Chapter 4:

 Is It Wrong To Pick Up Cute Elf Girls?

Pointy ears. Flat chest. Pure-blue eyes.

     I woke up. Another weird dream. Again sweaty and my body burning hot, with Tailless and Speedy snuggled up to me.

I broke down the earth entrance so light could come in. It was a hot, humid night. I ate a piece of the boar, then climbed Tailless and we rode north. The border was coming up soon. I felt a lot of excitement in my stomach.

It took us six hours I think. By the time I got to where the mountains to my right stopped, it was almost morning again.

I dismounted and got on my stomach to start crawling. I also made Tailless and Speedy crawl low.

We got to where the treeline and mountain ended. I could now see Llap for the first time: Flatness. So much flatness. 

I had never seen anything like it. The flatness didn’t end at all. I was in shock for a few minutes. I had never been away from the mountains in my life. I had heard that the north was flat, but this was never what I pictured.

From the looks of it, it was mostly just endless fields, mostly wheat fields that had yet to be harvested. No people were around from the looks of it. 

I said to myself, “Isn’t there supposed to be a border patrol? It’s still too dangerous to go out during the day...”

I found a safe spot near the border, and slept for a few hours until it was almost nighttime.

Then exited the forest. I took one look back at the mountains. 

“Tung tung,” I said. 

Then I went down to the fields. I would not reenter those mountains until 10 years later with my army.

***

I walked down the field north for about 30 minutes. Then close by I saw 3 people around a campfire. I made Tailless and Speedy stay, then I walked over to the campfire.

“Hey c’kemi, jom Arben,” I said. 

There was one beautiful, blonde elf with short hair, one wolf person with a weird beard on his chins that made his face look like a square, and another wolf person with long, oily hair. 

I had never seen elves or beast persons in real life, but I had heard about them. Originally they are from the kingdoms east of Dardania, in the Great Forest.

For a moment all three of them looked at me in silence. Then Oily Hair, who I assumed was the leader, spoke up: 

“Oh hello hello, my name is Miroslav. This is my brother Vlado, and this is Albana.” 

Squareface and Oilyhair smiled at me weirdly. I made eye contact with that beautiful elf Albana and she shot me a shocked, scared face. 

I thought I’d diffuse the tension, so I said, “I’ve got boar meat if you want some, here”. 

I whistled and Speedy and Tailless came over. I saw Oilyhair and Squareface shocked and they put their hands on their swords hanging from their hips. Albana took a step back. 

“Oh don’t worry, this is Tailless and this is Speedy. They’re my pets. Look, here’s the meat,” I took the boar meat from Speedy and pulled off the earth it was covered in.

“Oh wow,” said Squareface, “You’ve got two Riding Lizards. They’re really rare here in the Kingdom of Gjilan. Where did you get them from?”. 

He gave me a very suspicious look. I looked over at Albana again. She sure was pretty. I noticed that she was wearing a mage robe and had a big staff with a magic crystal in the front part of it. It made her look quite cute actually. 

I also noticed that Squareface and Oilyhair were dressed in swordsmen outfits and had long, double edged swords attached to their hips, very high quality ones. It kind of looked like the outfit one of the soldiers from that invading army was wearing, but much higher quality.

“Oh, I’ve had Tailless since he was a baby. I was actually the one to care for his egg. And Speedy was Mehmet’s. Bab said to never name the Riding Lizards, but I decided to name them anyway.” 

Squareface and Oilyhair looked at each other with these evil smiles that I didn’t like. My stomach was telling me something was really wrong here and I started getting cold sweat. I felt they were tensing themselves. Albana now looked really worried, and cute as well of course. 

“So,” Oilyhair said, “I must assume you are from the mountains, yes?” 

“Oh yeah, I’m from the Krasniqi Clan, or rather, I’m what’s left of it. We were recently attacked by---” 

Oilyhair lunged at me and midair pulled out his sword and striked. I reflexively pulled out my machete and just barely parried his longsword.

God he was quick. 

Then Squareface lunged at me as well and tried to cut me with his sword and I parried it as well. And in the second I parried, Oilyhair cut off my right hand holding the machete.

Getting your hand cut off is a weird sensation, so I’ll take some time to describe it. 

Immediately, it is not directly painful, mostly just comes with a burning sensation and lots of blood. It is mostly confusing. Since you have had a hand your entire life, it feels like it should still be there, but it isn’t, but it feels like it should still be, because your brain still thinks you have a hand. But you don’t, and you can’t use it. 

It wasn’t directly painful because of all the adrenaline, but the exposed skin hurt like scraping your knees. The pain came later. But right now a lot of blood was coming out. The blood actually sprayed right after the arm was cut off. Pretty disgusting.

My reaction was shock. 

I just looked at my now handless arm. 

In the same moment, Squareface sweeped my legs and put his sword to my throat. I looked up to their sneering faces. Tailless and Speedy tried to come to my rescue, but Oilyhair quickly kicked them in their faces and overpowered them easily.

“Quite impressive actually. Vlado and I are both Advanced Rank God of Speed Swordsmen. Your reaction time was impeccable. Quite impressive for a mountain-shit,” Oilyhair said. 

“You are actually the only mountain-shit we’ve seen so far. We were just about to pack up and go on our way back to Gjilan. We heard a war started in Northeast Dukagjina, so we figured a lot of refugees would be coming here. But surprisingly, you are the only one who’s come through this borderpart we reserved,” said Squareface.

Oilyhair clicked his tongue. 

“But it sure is unlucky we had to cut off your hand. A slave loses half his value when he only has one hand. But since you are so dangerous with only one hand, you should fetch quite a prize. Maybe we’ll sell you to the Colosseum and they’ll call you the ‘One Armed Mountainshit Gladiator’ Ha ha ha,” said Oilyhair.

“Also,” said Squareface, “try to attack us again and the left hand is next. It’ll ruin the merchandise of course, but I am quite scared of you to be honest”.

“S-Stop it!” Now the beautiful elf spoke up. She went over to my right hand and closed off the wound. 

“HA HA Alban has a crush! Oh yeah, technically she’s a slave too, though it’s our company that owns her not us. I figured we’d reserve her in case some of the refugees passing through were injured. Can’t have the merchandise die on us”.

I felt this hate grow in my heart. I had never been overpowered to this degree. And now I was a slave.

“Oh, and thanks for bringing those two Riding Lizards. They are sure to fetch 2000 euros each. Horses are used in the flatlands instead of lizards so they’re worthless here, but I’m sure we can sell these two, Tailless and Speedy, to some slave-catcher in Drenica for their expeditions into Dukagjina.” 

My clan had only been ambushed and attacked by slave-catchers once, since our territory was so far south it was unprofitable to go on expeditions there. It was only the small villages that would get attacked, never the big city-villages. Technically going slave-catching in Dukagjina was illegal in Llap and Drenica, though no one enforced that law, and owning slaves wasn’t illegal. The Dukagjinian slave-industry was a major way Drenica and Llap suppressed Dukagjina.

“Now, get up, qen!” Squareface sheathed his sword and kicked me in the ribs. 

Imagine, the Great Arben of the Krasniqi Clan humiliated like this! The only reconciliation from this situation was that cute, shy elf girl. They do say the dark night always has stars somewhere.