406 Slender Creature
Arthur did not find it strange to see elves there, as it was a prison meant for them, but was surprised to see them alive! He knew few things about this dark forest. It was not a simple prison but a place for them to execute the elves without needing to do it themselves.
“This is your house?” said Arthur, pointing at a massive tree with a house on top.
“Yes, it is. Come, it is not safe to be roaming around during the night.”
There was a rope made of vine coming down from the tree, and each one of them used it to climb, and then they pulled the string so that no one could use it too.
“I don’t think a monster needs a rope anyway, but I will not judge them,” thought Arthur.
Their house at the top of the tree was simple, all made with wood and the roof of leaves and other materials one could find in a forest. Arthur only saw one bed, and his mind ran wild at the thought of it.
“Did you build these tools?” he asked, pointing at a table with some stone tools.
A stone ax, a dagger, and a bow. Arthur was genuinely impressed by how many things these people accomplished quickly. The fact that they were still alive surprised him, considering the place had many beasts.
“Yes, we did. Now let’s start the introductions. I am Aerith; Nice to meet you!”
Aerith was the one who had the most authority there. She had blond hair, green eyes, and a flawless face. What caught the most attention was her mysterious drawing on her forehead, the symbol of a tree.
“I am Lenia, Nice to meet you.”
“And I am the most beautiful here, Cellica, Nice to meet you!”
These three elves looked gorgeous, and now that Arthur was alone with them, he noticed their sexy clothes, showing a lot of their bodies. It could not be helped; they did not have access to clothes in there, so they had to make their own.
“I am Arthur, Nice to meet you.”
They looked him up from head to toe, and judging by the girls’ looks, they liked what they saw.
“What did you discover to be here?” Aerith asked.
A weird question and one Arthur did not understand. Discover? He had done nothing, yet the elves tossed him inside that prison, and Arthur would not eat this without fighting back.
pAn,D a-n0ve1,c-o-m “I don’t get it. They just threw me in here, and I still don’t know why.”
“What? Really?”
Arthur could see they were surprised by his answer, so he said, “and what did you discover? Is something wrong with the elven tribes?”
“Yeah, about that. It started a few months ago. The leader of my tribe and the tribe of my new friends,” Aerith then looked at Lenia and Cellica and smiled,
“Our leaders started to act weird, leaving the village occasionally and having secret meetings during the night,”
“I noticed it in my village, and they saw it in theirs. That was the reason they threw us inside this place to die. The strangest part is that there’s something to do with this Dark Forest.”
“Dark Forest? What do the leaders want with this place?”
“We still don’t know, but we will discover it! I know the leaders of the tribes come to this place periodically, and when that happens, we will know the truth!”
The whole story looked convincing, but unlike the girls, Arthur did not see anything weird inside the village. They seemed to dislike him, which was why the elves threw him inside that place.
Was it? Arthur started to have ideas, and it would not be impossible for them to sense Arthur would eventually find something odd about the village.
If that were the case, they would want to deal with him as fast as possible, thus tossing him inside the Dark Forest to die while they kept doing what they were doing.
“This whole situation is strange. I returned to the village with two friends, and now look at what they did to me.”
“Wait, what? An elf came back to your village too?” Aerith asked.
Lenia and Cellica also shared their stories about that. It seemed an elf also returned to their villages with a human lover! Arthur’s case was the same!
“This is getting too strange. Each village has an elf with a human lover? What are they planning?”
Although the chatting was good, nighttime would soon come. For that reason, the elves explained to Arthur the strange things that happened inside the Dark Forest and the reason they were still alive: they were cautious.
“There is a strange beast that comes during the night. I saw it once. It only has one eye, and the beast has terrible sight, but it can sense things,”
“During the night, we extinguish all the lights and keep ourselves inside this cabin. We heard that beast walking beneath us a few times, but it never came here, so we believe this is a safe spot, and it’s the best chance we have.”
The Dark Forest had that name because of that creature, which had the form of a wolf but with bigger limbs, making it look bizarre! Not only that, but the entire beast was made of a black substance that looked like slime.
Arthur now had an interest in that creature. Still, he would not be stupid enough to chase it, as the elves stated that ‘rank-four mages died inside this place when they tried that, at least in the stories.’
So, he felt like eating something and staying inside his cabin, perhaps gazing at the beast with his vampiric sight.
“Maybe I can see things these elves cannot.”
The three girls ate various types of fruits that looked delicious but weren’t things Arthur had on his mind. Blood was the only thing that worked for him, at least in his avatar body.
He could not drink it while in there, as they would see it easily, but Arthur would do that in the morning the following day.
For those girls to build that many things in a short time and have food for all of them, they had to work separately, with each having their own task, so that the entire community flourished. So with that belief in mind, Arthur would go his own way the following day, doing his things, like drinking blood.
“Good night, Arthur,” they said, blowing the torches and going to sleep in their bed.
Arthur did not have a bed for him, as they did not know someone new would appear, but he put some leaves and other materials to make the ground softer.
~~~~
It was around three am. Arthur was a vampire, so sleeping during the night was not what he loved the most. However, he could still adapt to the situation, and after one hour of moving from side to side, he finally slept.
But, at three am, his eyes abruptly opened. Arthur blinked a few times, and a question arose when his senses returned to normal.
“Why did I wake up?”
Arthur believed his trained body would only wake up if something dangerous was around. Hence, he slowly got up from his bed and went to a small hole in the cabin, which acted as a window.
He looked down at the front, gazing at a distant tree. There, a humanoid shadow was. The thing had a short torso and long limbs, looking slender.
It only had one eye, matching the description the elves spoke about.
“This creature is creepy, but it should have a bad sight, right?” thought Arthur, breathing in relief, but when he blinked again, the creature was waving at him.
A smile formed on that creature’s face, and Arthur’s body hair stood on the end!