Yep, if you read the title then you can probably guess who the culprit behind the barrier in this forest was.

What title am I referring to?

Who knows~

Anyway, right now, I’m standing in front of crying little girl. Actually, a crying little ‘elf’ would be more appropriate.

Haaaaaa… this situation is honestly ridiculous. I swear, it’s always the same problems with elves, how cliche, tsk tsk.

So, let me tell you what happened in the meantime and what the current situation is….

So, after I had started walking toward the direction that had the least amount of mana for around 2 hours…

I’m getting pretty good at walking don’t you think? I should get a skill for it~

Anyway, after having walked for a long time in which you bet I was crushing any bug I saw, I heard some oddly reminiscent sounds in the distance. What sounds? The sounds of a girl sobbing!

Honestly, I wasn’t sure whether or not to go check it out. I was afraid that If I got too close to the person sobbing that something bad could happen to me. After all, the possible scenarios that I could think of weren't exactly favorable for my curiosity.

Like, if someone attacked them and that’s why they’re crying then I could just be walking into trouble!

Or maybe she was just crying because she was sad or some other stupid reason and her friends are around her and the second they see me they’ll capture me. I mean, this place really does not seem hospitable to things that aren’t harmless animals and bugs. I mean, have you seen those barriers?

Actually, It doesn’t even need to be other people, I can’t be sure that whoever is crying won’t be scared at seeing me and snitch me to whoever is maintaining the barrier!

Or, it could even be a trap to capture me after I’ve been trespassing on their territory for almost a week!

I just didn’t see why I should risk my safety just because I was slightly curious.

…

……….

But yeah you know me, I guess you could call me a big softy….

Didn’t I kill a baby fawn just a few days earlier?

Well yeah but still, it was honestly an act of mercy since it was hurt.

And actually, why does it matter if I did. A Demon Lord isn’t supposed to be nice!

Oh yeah, I called myself a ‘big softy’. Well I lied.

Tehee~

Well whatever, I was a bit curious about who was sobbing and after staying behind a tree for 30 minutes, I was sure that there wasn’t anyone else around.

So, I activated my ability in case anyone was trying to ambush me or something else unexpected happened, and began to move towards the sobbing sounds.

And could you have imagined it! There was a sobbing young elf kneeling covered with dirt and bruises on the ground!

How do I know she was an elf? Well, because she had long pointy ears! DUH!

Also my ability told me~

I guess I should have figured out from the beginning that it would be the elves that would want to close themselves off from the rest of the world in a beautiful forest. But then again, it’s not like every world has to be a Tolkien/D&D rip-off….

I guess this one might be however. Don’t blame me, blame the author for his lack of creativity~

Back to the crying elf.

I stood behind a tree a few feet away from her and began to observe her. Since I was using my ability, the main things that caught my attention were the flow of mana inside of her body and her level.

She had a different flow of mana inside of her than mine and, though I could tell that part of it was due to her elven descent, it was definitely not the flow of mana of a true elf. In fact, I was able to tell that she was actually a half-elf, since the flow of mana inside her body seem like a mixture of the two.

The other interesting thing was her level, which was at 8….

Yeah, this is bad news for me….

Since I could see her flow of mana I could somewhat guess at her general strength. And to be honest, it wasn’t very impressive.

Despite this however, she was still level 8! Which means that I have a long way to go before I have any meaningful power….

I really hate grinding, isn’t there a way for me to make this easier? Like, can’t I just buy some xp or some other shit with some good ol’ dollaroos? I’m willing to pay-to-win my ass into being a Demon Lord!

Actually now that I think about, that’s basically how real life works. If you have more money, you could generally skip many of the tedious and boring parts.

And I’m broke right now… this is unfair I say! UNFAIR!

I wonder if I could speak to whoever sent me here and lodge a formal complaint against them? Maybe I can get some compensation for my suffering, ehehe~

Yeah no, I’m just being stupid again.

Anyways~

Other than her level, I was also able to tell she had 2 light based magic skills. Both of them were at tier 1, with them being [Illuminate] and [Flash]. Considering I couldn’t find any abilities, I was able to deduce for now that at least not everyone gains a new ability or skill after leveling up. Which is definitely a pretty good thing for me.

Since I was able to deduce that she was basically harmless, although she could still most likely beat me in a fight… I decided to approach her and see what had happened. I mean, I could sort of guess what it was that could have happened since she was a half-elf.

Thus, walking out from the tree from which I was hiding behind, I approached the crying half-elf in front of me….