Lily awoke to murmuring. Groggily she stretched out her limbs, including her wings. ‘Wait… my wings?’ Upon opening her eyes, she looked behind her, and there they were, her wings. ‘Oh no!’

 

“Look at those wings, they are so pretty.” mumbled an elf girl.

 

“She’s pretty too, and look at that dress!” exclaimed a dog-eared girl.

 

“What race do you think she is? I've never seen a winged race before!” said a human girl.

 

Listening to the girls made Lily relieved. They didn’t think of her as a monster, but as some other race.

 

Lily took a deep breath, and introduced herself, “Hello, I am Lily, and I am an [Angel].” Suddenly Lily felt a ticklish sensation on her left wing. She looked at her wing and saw a young human girl, probably around 5 years old, who had started feeling her left wing. Before things get out of hand, Lily started to turn her wings into light, to absorb them back into her body.

 

The young girl started to tear up a little as the wings she was playing with disappeared. Lily felt bad, so she summoned her wings again and endured the ticklish sensation of the girl playing with them.

 

—----------------------------------------------------

 

Talar was an old [Elf]. Many of his children he took care of would ask how old he was, but he would always dodge the question. It was rare to see an [Elf] reach old age. [Elves] were part of nature themselves; when their age would reach to a point where many other races' generations have passed they willingly return to nature and transform into plants. They can turn into trees, berry bushes, vines, or even flowers so they can return to nature.

 

Talar had a different thought process; he would stay alive forever if he could, and with elven lifespans, most humans would say he practically can already. His interests were preserving life as much as he could while being in the pursuit to study as much [Nature Magic] there was. This was why he ran an orphanage, seeing children which were like seeds being snuffed out by a larger plant; he wanted to be a canopy, to protect these young seeds so they could bloom into beautiful flowers. He had been running this orphanage for two centuries now. Many of the children that became adults under his care left for their own lives, and while some caregivers may be saddened by such things, he only felt the pride of seeing those he cared about succeed in life.

 

There was something that he had never told a single child, except for one problematic youth, that he regretted every day since saying it. He used to be in a party of adventurers. Not any old adventurer party, but Yosuke’s party, the leader being a Summoned [Hero] from another world over a thousand years ago.

 

From what Talar knew, the [Hero] gained additional benefits fitting his class. Instead of the normal 10 stats (plus the 5 you got for your race per level), the [Hero] gained 15 stats per level. Another benefit that was extremely powerful if used correctly was [Identify], which told you the target’s level, name, race, and class. There were alternatives, like the [Mana Sense] skill that [Mages] like himself used, which gauged the level of mana the target had, but it was not foolproof like [Identify]. There were many other things the [Hero] got that were ridiculous.

 

Reminiscing the old days with his adventuring party was soothing; it was how Talar reached the level cap.

 

Reaching the Level cap for the Races was difficult, even if you were not a combat class. If you were a [Baker] for example, you would gain experience by baking things, but when the Ancients had set up the Arkrian Codex, they made it so after a certain point you would need to earn some combat experience.

 

Talar broke out of his stupor, overhearing a small commotion over at the girl's side of the church, ‘Well it seems they found out we have a new resident.’ he thought. When Talar reached the room and looked inside, he was shocked at what he saw. 

 

It turned out our new resident was an [Angel], but things didn’t add up. Why was there a child [Angel]? Why could an [Angel] speak and even have a name? Why were her wings snow white? Where was the crown of thorns adorning her head?

 

Before acting rashly, he used [Mana Sense] to gauge Lily, and was startled by what he discovered. She was strong; too strong. Stronger than the Hero he worked with at his peak. This also meant she had access to the Arkrian Codex, when children shouldn’t have access to it. There were only two ways this made sense to Talar, Lily was possibly using them as hostages, or maybe it was a misunderstanding and Lily is being friendly. Either way he was not strong enough to do anything to her, which left one option: Conversation.

 

“Hello there Lily, if you don’t mind, can you talk to me in private?” Talar asked in a stern tone. Lily winced,turned her head in the direction of Talar, and nodded her head.

 

Talar felt like this could be positive. Lily folded her wings inward and followed Talar. Talar led her to his study in silence; he had expert [Mana Sense] skills, so he could practically see the shape of her, or around him. Lily appeared to be nervous, shaking a bit with each step and fidgeting with her hands. ‘She acts like a child that has already done something wrong.’ Talar felt more sure that Lily was really just a child, but having the Arkrian Codex meant she must be of age.

 

Once they were in the study Talar sat in his chair and told Lily to sit in the opposite chair, which she did nervously. “Hello Lily, if that is your name,” Lily visibly gulped, “I want to ask you a few questions, but first I wanna check something.” Talar took out a blue orb the size of an apple. “This is an age identification crystal, I would like to know how old you really are. Here I’ll show you how it works. You just need to grab it and push your mana into it.” Talar demonstrated for Lily. 

 

“See, easy.” Talar showed, inwardly sighing at the estimated life span left section, Elves did not live forever, nothing did, and soon it would be his turn to return to nature.

 

Lily held the orb with both hands and moved a bit of mana into the crystal, the two awaiting to see what the response was.

 

‘Well isn't this surprising, she is an adult.’ Talar thought, but what else was surprising was her lifespan. “Estimated lifespan is your most likely max life span left, other factors will lower it.” Talar said with a small lie, while true that Estimated life span, but the maximum he had seen was a boy elf with a lifespan of 8000, which later on became a more normal 2000.

 

“Now, with this we can have a nice conversation, Miss Lily.”

 

—------------------------------------------------

 

 

Lily didn’t like this situation. At first Talar seemed nice, but now he was quite stern. She just followed his lead, and fell into his rhythm.

 

“Calm down,” assured Talar, “I don’t bite, I’m too old to do that.“ he joked with a comforting smile, which made Lily shake a little bit less. He continued, “I just want to know who I’m dealing with; you say you have nowhere to go, but with your strength you could do anything.” Talar said with a serious face.

 

Lily thought back to her life as Adam, about how cold he was to people, not doing things for other people. “I don’t want to use force to get things, I just want to help people.” Lily cried out. She had started to tear up a little. With every word she said, more and more of her pent up stress and sadness was let out. “Ever since I came to Arkria it’s been a trainwreck. First falling out of the sky! Then when I helped these three adventurers all I got was suspicion, and now I’m probably going to be kicked out by the first person who treated me as a person since getting here!” By the end, Lily was openly sobbing into her hands.

 

Talar got up, but Lily didn’t care at the moment, and just let it all out. To her surprise, the [Elf] approached her for a hug. “Hey, hey calm down,” he soothed, “I’m not gonna kick you out.” Lily cried more at this, all of the stress and pain from the past day was being cried out.

 

Lily started to calm down little by little, until she was calm enough to talk again. “I-I’m sorry, I’m not u-u-usually this emotional…” Lily struggled out. While it was true that Adam was a stone wall of emotions - he still felt sadness, of course - he had never cried before. Meanwhile, as Lily she wept like a baby in front of a stranger she had only met yesterday.

 

Talar gave a reassuring smile, and broke away from the embrace. “It’s okay, why don’t you talk about yourself and where you came from? You said something about coming to Arkria?” Lily froze, her mind racing as she had to consider what she could say. Should she tell him that she’s not from this world? Should she say she wasn’t even a she back on Earth?