Wild Elves

Silas rested the blade down beside him, his hand resting over the first blank page of the book. It was parchment, but not the kind he was used to. He was pretty sure it was made from a mammalian creature, as the pages were a dark ochre, he could assume it was from a species of human.

With a brief look of disgust, he moved onto the first page with words written upon it.

The very moment Silas rested his eyes on the words within the Grimoire, he found that it held similar characters to the demonic runes etched upon the stony surface of the altar. They weren't the same as the words on the front, and they didn't translate like them either.

However he was having a rather hard time focusing, it felt as if his eyes were going to bug out of his head. What was this language, he wondered? That was when he felt an uneasy burning sensation like his cornea had been lit on fire. Tears glossed his eyes, blood vessels popped turning the sclera a dark red and his eyes becoming a much brighter green.

Thousands of words began to enter his mind and he forced his eyes closed. It sounded like a freight train running through is ears as he squeezed his lids tighter. What was this? Why was it hurting so much? Where were these words coming from? These questions of his were drowned out immediately by the continued incomprehensible words that threatened to suffocate his mind from a sense of reality.

Then he opened his eyes, the burning sensation was gone and the page he had been just looking at was blank. Blinking at this revelation, he started flipping through the pages. Hardly understanding what had just happened, he found that the pages were all blank as well.

"What the heck is this thing...?" Closing the book, he narrowed his eyes on the name Ein Lumbrig. "And who are you... Ein...?" Standing from the ground shakily as his legs were sore, he looked back down at the creature which had chased him. That thing, he hoped there weren't more of them.

Magic spells, rituals, languages, herbs and this world's master trivia on known sentient species. The knowledge implanted by the book, which he didn't have before, now roamed in his mind. Compared to not remembering what he ate a few days ago, if he had even eaten at all, this knowledge wasn't going away and couldn't be forgotten even if he tried.

Reaching up he wiped his face on his sleeve, getting some of the leftover tears that had welled up out of his eyes. They were still stinging slightly. Turning his head to the side however, he started to notice once more he wasn't alone.

Gripping the blade's hilt in both hands as he dropped the empty book, he backed up against the nearest tree.

Figures were appearing from what appeared to be out of nowhere. Ferns, bushes, trees. There were people everywhere, or at least that is what it seemed like. They shared a number of traits with the creature, it's original appearance, he had just killed. It was clear they were related in some way or another and he wasn't ready to die or let them eat him.

"It's dead," a small looking elf with a round face and soft features, emerged from directly beside them from around the side of the tree. They were dressed in what appeared to be very primitive and tattered tribal attire, nothing covered the torso except for decorative paints. Her skin was a pale brown, like milk chocolate and glistened like sweet honey.

Her green eyes flickered to Silas who was looming over her as a six-foot two-inch tall imposing figure.

His eyes rested on the top of her head, her dark black hair contrasting with her eyes in such a way that those hues appeared to glow. Unlike that of the creature's eyes, she seemed quite a bit more alive.

Her eyes then flickered to his weapon, then back to his face. Instinctively she took a step away from him, raising a hand in fright as if she had just spotted a spider near her face.

Silas however was just staring at her with an ambient frown over his lips. Wasn't she cold? The breeze here was frosty, and the fog that was rolling in through the mountains and across the forest was even colder to the touch.

The staring contest had begun, accompanied by complete silence as the other natives stayed at a distance, observing the interaction.

That was until she glanced down towards the book which was on the ground, near the dead creature, those green hues narrowing. Recognizing the book, an expression of awe crossed her face before she looked up to him, then to the weapon, and back at him once more.

"What's with that look?" Silas went about creasing a brow.

Her arms fell loosely to her sides as she cocked her head to the side and stepped closer. "Did... Did you kill the Guardian Priestess?" Her arms were kept close to herself, to her chest, but they seemed grabby towards him. Clearly, she still feared him, it could be seen in those emerald green eyes of hers.

"It tried to eat me," the only human in the forest surmised harshly in response to her question as he stared down at the girl, noticing quickly after a period of time that her chest was burned. Silas frowned, thinking about his world and how some other countries did this kind of mutilation to stop their breasts from growing.

She seemed to smile seeing where he was looking and puffed out her chest as she balled up her fists. It was as if she was showing off her front side. "Hehe, do you like? Did it myself!"

Silas couldn't help but let his eyes drift away, towards the more adult looking figures, as he lowered his weapon to the side. It wasn't a cultural thing, he could see some of the women who were basically less dressed than the girl in front of him.

Most of them were babyfaced, but a number of them had developed breasts and other curvey parts. Though they weren't as large as a human standard, a lot of them seemed naturally small.

"How old are you...?" Silas turned his gaze towards the small elf which stood before him.

Her eyes continued to gaze up at him, a blank expression taking her face due to the question. "Uh... Eighty-six summers... I think," She didn't sound sure how old she was, either that or she just wasn't keeping count.

"Huh..." Squinting his eyes at her, he placed a hand on her head of hair and ruffled it slightly.

The figures watching on from a distance seemed to become less wary of him and began to come closer, of course, remaining still cautious as it could be a trap. Not that it was, there was no meaning in the slaughter of these people.

"How old are you?" She suddenly returned the question in kind.

"Twenty summers," Silus raised a brow as she had grinned up at him as if looking down at a child. It was a strange concept as it was as if he was towering over a teen-looking grandma.

"You're so small," the elf blatantly referred to his age rather than his height, which sounded rather off to him, considering he was a foot and a couple of inches taller than her.

"Uh-huh..." Silas shook his head lightly and hooked a lock of her hair with his index finger, stroking it lightly as he observed its consistency. It was nothing like the thin hair of the dead, so he felt a bit safer himself, and she didn't at all seem bothered. If anything, she liked the fact he was paying attention to her.

Personally, he had no idea how to respond.

"Outsider, you must have come from the other side," A man dressed in druidic robes emerged from behind the group of people who were closing in around them in a semi-circle.

"That's... Probably one way to put it," Silas nodded to him as he didn't know if this was a dream or a form of afterlife. However, the fact that he could feel pain and exhaustion from the physical realm, he was sure it was the afterlife rather than a dream.

It didn't seem like it was going to be a fun afterlife though.

"I see you've made use of the last gifts of Goddess... May she finally rest," the druid let out a sigh and lowered the hood of his robes that were brown and entangled with leafy vines. This revealed a bony looking face of someone malnourished. It was clear he didn't eat much from just a singular glance. "And the mad Guardian Priestess who ate her sisters after contracting the Black Rot..."

"Black Rot?" The knowledge ingrained to him by the book didn't hold any information over the Black Rot, or so the man called it. Perhaps it didn't exist during the time of the author? Was the knowledge he gained obsolete? A sweatdrop formed over his brow, he felt as if a lot was missing.

Scratching his chin, he nodded to the man as he didn't know what it was. "The people of Psalm City call it the Plague of the Living Dead. We are green Elves, they refer to us as Wild Elves."

"Is Uh... Psalm some sort of Sacred City?" Silas wasn't really all the interested in the undead, which clearly weren't mindless, but more so interested in the relation of the city to the Book of Psalms.

"No... Why would you think that?" The elf seemed to be completely bewildered by the question.

"Nevermind then," Silas simply waved his hand off slightly before looking down to the elf who was now pressing against his leg, hugging onto him, her shoulder positioned under his arm.

The Druid followed the man's gaze and raised a brow, the tips of his pointed ears perking slightly at the sight. "Your mother wouldn't approve of your actions, Cicilia."

"My mother's dead," The little elf responded and poked her tongue out towards him like a rebellious teenager, tangling her legs with his left side. "She doesn't have the ability to care!"

Silas narrowed his eyes on the top of her head.

"Just because they took her doesn't mean she's dead..." The Druid shook his head in disappointment, his eyes empty and nearly blank as he watched her.

"What's going on?" Silas turned his eyes unto the druid, catching a glimpse of those who were around them. The majority were women, and their eyes were on him, but mostly on Cicilia.

"Don't take this to offense Outsider... But we don't typically accept your kind into our circles, and our women have the first claim when it comes to finding a mate." The druid itched his nose slightly, the Wild Elves were a matriarch, male sorcerers like this druid were rare as they were culturally female.

"Ah," Silas drifted his eyes down towards the girl who was essentially clinging to his side, pressing her delicate chin against and into his side. "Are you literate?"

"...Yes," Cicilia continued to smile up at him as he pushed her bangs out of her face, revealing large almond-shaped eyes. "I can read."

"You can hardly write your own name," one of the women seemed to utter under her breath.

"Tch, lying to the outsider so he'll say yes and take you the Psalm, lowly mutt." Another one sounded mutedly in the background. They were clearly either jealous or just against it.

"Mutt?" Silas glanced over in the direction of the whisperer, only for there to be silence.

"Her father was an Avari, a Feathered Elf capable of retracting their wings into their back." The druid explained with a sigh looking to Cicilia, she was not a byproduct of a willing union and fell subject to neglect only to be cared for by the rest of the village, despite their feelings of disdain.

"Avari, not Avariel?" Silas questioned this as he was looking back on his childhood games.

"Hm. No, the Avariel are extinct, wiped out during their War with the Dragon Prime." His voice went down to a grumble as he did not like speaking of them.

Silas placed his attention on Cicilia, focused, "Are you really literate?"

"Yes! Yes, I am!" Cicilia spurred as she pushed off of him and crossed her arms, pouting childishly. She was clearly trying to guilt him with her large eyes combined with a sad look.

Crossing his own arms, tapping along his forearm with his fingers, "And you want to go to Psalm...?" His eyes traveled up her lack of proper clothes.

"Elves are slaves in Psalm, she'd only be able to enter freely if she is at your side." The woman who spoke up before about how Cicilia was lying, though that had probably been false.

"She'd be my slave...?" Silas scoffed lightly at the idea, in the previous world slavery was considered an atrocity against humanity. Was he okay with it? He wasn't sure. It was something that hardly bothered him due to the books, games and reference material he hoarded. In real life, slavery still hadn't become extinct, it was just in the shadows or hidden away. Sex trafficking though was still a thing, he knew this too.

Taking in a deep breath, he looked over the girl who was staring up at him intently with her big green eyes. She seemed okay with it, a small chuckle leaving his lips. "Alright, but why are you risking your freedom? Why do you want to go to Psalm?"

"You are the Last Hero of the Goddess, the only one who has been able to slay the Guardian Priestess in ten generations, you will make a strong claim." She grinned cheekily as if she were to be the one to own him.

"Uh...Huh..."