I Became a Cub in the Elven Kingdom

Shu Li had said “quietly” using the Chinese pronunciation, which translated into Elven as Kumandi.

So when Angel shouted “quietly,” he was actually shouting “Kumandi.”

And the black-haired young Fairy’s name happened to be Kumandi.

When his own name was called out in the milky voice of a tiny cub, ten-year-old Kumandi remained expressionless.

The Fairy sitting beside him waggled his eyebrows. “Hey, Kumandi. The little one called your name. Aren’t you going to answer?”

Kumandi glanced toward the doorway, then lowered his head and continued eating his fruit. “I don’t know him.”

The other young Fairies were already accustomed to his aloof manner.

Fairies had all kinds of personalities. Some were lively, so naturally, others were quiet. Kumandi belonged to the quiet type—or rather, he was so quiet that he bordered on indifferent.

He paid no attention whatsoever to things that did not interest him. On the other hand, once something caught his interest, he would devote himself to it wholeheartedly and never tire of it.

At present, he had no interest in those three little cubs. Even when the silver-haired cub loudly shouted his name, it failed to draw his attention.

His complete lack of reaction made the little cub very unhappy.

The innocent Angel could not understand. When someone called your name, weren’t you supposed to respond politely? Why was that black-haired Fairy ignoring them?

Another cub might have timidly backed down, but for the sake of his “boss,” Angel resolutely stood his ground.

Just as he was about to demand an explanation, a red blur flashed past his eyes.

Disio moved one step faster. His cicada-wing-like wings vibrated rapidly, and with a whoosh, he flew to the long table where Kumandi was sitting. His dumpling-like little face drawn taut, he demanded, “Kumandi, why didn’t you answer?”

His eyes were opened wide, like two brilliant golden beads. His slightly curled red hair streamed behind him like a dazzling flame.

When the red-haired cub confronted him, Kumandi was holding up a fork with a small green fruit skewered on it.

The other young Fairies could not help laughing at the amusing scene.

Shu Li kept one hand outstretched in a futile attempt to stop them and watched helplessly as Redhead charged over to “stand up for him.”

This... This misunderstanding had gotten completely out of hand!

Angel had been beaten to the punch by Disio. Puffing out his cheeks, he flew over as well and shouted unwillingly, “Sperien said he missed Kuman—mmph, mmph?”

Shu Li caught up and clapped a hand over his mouth, giving the black-haired young Fairy an awkward yet polite smile.

If Whitehead finished that sentence, the misunderstanding would snowball until it grew so enormous that he would never be able to clear his name.

“S-sorry...” In his panic, Shu Li’s tongue tied itself into knots, making him stumble over every word. “Mis... misunderstanding...”

Aaaah! Why did his stupid tongue and useless mouth always fail him at the most critical moment?

All this stammering only made him look guiltier!

Unfortunately, Disio did not understand Shu Li’s difficulties. Seeing how hard it was for him to speak, he loyally lent him a hand.

“Sperien said he missed Kumandi!”

His voice was loud and resounding.

Shu Li froze like a wooden chicken. The sound effect announcing a game over seemed to echo endlessly in his ears.

Just destroy the world already. He was tired.

Even with Kumandi’s indifferent personality, he could not help staring strangely at the three little cubs now.

The blond cub wearing the flower crown looked so dumbfounded that he seemed ready to split apart.

That was Sperien, wasn’t it?

The Fairy cub blessed by the Elven King.

His Elven truly was rather poor, and his pronunciation was not very clear.

“Pfft—”

After an eerie silence, several good-natured laughs rang through the dining hall. The companion sitting to Kumandi’s left laughed so hard that he nearly slid beneath the table.

Kumandi cast him a cold glance. He immediately covered his mouth, his shoulders shaking violently as he struggled desperately to suppress his laughter.

At the cubs’ long dining table, the chubby Budeno stabbed forcefully at the fruit on his plate. His lips were pursed high, and he looked extremely unhappy.

After standing there in a daze, Shu Li finally came back to his senses. With so many pairs of eyes fixed on him, he wanted nothing more than to dig a hole on the spot and crawl inside. His cheeks and ears turned as red as burning clouds.

Kumandi noticed the blond cub’s embarrassment. He blinked his captivating violet eyes, and his attitude softened slightly.

“What... do you miss about me?”

“No!” Shu Li immediately denied it, shaking his head like a rattle drum while his mind raced to find a way to explain himself.

Suddenly, his gaze fell on the fork in Kumandi’s hand. Inspiration struck. He released Whitehead, whom he had nearly suffocated, pointed at the green fruit on the fork, and summoned the greatest linguistic ability of his entire life.

“I meant that—Kuku fruit! They heard wrong. It was a misunderstanding! Sorry for causing you... causing you...”

Oh no. How did you say “trouble” in Elven?

Sweat broke out across Shu Li’s forehead. His little mouth opened and closed, but he could not produce the correct pronunciation.

“Trouble?” Kumandi asked.

“Yes, yes, yes.” Shu Li nodded vigorously.

Kumandi slowly ate the fruit from his fork and said without concern, “It’s all right.”

The cub had only just begun learning Elven. Unclear pronunciation was perfectly normal.

Seeing that Kumandi had accepted his apology, the alarm bells in Shu Li’s heart finally fell silent. He secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Disio and Angel, however, looked utterly confused.

“Sperien, did you say you wanted Kuku fruit?” Angel scratched his pointed ear in puzzlement.

“But I heard Kumandi,” Disio said with a frown.

Shu Li corrected them solemnly. “It was Kuku fruit! I was hungry and wanted to eat Kuku fruit. You heard me wrong!”

Fortunately, the fruit on the black-haired Fairy’s fork had been Kuku fruit. Even more fortunately, Kuku fruit and Kumandi sounded similar.

Disio and Angel could not help recalling what had happened in the classroom. At last, they understood that they had misunderstood him.

The reason Sperien had been lying weakly across the table was that he was hungry. He had only said that he wanted Kuku fruit because he was hungry.

Disio was a Little Fairy who dared to take responsibility for his actions. He lowered his head and apologized to Kumandi. “I’m sorry!”

Angel also looked at Kumandi sheepishly. “It was all because I heard wrong—”

“It’s my fault. My Elven... isn’t good enough,” Shu Li said, taking the blame upon himself.

The three little cubs competed to apologize, and their attitude was so sincere that Kumandi, who was not a heartless Fairy, could hardly hold it against them.

Older Fairies had always been tolerant toward cubs.

He was ten years older than the three little ones, so of course he would forgive their unintentional mistake without condition. He picked up the plate of Kuku fruit from the table and held it out to the blond cub. “Eat.”

Shu Li stared blankly at the green fruit on the plate, then hurriedly waved his hands. “N-no need—”

Seeing him refuse, Kumandi did not insist. He put the plate back on the table, then reached into his belt pouch and took out a thick notebook.

“These are the notes I made when I first started learning Elven. Take them back and have a look.”

Flattered by the unexpected favor, Shu Li stared at the black-haired young Fairy in bewilderment.

When the cub continued to stand there in a daze, Kumandi simply stuffed the notebook into his arms.

Shu Li fumbled to catch the slightly yellowed notebook and carefully opened it. When he saw page after page filled with tadpole-like Elven script, crystalline tears shimmered in his eyes.

One glance was enough to tell that these were the notes of a top student. They were richly illustrated, extensively annotated, and practically a blessing to any beginner.

Shu Li closed the notebook and nearly burst into loud sobs.

A top student’s notes—and he could not understand a single word!

Giving them to him was a complete waste of treasure!

Sniffling, Shu Li calmed himself and said softly, “Thank you.”

Kumandi caught sight of the tears in his eyes and assumed he was moved. “There’s no need to thank me. From now on, you can ask me whenever there’s something you don’t understand.”

Cubs really were innocent and adorable.

Holding the notebook tightly, Shu Li flew back to the cubs’ long table with Redhead and Whitehead beneath the good-natured gazes of the young Fairies.

Adult Fairies responsible for caring for the cubs were always present in the dining hall. They had watched the entire incident without interfering because they trusted that the young Fairies would not make things difficult for the cubs.

Sure enough, the situation had developed in a rather amusing way. Both sides were good children.

Once the three cubs sat down, the adult Fairies brought them a lavish meal and deliberately gave Shu Li an extra plate of Kuku fruit.

Shu Li looked at the heaping plate of fresh green fruit with mixed emotions.

Kuku fruit was good, but this was really too much.

Yet as though they thought his stomach was not already small enough, the cubs at his table began offering him their own fruit.

“Sperien, you like Kuku fruit. You can have all of mine!”

“I have some too! ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) I have four.”

“I have three!”

Budeno stared at the single Kuku fruit on his plate, waging an intense battle within himself. Finally, he gritted his teeth and decided to give it away.

He pushed his plate in front of Shu Li and said awkwardly, “For you—”

Shu Li was nearly buried beneath Kuku fruit. He hurriedly declined them one by one. When he saw the chubby cub’s deeply reluctant expression, however, his eyes turned thoughtfully. He stabbed the fruit with his fork and stuffed it into his mouth in one bite.

“Thank you, Buteto,” he mumbled while chewing.

Budeno stared blankly at his completely empty plate.

Sperien had refused everyone else’s fruit but eaten his. Why?

Also, his name was not Buteto. It was Budeno!

After a long moment, Budeno finally recovered and was about to correct Sperien’s pronunciation when he saw Sperien transfer five Kuku fruits from his own plate onto Budeno’s.

“Want them?” Shu Li asked with a grin when he saw the chubby cub staring at him.

Budeno never refused food. He nodded without hesitation. “Yes!”

Shu Li pushed the plate back in front of him.

Budeno gazed at the five tender, round green fruits on his plate, his heart bursting with joy.

Any Fairy willing to share food with him was his good friend!

He had decided. He would never oppose Sperien again.

Shu Li ate until he was stuffed at lunch that day.

His little belly bulged like a round ball. Fortunately, he was still in infancy, so it did not matter if he was a little chubby.

Fairy cubs needed to take an afternoon nap every day.

After lunch, Shu Li flew unsteadily back to his little house with the top student’s notebook in his arms, hiccupping from how full he was.

It was still early, and he could not fall asleep immediately, so he sat down at his desk and seized the opportunity to study.

First, he copied the ten new Elven characters Siet had taught them. Then he loudly read them aloud according to the pronunciations he had written in Chinese.

Where talent fell short, diligence would make up the difference.

Sure enough, after reviewing them more than a dozen times, he could finally read and write them.

“Haah—”

Shu Li yawned and climbed into bed with the notebook Kumandi had given him. He opened it and slowly began reading. Whether he understood it or not did not matter. As long as he soaked up enough of a top student’s brilliance, he was bound to learn something.

The writing on the first page of the notebook was somewhat childish, with traces of corrections. The farther he read, the cleaner and more confident the handwriting became.

Not only did the top student have excellent handwriting, but his drawing skills were superb as well.

During the early stages of learning Elven script, cubs learned to recognize words through pictures of physical objects.

The ten characters Siet had taught them that day all corresponded to real objects. Afraid that he would forget them, Shu Li had drawn pictures beside each one.

His drawings, however, were cute cartoon sketches that barely resembled the real things. The illustrations in the top student’s notebook were realistic, vivid, and recognizable at a glance.

Shu Li read through five pages in a row. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier as sleep swept over his mind.

Flop.

Unable to hold out any longer, he collapsed face-first and fell asleep.

In his dream, a group of little tadpoles swam back and forth, searching everywhere for their frog mother.

Shu Li awoke to the clear, melodious cries of a bird. He opened his eyes groggily and discovered that he had fallen asleep lying on top of the notebook.

Yawning, he pushed himself upright onto his knees. Then—

He saw a suspicious puddle of water on the notebook.

Huh?

Was that... his drool?

“Oh no!”

He hurriedly grabbed the blanket and pressed it against the notebook.

This was terrible. He had accidentally gotten the notebook the top student had lent him wet.

After blotting it with the blanket for quite a while, it finally dried. Although a faint mark remained, it was invisible unless one looked carefully.

Shu Li wiped the sweat from his brow.

Tap, tap, tap—

A rhythmic noise came from the window. Shu Li closed the notebook and flew over curiously. When he pulled aside the curtain, he found himself face-to-face with the enormous head of a yellow bird.

It was Sif.

The living alarm clock whose sole duty was to wake the cubs.

“Chirp—” Sif urged the cub to hurry to his afternoon lesson.

Shu Li quickly gathered the pens and notebooks on the desk and stuffed them into his belt pouch. The top student’s notebook was too thick to fit, so he had no choice but to leave it at home.

To the sound of Sif’s bright birdsong, the twenty-five drowsy cubs hurried toward school.

The adult Fairies they passed looked at the group of cubs flying crookedly through the air and laughed as they reassured them, “There’s no need to rush. You have music class this afternoon. It doesn’t matter if you’re late.”

“That’s right, it doesn’t matter. Lia will only make you memorize a few extra poems as punishment,” Chris added deliberately as he stepped forward, always eager to play a prank.

The moment they heard there would be punishment, the cubs’ sleepiness vanished. Their little wings flapped even faster.

Once the cubs had flown away, an adult Fairy smacked Chris across the back. “Go into the forest and gather thornberries!”

“Awooo—”

Chris let out an exaggerated howl. Before the adult Fairy could land a second blow, his figure flashed and he fled without a trace.

Author’s Note:

Ahem. Don’t ask me why “quietly” becomes Kumandi. The answer is that I made it up.

————

P.S. I’ll be randomly handing out little red-envelope rewards in the comments for this chapter.