Den beat the shit out of me. Literally.
I was battered and there were scratches all over me. His demonic side was really, demonic. And here I thought elves were supposed to be peaceful.
“Also, what’s up with the lifesaving elixir thing? How lucky can you get?” He grimaced, albeit disgustingly, and sat down next to me. Den grabbed my hand for a second, took a look at the white insignia, and rolled his eyes. “And you went and got yourself cursed too. Moron.”
Apparently, that elixir thing was rare but not super hard to find. In every dungeon, there was a special room full of that stuff. But the only way to access that special room was to clear the whole dungeon. And that took anywhere from a month to a few years. And some dungeons were unclearable. Mom didn’t clarify what you needed to do to actually clear a dungeon but I guess it meant defeating a boss of sorts? The amount of water I recovered was worth about eighty or so gold coins; In money terms, that was approximately 80 grand. So technically me falling into that glowing water was really damn lucky. Mom took all of it though.
As for the contract… well, it was complicated. Apparently, lizards weren’t categorized as dragons. And lizards were somewhat despised. This was particularly why I didn’t see a single one out in the wild. They were hunted past extinction. The few that survived, survived in caves and places humans didn’t frequent. The same went for snakes. Our friend Rexen was one of the higher lizard forms and considered a malicious spirit since it’d devoured roughly 17 villagers so far….
No wonder the damn thing was laughing so much while toying with me. It’d been toyed for generations….
So, although the contract did have some benefits (and helped me not die), it came with a lot, and I mean a LOOOT of baggage. Hence, Den and everyone else called it a curse.
“It’s a long story.”
“We have all day,” Den said.
“No we don’t. You beat me up, I’m going to tell Mom and you can guess what’ll happen next.”
His proud face more or less crumbled. “I’ll buy you a Honeycrisp so chill. Just say you fell or something.”
“Ten.”
“What?”
“Ten Honeycrisps.”
Dude intentionally kicked me around in the name of training. I was not going to have mercy, no.
He sighed once. “Alright. Fine.”
That said, we stayed put for a while and watched the blue skies. “What does it mean to be contracted anyway?” Mom never elaborated and forced me to wrap my hand with a cloth. I of course kept it on but it was coming loose.
The sun felt good. Warm, full of life. Not burning at all. Yet for some reason I was missing the comfort of that damn warm cave. Fucking hell.
“You’ll be able to perform specific stuff. Like be more physically similar. It was a white lizard, right? So maybe you’ll have better regeneration capabilities. Obviously not like the lizard but better than a Westerner. You might grow up to be stronger than typical ones too. But most people don’t notice too much of a difference, so don’t bet on it. Specially since you didn’t have much to begin with, you may never notice a difference.”
Ah yes, assuming it gave me a ten percent boost on strength or stamina, how was I going to notice that if I let’s say had a stamina of 2 or maybe 3? Does this world have a level system though?
I did try shouting Menu and stats and other stuff one time and Mom genuinely thought I’d gone mad, so I tried not to do that.
“But does this mean, I’ll have to leave this place though?”
He stood up, picked me up on his back and we were on our way back. “You would have had to leave eventually.”
So that was a yes.
Lately Mom was often sighing and didn’t smile as much. I got the feeling she was hiding something but… I’d have to leave?
“And why is that?”
“There’s only one way you can legally stay in the Southern woods.”
“That is?”
“Get your balls chopped off.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah.”
Excuse me? huh? What!
I got that these people didn’t want weak humans to spread their seeds. But seriously?
“That’s the only way?”
“Yeah. And before you turn ten, since that’s when you… well.”
I gulped. “Fucking hell…” No wonder all those guys were looking at me with pity like that. Fuck!
But wait, I still had about five years then, right? Phew.
“Where the hell did you learn how to curse?” Den said. But his words just fell on deaf ears.
My mind was totally elsewhere. I imagined a pair of plums… sitting tightly. And then some guy coming in with a pair of scissors and just cutting them off… oof!
Painful! Too painful!
Why!
We got home. I did say I fell but Mom still gave Den an earful. And with that we were kind of done for the day. I couldn’t get the idea of plums falling from the sky though. Sigh….
I trained, ate, trained, and ate. Absolutely no abrupt change in my strength or stamina at all. I did improve slightly but that was a result of deliberate training, not the contract. As for the regen thing, my spit did have some effect but licking my scratches proved to be difficult. Every time I licked myself, Den and anyone else around me would just… look at me with such pity.
Sigh.
However, on a positive note, Xerec sold the serpent thingies for a pretty penny and Mom bought me some nice delicious Honeycrisps. Coupled with the fact, that I blackmail-ahem- got some nice Honeycrisps from Den too, life was good. Somewhat.
Den beat the shit out of me. Literally.
I was battered and there were scratches all over me. His demonic side was really, demonic. And here I thought elves were supposed to be peaceful.
“Also, what’s up with the lifesaving elixir thing? How lucky can you get?” He grimaced, albeit disgustingly, and sat down next to me. Den grabbed my hand for a second, took a look at the white insignia, and rolled his eyes. “And you went and got yourself cursed too. Moron.”
Apparently, that elixir thing was rare but not super hard to find. In every dungeon, there was a special room full of that stuff. But the only way to access that special room was to clear the whole dungeon. And that took anywhere from a month to a few years. And some dungeons were unclearable. Mom didn’t clarify what you needed to do to actually clear a dungeon but I guess it meant defeating a boss of sorts? The amount of water I recovered was worth about eighty or so gold coins; In money terms, that was approximately 80 grand. So technically me falling into that glowing water was really damn lucky. Mom took all of it though.
As for the contract… well, it was complicated. Apparently, lizards weren’t categorized as dragons. And lizards were somewhat despised. This was particularly why I didn’t see a single one out in the wild. They were hunted past extinction. The few that survived, survived in caves and places humans didn’t frequent. The same went for snakes. Our friend Rexen was one of the higher lizard forms and considered a malicious spirit since it’d devoured roughly 17 villagers so far….
No wonder the damn thing was laughing so much while toying with me. It’d been toyed for generations….
So, although the contract did have some benefits (and helped me not die), it came with a lot, and I mean a LOOOT of baggage. Hence, Den and everyone else called it a curse.
“It’s a long story.”
“We have all day,” Den said.
“No we don’t. You beat me up, I’m going to tell Mom and you can guess what’ll happen next.”
His proud face more or less crumbled. “I’ll buy you a Honeycrisp so chill. Just say you fell or something.”
“Ten.”
“What?”
“Ten Honeycrisps.”
Dude intentionally kicked me around in the name of training. I was not going to have mercy, no.
He sighed once. “Alright. Fine.”
That said, we stayed put for a while and watched the blue skies. “What does it mean to be contracted anyway?” Mom never elaborated and forced me to wrap my hand with a cloth. I of course kept it on but it was coming loose.
The sun felt good. Warm, full of life. Not burning at all. Yet for some reason I was missing the comfort of that damn warm cave. Fucking hell.
“You’ll be able to perform specific stuff. Like be more physically similar. It was a white lizard, right? So maybe you’ll have better regeneration capabilities. Obviously not like the lizard but better than a Westerner. You might grow up to be stronger than typical ones too. But most people don’t notice too much of a difference, so don’t bet on it. Specially since you didn’t have much to begin with, you may never notice a difference.”
Ah yes, assuming it gave me a ten percent boost on strength or stamina, how was I going to notice that if I let’s say had a stamina of 2 or maybe 3? Does this world have a level system though?
I did try shouting Menu and stats and other stuff one time and Mom genuinely thought I’d gone mad, so I tried not to do that.
“But does this mean, I’ll have to leave this place though?”
He stood up, picked me up on his back and we were on our way back. “You would have had to leave eventually.”
So that was a yes.
Lately Mom was often sighing and didn’t smile as much. I got the feeling she was hiding something but… I’d have to leave?
“And why is that?”
“There’s only one way you can legally stay in the Southern woods.”
“That is?”
“Get your balls chopped off.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah.”
Excuse me? huh? What!
I got that these people didn’t want weak humans to spread their seeds. But seriously?
“That’s the only way?”
“Yeah. And before you turn ten, since that’s when you… well.”
I gulped. “Fucking hell…” No wonder all those guys were looking at me with pity like that. Fuck!
But wait, I still had about five years then, right? Phew.
“Where the hell did you learn how to curse?” Den said. But his words just fell on deaf ears.
My mind was totally elsewhere. I imagined a pair of plums… sitting tightly. And then some guy coming in with a pair of scissors and just cutting them off… oof!
Painful! Too painful!
Why!
We got home. I did say I fell but Mom still gave Den an earful. And with that we were kind of done for the day. I couldn’t get the idea of plums falling from the sky though. Sigh….
I trained, ate, trained, and ate. Absolutely no abrupt change in my strength or stamina at all. I did improve slightly but that was a result of deliberate training, not the contract. As for the regen thing, my spit did have some effect but licking my scratches proved to be difficult. Every time I licked myself, Den and anyone else around me would just… look at me with such pity.
Sigh.
However, on a positive note, Xerec sold the serpent thingies for a pretty penny and Mom bought me some nice delicious Honeycrisps. Coupled with the fact, that I blackmail-ahem- got some nice Honeycrisps from Den too, life was good. Somewhat.
