Encounter

"Yaawwnnn,"

Astroth yawns while opening his eyes.

"Looks like a nice morning," Astroth tries to stretch his body only to find himself tied to a tree.

"What! What is this? Did some hunter catch me? But how are humans here? "

"No, it must be the enemy yesterday. Looks like that bastard healed itself faster and tied me."

"Shit! Only if yesterday I had more mana I could have killed it".

"Killed what?" a voice came from behind. That was a girly and sweet voice.

Astroth tried to look but couldn't. He asks, "Who are you? How can you speak? "

"Why do you think only you can speak, you baby?" Astroth heard the same voice.

"Every intelligent species can speak, but some have a different language," the voice explains. Astroth speaks in anger,

"I'm not a baby, and you talk to me face-to-face."

"Oh! Then how old are you?" The person slowly comes in front of Astroth while talking.

This was the first time Astroth had seen someone this appealing. Even the most beautiful person on earth could not compare to the girl standing before him. It was like someone took his breath away.

Astroth could only catch a glimpse of her face because her attire covered some of her features.

She had dark hazel pupils and long eyelashes. Her lips were reddish pink with a small mouth. Her mask covered her ears and head but Astroth could tell that she is a beauty of another realm.

She was wearing green clothes with dark green spots, best for hiding and scouting. She had her bow and arrow in her hands.

"What happened?" she asked while tilting her head.

"You're beautiful," Astroth replied while diving into his fantasies.

"Wha... What are you saying?" She was flustered by Astroth's sudden remark on her beauty .

Astroth came to his senses and replied, "Well, you are beautiful. What can I do? "

"You are not ugly yourself," she replied proudly while blushing.

"Who are you? I have never seen anyone like you in these parts of the forest.

Are you from the inner parts?" she asked.

"I'm Astroth; I don't know anything about myself. I was born from an egg a few days ago on the forest's edge," Astroth replies firmly.

"Hmm. Then aren't you a baby?" the girl asked while chuckling.

"Forget that! Now!" Astroth yells in embarrassment. After thinking for a while, Astroth asks, "But how can a human enter this forest?"

She suddenly shouted, "Where is the human? Have you seen one inside?"

Her expressions were those of rage and disgust. Astroth implies whether she is a human because she resembles them. She calms herself and replies, "How can I be that disgusting race ?"

She removes her mask, covering her head and ears. Astroth was astonished to find her with shiny blue hair and pointed ears.

To Astroth, she looked like a fairy that descended from the heavens to show him the future path. She introduced herself as' Eli ', princess of the proud elf race.

Astroth could feel her respect for the elf race from her way of talking. He asks her why she tried to kill him.

She explains how she found him a dangerous and intelligent creature. As a result, she attempted to remove a potential threat element from her domain.

----

After clearing up the misunderstandings, they became friends. She invites Astroth to her home. On their way, Astroth tells Eli about his birth and meeting humans in the village, while keeping reincarnation a secret from Eli.

Eli shows her disgust for humans and says, "Humans are a disgusting and selfish race."

"You are lucky to not get imprisoned and live the life of a slave.

But you must be of a race with low numbers. I have never even heard of a species like you. The elderly could have heard about you."

Astroth was happy to know some hints about himself and was excited to see Eli's home. He was thinking of a big village because of her princess status. However, reality hit him hard.

The place she took him only had one house built on top of a big tree with wood and leaves. That home looked like a small tree house from the outside.

A built-in middle-aged man suddenly came out and started asking in worry, "Princess, where did you go last night? Why didn't you come back? "

A middle-aged woman started crying after seeing Eli, "Princess, we couldn't find you anywhere."

Eli tells everyone about yesterday's encounter with Astroth. They appear to be angry with Astroth, but Eli informs them that Astroth is her friend. They were happy about the fact that Eli had a friend but Astroth was a little confused.

It was a family of only five people. She introduced two old men as her elders, a middle-aged woman as her maid, and a man with a strong build as her guard. Even in their old age, all of them were attractive and remarkable.

Astroth was confused by their way of addressing Eli as a princess. He wondered whether they were playing a role-based game that Eli used to play as a child. However, Astroth did not point out anything because this was a family matter.

Eli asked the elders whether they knew about Astroth's race. The elders checked every nook and corner of Astroth's body and replied in shock,

"No! We have never seen or heard about this species.

We could have found something if we had had the archives we used to keep for research and study."

"Where are the archives?" Astroth asks, with hope in his eyes.

Suddenly, the atmosphere of the room turned gloomy. He could not understand what happened.

Then Eli speaks, "Everything was burned, everything was destroyed."

Astroth could see tears in the eyes of cheerful Eli for the first time. No one said another word, and Eli left the room with tears in her eyes.

Astroth asked the elders about this atmosphere, and the elders told him about the past they could never forget until their death.

----

Three hundred years ago, there was a war, and humans were killing and enthralling every other race to establish human supremacy world.

This used to be a very beautiful forest, and the deeper you go, the more interesting creatures you can meet. We elves lived at the border of this forest.

Elves were a beautiful race with long pointed ears, slender bodies, strong magic, and a long lifespan. Elves loved forests and hated war, so they stayed here and never interfered with other races.

One day, humans brought their armies to this forest to threaten us. They asked elves to become their slaves or to fight to the death.

The Elves' beauty was known to even faraway kingdoms. That's why many hunted them secretly to keep them as slaves.

Till then, the elves were silent and they did not want to kill humans in a rage because of a few imbeciles, but now elves were watching how shameless all humans had become.

Now, humans are openly enslaving other races for their enjoyment. Elves could not control their anger and waged war with humans.

Humans fought many races, and at this point, their armies were strong enough to fight any race and annihilate them.

The elves lost this war terribly to the humans due to their low numbers. They were slaughtered, and this green forest became red during that time.

The remaining elves knew their fate and, to avoid becoming slaves, they entered the inner parts of the forest, knowing the monsters inside would kill them. However, they only had anger and hope that even if one elf managed to survive, humans could face their revenge someday.

The elf king knew humans would go even inside the forest to kill elves. Watching his people die a gruesome death, he gave the last hue and cried in grief.

He cast the strongest curse magic with the blood of elves. Due to the curse, all humans present inside the forest were killed, and no one could enter the forest anymore.

After that, this forest is known as the "Death Forest." Only we five managed to survive that war. Eli is the daughter of our king, and she was only ten at that time.

However, humans built a town at some distance to keep us from leaving the forest if we were alive. They even sent some humans from time to time to check whether the curse was still working or not.

Humans still hold the same ambition of conquering this forest and must search their best for a way to lift this curse. Who knows how long we can live peacefully? That's why the princess is trying to become strong enough to fight them.

----

After hearing their story, Astroth left the room to find Eli. He was feeling pathetic himself, thinking of their family as role-playing fools.

Astroth could not count a single reason in his mind for humans to slaughter elves. He had become enraged just by hearing the story. Then what would Eli have felt while watching that happen at a young age?

He found Eli on a tree branch crying secretly. After noticing Astroth, she wipes her face, trying to hide her weak self. Astroth sat beside her and said,

"You can cry in front of me. I'm not your subordinate. I'm your friend, and you can use my shoulders to shed all those years of grief. "

Listening to Astroth, Eli began to cry for a long time, releasing her pent-up guilt about surviving. Astroth glanced at her face when she was done. Her eyes were swollen from all those tears. Astroth looks at her for a bit and says,

"You never told me you were a grandma."

Eli smacks Astroth in the head, and both of them start laughing while watching the beautiful sunset together.