In the morning of the following day, I escort the princess in the direction of the Elven Forest. Throughout the way, we talked about a lot and grew to understand each other. She told me about the difficulties of being an heir and having to constantly compare herself to her mother.

  “I understand the pressure but it’s necessary,” I say to her. She looks up at me waiting to hear more. “As a leader, you shouldn’t show weakness to the people you are supposed to protect. You must be their bastion, an unbreakable pillar which they can rely on.”

  She looks at me with amazement in her eyes. She had never saw it that way. She then thought of her mother. Maybe she wasn’t as cold as she thought she was. A smile blooms from her face as she smiles.

  “Thank you for saying that.”

  After that, three days quickly went by, and we arrived at a dense forest. We would arrive at the barrier of the Elven Forest within twenty minutes.

  The forest is eerily quiet as we traversed through. Elianora suddenly stops and calls out.

  “You can reveal yourselves now.”

  With the sway of the leaves, three figures clad in hoods suddenly revealed themselves appearing before us. Removing their hoods, their pointy ears give them away. In sync, all three drop to their knees and bowed, their heads low not daring to look at Elianora.

  ““We greet her royal Highness!”” They all say in unison.

  These guys have been following us since the moment we entered this forest. Of course, I let them continue to follow because I suspected that they were Elianora’s guards.

  “You do realise what your crime is right, Protector Ludwig.”

  Cold beads of sweat appear from the two behind Ludwig as their hearts pound through their chest. Ludwig, however, didn’t show any emotions. He was a true seasoned warrior.

  “I do your royal Highness.”

  With swiftness from his hand, he unsheathes his peculiar sword which looks like vines with thorns intwined to each other to form a pointy tip. Protector Ludwig holds his ‘sword’ with both hands while still kneeling, offering it to Elianora.

  “I failed to protect you and allowed the traitor to kidnap you. I’m willing to offer you my life.”

  Elianora chuckles as she takes his ‘sword’ with grace. “That’s the thing Ludwig, your life is already mine.”

  Her hand moved swiftly, cutting the bridge of Ludwig’s nose, causing blood to trickle from it. Ludwig didn’t even flinch, showing he was prepared to die from her mistress’s hands.

  “Let that be a reminder not to be too complacent of your duty, Protector.”

  “I thank your royal self for sparring this lowly servant’s life.” Ludwig says, accepting his sword back from the princess.

  “Now, speak. How is it that I was kidnapped right under a Protector’s nose?”

  Without hiding anything, Ludwig recounted the events that took place over a few days ago. The protector was tricked by the maid, Sierra, into the forest were he was trapped under a binding magic circle. He had followed Sierra believing he was tasked by the princess on a herb gathering errand only for him to be bound.

  The two behind him who he had left behind guarding the princess’s door were fed a sleeping potion mixed in their tea by Sierra rendering them unconscious. She then proceeded to take the unconscious princess which the strange potion had finally acted on. The spirits in the forest didn’t react since her body wasn’t in any form of danger. That’s how she was kidnapped.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “I see,” she says as she ponders.

  “It took me an hour to break the magical bindings. Afterwards, I rushed to check on your royal Highness only to find you missing. I then reported the situation to the Senior Protector and I was given this mission to make up for my failure.”

  “Hmm, so only you three came looking for me?” Elianora asks.

  Ludwig hesitates to speak but reluctantly nodded his head. Elianora’s faces scowls in a mix of emotion. I understood her frustration. After all, we’ve become somewhat close these past few days.

  She is disappointed that only three people were sent to rescue her. After all, she is the heir to the throne. The future queen and yet only three people were sent to her rescue. Her earlier thought that she might have misjudged her mother’s cold demeanour crumbled under the weight of reality. Her mother didn’t care about her.

  Of course, to me, it made me wonder as to why and many theories formed. Maybe she didn’t want to risk alerting the humans leading to misunderstandings of war or trespassing. This, among the many theories made sense to me. I placed my hand on her shoulder, comforting her.

  Ludwig and the two others are stunned, leading Ludwig to draw his sword once again, almost blitzing to slash at me.

  “STOP!”

  Ludwig halts his movement as confusion befell him. After all, nobody should touch royalty. Even the maids are only responsible for cleaning the elven royalty’s chambers. As for bathing and changing, spirits were more than capable enough for that. That meant, I was the only person to ever touch Elianora. Well, except for her mother and maid, Sierra, whom she had held her while taking her out of the Elven Forest.

  “But your Highness. This filthy_”

  “Mind your words Ludwig,” Elianora’s cold voice cut him off, “My patience is only so much. And besides, I value your life for it to end here.”

  A look of confusion washes over Ludwig. His life… end here? What did the princess mean?

  It is only when he redirects his gaze to me that he feels it. His eyes widen as his heartbeat quickens. An indescribable ‘pressure’ washes over him, paralysing his body. His hands shake, trying to move his frozen body. This level of pressure surpassed even that of the Senior Protector, the strongest Protector who is under the Queen herself.

  As for the Queen, although strong, Ludwig was lucky enough to have not met her many times face to face.

  I look at Ludwig with astonishment. Although many would have fainted with this level of my ‘pressure’, it just shows his indomitable will as a seasoned warrior. My smile breaks the tension in the atmosphere.

  “You have quite a guard serving you. I’m almost tempted to pouch him as my own,” I say half-jokingly.

  “You may but he’ll bore you with his seriousness.”

  Both of us chuckle as Ludwig and his other subordinates look on astonished. The princess known to be the counter part of her mother was smiling. However, the air changed quickly becoming cold.

  Still with her smile, she says, “And if any of you speak a word of what you’ve seen, be ready to lose your heads, understood?”

  All three nodded in unison. How come did they nearly believe that their cold-hearted princess resembled an angel just moments ago.

  “Well then, as you can all see, I’m perfectly fine. You may wait for me at the boundary of the barrier.”

  All nodded in unison as they disappeared.

  “Now then, do you mind accompanying me to the barrier my loyal knight?” she says as she reaches the back of her hand towards me. I sigh and take it, kissing it gently like a knight in the fairytale I had showed her using mindscape as a projector.

  “It would be my honour, my Lady.”

  Ever since watching that, her princess ego shot up through the roof, taking every turn to humiliate me. Well, I did lose the bet I suppose. Cheater.

  I accompany her to the barrier and bid farewell to her. I watched as she disappeared from view before looking at the barrier before me. The World Tree barrier. Renowned as the strongest barrier in the world. Even human nations tried to copy it for their important cities, creating a subpar barrier that can only cover about half the city.

  I lift my hand up and touch the barrier. I feel the cold solid exterior of the barrier. Well, that’s what was supposed to happen. Instead, my hand touched nothing. Yep, it went right through it.

  Huh?

  I retract my hand and shove it to the barrier only for it to pass through again. What the hell? I then used my whole body and would you guess… I went through to the other side.

  Was the World Tree barrier being the strongest a load of dog shit. It can’t stop anything. That’s when I sensed an animal resembling a gazelle being chased by a thunder wolf. As the wolf is about to bite the gazelle, the gazelle enters the barrier but the wolf slams face first on the solid barrier.

  Huh, so the barrier works. The gazelle entered maybe because it’s just an ordinary animal while the wolf was blocked because it has a magic core, classifying it as a monster. Humans and other races except elves, duh, can’t seem to enter too without permission from the Queen.

  So did I somehow gain permission?

  Answer. The World Tree barrier is made out of the same spiritual wavelength of the Spirit King of Nature’s spiritual energy.

  Meaning since I contracted with Gaia and my spirit energy merged with hers, the barrier recognizes me as her. Which means I can come and go within this forest and no one can do a thing about it. Even the Queen herself, who’s supposedly the Master of the forest, can’t do nothing.