An Unborn Hero

Mystery floated around the reception room of their new house, getting another language lesson from Kellela. For some reason, the white-haired girl had joined in, seemingly eager to spend time around Mystery, but she hadn't really added much. Trying to learn a language without being able to interact with her tutors was hard, and beyond learning more nouns, Mystery didn't want to claim much advancement. She certainly had no idea of the grammar. She consoled herself with the fact that she was still a negative eight months old. For her age, her language skills were amazing.

Outside the house, Hayedalf was upgrading the wards. His initial scheme had been a standard security setup, with a stronger than usual external screen to deal with unintelligent monsters attacking from the forest. What he'd implemented had been overkill for that task, but now they were effectively at war. There was no longer such a thing as overkill. They needed defences not only against wildlife, but that could deal with intelligent demons and their well-controlled pet monsters. And, apparently, humans.

He had no idea who or why, but they'd confirmed that someone had put a hit out on him and Kellela. With Grace's help, he'd successfully stripped the cursed tattoo from their captive, and he'd happily spilt his figurative guts to avoid spilling his literal set. Alas, investigation of the property he'd identified as their headquarters had come up empty; the place had been sterilised and abandoned. All employees were accounted for, their corpses put up on display outside the town after their failed assault on the farm. A description of the mastermind had been circulated around the surrounding towns and cities, but thus far there'd been no sign of him.

The guard wasn't giving up, though. In fact, Hayedalf's old acquaintance the [Royal Knight] had become involved, once the leadership of Karn's Vigil had realised the extent to which the guild's 'incompetence' had been faked. After all the fuss about the infallibility of the Recorder, discovering that a guild of assassins had been fooling it by murdering adventurers in the demonic forest had come as an unwelcome slap in the face. The [Merchant of Death] would find Flinel very unwelcoming, should he ever be found.

It was a pity their captive hadn't known about the source of the tattoos, and hence his link to a foreign kingdom.

Hayedalf sighed, trying to put thoughts about murderers-for-hire out of his mind in order to focus on his wards. An outer layer that triggered on anything without a class entering. Anything. The lack of pollinators and earthworms would make the farm largely non-viable, but it was a small price to pay for an effective war footing. Additionally, it would key off hostility or evil, to prevent the entry of malicious humans or other ensouled races.

A small area around the dwelling lacked the hostility detection, to avoid accidents in the event of raised emotions, but traded it out for a whitelist. No-one could enter without permission.

A separate whitelist was applied to the house, and then again to sensitive rooms. In a mere forty-eight hours, Hayedalf had built a fortress without a single wall.

Meanwhile, the soldiers had built some walls. There was just something they found deeply comforting about having a yard of solid stone between them and the things trying to kill them that invisible wards simply didn't give. Hayedalf had shrugged and let them get on with it, and then enchanted the walls with the best durability boosts he could manage. Given the past few days, it was amply clear that there was no such thing as too many defences.

The extensive defences caused the hooded individual walking the road towards the farm to raise an eyebrow, but she otherwise ignored them, walking straight through the outer wards unhindered.

"Halt! Who goes there!" shouted the soldier whose turn it was to shout such things.

"Rrillandral Lehibeborn. A diplomatic envoy from the Vale of Myllearn, here to greet the new [Hero]," replied the traveller, throwing back her hood to reveal a beautiful girl with the appearance of a young teen, with bright green hair and light green eyes. More noticeable, though, were her ears, which were long and pointed.

The soldier frowned, surreptitiously activating a signal stone to call for backup.

"I haven't been informed of any diplomatic envoys."

"I have no interest in pomp and ceremony. I came straight here," replied the visitor, glancing with a smile towards the window in which Kellela and Grace were still tutoring Mystery.

"The procedures for diplomatic visits serve more purpose than mere ceremony," pointed out the [Lieutenant], having rushed over in response to the summons. "Verifying your identity and purpose, for one. Secondly, ensuring we can guarantee your safety. What would it look like to the Vale of Myllearn if an envoy of theirs was killed in our kingdom? It's not safe this close to the demonic forest, and you're walking around alone?"

"I'm not afraid of a few demons, and I can assure you that if one did manage to catch me, no-one would blame you."

"Maybe, but again, I have no way to verify that, so there's no way I could simply take your word for it. I'll lend you some men to escort you to the teleport station in Karn's Vigil. Please return to the Vale's embassy and make official arrangements from there."

"Something I'm certain you do know is that 'official arrangements' would result in years' worth of deliberate bureaucracy, as your kingdom tries to unfairly limit access to the [Hero]. But if they're the rules, I guess I have no choice."

The [Lieutenant] frowned, worried about why she was giving up so easily, and why she was still smiling. She wasn't giving the impression of someone who wasn't getting what she wanted.

"But, before I leave, if I might give you a gift? I've heard you're having difficulties communicating with the [Hero], so I've prepared some samples of the languages of former heroes," she said, holding out a notebook and flipping slowly through the pages. "Although I can't imagine such a strategy has slipped your minds, so perhaps she's from some novel world and you weren't able to find anything she recognised?"

The frown deepened as he took in the slight grin on her face, and the fact his scry ward was triggering. The damn 'envoy' had done something to attract Mystery's attention while she spoke, and then brought out this 'gift' once Mystery was looking. She wasn't showing off the book to him, but rather to Mystery, trying to send a message to the [Hero]. And there was nothing he could do about it.

To the [Hero], wasn't it the first chance at proper communication? Chasing the elf away risked earning the ire of Mystery. The best he could do was take her into polite custody with claims of suspicious behaviour and needing to confirm her identity. Which he should damn well do anyway, because he had no evidence whatsoever that she was who she said she was beyond the pointed ears and lack of reaction from the anti-hostility wards.

Little did the pair of them know, but Mystery's thought had gone in a very different direction.

"With those pointed ears, she looks like an elf! Fairies were bad enough, but how could the goddess not mention elves? What's up with that? Why couldn't I have been an elf?"

The goddess had indeed not mentioned elves, but only because elvish bodies weren't compatible with human souls. In terms of appearance, a human had a lot more in common with an elf than a jellax or zycrian, but appearance was only a small part of the compatibility problem. A bigger issue was that elves were inherently ageless. Legendary achievements often came with bonuses that extended a human lifespan, but they would never grant full immortality, even at the mythic level. Immortality was not something that a human soul could cope with.

"Not only that, but look at that hair! That highly intelligent expression, that gives the impression of her every action being carefully thought through. The confidence and slight air of superiority. I'm a little worried she'd be too stuck up to be a team player, but if she behaved herself, I can easily imagine her as the cautious yet confident member of the party. Ah, I'm jealous!"

By the time Mystery had glanced at the notebook, she'd missed the first page. The second contained only nonsensical squiggles.

"What's she doing, anyway? That doesn't look like the local language, and the guard isn't even paying much attention to it."

Contrary to appearances, Rrillandral Lehibeborn was actually desperately winging it. She'd flared her mana in a way that any mage would be able to detect, expecting to attract Kellela. Instead, the [Hero] had come on her own, completely disregarding the usual range limits of [Astral Projection]. Meanwhile, Kellela had retreated, hiding herself in a fortified room deep within the house. Rrillandral hadn't known about the recent assassination attempts, and assumed they'd only be wary of demons, or else she wouldn't have approached so brazenly.

Kellela's translation magic could have confirmed the authenticity of her writing, and proven it was an innocuous request for Mystery to produce a light of a specific colour, which varied by language. Now here she was, behaving in a massively suspicious manner. If Mystery didn't bite, she risked getting stuck in political purgatory for years. If this [Hero] was already putting a party together, even being delayed for a week could ruin her chances of joining it.

She flipped her notebook to page three, but Mystery had already gone.

"Oww!" thought Mystery, her soul burning as the link to her body spluttered. The problem with heavily warded panic rooms was that they were heavily warded. Even Mystery's [Tether of Will] struggled to cope with her soul and body existing on opposite sides of the barrier. Fortunately, the link to her body was sufficient for her to barge her way in through the wards, so she plopped herself back into her embryo to recover.

ding
For your emergency high-speed dash, [Astral Projection] advances to level 20. Haven't you learnt your lesson yet about the dangers of that skill?

"Yes, yes. Stop behaving like a wannabe mother," silently grumbled Mystery.

Of course, that left Rrillandral in something of a pickle. She hadn't expected the [Hero] to turn up on her own, but having done so, she hadn't expected her to leave. She snapped the notebook shut, and the [Lieutenant] held out his hand. It took the elf a second to work out why, but she handed the notebook over with a courteous smile, pretending that had been her intent all along. It wasn't as if it couldn't easily be replaced; a few bronze coins for the paper and half an hour of time to write out the messages. Besides, if Kellela read it properly, there was a good chance her plan could be salvaged.

Deciding between ditching the humans and making another clandestine attempt at contact, or hoping that Kellela and Mystery would read the notebook and she'd be invited back officially, she decided the second option had the greatest chance of success.

"Please have Kellela check it over; I'm sure she'll be able to read it. In the meantime, I'll return to the embassy as suggested, and start the long, arduous process of arranging an official visit."

The [Lieutenant] nodded politely, but had three guards escort her anyway. He wasn't entirely sure what had just happened, but he wasn't taking any chances.

An hour later—during which time the notebook had been checked for illusions, poison, enchantment, traps and even haunting before being declared completely clean and mundane—Kellela was flicking through it, having cast [Translate].

"Each paragraph is the same message, written in a different language. 'If you can read this, please produce a coloured ball of light.' All that differs is the colour requested by each paragraph."

"So, which one asked for brown?" asked Hayedalf.

"This one," said Kellela, turning back to the third page and pointing. "I can't say I recognise it, though. Why brown, specifically?"

Hayedelf didn't answer, but simply pointed at the ball of brown light bobbing behind Kellela.

Spoiler

μ̵̼͉̐υ̴̡̽̿σ̷̭͓̃̀τ̸͉̤̾̆ή̶͎̱͌ρ̸̤͕̏̿ι̷̬̾͜ό̸͈ (Human)
Age: -8 months
Occupation: Hero (L)
Skills:
- Soul's Eye (U) (28/80)
>> Sense Vitality (U)
>> Sense Soul (R)
>> Sense Mana (U)
>> Sense Light (C)
>> Sense Sound (C)
>> Pierce Illusions (U)
>> Sense Miasma (R)
- Astral Projection (U) (20/60)
>> Sure Navigation (U)
>> Uncontainable (U)
>> Tether of Will (L)
- Robust (C) (18/40)
>> Hardened Soul (R)
>> Secured Mana (U)
>> Pain Tolerance (C)
- Stealth (C) (3/20)
>> Camouflage Vitality (R)
- Magical Girl Transformation (R) (13/30)
>> Age Correction (R)
>> Gender Bending (R)
- Light (C) (8/20)
>> Heterochrome (U)
- Increased Attributes (C) (7/20)
>> Mana Storage (U)
Achievements:
- Early Bloomer II (R)
- First Skill (C)
- Apprentice (C)
- Survivor of Zarklaxxos, the Arcane Infernal (R)
- I Broke The System, And All I Got Was This Lousy Achievement (E)
- Astral Explorer I (R)
- First Spell (C)
- I Broke The System Again, And Now The Administrators Hate Me (E)
- Spell Forger (R)
- Demon Slayer I (R)
- Monster Slayer I (C)
- Curiosity (U)

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