guards

Tenno played around with the koudi until he annoyed the rich kids. Jane and Theo were still munching on their sweets like they were treasures while Mori was lost in thought about the regions the guard had told him about. It sounded too good to be true!

In the evening, they stopped at an inn. The rich kids were crammed into a small room, while Jane, Theo, Mori and Tenno got a spacious one. Four guards stayed with them to make sure everything was alright. To look less threatening, they took off their helmets.

One had dark red hair and green eyes, two black hair and green eyes and the last one strawberry blond hair and brown eyes.

"Since you four are good children, we will treat you kindly and give you the appropriate treatment. My name is Mero," said the one with red hair, then he pointed at the others "the one with the blond hair is Ichigo, the big one is William and the slim one James. If you need anything, just tell us."

Naturally, Jane and Theo didn't trust them yet and Tenno didn't really care, so Mori approached first. He looked with curious eyes at Mero.

"Can you tell me a bit about the other countries?"

Mero smiled and went to the desk in the room. There was a stack of paper and pencils, with which he started to draw to show Mori what the other regions looked like.

Ichigo saw that James and William were approaching the other two kids carefully, so he set his attention on Tenno.

"Is there anything you want, little one?"

"... No." He didn't like being called 'little one'. He was a child, he was allowed to be childish, so he sulked and pursed his lips.

Ichigo ran his hand through his soft hair and suppressed a laugh.

"Are you sure?"

"... Why do you abduct children?"

The guards and kids froze as they heard his question.

"Well... We guards are pretty low rank, so we also don't know... We were just instructed to bring you to the palace. There are records about the royal family of Cure doing this like every 10 thousand years, but only they know the reason. What we know for sure is that the kids were never mistreated and got high positions under the head of the family. Race is also no issue." he shrugged.

Tenno thought a bit. If the kids would get positions, wouldn't that make them rivals? Well, he would see it when he arrived.

The next few days went by pretty quickly. It was getting warmer, gras and plants began to appear more regularly and the atmosphere became lighter, also because the four rich kids got onto a smaller carriage, just like Tenno and the others.

After a week on the road, they arrived at the border to the kingdom of Cure. Everywhere was light green gras, colorful flowers and slim trees. William told the kids that those were fields that weren't being used right now.

Mori looked in this environment like a flower that finally got watered, and Tenno had to admit that he also enjoyed seeing a colorful landscape after all that withered grey.

After two weeks, they arrived in a medieval looking, small city. The rich kids were trying to run away, Jane and Theo were scared and Mori and Tenno went to the shops together with Mero and Ichigo.

One thing that proved useful was the barber shop, where Tenno got a new hair cut. The kids also got new clothes and a few toys. The book shop was also very interesting for Mori and Tenno.

The former got everything about plants he could find, the latter wanted to get a better picture at the character of the population, the history of the continent and the current state of the politic.

Though the continent had many countries, there was just as much unexplored land without owners. Tenno wanted to see what that was like, alone in the wilderness...

Coming from the modern era, he was used to always having everything he needed around him, so that would be something very different and exciting.

As they left the shop, Mori bumped into someone who didn't bother about such a small accident and walked away. Mori however was falling, since he was still very slim and light. Tenno caught him before he could really fall over.

While doing so, the ring came into contact with Moris skin.

"Scanning."

The voice of the system didn't startle Tenno, since it had already been analyzing many of the books he had touched, plants, wood... Useful things, but also things he couldn't care less about. It was like someone was talking to him just for the sake of talking.

He quickly let go of Mori without seeming awkward.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, thanks."

But the system had already scanned him.

"Scan complete. Analyzing. Time needed: 1 minute at maximum."

Tenno sighed inwardly. He didn't want to know too much about his new friend. He felt like that would be rude, just casually retrieving information about him. It was quite a helpless feeling.

As they returned to the carriages, the system announced its conclusion.

"Person identified"

'Identified?! Isn't that a bit much...'

"as dyrad Mori Wanglu from the central southern plains. 9 years of age, unstable body because of polluted water and food. Stable character like a kind tree with beautiful flowers that gives shelter but not to be messed with. In great harmony with the elements of water, earth and wood, thus having 'life' abilities."

'What are life abilities?'

"Combination abilities from multiple elements. Host has 'life' and fire abilities, thus compatible with 5 elements out of the possible >50."

'More than 50 elements? Then, is 5 a lot or a little?'

"More than average."

'Okay, thanks.'

"Host is most welcome."

Tenno rolled his eyes.

So Mori was a dyrad... Well, that explained why he liked plants so much. But on the other hand, there had to be something wrong with a person that didn't like plants.

They continued on. After two more weeks, they arrived in a bigger town where they met up with two bigger groups. Each had 15 children, half was crying, the other half cheerful because they got away from the dirty street life. After at least one month of travel, there wasn't any obvious difference between the kids.

They all wore elegant but simple clothes, had eaten good things and didn't have many restrictions.

Of course, those who loved their families missed them, they had been abducted after all, but some had hopes on becoming rich and saving their families, so they would endure.

Those with hard lives were more mature than those with easy ones. For the guards, it was easier to deal with the mature ones.

But having a bunch of kids with them really was exhausting. Some of those kids knew that, so they tried to help the guards keep the others calm.

Tenno just quietly observed and at night, when most were sleeping, he quietly tried to train his fire ability. It would be wonderful if he could defend himself. The life ability was more a passive buff, but he thought about using it to heal others... He would have to try it out.

Ichigo and Mero took good care of him and Mori, so traveling was rather comfortable.

The deeper they got into the kingdom, the more intense the colors got. Everywhere were flowers and trees, even in the cities that appeared more often. But there were also more vampires. Humans were quite rare in the kingdom of Cure, but every other race was very comfortable in this environment.

Tenno found that every race on Everni naturally looked very pretty in their own way. Elves looked like beautiful paintings come alive, vampires elegant, dragonkin and beastmen like strong warriors and so on. It was a wondrous sight that he engraved in his mind.

He had thought that such a country would be more... ruthless, at least on the surface. From the books, he knew that the Shade empire and Miror nation had no friendly relations and were in a constant death lock with both sides growing stronger and trying to get allies. The other countries however, also busy with their own disputes and wars, didn't dare to intervene, afraid to be on the shorter end of the stick.

The stronger countries were built around immovable, national treasures. The details of those were only known to the royal families, but people thought that no matter the size of those treasures, they had to be very heavy. Because, some locations of the royal residences were really... quite unfortunate, if one wanted to put it nicely. A rude way to put it were to say it was completely stupid. Though that was also true.

After altogether two months of traveling, they arrived in the capital of Cure, Gu city, named after a famous poison said to have torturing qualities that ultimately lead to death, and when you survive, you start attacking everyone and destroy yourself. Thus, the family motto of the Cure family was "We, the Cure of any Poison.".

The palace of the Cure family was dead center in the capital, towering over all the other buildings with small towers and multiple complexes that seemed to form a city in a city. The palace was made out of a material that looked like black wood but was as cold as stone, decorated with bright red pillars and golden ornaments which made the palace almost glow in the late afternoon sun.

The kids entered the palace and were brought to the western complex of the palace. This complex seemed to be quite old, but newly decorated.

The kids had to follow the guards into a big hall that was so big that it would have had room for at the very least 100 more people.

The guards all wore their helmets and stood so still that one could think that they were statues. Some kids still tried to play with them, others had started crying and fighting.

Tenno and Mori exchanged a look and both put their hands over their ears. Why were they throwing such a tantrum?

After a while, a bunch of servants came inside with plates full of fruits that they placed down near some of the kids before leaving again. The children ate a bit and some calmed down.

They waited for probably one hour in which the children slowly got more and more restless.

Tenno frowned. Couldn't the vampires hurry up with whatever they wanted to do? This was slowly but surely getting unbearable.

Then, a heavy, red curtain made out of velvet was lifted and revealed a black stage, one and a half meter high. On that stage stood a throne that glowed in the light of the chandelier above it. It seemed to be made out of gold, or decorated with such.

As the kids saw the movement, they got a tiny bit quieter.

Soon after two men stepped out of the air. One had the standard appearance of a vampire: Pale skin, green eyes and black hair. He was tall and wore the outfit of a butler, but it was so fancy that Tenno assumed that he was the chief of the personnel or something like that.

The other man had brown eyes, brown hair with a red shimmer, slightly tanned skin and wore bright red robes with golden leaves embodied on it. He was tall with broad shoulders and a very handsome and elegant face.

Tenno felt a heavy and oppressive aura from him. But even though he seemed to be holding back, the children immediately shut up as he sat down on the throne.

The butler began the introduction with an awe inducing voice. "This is the current king of the kingdom of Cure and the head of the Cure family, 8 396 years of age, our great leader Midnight Everest Cure!"