"No... it can't be..."
Immediately shaking his head, while grabbing his head as if denying everything he experienced in the dream, he muttered to himself.
"How can I doubt the voice of the goddess?!"
He immediately bowed his head as if apologizing to the goddess watching him from the sky, "Please forgive me for my insolence..."
Morning light crept out of the tiny window, which was mostly a prison; it's not sunshine, but the light that says morning has arrived.
Only after begging for forgiveness while taking a regular breath did the kid calm down a bit.
Slowly looked at his arms and tiny hands. "Yes, this is me... Elandor... bastard son of Baron Aldric Vaelthorn..."
Getting off the bed, the kid walked towards the mirror, looking at the reflection.
In the reflection, he saw a kid with dark brown hair, with beautiful emerald eyes, with tiny arms and legs with a big head and two long ears, which tells everyone he is not human, and wearing a sweat drenched old cloth.
"Yes, it is me, not the man from the other world..."
The kid muttered to himself, as if re-assuring that he was not possessed by another entity, the things that happen in the tale the old maid often tells him.
Then, he, once again, taking a seat in the bed, the boy asked himself, "What the hell is that dream?!"
"Is that some kind of possession method of an evil spirit? There is no way any of those things I saw in my dream were real..."
He nodded to himself, "Yeah, science, you say? There is no way such a thing could exist... haha... if it's really such a thing exists in this world..."
He didn't said anything further and looked blankly at his empty room that was only filled with old furniture and a bed.
Then, with a sudden push, the door wide opened, and two people entered into his room, without asking permission, as if they owned the room.
The child gulped down the saliva as he watched them.
One was the old maid, Marella, a woman in her late sixties, her once soft skin now marked with deep wrinkles carved from her hardship, her gray hair is tied into a low bun just as usual, her eyes faded hazel.
In the castle where everyone treats him as if invisible, this old maid is the only one who treats him kind enough to speak with, she often tells him what's happening outside, what kind of places are there, and often some horror stories to scare him off.
Since Elandor had known her for more than ten years, he wasn't afraid of her.
Despite looked like a 4-year-old child, Elandor is actually 15 years old, due to his half elf lineage, he aged very slowly compared to humans.
What Elandor was startled about was the man who is seemed to be in his late fifties with a stern, sharp face.
He has a salt and pepper beard trimmed neatly and wears circular bronze-rimmed spectacles, rare and looking expensive.
Elandor had never ever seen this man before; this was the first time other than the old maid or his father had entered his room like this.
Both of the individuals who entered the room also looked surprised seeing Elandor sitting on the bed watching them with weary eyes.
Old Maid gasped in surprise as she saw him, "You woke up!"
The man beside her adjusted his glass and asked the old maid with a stern tone, "Is it the kid, lord wants me to take a look at?"
Maid looked back and forth between the kid and the man before nodding her head hurriedly, "Yes, sir, he was the one attacked by soul magic..."
Nodding his head with confirmation, he got near Elandor, staring at him, but a reassuring voice heard in his ears, "Young master Elandor, please be assured, this is a physician come to take a look at your body by the order of Baron... He doesn't mean to harm you..."
The boy looked doubtfully at the old maid, "Physician?..."
Even before this incident, there are several times he fell in ill, but no one ever came to treat him before.
His father never cared about him all this time.
What's with this sudden kindness he asked himself in his mind.
But seeing the old maid's respectful gaze on the man, the kid relaxed a bit.
The physician bend down a little meet his eyes directly after his gaze paused on his long, pointy ears as he murmured to himself, "So, that's how it is..."
He took the kid's arms in his hands, then suddenly a warm feeling spread around my body.
'What did he do?'
The kid looked puzzled as the man said to him, without minding his confusion, "Please open your mouth..."
The kid did as he asked, he asked him to stand up after then, and asked him to jump few times, checked his eyes, and asked him the things that were in the corner of room and made him describe them, once the kid did everything he asked for, the physician nodded his head and said, "That's enough, thank you for your co-operation."
And looked at the old maid, he said, "This kid really attacked by soul magic, as the lord said?"
Maid widened her eyes, with an absurd expression as if asking, 'You dare to question the baron?' but swallowing the words, she nodded her head as she said with a sad tone, "Yes, he was attacked by his birth mother in front of everyone two days ago..."
'Wait! what?! Two days ago? Didn't I just get attacked yesterday?'
Countless questions were flooding into the kid's mind before hearing the words of the so-called physician.
"There is no abnormality found in his body... he seemed to be perfectly fine, no problem in his body and soul..."
Old maid gasped with disbelief as she looked as she looking at me, "H-how can it be?!..."
Ignoring her expression, the man continued, "The Only problem I found in his body is, he was not fed enough, he seemed to be weak, and his growth was affected by the little food he was eating. I will go and inform the lord myself about the report..."
Said that he pulled the door open and went out, leaving only the old maid and the kid alone in the room.
***
Author's note:
Thank you all so much for the hundreds of views on my novel!
I honestly never expected so many people to read it, and I am truly grateful.
However, I must ask for your understanding, as the upcoming chapters, up until the release of all 18 chapters, will maintain this same quality.
Prior to this novel, I wrote four others to get contract, but they were all rejected due to excessive reliance on AI.
Each of those was grammatically edited by AI, but this time, I chose not to use any editing tools to fix my mistakes, nor did I use any paragraph rewriting tools.
I plan to share everything exactly as I wrote it—no corrections, no edits, no improvements—and I'm curious to see what reasons they will have for rejecting my contract this time.
I am really eager to find out how they will respond and what the reasons will be.