TBATE: The Dragons Of Diacathen

Chapter 2

It had felt like a good hour before the little elf girl was finally able to settle down. I didn't blame her; being forcibly kidnapped would cause trauma even for adults, even more so since she seemed to be only a bit older than I was.

As sat next to her, comforting her, I realized how bizarre of a scene this made. A four-year-old boy tenderly patting the head of an elven girl in the back of a carriage as four bloody corpses were being devoured by beasts just next to them.

"W-What happened to those bad guys?" she sniffled, her voice coming out a bit nasally.

Not knowing if telling the seven-year-old about killing was appropriate, I simply dismissed it by telling her, "Er... they ran into a very unfortunate accident."

She studied the hesitant expression on my face with the raise of a brow, only to look back down and whisper, "Serves them right." Looking closely at her now, I couldn't help but notice that she carried all of the necessary features that would allow her to blossom into quite the beauty later on in the future.

With long gunmetal gray hair that I mistook for silver in the sunlight, the girl's disheveled state couldn't mask the innate beauty that she seemed to radiate from her pores.

A pair of gleaming teal eyes shaped like perfectly rounded almonds quivered as her perky nose was so red from crying that it matched the color of her rosy lips. While all of her individual facial features seemed to be carefully molded gems, on the fair creamy skin of her face that was the canvas, it brought her features into a surreal, almost phantasmal work of art.

Of course, this was me just observing her from speculatively as a gentlemen and king who enjoyed beauty in the world. I wouldn't go as far to say I was "checking her out".

I helped her up to her feet before speaking again.

"Those people that tried to kidnap you aren't going to chase you anymore. That being said, do you think you can make it to your home by yourself?"

Instantly, her eyes retracted in fear as a panicked expression spread throughout the rest of her face. As tears welled up and both her hands clenched tightly to my shirt, even an infant would be able to tell what her answer was through her actions.

"Look, I need to get home too. Aren't elves generally safe in this forest?" I let out a sigh, trying to pry open her claws— I mean fingers— from my shirt.

She violently shook her head, much like a dog drying itself, and rebutted, "Beasts only scared of adults...Parents warned me that children will get eaten by hounds or tree golems."

I would normally be pretty amazed about something like a tree golem, but it was becoming pretty hard to find something that surprised me after witnessing a demon king metamorph into a dragon.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to come up with a solution for all of this.

"How long does it take to get to where you live from here?"

"..."

Still holding onto my shabby shirt, she looked down and admitted, "... I don't know."

I held in the temptation to let out another sigh, since the poor girl looked like she was about to cry already, and agreed to take her back home.

The Kingdom of Elenoir was quite a long ways north so my only hope was that there would be a teleportation gate there that can could me back to somewhere, anywhere, in Sapin.

I instructed the elf girl to wait inside the carriage while I gathered some necessities; the main reason being, I didn't want her to see the mangled carcasses of the slave traders when even I found it hard to stomach. Finally finding a backpack small enough for me to wear without it dragging on the ground, I carefully folded and stuffed a small tent inside, along with a leather water bag and some dried rations. I picked up Pinky's knife from the ground where I fought Danton and George and strapped it to the front of my waist to balance the awkwardly large equipment on my back. Before heading back into the carriage, I freed the forest hounds after realizing that, while they were able to pull a carriage, they weren't able to be ridden.

I thought briefly about riding the carriage to the elven kingdom but thought it was too dangerous and we would stick out like sore thumbs in the forest.

"Let's head out now," I said, trying to sound more enthusiastic for her sake.

"En!" She nodded, hopping out of the carriage as I led her away from the carriage where all of the dead bodies were.

I learned a lot about the elf girl along the way. For one, her name was Tessia Eralith and she had just turned five, which meant that she was about a year older than I was, albeit physiologically that is.

Tessia was also a pretty reserved, if not shy, girl. She was very polite to me, considering that younger than she was, and never complained, making her a very agreeable traveling companion. Perhaps, if I wasn't traveling in the opposite direction of my destination, I would have actually enjoyed having her with me.

With the sun setting and the fog thickening we pitched the tent underneath the sprouted roots of a particularly large tree for the night.

I couldn't fit any of the supporting rods in the backpack so used the long rope I brought with me instead and tied on two of the roots and hung tent canvas over it, weighing down the ends with moss-covered rocks. After I finished setting up the tent, I took out a couple of dried rations and handed some to her.

"...Thank you very much." She gave a slight bow.

"You know, you don't have to be so polite to me. I am younger than you and I'd feel a lot more comfortable if you aren't so on edge." I replied, my cheeks full of dried food.

"O-okay, I'll try!" she let out a shy smile as she held back a chuckle.

I began wondering if she had been raised by very strict parents. Maybe it was simply an elf custom and by telling her to be more comfortable with me, I was inadvertently inviting her to marry me. Giving her a shrug, I resumed stuffing my face with more food.

We sat underneath one of the roots of the tree next to our tent and continued chatting.

"C-can you tell me about the human kingdom?" She suddenly asked, her eyes sparkling in curiosity..

"What did you want to know?"