Chapter 7 : To the elven leaf

An elf girl was running through the forest, like something was chasing her.

she was wearing very fine clothes, but they were thorn and dirty like she has been serving in the forest recently.

she looked behind her and through the trees in some distance, three men were riding antlered wolfs, though there was still some distance the girl was worried because they were riding the fast antlered wolfs, they were catching up.

so the girl kept running until she saw a purple/white sphere falling from the skies, it fell with such speed flames were created by the friction. the elf girl stopped in her tracks and looked at the sphere with a mesmerized look. The hunters saw the sphere but didn't care too much when they saw the girl was standing still they grinned and kept running towards her, there were only about five hundred meters from the girl, but when the sphere started keeping closer they started to worry it was falling towards them, so they ran, no trade deal was worth dying for. While running they realized the sphere was still falling towards them it was about ten meters in diameter something they could easily dodge by running and after that, if the girl hadn't moved too much they could still catch her so it was too much of a problem, after running some they were already a hundred meters from where they predicted it to fall so they waited, the girl was standing still, unlike the hunters she was standing five hundred meters from where the beautiful sphere would land from the start, the falling sphere looked beautiful until it hit the ground it the ground with an abnormally high force, it made a crater of five hundred meters in radius and from where the sphere it a beautiful blast of light shot outward, until it hit the end of the crater around which was a see trough glowing white wall appeared after which the beautiful light shot upwards into a gigantic beam of color.

the hunters were obliterated by the light, but the girl was not hurt, except for becoming blind, but even for the unawakened the blindness was only temporary, as their very small unconscious healing force also heals their senses, though slower than awakened. the girl stumbled to the ground, mesmerized by the beautiful show of light, a little annoyed that she got blinded and couldn't see more of the show, but it is okay.

unbeknown to the girl at the center of the crater was a boy, a child, painted red in his blood, his legs and arms were destroyed and splinters of bone were showing, he was still unconscious, but his body started healing at an abnormal rate, after an hour his injuries where already gone to the naked eye, he looked pristine, his skin didn't have a single scrape, he was also butt naked. after an hour the girl's eyes were healed and she could see the gigantic crater of destruction, she felt extremely lucky that she just didn't get hit and tanked her goddesses. then she looked at the center of the crater where she saw a young child, he was naked, and he also looked very young, around five or six years old she ran into the crater to see how the young boy was doing, he looked fine, not a scratch on his body.

he was unconscious so she decided to wait till he awoke, she was considering lifting him and taking him out of the crater, but she didn't know if he had internal injuries, so lifting him was too dangerous, she hoped he would awake off himself, though she looked a little worried she waited, after half an hour she heard noises, she was worried there might be more hunters looking for her so she took a fighting stance, she was raised in an aristocratic family of warriors so she was trained from an early age, she could fight, but against awakened hunters no chance, so she prayed some more, hoping for protection from her goddesses. she was ten and even though she started meditating form the early age of seven she still hadn't awakened, but even though she hadn't awakened she is known as a prodigy who will probably set a new awakening record. When she saw a few soldiers lowering themselves into the crater she was filled with relief, but also a bit of worry. the soldiers saw the two children and signaled the medical teams to lower themselves in as well.

The medical team treated to girl for her miner scratches and checked if she didn't have any head trauma, while they also checked if the boy was alive, which he was, but they weren't able to wake him, a few healers started checking his body and where horrified, all his limbs where destroyed from the inside, they where healing themselves which shocked them even more, until they looked at his core and all fainted, the medics that checked the girl woke the unconscious medics, they couldn't say anything they were lost for words and just put the boy on a stretcher. the young girl was very worried by their reaction and kept asking them questions, they didn't answer any. The soldiers of course knew the young elf girl, she is the elf princess, the only daughter of their king. she went missing two days ago when she left for the forest on her own to meditate. sounds familiar. The king has sent a lot of soldiers to find her, but in this forest, you aren't finding unawakened people. The forest has a magic quality, it uses the mana in the air to mislead anyone walking in it. The elves of course after living here for so long have found ways around it, from birth they get a sense to guide themselves through the forest, using all the connected roots. but to find anyone is hard, they look for their mana signatures in the forest, this doesn't always work, but it does most of the time, however when someone hasn't awakened they are not tracible, and it is impossible to find them.

This is why when the king lets the princes go into to forest alone, he sends sneaky guards to follow her every step, because she hasn't awakened it is easy for the guards to follow her undetected, but the guards who were meant to follow her disappeared somehow.

Thus the princess was in the forest alone, normally she could walk back to the capital because she knows how to guide herself through the forest, but then she was chased by hunters. The hunters most likely weren't elvish, because they rode antlered wolves, these are animals from the forest, so they also know how to guide themselves, so when other races need to pass the forest they use forest animals.

The king of course hoped the pillar of light was a sign from the goddesses telling him where his daughter was, but as the king he had to check it out anyways, this was just hope

the pillar of light was seen from everywhere on the elvish continent. Of course, a gigantic pillar of light kind of stands out in the night sky.

*This means Egidius when Egidius' sphere landed already a day was spent, as he fought the S-class at the break of the morning*

After the pillar was seen the king send a small army to check it out, it was in the forest near the capital, so the army only took one and a half hours for the army to get to where the light pillar originated. they carried both the boy and the girl back to the capital and decided to show their findings to the king, even though waking him at his hour isn't very thoughtful, I doubt he would care even the slightest when he finds out his missing daughter has returned.

not that he has slept a lot since his daughter went missing two days ago.

after one and a half hours the small army arrived in the capital again. The sun hadn't broken through yet, but it wouldn't take long. the small army took the princess and the boy to the palace, they gave both children to the palace guards and only the general and a few medics walked into the palace with the guards, the others went back to the barracks.

The palace was gorgeous it had the classic treelike design, it was made out of wood, but out of some rare very strong wood. The elves grow their houses, architects are awakeners with the rare plantea affiliation so they use mana to grow houses out of plants. These houses were obviously grown out of less rare and strong plants than the ones the palace was grown out of but they are still strong, this also meant the houses were all connected by roots so people could send messages through the house roots. Which is handy.

Anyways, the palace was decorated with flowers as well as some smooth gold and silver wood. The throne room was as beautiful, as almost everything in the palace it was mostly made out of different kinds of wood, they used sunlight as the light source, and in the night mana cores charged by the sun through the day. you could use sunlight to gather mana but it was more efficient to charge it using human chargers, but for weak power outputs like lamps using sunlight to charge them is sufficient.

When we entered the throne room the queen ran to her daughter and hugged her, the king's face drop every sign of worry, but as the king, he couldn't just rush off the throne and hug her. The general gave a detailed report of everything that they found, and after that one of the medics whispered what she found out about the boy into the general's ear, the general's eyes widened in shock, and the general walked to the king to whisper the information he just reserved in the king's ears. The king's reaction was the same as that of the general.

The king told the guards to bring both children to the medical wing, to do every test possible on his daughter to assure her safety, and that she could report what happened tomorrow in the council room. For the boy make sure he wakes up, so we can observe him some more tomorrow.

so the guards left with the children and the king told everyone to rest up for an interesting council meeting tomorrow. and took his wife's hand and left towards the hospital wing.

***********

The king entered the hospital wing and hugged his daughter tight enough to make her eyes pop out. After the Queen warned her husband, he loosened his grip and put her back on the bed. He asked if his daughter could explain what happened, the queen asked the same of course. Technically they had to wait for the morning to hear the report in the meeting, but they are the royal family and she is their only daughter, so nobody protested against it.

The princes told them about how she was meditating until she heard some noises, she luckily was on time and looked behind her and saw hunters sneakily approach her, she ran, she had a little head start because they had to saddle up again. After all, they couldn't sneak up behind her with the antlered wolfs, after two days of running and hiding? which with the training from an early age was not too big of a problem for her, she saw a purple/white sphere fall out of the sky, it killed the hunters with the blast and formed the light pillar, and she was blinded by the pillar for a whole hour until she could see again and found the boy in the center of the crater. The time it took to heal her eyes, was because even though she hasn't awakened she has meditated a lot and thus gathered more mana than her average peer, thus her unconscious healing is also faster, but it still took a whole hour for some reason. They all looked in the boy's direction wondering who the heck he is.

After a few hours of talking the king and queen hugged their daughter, wished her a good night, and left.

************

Despite the sun already nearing its peak position the nurse urged the princes to try and get more sleep in because of the long night. The princes kept asking questions about the boy, the nurse wasn't telling her anything because the king told her the boy should stay confidential.

suddenly the boy shot awake, the princes as well as the nurse jumped their socks out, and the nurse checked the boy's condition, he was fully healed every injury in his body was gone and his core was fully replenished again. the boy wanted the get out of bed, but the nurse told him to stay, the nurse told the guard, to tell the council that the confidential patient has woken up. Egidius was confused and kept asking questions: "Where am I? Why am I the confidential patient? Who are you? ..."

He stopped rambling after a grill older than he answered the questions the nurse refused to answer. The girl said: "You're in the capital of elves.".