Somewhere in the ocean:-

Back on Etheldor, shifting the scene towards the ocean, clear blue waters can be seen swaying with the winds.

Waters so calm, it seems odd for Etheldor or any other fantasy world for that matter.

Fantasy worlds were supposed to have all sorts of colourful, wonderous and deadly beasts roaming around in the oceans.

To find out the reason for this calm atmosphere, one would need to travel a bit back in time, until a raft can be seen floating in the area being observed.

This raft has two women lying half asleep on it as it sways with the passing waves.

“Deda! Chven... are stuck here, aren’t we?” {A/N: “Deda”=“Mother”, “Chven”=“We” in Georgian. Also, “Mama”=“Father”… Yeah, I know. Georgian is pretty weird.}

“Of course not!

I’ve told you many times that I can get us back home any time I want!”

“And when will that ‘any time’ come exactly?”

“My dear daughter, you should learn to enjoy the trip instead of complaining…”

“My dearest mother, I would enjoy the trip. If not for the fact that we’ve been stuck in the ocean for god knows how long and the fact that the only food I can eat is GODDAMN SEAWEED!!!”

Eteri shot out a bolt of mana in her anger which hit a monster that had popped up near their vessel.

The head of the monster was instantly obliterated.

“Ooh!

That’s a monster I haven’t seen! I wonder how that tastes!”, said Mzia with sparkling eyes as she hauled the headless carcass towards their raft.

Eteri watched her mother’s actions with a mixture of shock and disgust. But Mzia’s actions weren’t all that surprising to her.

Her mother had hunted and stored many creatures in the vast space present in her spatial magic vault.

Such a great piece of magic was being used to store monster carcasses!

This was also a reason why Etteri kept her things in her own, but much smaller, spatial vault.

Her mother’s storage was much bigger than hers but it was also tainted with the blood of many of the beasts they had killed.

In their god knows how long of a journey, they had travelled a lot and faced many dangerous beasts and other creatures.

And whenever a new creature was slain, Eteri’s mother made sure that she recovered the carcass to have a taste.

Not everything was edible.

But whatever was, was eaten by Mzia.

“Hey! You’ve constantly been falsely accusing me!

I don’t eat everything! I have my standards!

I have never eaten nor will I ever eat those disgusting looking bugs!

And I won’t ever eat any friendly pet creatures!”

“Mum, to me, every animal or monster you eat looks disgusting.

But still, I guess I should thank you for not being a blind glutton…”

“Oh my, my daughter’s being so nice to me!

Anyway, on that note, I should start lunch preparations.

You wanna try some meat for once?”

“Nah!

I got my salted seaweed, thank you very much!

Plus, I can always use mana to substitute for the stuff I lack.”

“The offer will always remain open, honey. Regardless of the time of the day.

I can always whip you something delicious even if it’s the middle of the night.”, replied Mzia as she started creating a fire in the air to try roasting some part of her fresh loot.

She wanted to try and experiment with different cooking methods but didn’t want their raft to turn into a floating bonfire.

That’s why all her cooking was done by making everything float in the air first.

Even though she was enjoying such a variety of creatures, she still felt sorry for her daughter.

The girl had decided to accompany her extremely unreasonable mother on an even more unreasonable trip.

She didn’t complain even though they ran out of most of their vegetarian supplies.

Her daughter ate just salted seaweed without complaining too much.

That was how supportive she was.

‘Such a perfect…

No, such a near-perfect daughter I have…’ thought Mzia as corrected herself while recounting all the times her daughter behaved ever so annoyingly.

However, as a mother, Mzia could not see her daughter suffer because of her.

That’s why she used to constantly teleport back to her kingdom every night to raid the royal pantry.

And any of the so-called “substitutes provided by mana” were just the ingredients she had stored.

Mana was powerful. But it wasn’t so powerful that it could sustain life for such a long time.

In terms of life sustenance, mana could be thought of as a steroid or an adrenaline shot.

Sure, there were cases of resurrections and reincarnations due to magic, but it was physically impossible to live off just mana or its products.

The only thing mana did was to allow the user to live longer by reducing the rate of body and DNA degeneration while increasing things like defence or other physical abilities.

If one didn’t have the right nutrition, mana could only carry the person for a little while before their body gave up.

Also, she used to secretly feed a sleeping Eteri at night, so that her daughter never skipped out on essential foods.

Obviously, Mzia didn’t go without eating the required food items either.

Mzia didn’t want to go back home because if she did, the elves would probably never open up to the rest of the world and she’d probably never gain any freedom herself.

She’d get too busy doing her duties as the queen and measures would be set up to stop her from escaping again.

‘Anyway, best not dwell on the bad possibilities!

Eteri was correct.

Being at sea for so long has made me quite pessimistic!’, Mzia thought.

The thing with elves was that their long lifespans allowed them to perceive long human durations as a short while.

While years used to pass for humans, it felt like days to the elves.

But as is normal, when one doesn’t have anything to do, time slows down to a crawl.

And when an overworked elven lady like Mzia has nothing to do, the effects are all the more pronounced.

With her earlier work schedule, she usually didn’t have the time to register the passing of days.

Her body used to almost go on autopilot with the repeating daily tasks.

And then she suddenly found herself stuck in the middle of the ocean with nothing to do.

So, as go Newton’s laws, the stark difference in the number of things to do made Mzia feel like neither the sun nor their raft was moving even an inch no matter how much time passed.

And all this free time allowed her mind to wander, which eventually ran out of good things to think of and settled on the various tragedies that could happen.

Mzia cleared her head and started chanting a spell.

The chanting part wasn’t necessary for elves, especially her since that was just something the humans had made up for some reason. But she had overflowing levels of free time to waste.

Being overly fancy to waste time wasn’t going to hurt her any bit in her current situation.

Mzia released a large pulse of mana that spread out a mana-echolocation-like spell.

‘I think I messed up the chanting but as far as I remember, the humans used to call it a “Search” spell or something…

Oh well, I don’t really care anyway…’

Mzia had tried spying on humans once or twice recently. Only the mages, not the cultivators.

Why only mages?

Because it was easier to use mana in an environment stuffed with mana. She couldn’t do much with qi, except maybe indirectly pushing it around using mana.

Anyway, it turned out that some dumb person had stuffed it into their heads that magic requires chanting and all that.

For the mages, the process of using mana used to be to do a chant, then speak the name of the magic attribute followed by the name of the spell. Only then were they supposed to release the actual spell.

The cultivators also seemed to have a similar custom but Mzia hadn’t looked too much into it.

This sort of stuff looked good in a story or something, to add a bit of flair and to let the readers know what moves were being done.

But it had a lot of demerits in real life. Unfortunately, since it had become normal, no one seemed to notice the difference.

Anyway, after about half an hour, the high-speed mana wave rushed back to her like how soundwaves return in echolocation.

And depending on the time it took along with other changes in the mana (different regions and materials cause mana to show changes), Mzia constructed a mental map of her surroundings.

She then proceeded to use earth magic to convert the mental map into a physical one made of clay.

“Eteri, honey, it looks like your wait is about to be over.

I can see land at about a week’s journey from here.”

 Mzia informed her daughter about the latest discoveries.

“A week?

Yeah, seems like it.”, said Eteri as she looked at the 3d clay map floating in front of her.

“But, mom, since you’ve already located, can’t you just teleport us over or something?”

“You know how magic works, right?

I need to physically go there to be able to teleport properly.

Because if I don’t, even I don’t know if we’ll up on land, in the ground or above the clouds!”

This was one of the few restrictions of teleportation magic, unless the caster had already been to the destination physically, teleporting to a place was avoided.

The reason for this was that even if one has seen the place on a map or something, teleporting there without prior visitation had a high rate of causing the spell to dump the people at a  random spot.

Some people were thrown high above the stratosphere.

Others ended up being buried alive since they ended up teleporting to several feet underground.

Some even ended up halfway through walls or other objects.

Long ago, people had tried entering into Alfheim like that. Barely anyone had survived. And the few survivors were taken care of by the elven authorities. (Taken care obviously means they were punished and executed, not given a place to stay.)

Once all this was done, the mother-daughter duo finally had their lunch.

Usually, elves would be offended by the sight of meat. But Eteri had spent enough time with her mother to be able to eat normally even while she gobbled down on whatever creature she managed to cook.

“Wow!

Honey, you’re definitely missing out on some really good food here!”

“I don’t care, mom! I got my stuff, you got yours.

Let’s stick with what we got and not interfere with each other, okay?”

They finished their food with less of Mzia telling her daughter to become a non-vegetarian.

And once all their eating supplies were properly cleaned and packed, they again began rowing the raft.

On the way, the high levels of mana leaking out of the bodies of the parent and child caused several dangerous creatures to rush towards them.

The smaller, weaker ones were either too weak and hid or somewhat overconfident and greedy but were eaten by monsters who were even stronger.

The really, really dangerous monsters that did surface were the ruler types, who had marked the regions as their territories.

However, once they came up to try defending their territories, they were either killed off or barely managed to escape with severe wounds.

All those monsters came up thinking that some other high-levelled beast wanted to challenge them due to all the mana being sent out.

But it turned out that the mana was just a very small amount that the Mzia and Eteri leaked out subconsciously as all creatures do.

Their actual mana reserves were much, much greater than what those monsters could even imagine.

So, naturally, any creature that was unlucky enough to attack was quickly reduced to food, either for other monsters or for Mzia.

A week passed like this, with them sometimes using a physical paddle and other times using wind magic to push their raft forward. 

And after a journey of several months, filled with monsters, walking and floating around in the ocean, the two finally saw the shore of some country.

Mzia knew that they at least weren’t back to Alfheim.

So, she quickly applied an illusion spell on herself and her daughter.

This would make whoever saw them think of them as the most common inhabitant of the area.

It kind of worked like Superman’s glasses, only better.

This allowed the two to have some room for error when meeting new people.

It would be odd if they showed up as dwarves in the human territory or as demons in the dwarven territory.

Soon enough, they spotted silhouettes in the distance, who seem to have also spotted them.

A few of them quickly jumped into the water and rushed towards the raft.

“Các bận ổn chứ?”, said one of the beastmen who surfaced near their raft.

{A/N: This roughly means “Are you guys okay?” in Vietnamese.}

The ones who came along had a very concerned look on their faces since to them, it looked like the two were beastkin women who had been stranded in the ocean for a very long time.

Hearing their words, Mzia quickly applied some more magic for translation before replying.

“Vâng, vâng… we are fine.”, said Mzia.

{A/N: “Vâng” means “Yes” in Vietnamese.}

The people floating around looked at them to make sure of their health before dragging the raft towards the shore.

In this time, Mzia set the appearances of herself and her daughter as beastkin.

It looked like the people who spotted them perceived them as bear-kin. So, that’s what they were going to be from now on.

Arriving on the shore, several other people quickly rushed towards them.

Everyone seemed to be really worried at their sight.

Two poor women, who seemed to have been drifting through the ocean for who knows how long.

Even though no one knew them, it was obvious for them to be concerned.

From their appearance, it was obvious that the two had been through several tragedies before reaching the shores of Quoc-gia Thu.

Who knew if they had been tortured, had starved lost loved ones or whatever other horrible things had happened to them or they were forced to do.

Using high-levelled disguised spells (so that there’s no chance of being found out), Mzia quickly read their minds and constructed a tragic story. She also telepathically relayed the same information to her daughter.

Also, while disguising themselves as bear-kin, Mzia had changed their physiques to resemble someone who hasn’t eaten for days, giving herself and her daughter skinny, malnourished features along with several fake injuries and scars.

These were all magically created and had no major effect on their real bodies.

After they relayed their stories a bit, Mzia majorly speaking while Eteri kept adding bits, they were given some medicinal herbs for their injuries along with some food.

It turned out that the people who rescued them were just a couple of friends who used to gather on the beach every day to swim around and play.

And out of pure luck, the eagle-kin boy among them had noticed the approaching raft.

Following that, they quickly spotted what seemed like silhouettes of people sitting on the incoming raft and a few of them jumped into the water without a second thought.

Everyone in Quoc-gia Thu was taught to help others. And no one in the country would hesitate to help if help was needed.

Once it was judged that everyone had become fit enough to travel, the group took Mzia and Eteri to a nearby village.

And once they entered the village, the two were naturally summoned to the village head’s place.

The village head was this old lion-man with a long white mane and an equally long and white beard.

“I welcome you to my Nha Trang Village.

May I have the pleasure of knowing your names before you visit the village healer?”

“Respected elder, my name is Elena and my mother’s name is Mary.

It was given by our previous masters, slave traders from the human countries.”, said Eteri.

She had discussed it with her mother and decided that using this story along with Malonian names.

Their original names might give too much away considering that they were elven names and sounded nothing like the ones used by humans.

The two continued to tell their full “story” to the village head along with whoever was present in the room.

They talked about having been born and raised in human territories.

They also mentioned Eteri’s father’s death and the fact the Mzia was her mother.

The only thing that they changed with her father’s death was that he died from overwork in the story they relayed to everyone.

Also, the two greatly exaggerated the events of their journey by saying that they had started their escape with several friends and family, many of whom were caught by the slave traders while the others died due to monster attacks or lack of food.

Even though almost all of what they said was a lie (except for the escaping part, the monster attacks and the ocean journey), one couldn’t tell that they were lying by looking at them.

Their malnourished and injured bodies were enough proof of the tortures they had faced on their journey.

Everyone in the room had tears in their eyes by the time the duo finished with their story.

Mzia had kept released bits of mana that messed around with everyone’s heads and made them even more susceptible to sorrow.

This made it easier for the two to make everyone emotional with their made-up origins.

Once everyone had calmed down, the village head offered them a place to stay while they recovered.

Everyone else also readily agreed with the village head’s decision.

The two, however, “tried” refusing the offer.

But after coming under “great pressure” from everyone in the room, Mzia “reluctantly” agreed to get a house in the village.

Seeing the two finally agree, the village head quickly ordered some of his guards to take the two over to the village healer while some others were ordered to go look for either an empty house or an empty plot of land to build a new one.

After a while, Mzia and Eteri arrived at the healer’s house.

The village healer, Tran Hoa, was a wolf-kin.

She used to run the place with her husband, Tran Sang, who was similarly a wolf-kin.

She had short blonde hair that covered her entire head and had two cute-looking ears poking out from the top of her head.

Beastkin had the body parts like ears that resemble animal parts.

So, naturally, they didn’t necessarily have ears on their sides as humans do.

The reptilian ones or the avian ones didn’t even have visible ears while some, like snake-kins, didn’t have ears altogether.

That’s why most beastkin tend to keep their hair all over their heads.

Since their ears stick out, there was never a need for anything like the sideburns that humans do.

Some, like the bird-kin or the reptilian and amphibious types, don’t even have proper hair.

The bird-kin tend to have feathers of various lengths as “hair”, while the reptilians tend to either not have hair or have weird scaly hair. It’s like each hair strand is covered with small scales.

Since the patients were women, it was decided that Tran Hoa would be the one to see them while her husband treated other patients.

After a thorough check of all their wounds and scars, Tran Hoa provided them with a list of herbs along with several herbal medicines and liquids.

These would help with the healing of the various injuries, both external and internal, along with the removal of all the scar tissue.

Since all this was herbal, there was no issue in using them even though the wounds were fake.

There was no real risk of adverse reactions or harmful side effects.

They were told to use some immediately, after seeing the severity of their injuries.

Once that was done, the two were allowed to leave and were told to visit again after 2-3 weeks for a follow-up on their condition.

The moment they stepped outside the house-turned-clinic, they were greeted by one of the village head’s guards.

“Respected madams, a house suitable for your residence has been found.

The village head has instructed me to guide you two to the place.”

Hearing this, the two of them followed the man as they were guided to a small stone and clay house a few minutes from the healer’s residence.

The place wasn’t all that luxurious but it was definitely better than that raft Mzia and Eteri had been living on.

Once the guard saw them settle down, he immediately left the two to go back to his duty.

The place seemed to have old furniture that had been cleaned recently.

Mzia figured that it might have belonged to some family that had passed away or simply moved to some city.

Since they had cleaned it up and gave it to them, the possibility of the death of the previous residents was low.

So, a few years passed since Mzia and Eteri had first come to Quoc-gia Thu.

They had begun working around and secured something of a livelihood for themselves.

The two even got used to the normal scale of time followed by the people here.

They had a small business of handicrafts they had started, selling paintings, pottery and handmade jewellery. They had incorporated some traditional elven styles into their items which made them super popular with the masses.

But the best part of the stay here for Mzia was that she was free to do whatever she wanted.

Even Eteri was quite happy with the freedom.

Because unlike back in Alfheim, they were not royalty in the Nha Trang village or anywhere else in Quoc-gia Thu.

They were free to do almost whatever they wanted, ensuring that they didn’t end up revealing their secrets to anyone.

So, Eteri had formed her gang of friends very quickly and used to spend most of the day roaming around with them.

And as for her mother, Mzia, she had her own group of friends too. And they used to do various things together as well.

But the icing on the cake for Mzia was that she was a bear-kin.

And this meant that she was omnivorous or in simpler words, she could gobble up as much meat as she wanted.

Naturally, her obsession with non-vegetarian food, especially meat, had earned her the nickname of “The Bloodthirsty Bear” in the village.

One thing that the two did make a habit out of was to visit the main city of Bien Hoa, both for selling their goods and also for buying any daily necessities.

Life in the village felt nice and peaceful to Mzia and Eteri. That’s why they decided to not shift to the city anytime soon.

They were sick of all the noise and crowd after living in Alfheim for so long.

In comparison, the village life was like a breath of fresh air.

So, when they were selling their goods one day, a passing traveller took interest in their goods.

“Hmm…

Such an unusual find…

Say, could you tell me where are you guys from?”, said the black cat-lady.

She was wearing quite an expensive-looking black Ao dai, something that might belong to the family of some rich merchant, a similar Khan van with her cat ears sticking out and a veil attached to the hat was over her face.

{A/N: Ao dai is the traditional dress in Vietnam worn by both men and women but most commonly by women. Translates to “Long Shirt” with “Áo”=“Shirt” and “Dài”=“Long”.

Khan van is a Vietnamese turban. “Khăn”=“Scarf or cloth” and “Vấn”=“Coil around”.}

Her cat tail could be seen moving gracefully behind her.

But one could tell from her body language that she wasn’t someone to be messed with. She was probably a famous merchant herself.

They proceeded to a nearby alleyway to talk since it might affect the nearby pedestrians and other sellers.

“Ma’am we’re fr-”

Eteri was just about to answer when her mother stopped her.

“Elena, don’t.

She’s not who you think she is.

To think that I’d see a high-level demon lord in the middle of the country of beastkin!”, said Mzia to her daughter telepathically.

This was a very strange occurrence.

There were higher chances of them finding humans or dwarves here than demons.

Yet, the first non-beastkin that they two had come across wasn’t just a demon but a high-levelled demon lord at that!

Mzia was just thinking of a way to get out of her predicament when the lady in front spoke up.

“Well, I must say…

Just like you, I too didn’t expect to meet a legendary elf, much less a high-elf in the middle of the country of beastkin!

And yes, we do have a lot to talk about.

But don’t worry, I don’t plan on harming anyone.”

Even though Mzia and Eteri were shocked silly by this sudden development on top of a sudden development, they had no real choice but to follow the lady as she led to a darker turn down the alley they were talking in.

Who knew what she had in store for them.

But since it was a person who easily found their well-hidden identities, they had to be extra careful with what they could do next.

One misstep could spell disaster.

And this area was way too crowded for any such missteps.