I Became a Cub in the Elven Kingdom

Dixio: “Sperien disappeared.” ⊙_⊙

Budno: “The mother tree ate him!!!” (=°Д°

Angel: “No, he flew into the mother tree’s trunk on his own.” (||o_o)

The three Little Fairies looked at one another, all doubting what they had just witnessed. As one, they rubbed their eyes and looked at the mother tree again, but Sperien was still nowhere to be seen.

Dixio could hardly believe it.

A little over ten minutes earlier, Angel had said that their leader was acting strangely. Dixio had thought he was making a fuss over nothing. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected them to secretly follow Sperien and witness something so astonishing.

Their leader, who was supposed to be studying in the Elven King’s room, had suddenly shrunk halfway there and doubled back. He had quietly returned to the courtyard, plunged straight into the mother tree’s trunk, and vanished.

How could this have happened?

“We have to go take a look!” Dixio said anxiously.

He flew toward the mother tree first, and Angel and Budno hurried after him.

The three Little Fairies flew to the spot where Shu Li had disappeared and tried ramming themselves into the trunk.

“Ow!” Budno clutched his aching head. “Why can’t we get inside?”

“Idiot!” Dixio slapped the solid, rough bark with his hand. “It’s this hard! Of course we can’t get through!”

“But... why could Sperien get through?” Budno muttered aggrievedly.

Angel flew a full circle around the mother tree’s enormous trunk, patting and knocking against it the whole way. When he returned to his companions, he speculated, “The mother tree has existed for tens of thousands of years, so it must possess some kind of miraculous power. I think... Sperien may have made some sort of agreement with it.”

Dixio frowned. “What kind of agreement?”

A thought struck Budno. “A contract!”

“Right,” Angel said. “Siet taught us before that there are many different kinds of contracts, both good and bad. We have to be extremely cautious when entering into contracts with others. Otherwise, we might not only get the worse end of the bargain but even end up enslaved.”

“Then... then what kind of contract did Sperien make with the mother tree?” Dixio asked worriedly.

Their leader hadn’t been enslaved by the mother tree, had he?

Angel shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ll ask Sperien when he comes back.”

Budno cupped his cheeks in his hands. “When will Sperien come back?”

Angel folded his wings and landed on one of the mother tree’s protruding roots. “If we wait here, Sperien is bound to return eventually.”

“Okay!” Dixio and Budno sat down on either side of him.

The three Little Fairies sat in a row on the root, staring blankly into space.

Ten minutes later, they grew bored.

“How about... we go back to our room for now?” Budno suggested.

“No!” Dixio immediately objected. “If we fall asleep, we’ll miss our leader!”

Budno sighed. “Fine!”

“We can read while we wait,” Angel suggested.

He took a book and a cylindrical magic lamp from his storage ring, then settled down to read.

Dixio and Budno thought that was a good idea and immediately followed his example.

Before long, three tiny lights shone side by side on the mother tree’s root, accompanied by the occasional faint rustle of turning pages.

In a room opposite the mother tree, the Elven King stood before the window, his green eyes fixed unwaveringly on the scene outside.

Ilio stood behind him and extended his senses. Upon “seeing” the three Little Fairies reading beneath the mother tree in the middle of the night, the corner of his mouth twitched.

The night before last, Sperien had suddenly slipped out through the window ahead of schedule and secretly gone to the mother tree, instantly drawing the attention of the Elves.

However, the king had issued no instructions, so the other Elves could only watch and wait.

The little fellow had returned safely in the early hours of the morning, allowing the Elves to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Then, the following morning, the four Little Fairies had informed Ilio that they wanted to remain in the Elven Kingdom for a few more days to consult Danlov about magic. He had immediately sensed that something was amiss.

Sure enough, Sperien had slipped into the mother tree’s trunk early for two nights in a row and had not returned until after midnight.

Purifying one of the mother tree’s branch trees normally took only ten or twenty minutes. Why had it taken four or five hours these past few days?

Ilio was just as puzzled as the other Elves. More than that, he worried that the little fellow might encounter danger after spending so long in Dark Elf territory. He wanted to ask the king whether they could seek information from the mother tree. Yet the king remained perfectly calm and gave no indication that he intended to act, so Ilio could only maintain his composure and continue observing.

What surprised Ilio, however, was that the other three Little Fairies had actually uncovered Sperien’s secret.

Angel had always been remarkably observant, even as a child. As he grew older, he became increasingly skilled at discerning the whole from the smallest clues.

It was hardly surprising that he had discovered Sperien’s secret.

“Your Majesty, will it be all right for them to know?” Ilio respectfully asked the Elven King.

The fact that Sperien purified the mother tree’s branches while also stealing fruit was an open secret throughout the Elven Kingdom, but very few Fairies at the divine tree knew about it.

“It is no matter,” the Elven King said.

“Shall I urge those three little fellows to return to their room and sleep?” Ilio asked again.

Waiting outside until midnight made it easy to catch a chill.

“Do not disturb them.”

The Elven King withdrew his gaze and turned toward a vine chair beside the window. Like the three Little Fairies, he picked up a book and began reading by the moonlight.

“...Yes, Your Majesty.” Ilio sighed inwardly.

The king truly indulged Sperien far too much.

He never interfered or asked questions about anything concerning Sperien, allowing matters to unfold freely. Even when he knew Sperien might encounter danger, he merely watched over him in silence and intervened only at the critical moment.

The king did not merely indulge Sperien. He spoiled him excessively.

Whatever Sperien decided to do, the king tacitly allowed it. Five years ago, for instance, when Sperien had been cursed and wanted to personally deliver a letter to the mage who had cursed him, the king had agreed. He had made an exception and allowed an underage Little Fairy to travel to the Human World.

There had been many other similar incidents. Ilio had lived for more than five hundred years, yet he still could not understand the king’s actions at all.

Of course, he remained unwavering in his support of every decision the king made.

After all, ever since Sperien’s arrival, the future of the Elven race had been secured.

Ilio bowed slightly to the Elven King and quietly withdrew from the room.

The Elven King remained in the posture of reading, yet a long time passed without him turning the page.

Meanwhile, Shu Li, who had traveled through the space within the mother tree’s roots and emerged in the desert, was hiding inside an exposed root and enjoying the spectacle before him.

Once again, the adventuring party had been lucky enough to find an oasis that day.

This oasis was somewhat larger than the previous day’s, with lush trees and an abundant water source, but it had been claimed by a level-six magical beast. If the adventuring party wanted to enter the oasis, they first had to fight the beast for its territory.

By the time Shu Li arrived, the battle was nearly over.

The adventuring party ganged up on the level-six magical beast and killed it, after which its body was meticulously butchered. With both a gnome and a dwarf present, every useful “part” of the magical beast was removed.

Its horns, scales, claws, tail, flesh, internal organs, bones, and everything else were separated into several portions and distributed among the five members of the adventuring party.

The pitiful level-six magical beast had been thoroughly utilized, without so much as a scrap of its remains left behind.

Shu Li observed a moment of silence for it.

As for the spectacle he was currently watching, it had begun when the white mage decided he wanted the magical beast’s horn. Unfortunately, the horn was in the hands of the Dark Elf, who had contributed the most during the battle.

The white mage therefore wanted to exchange some other treasure for the horn.

The Dark Elf began playing hard to get and shamelessly flirting with the white mage.

The white mage remained expressionless and answered every remark with a cutting retort.

The other members of the adventuring party glanced from one to the other. Neither was someone they could afford to provoke, so they silently attended to their own tasks, pretending to be overwhelmingly busy and not daring to involve themselves in the quarrel.

Shu Li had come to eavesdrop, not to listen to people argue—especially when the argument consisted entirely of meaningless nonsense.

“Murisi, put away those filthy thoughts of yours,” the white mage said coldly. “Once this mission is over, we’ll go our separate ways.”

The Dark Elf crossed his arms and asked with a grin, “Why don’t you tell me, Sedler? What filthy thoughts do I have?”

“You know perfectly well,” the white mage said.

The Dark Elf raised an eyebrow. “How am I supposed to know my thoughts are filthy if you won’t tell me?”

“Dark Elves really are the most shameless race in the world,” the white mage declared, condemning the entire species in one stroke.

The Dark Elf waved a hand. “Don’t lump me in with those Dark Elves. I’m nothing like them.”

“I fail to see the difference,” the white mage sneered.

“I don’t slaughter innocent people, cheat or swindle anyone. I keep myself pure, remain faithful in love, and have survived until today entirely through my own abilities. You’ll never find another Dark Elf as unique as me.”

Hidden inside the root, Shu Li wholeheartedly agreed with the white mage.

There could not possibly be another Dark Elf this shameless!

Efit was the truly unique Dark Elf—there would never be another like him.

The white mage had evidently been stunned speechless by the Dark Elf’s brazen shamelessness. It took him quite some time to react, and even then, he managed only one sentence.

“Whether you’re a good man or not has nothing to do with me.”

“How could it have nothing to do with you?” The Dark Elf leaned closer to the white mage and lowered his voice. “It concerns your sexual... happiness—”

A second later, a small fireball was chasing the Dark Elf around while the white mage mercilessly brandished his magic staff.

After two days of observation, Shu Li had more or less concluded that the Dark Elf’s intentions toward the white mage were anything but innocent.

He had lived for eighteen years in his original world and another fifteen after transmigrating to this one. By now, attraction between people of the same sex was nothing unusual to him.

Fairies and Elves could marry someone of the same sex, and he had attended plenty of such weddings.

He had simply never considered whether people of different races and faiths could fall in love.

The white mage was human and worshiped the Light God.

The Dark Elf was an Elf corrupted by darkness and worshiped the God of Darkness.

If light and darkness went to war again one day, which side would they choose?

Besides, the Dark Elf was far too frivolous. Every word he spoke was open to question. Who knew whether he was pursuing the white mage for some ulterior motive?

Judging from how matters currently stood, the white mage remained unmoved by all the Dark Elf’s overt and covert advances.

Shu Li hoped he would stay true to himself and not be deceived by the Dark Elf’s honeyed words.

He rubbed his ear and sighed inwardly.

I only came here to eavesdrop. Why am I worrying about the love life of a human stranger?

It seemed he would not hear any useful information today.

Shu Li dusted off his backside and left in disappointment, heading to Vanaku to purify the mother tree’s branch and the fruits.

Fruit Number Two was nearly purified. Tomorrow—tomorrow, they would finally be able to move it.

Thrilled, Shu Li finished his work and traveled back to the Elven courtyard through the space within the mother tree’s roots.

He had returned an hour earlier than usual today. Shu Li cautiously emerged from the mother tree’s trunk, extended his senses, and searched his surroundings.

Suddenly, his body stiffened.

He stared in shock at the three Little Fairies sleeping soundly below the tree, huddled together.

They were leaning against a thick root and pressed tightly against one another. Presumably afraid of the chill night wind, each had covered himself with a small blanket and wrapped himself up snugly.

Angel:

Dixio:

Budno:

Shu Li: (*￣０￣)!