An Unwanted Ally, Part 1

I squinted as I looked at Shaina's reaction. She was busy laughing while holding her stomach with one hand, and partially covering her mouth with the other. While her cheeks slowly turned red due to her irritating giggle, she spoke, "How did you like that grass?"

After gulping down the grass, I stood up straight and angrily replied, "Mind your own business elf."

And she didn't stop there. Shaina responded to say, "Hmm. You liked it after all, huh. It makes quite a lot of sense since we feed our pigs this fodder as well."

And in that moment, my expression changed from that of anger to one that expressed how dead I felt on the inside. Who in the world feeds their pigs fodder?! I wouldn't have found this to be insulting if it was cows that ate this grass, but pigs?! She dares to call me a pig?!

Though instead of chatting with her, I decided to sigh and leave the situation as is. I walked away and headed towards the original planet to fight more demons, but as soon as I looked up into the sky, the view of this universe surprised me. In the dark stary sky, I saw planets forming a circular ring. The closest planets that I could see were the one's right next to me. On my left, I saw the planet I had come from, the planet that was bursting into flames, surrounded by lava and rock. On my right, I saw a planet that looked dry and barren. I could visually see the heavy winds on that planet carry the sand-like mass as a tornado and in that very planet, I saw a few moving dots I assumed to be living creatures.

While I was busy looking at the fascinating sky, Shaina stood behind me to say, "The ring of the 42 great planets. I was fascinated by it ever since I was a child, but never really wished to go out there. The whole village was well aware of the dangers each planet possessed and so they happily lived here. However, the Elf God was different, she constantly travelled through the planets in search of a way to leave the underworld, and to do so, she built one-way portals to all of these planets. If you wish to leave, I could send the word to the old hag to allow you to pass through the portal."

I turned around to face Shaina to question her. "Portals?! How in the world was the Elf God able to open portals?"

After putting her hand on her chin and thinking about it for a while, Shaina responded, "Hmmm.... I don't really know. I guess you should ask her."

Could it be possible that the Elf God is associated with the War God Orcus told me about? From her words that didn't seem to be the case... Nonetheless, even if she is, I wouldn't want to provoke her with my current strength.

After thinking about the situation for a while, I headed back to the tower of the Elf God. Shaina, like the usual bug she was, followed me while rampantly speaking, "Hey! At least say something! Do you want my help or not?"

Tired of her words, I walked faster this time to get away from her. To this, she started yelling louder, "Hey!! Walk a little slower! I can't walk that fast! Huff.... Huff...."

And finally, after a few metres, she quit following me. However, she still yelled once more to say, "You stupid grass eating pig!!!"

This did indeed make me angry, however I was rather glad that the annoying elf was nowhere near me. How in the world was such a disturbing creature an elf? If she wasn't in any way related to the Elf God, I'd have killed her a long time ago.

When I finally met with the Elf God in her chambers, I spoke, "The portals... could I use them?"

After picking a pile of papers from the ground, the Elf God replied, "Who told you about them? It was Shaina, wasn't it? That little brat."

The Elf God sighed, "Huff... Well, now that you do know of there existence, I won't stop you from using them. Now tell me, where in this ring of 42 planets do you wish to go?"

"Send me off to the planet with the greatest number of hostile creatures."

"Sure. I shall send you there. But under one condition, take Shaina along with you."

I looked for the exit and replied, "Then I guess I'll have to jump my way there."

Surprised, the Elf God spoke, "No wait! Once the both of you come back from your trip, I'll tell you how to control your magical power. After all, I am the best at it and to have an elder God as your teacher...."

Since the deal was now tipping in my favour, I accepted to take the annoying elf with me. I shook hands with the Elf God and responded, "I guess we have ourselves a deal."

A moment later, I exited the tower and headed back to meet Shaina. I searched across the forest for about 10 minutes, and finally caught sight of her. She had joined her hands and had closed her eyes to pray to a large decaying tree. A while later, the tree started glowing green and was rejuvenated. The dry leaves slowly turned green, and the bent branches started to repair themselves. And when she finally opened her eyes, I walked closer towards her.