I set her aside.

I got up from the left side of the bed, and I headed towards the exit. I took a quick look around the inn to make sure no one was following, and headed outside to find my fated person. He had promised to take care of me earlier, and with hope I waited. I was separated from him during the 'incident,' and using magic, I made it seem as if I was blind, as well as a normal elf. I sent him telepathic letters with my vast amount of mana, and I hoped to reach him. He soon later sent me a message back, asking me about my circumstances.

As I reminisced about the one light in the eternal darkness of my past, I headed towards the meeting location. As I exited the inn, I stared at the moon for a second, and headed towards the edge of the village, using as many dark alleyways as possible to shake off any pursuers. As a dark elf, I could see better in the dark, due to my dark affinity, but I hope to change that. I've heard many good things about the Light God Lux from my loved one. I think to myself everyday, He wants to meet me! He cares about me! I love him...

I neared the edge of the village, and I saw a man draped in bright white robes. His face was covered, and it couldn't be seen due to the darkness. I immediately thought, This must be him! His posture is the same as him, and he seems to worship the Light God, hence the white robes.

I ran towards him, and I felt his gentle embrace. He whispered, "You have someone following you, so I'll come and get you afterwards. Try to escape from him, even if it means hurting him. Buying a slave is unjust, so you have the right to pay him back. I'll talk to you telepathically afterwards. Goodbye."

With that, he left the scene as fast as a startled bird. I turned around to see a man hiding behind a crate next to a merchant's shack. I walked towards him to ascertain his identity, but instead, something else caught my attention. In the middle of this prospering village, the grasses were set on fire. Next, a loud booming noise silenced my ears, and I shook my head to confirm what I was seeing was real. Four hundred meters in front of me was a single, large, fire-breathing red dragon. Its scales glimmered in the bright light of its flames, and it sent a chill down my spine.

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Roran's POV

I followed Celea to the edge of the village, only to find her lightly embracing another man. I was furious, and I knew it was necessary to beat her into submission. As I saw the man leave, I got up to talk to Celea, only to be interrupted by a bright red dragon, razing the town with its fire. Amidst the screaming of the people, I faintly heard a booming voice, seemingly to have come from the dragon, "WHO KILLED MY CHILD? I WAS RELUCTANT TO HAVE HIM LEAVE IN A MERCHANT'S WAGON, AND I LEFT TO CHECK ON HIM, ONLY TO SEE HIM DEAD!"

I started sweating in fear of what the mother dragon would do to me if she found me. I steeled myself, and I disregarded the matter of Celea for the moment. Now is the time to kill a dragon, I thought, and continued, Wait a moment, I've already killed a dragon... that child was a dragon?

I thought 'status' and saw a screen appear in front of me.

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Name: Roran Nex

Age: 16 Years

Level: 20

Class: Death God's Advocate (lvl 5)

Titles: Jaas Village's Demon; The Oblivious One; Merciless Child Murderer

Rank: E

HP: 300

MP: 30

Strength: 180

Endurance: 90

Vitality: 90

Intelligence: 70

Agility: 100

Skills:

Active Perception (lvl 5) -- Can inspect items/living things to extract basic, known information from them. User must be within a 10 meter proximity to the object.

Blessing of Death God Nex (lvl 5) -- Can reach an 'enraged' state at the cost of 100 HP. (Enraged) = 15% boost to all stats, can be given to another person, in exchange for 100 of their HP.

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Hmph. Well, looks like I've leveled up. My Active Perception and my Blessing has been upgraded, and they seem much more applicable. I can earn more money, and this way, I can more easily control my slaves.

After calming myself by seeing my new abilities, I headed towards the inn to retrieve my weapon, and to get Evie out of harm's way.

I thought, I need to make sure my slaves can't betray me... I've realized today that I should not trust them.

With the new problem in front of me, I retrieved my level 2 katana and advised Evie to keep watch on Celea, in case she tries to make any unforgivable moves. With that, I unsheathed my weapon, and headed towards the location of the fighting adventurers. I knew that I mustn't let them know about the murder, so I braced myself in possibility for any questions about the subject. I approached the dragon, and once I reached within a 10 meter radius of it, I thought of my Perception skill, and a window appeared before me.

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A Red Dragon. Starts out as an egg, and grows up to look like a human, until it transforms into a full-fledged dragon at age 30. Can breathe fire and battle multiple enemies at once. A major cause for the death of many adventurers, most people don't approach or try to talk to these dragons, since these, especially, are known for their erratic behavior. If angered, it will reach an enraged state, and proceed to decimate anything, or anyone in its vicinity.

Name: ???

Level: ???

HP: 15,000

MP: 100,000

Skills:

Fire Breathing (MAX level) - Deals 1,000 HP worth of damage to the victim (per minute from burns). It is advised to stay away from the lingering fire - Deals 100 HP worth of damage per second.

Passive Fly - can float/fly with wings and magic.

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As soon as I was brought back to my senses, I realized I was just 10 meters in front of a DRAGON. The dragon towered over me, and it spoke, "Human, why do you stand so close to me? Humans are already stupid, but it seems you have set a new standard for how low a species's intelligence can drop. Well, goodbye human."

With those words, I reacted immediately, and I tried to activate my Blessing from Nex twice, only to see that I cannot stack my abilities. My agility was raised only to 115, but my speed increased just enough to escape the hot flames of the dragon. My health was decreased by a hundred, now at 200 HP. I decided, the only way to kill this dragon is to sacrifice the rest of the townspeople and the adventurers. Once the adventurers deal enough damage, I'll finish off the dragon.

I fled for the moment, and watched the scene before me unfold. The dragon was being attacked from all sides, by civilians armed with throwing spears, and the adventurers with bows and arrows. The citizens were burned to a crisp, which made me unintentionally cringe. The adventurers looked like they were going to run away in fear, since they backed away 50 meters for every civilian killed. I sighed, and thought, the only one who is going to have to kill this dragon in the end is me, since everyone will be dead before then..

With that thought in mind, I convinced myself that there is no point in waiting for the adventurers to deal damage, since they already don't seem to be doing much. I carefully observed the red monster to find any vulnerabilities on the dragon's scales. I then realized that the dragon always stopped before it spewed its flames, rather than moving, or even flying. I concluded that the dragon can be defeated if one's agility is high enough to avoid the flames, while dealing damage slowly at close ranges. I immediately thought of Evie, and ran towards her last location.

After I found her at the edge of the village, I ordered Celea to cast her buff on Evie - giving her 88 Strength in total. After that, I granted my Blessing to Evie, taking away 100 of her health, and adding 100 more agility, equating to a total of 200 Agility.

I ordered the girls to follow, and we approached the Dragon at an alarming rate. As I was not as fast as Evie, I decided to make her the main attack, while I was the diversion. I told Celea to watch from a rooftop, while Evie and I started to damage the Dragon. Evie and I both avoided the lingering fires while we attacked the dragon, and stepped back for a few minutes to gather our breath. We fought for hours on end, with the village already razed to the ground.

A day later, our drowsiness was eating away at us. It took all our strength just to stand up, and we counted every point of damage that we inflicted, in hope that we would soon kill the giant. Expecting to speed things up, Evie and I dealt constant damage at the dragon's feet, and tried to make it fall down. An hour and 500 damage points later, the health of the dragon dropped to a mere 1,000, and we watched as the red dragon struggled even more to keep up with our speed.

Finally, the beast fell to Evie's final attack a few hours later, and we celebrated this victory with sound sleep at our old camp in the forest. After resting for another few hours, we got up to hunt for some food, and check out our statuses.

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Name: Evie

Age: 15 Years

Level: 35

Class: Wolf Emissary (lvl 10)

Titles: The Slave of the Demon; The Red Dragon Killer

Rank: E

HP: 370

MP: 50

Strength: 130

Endurance: 60

Vitality: 50

Intelligence: 75

Agility: 170

Skills:

Blessing of the Hated (lvl 8)(Passive) -- Given by God of Hatred, for every 10 HP lost, 20* agility will be gained.

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I took a quick look at Evie's status, since she was the one to finish off the Dragon. I watched in blank amazement, patted her head, and saw her blush, which made me smile.

We then fed on some roasted rabbit that we caught using some traps. Our meal finished, Evie fell asleep. Noticing this, Celea and I sat down and leaned against a tree under the dim moonlight, covered by clouds. Again, seeing this sight calmed me down enough to approach Celea more naturally. I calmly asked, "Celea, may I ask who that man was? Was he a part of your past? I need you to answer me, why did you leave in the middle of the night without telling me?"

These questions rained down on Celea, and she appeared nervous, like many times I have seen before. She replied soon after, "I....I have lived a life that anybody would be jealous of. I had my happy family, friends, and teachers, yet I can only remember the time of that incident as clear as day. The 'incident' happened a week after my 16th birthday, and by the time of my birthday, I felt that something was wrong. I told this to everyone I knew, but no one believed me. As an elven town, no one would dare attack us, but one day two lone merchants riding a wagon entered our home. I knew that those two were bad company, and informed everyone of my thoughts, but everyone hesitated to listen under the many presents that the merchants gave us in return for our hospitality...."

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Celea's POV

I don't know why my words flow out so smoothly, or why I feel it is ok to talk to Roran about this. I continued, ".......the presents they gave us were mostly furniture, which were all lined with gunpowder, and at the time I didn't know. One morning, I went to the nearby forest to go hunting for food, and I found the whole village burned to the ground. The merchants looted all the money, and they took me and a few others to be sold as slaves. That's how I ended up in the market."

Roran then asked, "I see.... but you didn't tell me who that man was."

I thought up a lie on the spot, "He is an elf, like me, and he informs me of the position of all of the other elves of my village, Zbran. I only went alone because I didn't want to disturb your sleep."

I gulped, and hoped that he would believe my dishonesty.

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Roran's POV

I watched Celea intently for a minute, and I watched her grimly smile. I responded with a light smile and told her, "I'll help you find the rest of your village. Don't worry."

She sighed, and said, "Thank you."

The next morning, the three of us set out towards the elven city of Azbarak, having decided that going there should be our next step to investigate about the weapon of mass destruction. We walked through the ruins of the city, to find most 'people' cremated into ashes by the dragon, and some who died from mortal wounds. We looted their money, which came out to an amount of 5 gold. I checked my magic pouch, and saw that I held a total of 5 gold and 70 silver coins. I daydreamed about the type of armor that I would buy Evie and Celea, and thought about their smiles after they tried them on. I smiled at the thought, and entered the second forest, that would lead to one of the city of the elves.

A path to the city was not laid out for us, and there were tall trees everywhere. Since I expected to reach the city in a few hours, we took a break and rested in the forest at nighttime. I slept, but I was soon awoken by a burning pain in my chest, in the same location as my heart. My consciousness slightly returned to me, and I woke up to find blue blood oozing out of my chest, and Evie tied up against a tree. I struggled to move, but I soon found that I too was tied to a tree. I looked around for the perpetrator, and found Celea holding a bloodied Katana in her hands. My eyes slowly started to close shut, but I forced them to stay open. I looked to Celea's right, and found a man clothed in pure white robes, with a hood covering his face.

I managed to murmur a few words, "Why?"

My question was answered by the man instead, "Because you own slaves, brother. Do you not know that it is unjust?"

The man flicked his hood back, and exposed his human face.

It was him, my one and only brother -- Maxus.

He walked up to me, and whispered in my ear, "Well, I didn't think I would find my younger brother here after what you did to me. This is revenge. Just die."

He kicked me in the face, and told Celea, "Good work, Celea. I am sorry if I seem violent, but this man did many terrible things to me. He cannot be forgiven."

Celea innocently nodded, her face reverted to one of a dark elf, and said, "I'm sorry, Roran. This is what you deserve."

The scene of Maxus and Celea kissing was the last thing I saw, as I thought, What did I do to deserve this?

I woke up again, as if the betrayal that happened was a lie. I found myself bandaged around my chest, and saw Evie walking towards me holding a soup-like dish in a wooden cup. I muttered, "I've failed both you and Celea. I'm sorry Evie."

My apology was responded with a light smile, and Evie started to try and feed me the soup. I took a couple sips, and asked, "How long have I been out? Have you eaten?"

Her gentle, and soothing voice as beautiful as ever, she responded, "I've eaten. You have been sleeping for 3 days."

I laughed lightly, and said a matter-of-factly, "Why didn't you follow Celea? Why didn't you leave by yourself?"

She again compassionately responded, "I didn't want to leave you, Master. You cared for me unlike my own parents."

I smiled brightly at her words, and said, "Of course I'll take care of you, but please call me Roran, master doesn't suit me."

She lightly blushed, and responded, "Okay."

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Author: I'm sorry to my Celea fans! I'll make it up to you I promise, one way or another. Well, I hope you enjoyed! See you next time, and thanks for your support!! Again, if you want me to write a valentine's special, please vote (on the poll)!

If you see any mistakes, have any constructive criticism, or find something interesting about the story, please comment! It gives me much more of an incentive to keep writing!

Thanks for your support, and please do tell me about what you like about the story so far!

**This chapter is 1/2 edited**

I prefer a one-shot rather than a side story, since this story hasn't developed very much yet.. just wanted to let you know~

Again, please do rate/comment! If you find anything wrong with this story, or with my style of writing, please let me know! I would like to improve~~

:)

Next Chapter: Betrayed - Chapter 4