18 Protege

Before Aella could even ask her question, Diana got a system message that confused her.

{You are being offered the Base Class: Protege

Do you accept?

Warning: if this class is not chosen, you have two months to live at most!!!!}

{Y/N}

Seeing the warning, she chose to accept.

Both of us, me and Diana, started screaming out in pain.

After a few seconds, the pain stopped and I got two system messages.

{You have attained the title, Fated Protector

Congrats, you now have to make sure a child does not dies.}

{Due to certain conditions, Stone Armour has forcefully evolved into the skill Stone Body, allowing you to take a humanoid form.}

Wait, seriously, I just couldn't do it because my skill level wasn't high enough, ok, maybe finding this fated protege isn't so bad.

Aella helped up Diana. "What just happened?"

"I think the owner of this forest just became my bodyguard."

I took the humanoid form and looked at myself, I looked like my old self, except for the blue stone body of course.

"Hello, I am Lizbeth and she is right, the system assigned me to protect you from whatever is trying to kill you."

Aella, Marus and Nagiliant were taken aback, I think it was because of how articulate I was but it might also be because I just turned into a humanoid statue or that I could speak their language at all.

"Could I know the name of the one I'm supposed to protect, that's pretty normal where I come from anyways."

"Oh, sorry, yeah, I'm Diana. I don't what made this happen but I'm being chased by murderous knights so I'm happy for your help.

...

Well, this is kind of awkward, I just accepted the new base class because it said I was going to die soon so I accepted, sorry for the pain it caused."

I nodded, then I turned to the three adults.

"Ok, so could you explain the situation, don't worry, noone is allowed to enter the forest now that you are here."

After they explained the situation to me, Diana also listening in to finally getting the entire picture.

"They're being helped by Kasimata? That's a bit of a problem. Her followers are one of the few groups that manage to sometimes get through the barrier, although they are weakened, if they get a big enough group in here, they could definetely kill Diana.

Allaster, go get Lupo and Bearry, tell Don that he's in charge until I'm back and that he's responsible for Ratatosk now."

Allaster rushed off, ready to fulfill my orders. Nagiliant looked at me, a pensive expression on his face.

"Who did you send for and why?"

"Lupo is an Eclipse Wolf, the Alfa of the Alfa's of this forest, he's coming with us. I have tangled with Kasimata a few times and she doesn't like me, it did give a good image of how she's going to react to you guys entering the forest. Bearry is a Beastly Blessed Bearkat and just the one I go for when I need cuddles, I'm not leaving without him.

She'll surround the forest and start gathering enough forces to overwhelm the animals of this forest, letting them be slaughtered mindlessly for no other reason than to kill you. I'm not letting anyone die like that, so we are going to leave, moving from city to city, hopefully we'll find a way to stop them or maybe they'll just stop after a while, give up and go home.

Either way, the best course of action is to not stay here, I'm already communicating to the wolf Alfas that they can attack any human that whorships Kasimata or Aurelion. That a good enough explanation for ya?"

Nagi nodded, my plan made sense, except for one tiny detail.

"Why attack Aurelion's men?"

"Oh, that? I just don't like Aurelion, at all."

Aella laughed, she understood me completely. Aurelion was the king of gods but he was also a dick, a sexist and just an overal idiot.

After waiting for a bit Allaster returned with Lupo and Bearry. They both jumped at me and started licking me.

"Okay okay, get off of me, you rascals, we have to move now."

I looked to the humans mount their Krisha, only to see that Diana's Krisha was wounded, a wound that would take time to heal.

"Diana, don't mount him, he won't be able to carry your weight all that well with that injury."

"But mom, I can't ride with any of you, so what do I do then?"

I changed back into my Krisha form. "Get on little girl, we can't wait for those wounds to heal, they'll probably have the forest surrounded by then."

She looked at me with a hint of fear but mounted me nonetheless. With that, we rode into the horizon.

The way I ordered the three to follow us was like this, Lupo and Allaster stayed at our sides while Bearry stayed a bit behind to give me an early warning when the followers of Kasimata were approaching, he only had to focus on him, his beastly side would probably take over otherwise.

---------------

Kasimata looked at the thread of fate belonging to Diana, gloating at the idea that the bloodline that betrayed her would finally be destroyed.

{WARNING, Major disruption in fate.}

She looked at the thread she was holding, only to see it turn black, making it impossible to manipulate or even just making it impossible to look at the fait contained within.

"WHAT, no, no NONONONONONONONO! How is this even possible."

She then looked into the last moments that were viewable on the thread, seeing me right before the thread went black sent her into an outrage.

"That Fateless, I will fucking kill the god who brought it in, how dare they mess with my divinity!"

She took my thread, the thinnest one she had, blacker than obsidian. She tried to find out who had brought me into this world but couldn't find anything.

Because she couldn't punish the guy who brought me in, she started messing with fate in a serious way, taking out a golden crystal. She broke it and relished in the magnificent energy.

Quickly after, she started using it before it could rip her to shreds. Her eyes turned golden, the threads around started flying around her.

"I comdemn you three to die a painful death before her eyes. I curse you to never unleash your full potential."

With that, thousands of threads started ripping, getting destroyed by the curse that she had placed upon Diana's three protectors.