“MINY!!!!”

“IGY!!!!”

I hear someone calling the princess by her nickname and then see the princess running towards the place the voice came from. She jumps in the man’s arms while happily calling out his nickname.

‘That should be her boyfriend Igomar Lightgrove, he is the crown prince and son of the current king and queen of the elves. It seems that the rumors are true, that elves never do forced marriages.’, I think while walking up to the chittering couple.

“Who is he?”, asks the crown prince while looking at me with a somewhat suspicious glare.

“He is my friend, gosh, not all males want to hook up with me!”, says the princess while playfully knocking the crown prince on his head.

When I get closer to both of them I can see that the princess stands taller than the crown prince. The princess should be around 5 feet and 10 inches while the crown prince is 5 feet and 8 inches tall. They do make up for a really odd couple when I see them standing together like that. Igomar however doesn’t seem to really care that he is shorter than his fiancée though.

I walk up to him and politely offer him my hand. He first looks up at me and then smiles while shaking my hand.

“I’m sorry”, says Igomar while scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, “I’m sometimes a bit overprotective when it comes to my dear wife.”

“Gosh Igy, we are not married yet!”, says the princess while pouting.

“But I already see us as a married couple”, says Igomar while looking up at the princess with sad puppy eyes.

“Awww, you really think so, that is so sweet of you Igy, you are the best!”, squeals the princess while tightly hugging him.

“Are they always like that”, I ask Melia who also just walked up to our group.

“yes”, she says while sighing, “Don’t worry, you will eventually get used to it.”

“iiii, Igy where do you think you are touching”, squeals the princess suddenly while giggling.

“But you are so beautiful my love, I just can’t help myself”, says Igomar to princess with a slightly flushed face.

“Ugh this is too sweet for me, my teeth are starting to ache.”, I grumble while trying to look somewhere else.

Melia sighs for a second time. Something tells me that this is not the first time for her that this is happening. I can’t complain about the princess her taste though. Igomar is a handsome lean male elf with platinum blond hair. His ears are longer than that of a normal elf which means that he is a High Elf. They are a stronger version of normal elves and have affinity for each magical element the normal elves can possess. That means he has nature affinity, sun affinity and darkness affinity which respectively comes from wood elves, sun elves and dark elves. He also has golden eyes which means his highest affinity is for sun based magic, which is an extremely destructive form of fire magic.

“OKAY EVERYONE GATHER IN A CIRCLE AROUND ME!”, Miss Lazula suddenly yells.

The beastmen, elves and humans gather around her to listen what our assignment is going to be that will enable us to pass the practical exam.

“Is everyone here? Good! Let’s start with a general explanation first”, says miss Lazula while looking around to see if everyone has arrived.

“First and foremost, this will be a collaboration between the Elves Soul University and the Elite Soul School. This means that you will have to pair up with at least two individuals of the other school. We do this to create a stronger bond between our two countries and create some trust between the citizens of both kingdoms. Each squad will consist of 5 individuals which means you can choose a maximum of 3 teammates of your school before we will assign 2 teammates from the other school if you can’t decide who you want to pick from the Elven Soul University and the Elite Soul School. There are also beastmen in the elven academy, because they live in the same forest that the Elven kingdom has been founded. So if you can choose, try to pick with some variety with who you will cooperate with.”

“Now for what you need to do is to retrieve this!”, Miss Lazula says while showing us a purple glowing core.

“This is a rank 5 soul core of a Soulbeast. Of course we understand that defeating a rank 5 Soulbeast is impossible for all of you since reaching rank 5 means a qualitative change in your life form. The highest rank among you is rank 4 and we know that it is impossible to defeat a rank 5 Soulbeast, even with a squad of 5 individuals at rank 4. What we ask of you is to hunt and scavenge in the forest and bring us something back that has an equivalent value to this core. For example, gathering 500 rank 4 Soulbeast cores will have an equal value to one rank 5 core. You can also gather rare herbs, mine for rare mana crystals, scout out rock formations for rare ores and the list goes on. In other words use your knowledge of materials and creatures that you can find in the forest to find the things you need. Ultimately you need to have enough resources to exchange for one rank 5 core.”

“This will be the assignment, now form your squads if there aren’t any questions!”

Everyone immediately starts scrambling around after the explanation to find the best teammates to work together with. It seems however that everyone is avoiding us, which is no surprise with having two royals in our group. I look around for one person of the Elves Soul University to correctly fill up our squad. However, when I try to approach someone they suddenly increase their speed as if they see the most dreadful creature approaching them.

“I’m not that ugly, am I?”, I ask Melia to which she just giggles to in response.

‘The hell is that supposed to mean Melia?!’, I shout in my head while still looking out for a potential squad member.

I can’t see anyone that wants to join us when everything clears up. I keep looking around and suddenly see someone with a hooded vest that has the Elves Soul University logo embroidered on it. She seems to be standing all alone underneath a tree.

“Hey she seems to be alone, let’s invite her to our squad!”, I say while being excited that we still have the luck to find someone that is not totally unwilling to join us.

“You can’t do that.”, says the crown prince while looking somewhat anxious.

“Why not?”, I ask the prince in confusion.

“Because she is from the Devil race!”, says the crown prince while frowning.

“So what? I don’t give a shit about race.”, I say while sighing disdainfully, “I never would have thought that you are a racist Igomar.”

“No wait! You don’t understand!”, yells the prince in vain.

I pretend I don’t hear him yelling and walk up to the hooded person and tap her on the shoulder.

“Hello, could you join our squad? We are still missing one person.”, I ask her while she turns around and looks up at me with curious eyes.

Her eyes are bright red with black slits as pupils. I can also see two beautifully curled black horns under her hood which stand in stark contrast with her bright red skin.

“You don’t mind having a Cursed Devil in your squad?”, she asks while grinning at me which clearly shows her sharp teeth.

“Absolutely not!”, I say while getting somewhat excited at the prospect of having a real Devil in our squad, “Devils usually don’t come to the surface and stay in Middle Earth. And you are apparently even a cursed variation of the Devil race! I think it would absolutely interesting to have someone like you on our squad! I heard that Devils have amazing mana manipulation abilities and can insta-cast any spell that they learn. You don’t mind me asking some questions during the journey would you? I have always been interested in the Devil race and how they strengthen their bloodline, after all it shares some similarities with one of my abilities.”

I start rambling to her in my excitement of having the opportunity to interact with a real devil. This is an opportunity I can’t pass out on. She also seems to be a very nice person, I can’t feel any devil aura from her which means she has not done the ritual yet.

“You are not afraid?”, she asks while giggling.

“Absolutely not, you are a very kind person, I’m sure of it!”, I say in excitement while having a radiant smile and twinkling eyes.

“Okay I will join your squad”, she says while smiling.

I swear that the thump I heard behind me is the crown prince falling on the ground because he fainted.