Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 199

Charlie woke up from the jolting movements.

He instinctively shifted his body and felt the warmth beside him, which reassured him.

Arnie was curled up tightly next to him, a position that showed he felt very unsafe.

He might be terrified—perhaps this was the future little Duke’s first kidnapping?

Charlie’s vision was pitch black, and his hands were bound. He could only use his shoulders and feet to probe around, feeling that they were both inside a large box that was moving, swaying and rocking, which had woken him up.

He recalled a similar situation before—like when he was inside that mysterious box in the secret room of the Mokwen Palace. Despite the inopportune timing, he found it somewhat amusing.

Charlie tried to call Arnie softly, but he remained still and unresponsive, likely still in a drugged sleep.

Those strangers had used a powder to knock them out, but maybe due to Arnie’s young age, the dosage was lighter, allowing Charlie to wake up first.

He lay quietly in the darkness for a long time, trying to discern any sounds he could hear. The jolting never stopped, but the frequency and intensity didn’t seem like a carriage ride… it felt more like they were being carried on horseback.

Whether due to good soundproofing or a very quiet environment, Charlie could hardly hear anything. If it weren’t for the rustling of his clothes as he moved, he might have thought he had gone deaf.

His movements seemed to have woken Arnie, who slowly stretched his limbs.

Then he froze completely.

Charlie could feel Arnie’s tension, but with his hands bound, he could only speak. “Don’t be afraid.”

A small hand felt around in the dark and covered his mouth.

“Don’t talk,” Arnie whispered.

Charlie blinked.

Arnie fumbled around in the dark for a while, ensuring there was no one else in the narrow space, then said, “Alfred will come to find us.”

He tried to untie Charlie’s hands, but the knot was too tight, and he couldn’t budge it.

“Don’t rush,” Charlie said softly. “Check my coat pockets…”

Some of his personal items were lost when he fell into the river, but the remaining ones might still be useful.

Arnie started to search the pockets and found they were very deep and filled with odd things.

“What’s this? A test tube?” Arnie had seen similar items in the castle doctor’s office, although he hadn’t yet learned pharmacology.

“Oh, that’s a container. Don’t open it lightly.” Charlie chuckled softly in the dark. “There’s a little thing inside that would knock us around if released. Luckily, they didn’t search me thoroughly. In the left upper pocket, there’s a pen. The cap can be used as a small knife—use it to cut the rope.”

Arnie, though small, managed to saw through the tight rope with considerable effort. Charlie’s hands were numb and swollen from being bound for so long, but he ignored it and held onto the rope.

“This isn’t rope.” Arnie curiously touched the cut end, finding some sap seeping out. “It feels like a vine.”

“They communicated in Elvish,” Charlie noted. As his hands slowly regained feeling, he softly chanted something, and a small flame appeared at his fingertips, about the size of a candle flame but very bright in the darkness.

“You’re a mage?” Arnie’s pale eyes gleamed in the firelight.

“Not officially, but I studied for a few years,” Charlie said, examining Arnie’s face in the light. “Do you feel unwell? Feverish? Itchy? Do you want to cough?”

He worried about the quality of the drug used on them. Poor-quality drugs could easily harm someone with a weak constitution.

But Arnie ignored his questions and persisted in asking, “Why didn’t you join the association? If you don’t have a title, your magic isn’t recognized.”

He knew that both academics and skills required certifications, as all family tutors at Brandenburg held the highest imperial professional titles. Their teachers emphasized that this was the proper path to learning.

“Because I only need to be responsible for myself. Getting recognition from irrelevant people doesn’t mean much to me,” Charlie replied naturally.

At Monterey Academy, Charlie had taken all required exams because of the school’s requirements. After graduation, he no longer participated in any qualifying tests, believing it unnecessary to seek approval from people unrelated to him. Additionally, his unique identity meant he needed to minimize traceable social activities.

However, as soon as he said this, Charlie regretted it. The Duke’s heir had a different standing than him. He quickly added, “My passion is writing novels, not magic. If there were an authors’ guild, I’d definitely take their certification exams. Official recognition still…”

Before he could finish, they jolted heavily, as if the horse carrying their box had jumped over an obstacle.

Then the jolting stopped.

Charlie quickly extinguished the flame at his fingertips and covered Arnie’s face with his hand. The smart child understood immediately, closing his eyes to pretend he was still asleep.

The timing was just right for Charlie to put his hands back and rewrap the vine around his wrists. With his eyes tightly shut, he sensed light through his eyelids, and felt a breeze on their faces as something was lifted.

“Still asleep?”

He heard one of the two strangers from the forest speak.

But his companion didn’t answer. Instead, he silently lifted Charlie. It was very quiet, and Charlie heard the sound of a door opening before he was unceremoniously dropped to the ground. Though the floor was carpeted, the fall from that height still hurt.

Charlie grunted internally, but his limbs remained limp as he fell, not even frowning.

“Mm?” Another person stepped forward, a bit surprised, and lifted Charlie’s eyelid.

“No reason,” he said in Elvish. “The little one is already awake.”

“Maybe he has a special constitution,” the first person said. “Nobles are prone to indulgence and often weak.”

They stopped talking, and Charlie couldn’t hear their footsteps leaving. To be cautious, he counted to thirty in his mind before opening his eyes.

And he found himself staring directly into a pair of green eyes.

Charlie: “……”

He lost this round.

The person didn’t seem sure whether Charlie was pretending to sleep or had just woken up but didn’t care. Seeing Charlie’s eyes open, he straightforwardly asked in the common tongue, “Are you also ‘Dwight’?”

Charlie: “Who are you?”

“Your life is in my hands,” the other person said coldly, not falling for it. “I ask questions, you don’t.”

Although the pronunciation was standard, the person’s grammar was a bit off, suggesting they rarely used this language.

Charlie remained lying on the ground and said, “There’s only one Dwight. Neither the child nor I are him. Didn’t you know?”

The person’s expression shifted slightly. “What do you mean?”

“Strictly speaking, there’s only one Dwight in the Empire, and that’s His Majesty the Emperor’s cousin, Duke Dwight,” Charlie replied in Elvish. “And the Duke is currently in the capital. You’ve probably got the wrong people.”

“You speak Elvish?”

“Yes.”

Charlie calmly accepted the other person’s scrutiny. With the disappearance of the elves, the Elvish language had fallen from a common communication language to a purely academic one over the past century. Learning a language that might never be useful in one’s lifetime meant the person either had a great fondness for the elves or was a serious scholar.

After a moment, this obscure skill earned Charlie some leeway and respect. The person helped him up from the floor.

“Are you elves?” Charlie tentatively asked.

“We’re not elves, but we’ve received their grace,” Green Eyes said.

“Is it because you have elvish blood?”

Seeing Green Eyes’s face tighten again at this question, Charlie said, “It’s not hard to guess. Your physical features differ from ordinary people.”

“That’s precisely why we don’t interact much with the outside world,” Green Eyes said. “Alger said everything he did was because of ‘Dwight’. Even if that child isn’t Dwight, he’s Dwight’s son. To Dwight, his son is definitely more important than Alger.”

He observed Charlie for a while. “What are you to Dwight?”

“I’m just an employee of the castle, responsible for looking after the child,” Charlie half-truthfully said. “You said you don’t interact much with the outside world, so you must live in a remote and uninhabited place. What exactly did Alger do to make you travel so far… for revenge?”

Green Eyes scrutinized Charlie again, seemingly judging whether his current ignorance was an act. Finally, Charlie passed the test. The person indicated for him to look at his hand.

Charlie glanced back and saw that the rope binding his wrists was indeed a green vine. The vine Arnie had broken earlier had somehow repaired itself; the broken ends had disappeared in the dark, and it looked as if it had never been cut.

“Your rope, my clothes, and weapons,” Green Eyes said, “are all made from plants. These plants, which only grow in elvish territories, carry incredible magic from the moment they sprout. Thanks to them, we can live comfortably even if we distance ourselves from human settlements.”

He pulled a cherry-sized white fruit from his sleeve. The fruit still had a long stem attached and emitted a faint glow even in daylight.

“But these plants usually only grow in elvish territories. Even if the elves generously granted us the right to use them, those who aren’t pure elves struggle to cultivate them properly. So, along with these magical plants, the elves gave us a small portion of their power.”

“Alger sent people to steal the source of the elves’ gift,” Green Eyes said, his face filled with anger and disdain. “Purely out of greed—without those powers, our normal life becomes unsustainable.”

Charlie now understood. For those like Green Eyes, because of their partial elvish blood, they received special care from the elves. According to his description, this mysterious group’s lifestyle probably resembled that of the elves: clothing, furniture, lighting, and weapons were mostly derived from plants. Some plants (or all plants) had special abilities that allowed them to live like ordinary people.

But because they weren’t true elves, they needed a medium containing elvish power to grow those magical plants. Alger happened to have stolen that very item.

However…

“Why involve Dwight for what Alger stole?” Charlie asked.

“Alger claimed he was working for Dwight. The source of power is no longer in his possession. We searched him ourselves.”

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