8 Chapter 8 - A Royal Family

[Luz Leywin POV]

Impeccable...

That was the first word that I thought as I looked the elven city. We had directly been teleported right past the gates. What we saw were buildings that seemed to be built of jade. They were so flawless and smooth that each seemed to be carved from a single, huge stone.

Marking this place look even more were the huge trees that covered the place, as if the entire city had been built with the thought of causing the least possible damage, making it a more distinct and organic environment. I noticed Arthur looking up, and that's when I saw houses built on unnatural thick branches, with some having light smoke coming out of the chimneys. The entire floor within the city was covered in a field of soft moss, with very few streets paved with smooth stone. From the various branches that were there, there were natural lights coming from something that resembled fruits, in addition to floating orbs of flux that were located on every corner and street.

That beautiful landscape soon reminded me again of a friend of my homeworld, Glaipper, as his elven hometown had a similar aspect to this one, with the difference that the trees there had predominantly bluish leaves in his. But those good memories were interrupted by shadows that I felt reaching my face, that's when I noticed, Arthur and I were still holding hands with Tessia, and in front of us were dignified elven warriors, all dressed in black uniforms with green trim and gold left shoulder pads.

These 5 elves carried rapiers on their waists, I noticed that I couldn't feel their mana, wile the essence was something easy to perceive. Since augmenters and conjurers naturally have mana emitting from their bodies, that meant two things, either they didn't have mana, or their level was much higher than mine. Anyway, the way they acted was impressive.

The guards seemed to ignore our presence as they knelt in front of Tess and said in unison. "We welcome back the royal princess."

I got a confused look, looking at the Guards and then at Tessia. Arthur seemed to be doing the same thing, and by the way, we were also thinking the same thing. Was Tessia really the princess of this entire kingdom?

When we tried to take our hands away from Tessia's, she seemed to squeeze ours tighter, as if she didn't want to let go of us. To see her say something, in a cold, apathetic voice, I might have thought she hadn't said it. "You may rise."

They stood up putting their right fists across their pecs, with one of the guards now speaking. "Princess, we arrived as soon as we saw the royal teleport gate being used. The king and queen are..." Before he could finish speaking, we heard a cry not far away.

"My baby! Tessia, you're okay! Oh my baby!"

Running towards us was a man and woman of middle age. From the crown on the man's head, and the tiara on the woman's forehead, we assumed they were Tessia's parents.

The king's tall body was dressed in a decorative robe. His eyes were emerald and staring upwards, his lips set tight to match his military-style hair. While the queen looked extremely beautiful, her age could not mask the beauty she had in her youth. Having long silver hair that fell over her shoulders.

The mother's cheeks were lined with tears, while the father had a very tense expression as if he was holding himself back from crying. I soon looked at Tessia's face, which was already forming tears. In this way, we released our hands from hers, and Arthur patted the girl on the back, for her to go to her parents. Tessia landed in the arms of the hand that began to cry to the point of kneeling, both with their faces buried in their daughter's shoulders.

The last to arrive was a old man well past his prime. His facial features are all sharp, with a gave that could kill someone on contact. His hair was pure white and was tied in the back, face cleanly shaven. This elderly man didn't say anything, but his eyes did warm up a little when he saw Tessia. It took a several minutes for Tessia and her parents to settle down. In the meantime, the guards were glaring at us with daggers in their eyes, as even the elder was eyeing us curiously.

The King finally stood up and while his eyes were red, he still carried an air of dignity. "As the King of Elenoir and the father of Tessia, I must apologize for this unsightly appearance of mine and more importantly, I wish to thank you two, for escorting my daughter back home safely" he stated, his voice coming out a big hoarse. "Please accompany us to our home so that you may rest. After, you can tell us what happened."

I saw Art silent, just watching the king's words, as I bowed almost 90 degrees and said it respectfully. "We would be grateful to speak with your majesty, we will gladly accept the opportunity. And forgive our surprised looks, Princess Tessia never told us about being part of royalty."

Arthur swallowed hard at my sentence, he didn't expect me to go from some little brat to a respectful knight like that out of nowhere. I could see the eyes of the king, the queen and the wise elf, they seemed surprised at the way a 5 year old was acting.

As we were starting to follow them, Tessia came back to us, took our hands firmly and took us with her. We could see surprised expressions in the eyes of the people around us, as I swore I could hear the old man give a small laugh. Arriving at the castle I noticed that he was circling the immense tree that was in the center of the city, making me admire the architecture choices even more.

We told the King and Queen that there was no need for a rest, and that we could talk about what had happened. Without delay, we went to a rectangular dining table that was located down the stairs. Tessia's father was at the end of the table, directly opposite us. Tessia's mother sat perpendicular to her husband, with Tessia sitting to her right. Her grandfather was sitting opposite the girl. What made a huge space between us, having those same 5 guards as before next to each other, behind the king.

With both his elbows resting on the table, fingers intertwined, the King was the first to speak. "Children. What did you say your name was?"

"Forgive us for the late introduction. My name is Arthur Leywin, this other on my side is my brother, Luz Leywin, and we come from a remote town in the Kingdom of Sapin. A pleasure to make your acquaintance King, Queen, Elder, and gentleman." We stood up and bowed at each of them individually before sitting back down.

Both the King and Queen and the guards showed surprise again in their gazes at Arthur's mature way to speak. So they could see both me and him as something other than children. Tessia gave us a shy smile while her grandfather seemed to have a smirk on his face.

"From the looks of it, both you and your brother are more mature than your ages. Forgive me for assuming. My name is Alduin Eralith and this is my wife, Merial Eralith, and this is my father, Virion Eralith. Now about what happened, please tell us. We'd like to hear your sides on this" The king said getting a more respectful look.

Waving off the apology, we began telling the story. I told them that we had been separated from our parents, due to an ambush by bandits, and we ended up surviving by luck. It was inevitable, Arthur had to tell them about us being mages. This made everyone look discredited, including Tessia. Since there were no dangers in our way with her, we didn't have to talk about it before.

One of the guards told us that we were liars and to prove that we were actually mage when, unexpectedly, Tessia's grandfather shut him down. He then clasped his hands together on the table and look at us with a renewed, eerie interest.

Arthur soon returned to talk about how we found the carriage and saw them carry a child tied up. At this, the King slammed both of his hands on the table, his eyes narrowing into a menacing glare.

"I should've known it was humans..."

I corrected his racist comment and said "They were slave traders. They and bandits look for victims, not just elves, but humans too, speaking as victims ourselves."

That made the king close his mouth before he sat back down, letting out a light cough. We asked them how she even left the kingdom, the queen said it was because of a disagreement that happened between them and their daughter, causing Tessia to run away.

With that cleared up, Arthur spoke again. "Luckily, we managed to catch them off guard and get rid of them, so we could untie the princess and escort her here."

"So kids between 4 and 5 years old managed to 'luckily' kill adults, and among them there was an augmenter, and you say that like it's no big deal?" chimes in the king's father seated across from Tessia, leaning back on the chair so only two of the legs are touching the ground.

"Allow me to demonstrate." I said looking at everyone there and waiting for Elder to let me show. After he nodded, my eyes started to glow different colors, one glowed a bright red and the other glowed a mixture of green and blue, I released my killer presence, which caused the royals to look at us with quite a bit of surprise, while the guards seemed weakened to the point of kneeling to the ground. Even Arthur looked at me with surprise because I never showed him this, in fact I had used it in the attack against the slave traders, but he hadn't noticed.

After this little demonstration is over, the grandfather seemed to clap his hands lightly, it seems he hasn't been surprised so many times a day in a long time.

With that done, I spoke again. "As we mentioned, we've been away from our parents for about four months. We don't plan on staying long in this kingdom as we want to find them quickly. So we wanted to know if you have any teleportation gates we can use to go to the City of Xyrus or anywhere in Sapin at least."

"You're going to leave already, Luz!? Art?!" Tessia shot up from her seat, face stricken with panic.

Both her mother and father gave each other a baffled look as they mouthed 'Art'. The elder just shot snide grin at this and chuckled, rocking on his chair.

"I don't think also it's appropriate for humans such as ourselves to be inside this Kingdom for too long, Princess. Besides, we wish to make sure that our family is safe and tell them we're okay as well." Arthur answered, giving a sheepish smile.

The King responds back for Tessia. "It has been a couple hundred years since the last human has stepped foot into the Kingdom of Elenoir in a friendly way, and you, Luz and Arthur, are the first humans to be in the capital of this Kingdom, the City of Zestier. However, saving our daughter and taking the trouble to accompany her all the way back to us entitles you with a proper reward..."

I take a peek on Tessia heading down, her gunmetal silver hair covering her face. But the King continued. "...Unfortunately, the teleportation gate linked with the Kingdom of Sapin opens only once every seven years, for the Summit Conference between the three races. Since the last Summit was two years ago, it'll be another five years until the gate will function..."

I saw my brother letting out a deep breath in disappointment. The king continued to say that he really knew the decision to leave there soon, as there were problems of tolerance between humans and elves, due to a war that took place earlier between these races, and that he would look for guards who could take us safely to our kingdom. With that informed, he called maids to take us to our rooms, where we would stay for the time being, with the idea that we could not leave the castle, lest there be any confusion in the city.

Arthur had been taken away by one of the maids, while, before leaving that large room, I took a notebook from my pocket and threw it in Elder Virion's direction. "Pick it up grandpa, I think it will be in everyone's interest in this room."

He gave a big laugh, with everyone looking at me strangely. "Grandpa?! Brat, you really don't have any sense of danger eh? But what is this?" he said with the notebook in his hands.

"I took this from a slave traders' tent, apparently it has information on the kidnappings and there is a map attached, possibly with all the locations of their illegal selling houses, across the three kingdoms." When I said that, their eyes widened in surprise, Virion opened the notebook and leafed through everything, soon finding a loose map there and putting it in front of the King, their eyes still on me, making me smile with pride at having found it.

"I hope this is enough help a human boy like me can offer." I said, with everyone nodding in agreement, with the exception of Tessia who was still quite surprised since I hadn't mentioned this to her or my brother. Maybe her head was back to thinking and realizing that whenever they went to sleep I was alone reading that information.

That done, I followed the other maid, who took me to my room.

[Arthur Leywin POV]

The room I was led to was large, but elegantly simple in furnishings. As soon as I got into the room, I closed the door behind me, stripped and went straight fot the bathroom. The shower was a pleasant suprise; it was a simple waterfall that seemed to naturally flow from the ceilling and drain back out inthe floor. However, the constant flow of water that didn't seem to ever turn off was a surprisingly pleasant temperature, just warm enough to relax my body and pores.

While in this waterfall in my bathroom, I was starting to think about what I saw my brother doing, that killer presence was similar to mine, but there was more power and concentration, and a feeling of urgency to kneel. Was he a king in the past world, just like me? Was he more than a king? How exactly was he naturally getting used to something that only elves were natural with? And... that attack...he crossed the torso of a distracted adult using his own fist... Deciding that I wouldn't ask him so many questions, I would only do it on the same day that I was in the mood to talk about my past life too.

As I finished dressing into a very silky robe just for your top and short pants, I placed the stone Sylvia left me inside the chest pocket in my robe and once again, tried to study my mana core. About thirthy minutes in and making only minimal progess, I hear a knock on my door.

"Coming!" Opening the door, I'm greeted by a pouting Tessia who threw a light punch at my chest.

"You dummy! Why did you act all unfriendly when you were with my family back there." She harrumphed, slipping past me and sitting on my bed.

"Well, as Luz said before, you didnt metion to us that you happened to be the princess of this entire kingdom!" Shaking my head, I gripped Tessia's hand and pulled her out of my room. Kids or not, I didn't think her parents were going to like her being in a boy's room.

"Come on, show me around the castle! I won't get the chance to visit this place again." I immediately regretting saying this.

I hear a slight sniffle as Tessia suddenly broke down into tears, trying to talk wile sobbing. "Art, I dont want you to... leave... You two are the first... persons I've gotten ever close to.."

"..." I just gently patted her head while she was rubbing her eyes with the arm not holding onto my hand.

As we continued walking in silence, except for Tess' soft sniffles, we made it outside, in the courtyard at the back of the castle. Before that we tried to find Luz, but he wasn't in his room, so we thought that he could be also here. The floating orbs were giving off a dim, luminescent glow, lighting up the well-kept garden in a gentle atmosphere. I couldn't help but imagine how differently this scene could've been played out if we were ten years older.

Before I even had the chance to finish my thought, a blatantly clear killing presence bombarded my senses. Miliseconds later a faint glimmer gave off the position of a projectile aimed at Tessia. I pushed the still crying princess out of the way and I prepared to parry the projectile with a mana infused hand.

At that instant a figure in black was facing my back, his right arm in a stance to attack. Grabing the projectile, I immediately spun myself to block the assassin with whatever was thrown at me. To my suprise, I was face to face with Tessia's grandfather.

I Jumped back out of range from before angrily shouting. "What the hell! Why are you trying yo kill us?"

"Kid. It may hurt a little but I doubt that toy you're holding could kill anyone." He chuckled.

I looked down at my hand to see a pencil sized projectile with both ends blunted and coated in a layer of something close to rubber. I was tricked!

"Haha! Nice reaction, nice reaction! I didn't think you'd cath my little present and use it to block my next attack! Truly marvelous! Howerver, your brother had a better usage of mana, yours was mediocre at best!" When he said that, I looked behind him and saw Luz standing there laughing and waving at us as he approached Tessia. His legs had smoke signals, which meant he at least augmented his legs against Elder Virion.

He procceded to throw me a wooden sword fit for my size as he took out a wooden sword of his own, just a bit bigger. "Here I come!" Not even giving me the time to get in a stance or even the chance to accept his impromptu training, he dashed towards me. This crazy old bat!

We started our spar, with me using augment in my legs and arms to do so. Tessia's grandfather tried to out speed me, while I was using sword techniques to minimize my movement.But it was soon over, after he managed to move behind me without my knowing how, I jumped up and hit him on the forehead, making a banging noise.

"HAHAHAHA! I guess I deserved that one!" he laughed, rubbing his swollen forehead.

Throughout all of thus, Tessia was suprised at first but after realizing it was just a spar, she settled down. She used this chance, though, to jump out and stomp towards the elder.

"Grandpa! You hurt Art too much! You shoukd've gone easier on him!" Pinching the elder's side.

"AHH! That hurts little one, Haha I'm afraid if I went easier on Arthur, he'd be the one bullying me!" He gently answered as he picked up his granddaughter.

He flashed in front of me and suddenly places his right palm into my sternum "Just as I thought. Your body is in a dangerous state..."

I stared blankly at him. Through constant use of mana rotation and meditation, my body should be a lot healthier than even the most well-fed four-year-old. Virion, noticing my doubtful gaze, pressed his palm on my sternum at a certain angle, triggering a familiar searing pain.

"Your mana manipulation is very good for a beginner despite your age, and your sword techniques and fighting experience are frightening enough to make me wonder what sort of life you had led to learn all of this. " His eyes narrowed. "But you failed to mention one critical thing in your story earlier." I could feel my heartbeat beginning to rise as I started to suspect that he found out about Sylvia.

"I've decided. Arthur, become my-" He was going to say it but was interrupted by Luz.

"Wait, will you make him your disciple too?" He nodded for what my brother said, throwing me entirely off guard.