Key to the Void: A self-made isekai

For the rest of the day, I was stuck struggling with how to tell someone around here about the man I’d seen in the forest. I am not completely certain if he was a member of the village, but the village was small enough that I’m pretty sure I would have seen someone with glaringly distinctive features like that.

My intuition screamed that the man was dangerous. I couldn’t quite identify why, but my mind crept back to the prediction of the demon who disguised itself as an angel, the one who spoke to me in a dream over a year ago. I was almost positive this was somehow involved. That oily and dirty feeling of death that clung to every fibre of that supposed facsimile of heaven the creature had created, was now clawing its way back into my mind, and all of it was attached to my memory of that man.

His warning was that all that was around me would begin turning against me. I tried my best to ignore the warning and the harmful implications it would have on my life, but I have to admit that some of my avoidance of the elves and refusal to form an attachment could have been linked to the influence of my fear stemming from that prediction.

I’d managed to continually fool them into thinking we were a bunch of normal toddlers. They’d made a fuss about Tia and I growing too fast, close to the growth rate of humans, but none of them seemed to suspect anything else. Tia and I completely concealed our spirit energy, and none of the four of us acted in a way that would make them suspect we were older than we looked.

No, it might not be fair to put this all on the demon’s prediction. Maybe it was responsible for why I hand’t let Ether guy, or rather, Mr. Eirlathion, know about our adult level of intelligence. However, this “sick child” act was entirely the result of me following Mr. Eirlathion’s instruction and guidance. He was terrified of the rest of the elves seeing my hair or sensing my spirit energy. I got the impression that my skin color could also give away whatever he was trying to have us hide, but it seems being sick is another thing that can produce this grey skin color in elves.

According to Eirlathion, we were not normal elves. We were something else called “din-ti,” in the elven language. It was Rolwen who figured out the appropriate English translation of the term. “Grey elves.” The name fits too. We were, apparently, a half-breed between dark-elves and high-elves. Due to the animosity between the races, this held heavy implications about how we were conceived, and this explained why our mother had stayed away from us since our birth.

There were definitely good and logical reasons even without that demon’s message to keep our secret. There were a lot of messed up things clearly going on in the background around us. In this environment where we are already hiding our race, it is rather easy to tack hiding our true mental age onto the agenda as well. Plus, once a secret is shared, it can never be unshared.

So, we decided that so long as we were at the mercy of Eirlathion’s conscientious drive to protect a pair of “innocent” grey-elf babies, we would continue to play the part of mere babies with no otherworldly memories. Perhaps, someday in the future, when we can take our lives into our own hands, we might let him in on our secret.

It all seemed entirely logical. It all seemed like something that could be easily arrived at even without that demon’s words eating at my mind. However, now my own decisions had trapped me. I had important information to share, but it was difficult to think it would be taken seriously when told from the mouth of a 2 year old toddler.

Catla or Eirlathion would likely take it seriously, but not seriously enough. They would think someone from the village who had sniffed out our true heritage might have been menacing us. They would put all their energy in this direction, and it would waste time. I would have to convince them I was not just a mere baby, but that in and of itself would likely waste even more time, and become a massive distraction.

My gut told me that if I plopped that distraction down in their laps, Eirlathion would likely be among the victims when the death I could sense came down on us. Conversely though, this also meant that we stood a better fighting chance if I didn’t tell him.

Frustratingly enough, the best move we have is to sit quietly and do nothing.

It was evening, just as the sun was descending, that Nymph manifested her humanoid projection and gave the bad news that my premonition had come to pass in about the worst way possible.

“Guys! This is really bad!” she said, getting all of our attention. “They say the village watch was killed! Asa, Tia, your mother says it’s dark elves and they have to hide! They just said they should hide in here!”

“What!?” Levin asked. “Why in here?”

“I bet it’s because Nymph can fight back against them better than other tree spirits. Right?” Rolwen said. “That would make this a good defensible shelter location.”

“Uhh… they’re trying to get in right now!” Nymph said. “Should I let them?”

“Uh, yeah!” Rolwen answered immediately.

“Yes,” I said. “Don’t you dare let them hang out in a danger zone on our account.”

Honestly, some things about Nymph seem a little concerning to me at times. Her childish behavior in most situations was one of them, and her fierce deference to me, Levin, and Rolwen was another one. She seemed ok with Tia because she was my sister, and Ether guy and Catla just because they took care of us. But, she had actively been in disagreement with every other adult in the village for a while due to her irritation at the way they looked at me. They gave Tia the same looks, but she was only getting irritated at them on my behalf. Tia was nothing but an afterthought.

Tia didn’t seem to mind, though. She explained it was because she had contributed no energy to Nymph’s birth. In a way, it seemed she viewed Me, Levin, and Rolwen as something like her parents. Anyone attached to us, such as Tia, Catla, and Eirlathion, were tolerable. Anyone else, especially those who showed the three of us disrespect, were despised.

Because of this rather immature outlook on the world, Nymph seemed rather surprised at the hard stance Rolwen and I had just taken. “Umm… well, if even Asa says it, then ok,” she said. A second later, I heard the tense and frightened din of several people entering downstairs.

[Ok, children go to the upper floor.] an adult woman said. [Send the humans up there too.]

Nymph looked at me like she wanted me to give her permission to refuse this additional presumptuous action of invading our space. I just glared back at her, letting my earlier words stand.

The children, as they were shepherded up the stairs, all looked utterly bewildered as to what was even going on. The tension and confusion became palpable to my spiritual senses. I noticed I was able to read the thoughts and emotions of the humans far more clearly than the elven children who came with them. For the first time, I was really feeling the difference between the humans who let off spirit energy in waves, and elves who consumed it. It was a night-and-day difference in how clearly I could read the emotions of the humans in the frightened and huddled mass that was being shoved into our nursery.

Although everyone was obviously frightened, there were a few clinging to some degree of normalcy. There were several children in the crowd who immediately locked eyes with our little crowd.

[Hi Asa!] a young human girl said with a bright smile as she ran over to me. When she plopped herself down right in front of me, the wave of happy emotions she had as a result of ‘seeing the baby’ seemed to temporarily push away all the swirling fear and tension that was building up in the room. [Look! There are a whole lot of people in here now! Everyone is afraid of dark-elves,] she explained.

Nymph’s projection hovered down and glared at the girl who was crowding me. I could probably make my intentions known by speaking English or even just glaring, but I opted for something more discreet but also capable of a far more nuanced exchange of information. It was a little trick Nymph had taught us over our year of living here. A kind of contact telepathy that all tree spirits can hear, and all elves can send to them. The one-way nature of it was a little inconvenient, but in this case, it was exactly what was needed.

I put my hand on the floor and pushed my spirit energy, loaded with my feelings and intentions, right into Nymph’s true tree body. My thoughts and concerns about how these people were scared and needed to be calmed down, and that we didn’t want them seeing their host (Nymph) acting hostile, as that would only serve to increase the already high tensions.

Nymph’s projection looked more than a little upset at this. But thankfully, her deference to me won out in this case. She just crossed her arms and harrumphed as she looked away from me, and then her projection flicked out of existence.

Great, this was definitely going to be troublesome. Of all the times to have Nymph upset... Well, at least with two out of the three people she listens to having put our feet down, and the third following our lead, I can be relatively certain she won’t actually pull anything too disastrous. By the sounds of it, there is more than enough trouble on our plate already without Nymph harassing the people taking refuge here.