A Strange Team

Arin was too puzzled at the moment. He was trying to understand his current situation, and it was too much for him to process.

He had killed ten people after coming to this world. His relative strength had increased. But it was understandable that he was still little to nothing in this great new world.

He had been granted strong powerful abilities. But he was yet to understand them completely.

He had found a gigantic library, bound to contain great knowledge. He had delved in that sea of knowledge. And knew a lot as well. But it was not enough. Rather, he had encountered new questions which made him more puzzled.

And now his strong entourage of four Revenants, one Specter, one Skeletal Crossbowman and three Draugurs had two strange elven kids as well, who were senseless at the moment. Any outside observer, looking at this strange procession, would consider that a Necromancer was carrying two innocent kids to perform some strange dark rituals.

But no matter how much Arin would hate Human or Humanity, he would never even think of hurting kids; because he too was a poor kid once, and only kids helped him in those harsh unforgiving streets. Arin suddenly felt nostalgic for his past world. But he collected his thought and started thinking about what to do with the kids.

They were senseless. Arin did not have any healing spell to help them. Neither he could leave them to any human settlement, least they can be chased again like they were being a while ago. Arin needed water to sprinkle on them, as it was the only way he could think of bringing them back to sense. Arin asked the Specter to find any water source nearby. They decided to stop there for the Spectre to return. Within a minute it returned and he decided to follow. However, the more Arin was following it, the more he was getting surprised. They were going back to the castle only. Arin could not imagine that there could be a water source. But now that he thought about it, he realised that it was normal for a vast castle like that to have at least one water source in vicinity. Anyway, he followed the Spectre to discover a tranquil lake on the backside of the castle. He asked the Revenants to lay those kids down by the lake. The two Revenants that were carrying those kids, very gently laid them down on part of the ground where the grass was thick enough to make a comfortable bed for them. After that, they stood by their head like eternal guards on vigil. At the moonlight, this scenery looked very strange to Arin. But it was not time for him to appreciate the strangeness of the scenery. He cupped his hand and filled it with water from the lake. After that, he carried water with cupped hands and sprinkled the water on face of the kids.

He had hoped for it, but did not actually imagine that it would work. But it did. Those two kids started blinking. Arin felt it was better for them to stay outside, instead of the dilapidated castle, which may be dusty and messy for them. So he decided to let them rest in the open air only. However, those kids had regained sense by now, and slowly woke up.

Suddenly Arin had a scary realization. Those kids had fainted because they were scared as hell in the first place. What would happen when they wake up and see those Revenants? They would be scared as hell; they could even collapse in intense fear or worse. Arin quickly ordered his undead minions to disperse from that area and guard the castle and surrounding area instead. He sat by the lake alone, keeping his back towards the kids.

The kids slowly sat on the ground. They looked around and then looked at each other. They hugged each other tight, and spoke to Arin, who was sitting with his back towards them, "Wh….who….who are you?"

- Arin, without turning his head towards them, replied, "your friend! You are safe here!"

- "Those…people" another kid spoke.

- "They are dead" Arin replied.

- "Dead….really?" asked the kid.

- "Yes!" Arin assured.

The kids looked at each other. Then they slowly helped each other to stand on their own feet. They slowly walked towards Arin. "Mister,…. You are…." one kid asked, "who are you?"

- "A friend, you can trust me!" Arin replied.

- "Why are not you looking at us" the kid asked.

- "you will get scared" Arin said with concern.

- "but you saved us!" kid said.

- "yes, but I really look very scary" replied Arin

- "No we won't" said one kid firmly.

Arin wanted to take chance and decided to reveal his face. He turned his face towards them.

The little one among them got scared and hid face in shoulder of the elder kid. The elder kid gritted his teeth to hide his fear and decided to look directly at Arin's eyes.

"You….you are…." asked the elder kid fumbling.

"Are you going to eat us?" the younger kid interrupted him.

"No he is not" spoke the elder kid to assure the other, and then asked Arin, "You are not, right?"

"Of course not" laughed Arin, "If I wished to eat you, I would have eaten you already!"

Arin was trying to assure the kids. But probably the younger kid could not understand his words properly, and instead of feeling safe, started crying. "Sister" the little kid started crying at top of his voice, "this monster is going to eat us"

Arin was completely dumbfounded at this incident; he was at a loss. The elder one first tried to quiet him down by patting on his head, "Don't cry, don't cry". But when the little one did not stop his cry after his elder sister's repeated attempt, she smacked his head hard, "QUIET you Idiot! No one is going to eat us!"

Arin was surprised as well as amused to witness temper of the young elf. Surprisingly the little kid stopped crying and rubbed his face a few times. Then he crossed his arm, puffed his face and, to Arin's surprise, walked towards him and sat beside.

The elder one sighed and also walked towards Arin and sat on the other side by him.

Arin liked this feeling of having these two kids beside him. He ruffled their hair affectionately, "Okay, so let us introduce ourselves to each other. I am Arin. What about you?"

"Hi, I am Lumiyan" the little one said gleefully. But then probably he remembered that he was supposed to be angry. He quickly turned his head to other way, again crossing his arms and puffing up his face.

The elder kid sighed again at naivety of his little brother, and replied, "Hello, I am Auriya, elder sister of this little idiot brother of mine."

Lumiyan looked at Auriya and cut his tongue and again turned his head.

Arin burst into laughter witnessing their childish tantrums. It was sharp contrast and an welcome from all the intense and gruesome experience he had till now, since arriving in this world.

The kids looked at Arin for a while as he was laughing out loud. They were a bit surprised to see this grim looking monster laughing like a normal person. After a while they also started smiling and then, like a contagious disease, they also joined him in burst of laughter.

Under the starry sky, in shadow of a haunted castle, an undead and two elf kids laughing their hearts out- this scene was too strange. No one could imagine one day laughter of these three would echo the entire world, shivering spine of pillars of this world!