Chapter 7

POV: Injured elf

The bear was huge. It easily stood 3 meters tall and 2 meters wide. It’s front legs were as thick as tree trunks, not to mention *on fire.* The handsome elf sprinted at the thing at ridiculous speed, grabbed a huge branch, and hurled it into the bear at what must have been mach speed since there was a sonic boom. The bear moved at an unbelievable speed and lopped his arm off, then set him on fire with its blazing maw.

One armed elf man, looking not distraught but confused instead, went so fast he practically disappeared from my sight, and then I was in his arm, speeding away from the fire bear. He was still on fire, and definitely giving me burns. His face was an ashen mess and his shirt was falling off. For some reason, I couldn’t feel his shirt. “Are you fucking ok?!?!” I screamed. He looked at me with a twinkle in his eyes and spewed sarcastically, “Oh yeeeeah I’m fiiiiine, this happens every other day and new arms are a dime a dozen you know?” He looked at me like I had informed him the sky was blue.

I looked around us as we ran and realized that the leaves were falling from the trees much slower than they should have been. “What’s up with the leaves?” He chuckled and said, “That’s my magic, I can alter our perception of time.” I twisted in his arms to see his legs and realized they weren’t touching the ground. “WE’RE FLYING?” “Yep. By the way, I’m basically out of mana.” Wait what-

Suddenly I was rolling around on the ground, and then I hit a tree. It hurt like hell, and the fact that both my legs and one of my arms was broken did precisely nothing to help. The burns were just fiery icing on the cake. Looking to my side, there was a very not elf looking pile of woven grass lying there. I passed out from the pain before I could question it.

“Hey, wake up.”

I opened my eyes groggily to see an elven girl about my age sitting in front of a pot of what looked to be stew. She had hazel eyes, blonde hair, and snow white skin. She was the most average elf I had ever seen. The personification of blandness. An elven rice cake. She handed me a wooden bowl of questionable smelling stew. “You slept for nearly 18 hours.” The stew was terrible. It was like she caught a squirrel, skinned it, and then put the skin in the boiling water. I did my best to hide my disgust.

“Where did the elven man go?” I asked once I had finished choking down the stew. “That’s not me?” She asked, seeming confused. I stared at her blankly. The elven man had 1 arm, burns all over the front side of his body, and was MALE. This rice cake had 2 arms, normal skin, and was female, judging by her bust and hair and face. She also looked a few centimeters shorter. “You’re a girl!” I said, exasperated. She stared just as blankly at me as I had to her, looked at her skirt, fiddled with her hair, pulled at her shirt and said, “Well I suppose I am.”

“Where did the elven man go?” I repeated, slightly agitated. “If you’re talking about me, I’m right here in front of you.” She insisted with a sweet smile. “How could you be the same person as that elf? You’re not even the same gender!” She stared at the trees for a moment before looking at me and saying, “Because of my magic, I look like whatever you think an elf should look like. Yesterday, when that *scary* human came to eat you up, you were hoping a handsome elven man would come and save you, no? So I looked like an elven man. But since you were asleep just now you had no expectations, so I probably look incredibly average. You think of female as the ‘normal’ gender, so that’s why I’m female.” 

This girl is making no sense. I just want to go home. Then she said, “I can also set requirements for what I look like. For example, a man.” Suddenly the girl was gone and the elven man was in her place, uninjured. “Butler.” A butler took his place, looking once again very average. “Little girl.” A little girl sat in front of me. She had perfectly average cuteness. “You understand now?” She said, looking like she wanted praise. Oh I see. This creature, whatever it is, has some VERY unusual magic. I’ve heard of magic that takes into account your thoughts, like bolts of fire that redirect themselves where you least expect it, but this is on a completely other level.

“That’s some crazy ass magic you’ve got there. I didn’t even know stuff like that existed.” She laughed and said, “I got it on accident too! Apparently it’s one of the only spells that lets you create illusions with sound at a low mana cost.” Slightly taken aback, I asked, “You have a title that lets you specify mana cost when trying to get skills?” “Yeah, is that rare?” “Very.” We looked at the trees in silence for a while. “Have you ever seen a human before?” The little girl inquired as she stood up. “No, I haven’t.” My eyes went wide the girl disappeared and in her place a terrifying human man stood. “Hmmm. I can see a little of what you see when I use this magic, and I’ve gotta say, you have no idea what a human looks like.” What? They’re not blood thirsty demons? He continued, “They’re like elves but they have rounded ears and redder tones in their skin. There’s basically no differences appearance wise other than that. Some of them have brown or dark brown skin, but that’s only in other countries where the sun shine more.”

My world came crashing down on me. Grandma apparently had no idea what a human looked like, considering her description of them to me had been so incredibly wrong. They claimed they had grown up in an elf village. 

“Oh and by the way, when I’m not using magic I look like this.” The scary human thing disappeared and in its place was basically a rag doll made from grass. Grandma has told me about things like this before. Powerful magicians can transfer their souls into inanimate objects which are tougher than normal bodies. This person might be one of them. “How powerful do you have to be to do something like that to yourself?” I prompted. “I was born this way.” It said after turning back into the rice cake girl. That would make her some kind of deity. I’ve never heard of anyone being born as an inanimate object, but then again they wouldn’t be able to tell me about it since they can’t talk so I suppose it’s no proof they don’t exist. Even given further prompting she refused to disclose any more information about her past.

We talked for 5 days. I taught her how to make better stew. She told me stories of the other elf village. She also asked me to rate her walking on how realistic it was. After looking closely, it was easy to tell she was using telekinesis and not muscles to walk. With my guidance she had it down by day 4. After that I used “Quick heal” to fix my legs and I left to walk back to my village, thankfully not encountering any bears on the way. They went their separate way.

POV: Briar

Well that was a thing. Who knew that some elves haven’t even seen humans before. It’s good to know how unreliable “Interpretable illusions” is. The keyword “elf” can make me look both male and female, handsome or plain, nice looking or scary, all depending on not only the target but also on the circumstances. Aside from helping out that girl, I practiced walking realistically and learned about this area through her. I was also surprised by how tough that bear was. Even with my relatively high mana pool, I really stand no chance against someone or something with fighting experience and AOE attacks. It’s swiping attack hit me before I even noticed it and used time manipulation on myself to dodge it. In the future I’ll have to be more careful, since regrowing my arm and burns took 9 hours of straight “Plant manipulation.”

According to the elf girl, we’re southeast from the forest I was in before. This forest is called   Jynkit. That was close to the northwest border of the continent, so we’re somewhere around the middle now. North of us is a kingdom she couldn’t remember the name of. It’s apparently very hostile to non-humans. Perhaps they were behind the attack on Orrian’s village. 

South of us is another kingdom she can’t remember the name of. It’s apparently friendly to non-humans, of which there are many. She doesn’t know if “deities” such as myself would be welcome though. Well, there’s only one thing to do! Head south. Judging direction by the sun, which rises in the east and sets in the west, I started a long journey to the city.