Surprise Gift

As the blinding light and comforting presence of Lucerna disappeared, it was immediately replaced with the pastel blues that reminded me of the morning sky.

Clouds surrounded me with the cold air went past me, once I realized I was falling from the sky, I couldn't help but to scream.

"AHH!" I looked down to the ground and saw nothing but the lush forest underneath me, and the lake nearby. I feel the life being drained from my face as the world seemed to spin.

'It's impossible to land myself there... But it won't hurt to try, right?' I groaned as I tried to move my body towards the lake but as I got closer to the ground, I noticed that I was at least a mile away from the it. Panic rose within me as I started to accept my death upon arrival into this world.

'Lucerna you jerk! Once I come back I'll drain you of your essence and use you as skin care products!'

I bitterly closed my eyes tight when I got clearer view of the ground, wishing I would landing into the lake. Just the mention of the it made me cry as its peaceful image invaded my mind.

I was expecting my body to explode from impact. But instead, the wind stopped while the pressure on my body disappearing at the same time. And instead of a pitiful death, I was dropped into the water with a loud splash.

I opened my eyes and blinked underwater which was something I've never done before and look around while teying to ignore my stinging eyes.

'What in the world happened?? Did I just teleport? No, that can't be... That would be so off brand of me—ahh, but then again, I already became off brand once I was told that my name isn't actually Zoë but Elena.' I thought as I started to try and swim uowards, that I fortunately succeeded in.

The moment I got to the surface, I restored the air I lost while I looked around. The step one in tranmigrating into another world is to figure out where I am. It was already mentioned in the first page that the setting would be in a country named Odrela, where the villanous lady of the Mavis family was born and raised.

It's a magical country where myths like mermaids and dragons exist. There was even this one oicture where the villain Lady Mavis controlled a Kraken to kill the other lady with brown hair. It looked so funny and interesting that it was almost enough to make me laugh.

I swam towards the land, but then I noticed the people shouting words I couldn't understand, one of them is pointing a finger towards my direction.

There were two people, a kid who looked around eight years old, and a middle aged man who I assume is in his late thirties. Both of them are wearing alarmed expression.

"######!! ### #### ## ### ## #### ###! ### #### ####### #### ###### ####!"

The latter one stopped yelling—probably (finally) realised I couldn't understand them—then proceeded to dive into the water, resurfacing before he started swimming towards me.

His scary appearance and giant body made me freak out and swim farther away from him, "You scary dude, stay away from me!" I shouted as I tried to get away from him as soon as possible.

"## #### ## ### #### ## ######!" He was yelling at me using a foreign language, making me look at him with my hands freezing mid water attack.

"What are you trying to tell me?" I asked but he only looked back at me confused.

The man took advantage of her confused state and grabbed her chubby wrist, pulled her to his chest and swam towards land, with Elena being pulled along. She decided to stop struggling against him for now despite her suspicions about this stranger.

In only a few minutes after they swam to land, a blue tentacle that's as thick as a building, emerged from the deep waters, a displeased roar following it. The monster's complaint was so loud, the ground shook along with it.

Elena took careful steps back, her eyes wide of shock. She was too focused on the tentacle that she forgot to pay attention to her surroundings, thus she slipped when she stepped on a muddy puddle, her body falling backwards.

'Oh s♪it—' her eyes widened as she reached out to grab the giant man. But that's when she noticed her arguably chubby and straight arms that resembles that of a toddler's. 'When did I get younger?'

"Watch out!" The middle aged man warned her, completely forgetting their language boundary and tried to catch Elena but she managed to slip through his arms and end up landing on the ground, while hitting her head on the boulder which caused her to pass out. Her little toddler body became limp, with snores following right after.

The man looked at the girl with wide teary eyes and a gaping mouth, "D-Dragons beard..." An alarmed look in his eyes was as clear as day, the monster had already retreated yet the man still faced the lake shouted, "Ye dumb f♪ck, ye scared the baby! Ah, Ei'll ter ye te shreds an' cook ye fer dinner!" His hands turned into a fist as he stomped hard on the ground with one foot.

His son looked at him before sighing, looking almost as if he was used to his father's little tantrums, "Please stop threatening the kraken, you should already know that screaming at it wouldn't do anything other than angering it even more. Worse case scenario, this baby will become octopus food." The boy tried to comfort the distressed man with a pat on the shoulder, while sneaking a glance at the black haired toddler.

"Son, theh b♪st♪rd ain't an octopus, but a squid!" He replied, looking at his son with strong enthusiasm, huffing in disappointment right after he noticed the uninterested look on the boy's face.

"They both have tentacles, what's the point?" He shrugged with a carefree attitude, while easily dismissing the frustration he's giving his father as something trivial.

"Ye brat! Don't they teach this at yer school?! From theh thickness of their tentacles to the shape of their heads, the difference eis dramatic'lly huge!" His eyes started twitching uncontrollably, as he resisted the urge to throw his own blood into the lake where the triggered Kraken is currently living in and huffed, "Yeh ain't mi son! Yer a crewl b♪st♪rd sent by the demon king himself teh torture me!"

"That's right dad, I'm actually a servant of a person who doesn't exist."

"Ah! Here yeh go again with yer annoyin' thing ye call yer common sense! No matter what Ei say, t'won't change yer mind 'bout these things. Whatever. Let's just get this young lass to the clinic, an' when yer mother asks," he paused as a grave expression occupied his face that was once full of vigor as he placed a hand on his son's shoulder before adding, "...just tell'er theh lass is an orphan who's parents just died. That way, wi'd be able to keep 'er without facin' death."

"You're overreacting, mom isn't that type of person. Let's just go before the sun sets... Honestly, and you call yourself a man." The boy shook his head as he started walking, his pace slowly getting faster once he heard his father scream in protest, "I AM A MAN!"

He stomped after his son, munbling under his breath while carrying Elena on his shoulder like a small sack of potatoes...

Elena opened her eyes and saw herself back in Lucerna's dimension. She looked back st her body and mentally cursed when she still saw her chubby arms.

'Damn it...'

Lucerna turned around and raised his eyebrows as he blankly looked down at the toddler Elena.

"..."

His body trembled as he residted the urge to laugh, but right Elena glared at him, the laughter he tried so hard to suppress escaped him. He wa slaughing so hard, he had to hunch over while crying tears because of his painful side.

He floated around in a ball as his laughter echoed all over dimension.

"Can you stop? This is serious."

"HAH! With that appearance I don't think I'll be able to take you seriously though?" He said in between giggles as he looked down at her, grinning when he noticed her glare.

"Whatever dude, can you at least tell me why in the world I'm like this? I was already twenty nine! How come I went back to being the five year old me?!" Little Elena gripped her hair tight while kneeling from being dizzy.

"Calm down, it's obviously a side effect of the world." Lucerna rolled his eyes as he closed the book he was holding, before letting go of it and left it to float back to it's shelf.

"Side effect?"

"Yep. Each world has it's own conditions or what I love to call, a side effect. Think of it was an RPG game with customizable characters. Usually, they have a set temporary in-game character appearance, usually randomised but most creators just set it to the most boring appearance like black eyes and brown hair."

"So you're saying, the world I entered has that??"

"Eh, close, but not close enough. Your most important features didn't change much, only your age and general appearance did though."

"What do you mean 'important features'??"

"Elena you ask too many questions. Just go back to the world and answer those questions yourself!" Lucerna flicked his wrist, sending me backwards as my vision dimmed until it was complete darkness.