Chapter 18: Murderers

"Miss Luna look! I can walk to the other side of the room without any help!"

"That's great! If you keep this up soon you'll be able to play with the other children"

"Hehehe"

Seeing the little girl's bright smile I can't help smiling as well, she's so cute that I cannot help but pat her head a little, but she seems happy about it.

"I don't know how I can ever thank you enough, I thought my daughter would never be able to walk again"

Her mother, on the other hand, cannot stop crying, her daughter's legs stopped working a year ago because of a rare genetic disorder, but after a lot of work I finally managed to find a way to use flesh shaping to restore them, allowing her to slowly become able to walk again, it was a lot of effort, but it was all worth it for this moment.

'Bad... danger...'

"Eh? Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

I thought I heard someone whispering, it must have been my imagination.

"Well then, the next examination will be..."

'Killing... bad...'

"Huh"

I open my eyes and see Arana sleeping next to me, those whispers actually managed to wake me up... is there someone outside? But Longleg is keeping watch and he didn't wake us up.

I exit the tent while being mindful to avoid waking up Arana, no matter how much I look, there's nobody around here, and yet I keep hearing the whispering... I also seem to be strangely on edge, I can't stop myself from focusing all my attention on the whispers and the more I listen, the more I feel like I should be ready to start fighting or running away at any moment, I'm not going crazy, am I?

Using my mana sense does not help me find the source of the voices, but something inside me is saying that I should go to a certain place if I want to know what they are talking about, that something bad is happening there at this very moment, I have no idea how I know where that place is, but for some reason, I feel certain of the way I need to go, and since there's no way I can go back to sleep now, I suppose I might as well go there.

'Bad... killing...'

"Yeah, I heard you the first time"

Just who do those voices belong to? There's nobody else in this forest... oh wait, this is a forest, could these be the famous 'whispers of the forest'?

Whenever anything bad happens in a forest, there's a whispering that all elves are able to hear that warns them of the danger, and even if I keep forgetting about it, I am an elf, I probably should have thought about this sooner... but I always thought that I of all people would be an exception to hearing this, I hate forests after all, and I don't like the idea of having things in common with the rest of the elves.

In any case, now that I know that this isn't just my imagination I should probably speed up my pace, there might be something bad going on after all.

After running for a while I start hearing some real voices, as well as the sounds of fighting, what's going on over there?

"No! You traitors! How could you do that to your friends?"

"Hahaha! That's what they get for getting in the way"

It seems like there are some people fighting each other, I wonder why 'the forest', or whatever that was, decided to tell me about this, I mean, there are probably animals killing each other all the time around here, no? So how does the forest know that this is different? Is it because since they're humans it is different for me and the forest knows that? Or is it because they are outsiders? Maybe animals that kill their own kind are considered 'evil'? The elves should have figured out how this works a long time ago, but they are too stupid to question these things.

After I get a bit closer, a fancy looking carriage comes into view, I can see horse reins, but no horses, six men dressed in the same uniform are outside trying to force the door open, they look like guards, but if that's the case, why are they attacking the carriage they're escorting?

"Why are you doing this? I trusted you!"

A girl's voice is coming out from inside the carriage.

"Heh, didn't you find it strange that you were able to escape so easily? We only wanted you to go to a place where it would be easier to dispose of you, your highness"

Highness? Is she a princess or something? And it seems like they are trying to kill her! I should probably step in.

But then I notice two other men on the floor, covered in blood, that doesn't look good... I rush to them as fast as I can to the surprise of the other men.

"Huh!?"

"Who are you!?"

I don't have time to pay attention to them, the two on the floor seem to be gravely injured, I kneel on top of them and start closing their wounds with flesh shaping, someone seems to be tapping me on the shoulder, can't they see that I'm trying to concentrate?

However, it is too late, even if I can close their wounds, when I take a look inside their bodies, I find that they have already stopped working completely, or in other words, they were already dead by the time I arrived.

This is my first time seeing someone get killed... even though I'm supposed to be incredibly powerful, even though I've been researching healing magic all my life, I still couldn't do anything...

They are wearing the same uniform as the others, did they get killed by their fellow guards? So these guys are a bunch of murderers... I've spent so much time and effort to learn how to save lives, and yet all of that can be made meaningless so easily by such disgusting savages... just thinking about it is making me so angry that I feel like I'm going to explode.

When I turn around I see that one of them has been trying to slash me with his sword this whole time, but he's so weak that it just felt like he was tapping my shoulder... someone this pathetic thinks that he has the right to kill the people I was trying to save?

The moment he sees my face, he goes pale and begins walking backward, so he's also a coward then...

"You... are you the one who killed these two?"

"I... no... I mean yes... I... I don't know!"

I grab his neck and lift him so that he's face to face with me.

"I heard you laughing before... do you think that killing people is funny?"

"Gjk"

When he tries to speak he just makes a strange noise instead, the rest of the murderers seem to be trying to run away and abandon their friend, but I won't let them.

"Shadow bind"

As expected, they're not able to fight back at all, now that they are immobilized I can turn my attention back to this guy... and now that I'm giving him my attention I just noticed that he just literally pissed himself, eew... that takes me out of my stupor and I realize that I'm dangerously close to crushing his neck.

"Mind void"

Let's make them all fall asleep, I'll decide what to do with them later, I also heard that 'ping' noise again, meaning that I just got a new skill or title, I'll look into that later.

Now I need to take a look inside the carriage, when I open the door, I see a girl of around 15 years old with blue hair and eyes hugging her knees with a fearful expression, she's wearing a simple yet high-quality dress and a tiara on her head, so she really is a princess? But if that's the case I don't think 8 guards would be enough to escort her.

"Do not be afraid, you are sa..."

"Stay away from me!!!"

I should probably be expecting that type of reaction by this point, but it still hurts...

"I know who you are! You are the queen of darkness from the prophecy!"

Heh? Judging by the uniforms the guards were wearing and the design of the carriage I don't think that she is from the kingdom I come from... does that mean that people in other kingdoms have also heard about me? That could be a problem...

"Listen, I only want to..."

"I... I won't let you use me against my country! I won't let you capture me!"

She takes out a dagger and points it at her neck, what is she trying to do!?

"Wait! Mind void!"

Fortunately, I realize my mistake fast enough and rush to grab her before she collapses on top of the upwards pointed dagger... seriously, what in the world was she thinking? Don't scare me like that!

I'll need to decide what to do with the murderers... Obviously, I don't want to just kill them and become a murderer as well, but I cannot take them to the authorities without revealing my identity... this is quite a conundrum.

All I can think of is leaving them chained inside the carriage, since there are no dangerous monsters around here they should be fine, next time someone comes down this road they should find the dead bodies that were killed with their weapons and maybe they'll be able to tell that they are the killers... but how likely is it that someone who was found chained will be found guilty? Not to mention that these chains will only last for two days, it's unlikely that nobody else will come before that, but not impossible, in which case they'll simply escape, and now that I think about it, I should probably take the bodies with me to make sure that they can get a proper burial, since they are dead, I can place them in my storage, but this way there will be no bodies for anyone to find so the chances that the murderers will receive any punishment is practically zero...

But there's no way I can just let them get away with what they've done... I know! I'll just place a curse of weakness on them, but this time I'll use the normal version, the one that is always active, this is probably not good enough for punishment, but it should at least stop them from hurting more people in the future.

Actually, let's also give them the 'wasp bait' curse! Oh! And the curse of 'frequent toe-stubbing'! And also a curse of baldness!

Now let's see what to do with the princess... leaving her here with the people who want to kill her is not an option, neither is leaving her alone in the forest, so I'll have to take her with me, but I'm worried that she may try hurting herself again when she wakes up...

"Shadow bind"

Alright, now that she's tied up I won't need to worry about that, I'll take her in a princess carry since I believe that's how you are supposed to carry a princess.

...

You know... I just saved this girl's life, that was a rather hero-like thing to do, no matter how you look at it, am I wrong?

...

Then why does this look like I'm kidnapping her?

forli

As always, any comments will be appreciated.