Success

The berserker felt a chill run down his spine.

He couldn't even respond properly to his current predicament because the archer started shooting more arrows at him.

Knowing that he couldn't fend off this many people, the berserker wanted to escape. But faced against a trapmaker who could keep him in place, a very fast lion and an archer who can easily shoot him from a distance, he didn't have the best chances to do so.

He knew that fighting wouldn't lead to anything favorable for him, so he decided to drop his sword and concede.

Clank!

He raised both of his arms and took a deep breath. "I give up, I don't want to keep fighting anymore.. You want the elephant right? Take it." The berserker took one last look at the elephant before sighing in defeat. He knew that he couldn't do anything at this point.

"Took you long enough." Meiros walked towards the elephant sprawled on the ground. It was trying its best to bite the net to escape.

Meiros carefully approached the elephant, but it was looking at him with hostility.

"Hey, hey, I'm not here to hurt you. I promise..." Meiros slowly reached his hand for the elephant's head.

Ngah! The elephant tried biting his hand when it got close.

Meiros retracted his hand so that it wouldn't get bitten off. "Easy there boy." He attempted to communicate with it again, but it was just too aggressive towards him.

Meiros wasn't sure what to do now. He turned to the trapmaker and said, "Hey you, help me out here."

The trapmaker walked towards him while mumbling, "You're the main body... shouldn't you do this yourself? I can't believe you're this lazy."

"I heard that." Meiros narrowed his eyes towards the trapmaker. He found it very strange being insulted by himself.

The trapmaker rolled his eyes and used a Divinious rope to seal the elephant's mouth shut.

After this, even though the elephant was still squirming, Meiros could finally hold its head so that he could begin the mental communication.

As Meiros was doing this, a figure approached behind them.

Chrysos walked out of the tall grass and saw Ralfor, Vaf, the berserker, archer and the trapmaker with Meiros. It seems that they finally got the elephant before he got here.

"What's going on here?" Chrysos looked at the two mind controlled awakened ones. The trapmaker even waved his hand at him.

"Master, my main body is trying to communicate to the elephant to try and convince it that we're not evil." The archer controlled by Meiros spoke first.

"I tied up the berserker so that he couldn't hurt us." The trapmaker controlled by Meiros pointed to the berserker nearby the bushes while Ralfor was laying down to recover his energy.

"Good job.. Here, give these to Ralfor." Chrysos tossed a Divinious recovery potion and a healing potion to the archer.

"Will do." The archer bowed before walking to Ralfor.

Chrysos then asked the trapmaker. "So, how long is your main body going to be done with the communication?"

The trapmaker stroked his chin. "If the elephant is stubborn, it's probably around a minute or so." He responded after some thought. "And uh, master...? What happened to the fighter from earlier? And what was that explosion?"

"Oh, she's laying down over there.. I knocked her out, but she's still alive." Chrysos shrugged.

The berserker heard their conversation and he couldn't help but sigh in relief. At least he wasn't too injured after fighting these two.

Not too long later, Meiros returned to his main body and saw that someone had appeared. When he looked at the figure, he saw that it was just Chrysos. "Master, you're here? Oh, and I managed to convince the elephant to follow us." Meiros took the elephant out of the net and it looked much more docile than it did a moment ago.

"Cool, you managed to convince it this quickly? What did you say to it?" Chrysos was quite curious.

Meiros shrugged. "I told him that it will get fed and it won't be hunted anymore. It agreed after seeing that there's no point in retaliating anyways. He understood that he was already trapped, so he wasn't as hard to convince as I imagined."

"However, it asked me why you want to keep it as a pet. Aren't humans supposed to be interested in their flesh so that they could eat it?" Meiros found it hard to answer the question, so he went back to his main body to ask Chrysos about it.

Chrysos wasn't expecting that the young elephant already had this much intellect. He then asked Meiros. "Can you connect my mind to him?"

"Sure, I'll tell him that." Meiros went back to the mind transmission and told the elephant what Chrysos intended to do.

When Meiros returned, he nodded. "He said yes. It was fine to proceed with the mind connection."

"Great." Chrysos saw that the elephant was looking at him with a calm gaze. It wasn't hostile or friendly, but it showed that the elephant was willing to communicate even though it still had its own suspicions.

Chrysos then said, "Can we start now?"

Meiros nodded affirmatively. "Yes, we can. All you need to do is to accept this mental energy." Meiros sent a trail of psychic energy towards Chrysos.

Accepting the energy and allowing it to flow through him, Chrysos spoke. "Hello?" Chrysos tested if the psychic connection was stable.

"Human, why do you want to keep me?" The blood elephant's voice was like that of a young human child. The elephant spoke through Meiros' psychic energy.

"Would you believe me if your father sent me?" Chrysos wasn't sure if the elephant would answer this question kindly. After all, humans were the ones who killed his parents in the first place.

"Can you prove it?" Surprisingly, the elephant didn't go in a fit of rage and instead asked for proof first.

Chrysos looked at Meiros and asked, "Can you transfer thoughts towards him?"

"Yes master, all you need to do is to imagine something very clear and I can be the channel to send it." Meiros answered.

"Alright then." Chrysos tried his hardest not to think of anything else and focused on the memory that he received and transmitted the memory fragment towards the elephant.

The elephant took the memory and began scanning the details of the information given to it.

It was paying great attention towards the memories that Chrysos gave him.

The more it absorbed the information, the more it became more emotional. It couldn't help but look at Chrysos with a different expression. It was the mixed expressions of melancholy, thankfulness and longing for a family.

After a long pause, the elephant spoke again.

"Very well... I agree to your offer." The elephant said with a slightly saddened tone. "It seems that I have to thank you for saving me.."

"No need for that, I promised your father." Chrysos tried to reveal a kind smile even though he was currently communicating as a thought.

"Human, thank you." The elephant spoke at Chrysos with a grateful tone.

Meiros stopped the mind connection because it was starting to strain his mind. Chrysos used his sword to cut the net, freeing the elephant. And the moment he did so, the elephant jumped towards him.

"Hahaha, easy there." Chrysos picked the elephant up and it started licking his mask. "Hey Meiros, have you thought of a name yet?"

"Jifel." All of Meiros' controlled bodies spoke at the same time.

"Alright then Jifel.. from now on, you're part of the Greenwood household." Chrysos carried Jifel in front of him, eager to join the family.

"Haha, good boy." Chrysos patted his head and turned to Meiros and his controlled vessels. "Oh yeah, make sure to check if they're not able to chase us if you ever cancel the mind control."

"Yes master.." Meiros looked at the trapmaker and the archer. "Well, you heard Master Gerald. Make sure that you guys can't chase after us once I release the mind control."

Both of them shrugged.

"It was fun while it lasted." The trapmaker used his Divinious to tie himself up.

"Hey, you forgot about me." The archer threw his bow and arrows away from him.

"My bad." The trapmaker tied the archer as well. "Alright, if you knock me out, the Divinious strings will still be intact, but I wouldn't be able to dispel it since the body will be unconscious. Main body, can you do that?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll do it." Meiros used his Divinious to control the trapmaker's state of mind.

As someone who Meiros controlled, this was a trivial task. Meiros convinced the trapmaker to sleep.

After that, the trapmaker's eyes lost its blue glow, dropping his head due to lack of consciousness.

Meiros also did the same to the archer before releasing the mind control that he placed on him.

"And done.. we can finally go home." Meiros dusted his hands off.

Chrysos called Ralfor and jumped up on the lion's back. Meiros followed Chrysos and got on Ralfor as well.

Before Chrysos told Ralfor to run back to Ironmountain, Chrysos turned to the berserker, "When your friends wake up, give them this. It'll help them recover from their injuries. And sorry for the trouble!" Chrysos struck the reins which made Ralfor to begin running.

The berserker saw their figures shrink as they went further away.

"Damn it.. now what?" The berserker grumbled and saw a bag full of healing potions drop down from the departing Chrysos.

"And that must be what he wants me to give them..." The berserker struggled while being tied up in the rope. He managed to break free in the end though.

When he remembered how much the trapmaker spent on this trip, he already knew that he was going to hear a lot of shouting later.

"..."

Chrysos was getting better at commanding Ralfor without using mind relays from Meiros. He was able to command him to turn left or right, he can also tell him to speed up if necessary, and slow down if the terrain is too rough.

Even Meiros noticed this.

"Master, you're getting better at driving a mount." Meiros was shocked how Chrysos improved.

"I learnt to do so before. But it was with horses, so the experience was barely applicable." Chrysos remembered his past experiences on earth and he couldn't help but smile at the happy memories that those days gave him. "I learned because my mother encouraged me a lot as a child.. Those were the best memories I had." Chrysos' tone was somewhat melancholic.

"Oh..." Meiros said with a slight shake of his head to show that he understood.

As he looked at his master acting as if life wasn't much of a bother, he could tell that Chrysos longed for his home. Despite his master's kind and warm demeanor that brings him happiness, Meiros couldn't ignore the sorrow under it.

He gathered the courage and asked with a slight pause to think it through before asking Chrysos anyway. "Master, I haven't asked this before but, where are you from?"

"Somewhere far away from here." Chrysos replied with a vague answer.

"You told me that you can't go back. If it's not too much to ask, why can't you go back? Wouldn't your father be happier if your father saw you alive?" Meiros wasn't sure what his master's reaction would be to this question. And that uncertainty made Meiros feel as if he stepped on a landmine.

Chrysos sighed. "It isn't like that.. It's very complicated and I can't explain everything to you in one sitting. Maybe I'll tell you soon, but now is not the time for this. For now, I'm going to tell you that my relationship with my father is one filled with nonsensical negativity towards each other. And I blame him for my mother's death even though the entire thing wasn't his fault to begin with… Thinking back, I was also immature." Chrysos didn't want to talk about it too much. He wasn't feeling well when it came to something that personal.

He still held some anger towards Daniel. That was something that he couldn't get rid off. But after what he saw at the beginning of his new life here in the Divine Lands, the hate and anger in his heart greatly loosened.

Seeing that Chrysos wasn't interested in the topic, Meiros didn't ask any further.

Chrysos then asked him back. "How about you? How did your journey back then go?"

Meiros shook his head. "The journey was a mess… I just tried to find why I ended up in the orphanage… If I haven't mentioned it yet, my last name is Glavesin. My mother's name is Zarina Glavesin and from that information, it all just started coming together. It was difficult and it definitely took some time to find out, but from what I remember, she looks very similar to me, so I'm 100% sure that she's my mother. She had dark blue hair and everything… My journey all revolved around finding my family." Meiros got over everything about his past. It didn't bother him any longer.

"What do you think happened? How did everything turn out this way in your life?" Chrysos asked once more, "Your will to survive must be very strong, seeing that you've reached this far."

"I.... have no idea." Meiros thought about it and said, "Maybe this happened to me because she's a corrupted one? Which caused her to escape and try her best to protect me. After all, if she wanted me dead, I would've never reached the orphanage to begin with."

"Definitely.. She most likely wanted to protect you. After all, what good mother would want their child to get hurt? I mean, just look at Jifel. That's probably the same thing for your mother." Chrysos struck the reins down to increase the speed. "A parent's love for their child is something that you cannot underestimate…"

Meiros looked at Jifel sleeping peacefully on his lap. He could see that he went a lot and Jifel lived because of his father's warning.

"Master, I think you're right.." Meiros revealed a bittersweet smile.

"Of course I am." Chrysos laughed. "After all, isn't your master the greatest?"

"Master, you always ruin the mood." Meiros grumpily responded.

"At least you're not sad anymore. So that's a win for me." Chrysos showed a thumbs up.

Seeing his master like this, how could Meiros resist not to laugh?

"Hahahaha…" Meiros laughed softly. He was happy. So happy that even after everything that happened, he got to experience what it was like to have someone care about him.

And for that, he was eternally grateful.