Inside, I was unceremoniously dumped onto the ground. Well, not the cold, hard earth, but rather, beneath me were soft Persian-like carpets and fur rugs. All around me were luxurious, soft cushions made from the finest materials. I suspected this was this man’s private tent, which told me he must be one of the head honchos of some clan. I felt like I was in Arabian Nights, with all this glamour in a tent in the middle of the woods.
Moody Brute took up an imposing position not far from me, sitting on that grand, comfy chair like a king. Then Felix entered the tent and gracefully took the other chair to the left of his colleague.
Side by side, the masks on their aquiline-featured faces looked like a reflection of one another.
Moody Brute was still watching me intensely like I was an alien who had just dropped into his world. Well, to him, perhaps I was an alien, considering I wasn’t part of this realm.
Felix cleared his throat and said, “What’s your name, little elf?”
His question caught me off guard. “Hmm…” I thought hard on whether I should tell these people my real name or not. If they knew, wouldn’t it be easy for them to hunt me down again if I had managed to escape?
“Name?” Moody Brute asked, his voice demanding.
Because he frightened me, I lost my wits and snapped back, “Alfie!”
“How old are you, little elf?” Felix asked.
I was a little annoyed that I blurted out my name because I was a little frightened, which didn’t sit well with me, and that bastard Felix still addressed me as little elf even though I had already told them my name. And why did he want to know my age?
“Does it matter?” I retorted. Then because I couldn’t take this weird interrogation anymore, I decided to bring the modern, Earthling logic into the conversation.
I said, “Look, let’s get straight to the point here. What do you want with me? And why have I been captured? It’s not like I did something wrong, right?”
Felix snorted while Moody Brute simply continued to stare, which by now began to get on my nerves. When are you going to have enough staring at me, for God’s sake?
Moody Brute said, “We’ll be the ones to judge whether you did anything wrong or not, boy.”
I frowned. “I have a name, thank you very much, and it’s Alfie Yuki Akari Nakamura,” I said proudly.
The moment I said that, I could sense both men tense and become dark and serious.
“Yuki?” Moody Brute asked.
I was taken aback by their reactions and particularly Moody Brute’s forceful question.
I explained. "My middle name. It means snow in Japanese." Just as I said that, I gasped and shut my mouth. What am I saying? Revealing to them I wasn’t from this part of the realm, because surely, they wouldn’t have a country called Japan or the language Japanese here, would they?
Felix seemed to have calmed down and said, “It’s a common name, Caleb.”
So Moody Brute’s name was Caleb, then?
Caleb seemed to nod in agreement as he said, "Yuki is a common name in the eastern region." He got out of his chair and came toward me.
Once he was inches from me, he got down on one knee and asked, “Are you from the eastern region, boy? But you don’t look like you’re of the eastern population.”
Eastern region? So they had something like that here? Like the Asian population?
Despite I was intimidated and nervous with the mighty Caleb being so close to me that I could smell his earthy scent and feel the warmth of his breath on my skin, I nodded my head.
“Yes, I’m from the eastern region, but I’m half-blooded. My father is from the eastern region while my mother is not,” I said, my eyes staring at the man’s chest.
God, he had such a massive chest, didn’t he?
“Then why are you here?” Felix asked.
I cocked my head to one side and racked my brain as to how I should explain my weird realm-traveling experience.
I said, my eyes downcast and staring at my own hands that were still bound and resting on my lap, “I was away at school, studying. At the end of the year, I wanted to visit my parents but things happened, and I got lost during my travels and ended up here.”
I raised my face and finally looked Caleb in the eyes, and dare I say I was glad I was shortsighted and didn’t have my glasses on? Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand it if I were to see his masked face clearly and could make direct eye contact with him.
I said, “Please believe me when I say that I have no idea how I came to be here. All I did was take a bath in that bathhouse, and then I heard men shouting and…and loud banging noises. When I saw you and your army of men, I was afraid I'd be caught because I thought I was using the bathhouse without permission. I got scared and ran.”
Of course, I made some parts up. I had to. I didn’t want these men to think I was an enemy or even someone suspicious. I didn’t want them to have the opportunity to go ahead and torture me before I had the chance to realm-travel back home.
I noted Felix and Caleb looked at one another for a moment, and then Caleb said, “Soldier!” as he stood up and walked away from me, which was a relief to me because I was becoming too tense with him being so close.
In an instant, a loud voice said, “Aye, my lord.”
I didn’t know there were soldiers outside, guarding the tent. These men must be very important.
The soldier addressed Caleb as my lord, so he had to be one of the head honchos, as I had suspected.
Caleb said, “Bring Aria here.”
“Aye, my lord," the soldier said behind me. Then I heard footsteps walking away.
“How old are you, little elf?” Felix asked again the moment he had the chance.
The man wasn’t going to drop the subject of my age, was he? I said, “Nineteen,” just to get it out of the way.
I glimpsed a smirk about the man’s lips when I revealed my age to him. Why the hell is he smirking?
Caleb said, “Still a baby.”
Huh? Still a baby? Me? At nineteen?
I was so riled up at Caleb for referring to me as a baby that when a soft voice said, "My lords," behind me, I jumped.
I turned around, and my sight came to rest on the most beautiful being ever. I found I couldn’t help but gaze in awe at the exquisite woman as she walked up to the two brutes of lords and curtsied low in respect.
She said, "How can I be of assistance, my lords?"
Caleb said, nodding in my direction, “The boy. Read him.”
The boy? Read him? Caleb must have meant me.
Then it dawned on me.
Oh, for God’s sake, I had been in such a state of panic from the moment I had stepped foot into this realm that I had not registered the fact these men were taking me for a boy. I wasn’t surprised because of my new haircut and slender frame and, obviously, this clothing I was wearing. These were undoubtedly male garments I had happened to pick up. With the jacket this large and loose on me, which completely concealed my small breasts, I must have looked like a weakling boy in these men’s eyes.