My name is Lenon Moonlight. I am the 3rd son of the late Lord Moonlight, brother of the late King.
Due to their Kingdom inheritance rules every time a King ascends the throne his brothers and sisters have their surname changed to assure only his heirs have right to the throne. Of course if the King died and had no life heir, the next one in line would have his surname reverted back to receive the right to inherit the throne, but such cases are so rare that most of the time such a rule is even forgotten.
One day I asked father why did he choose such an sissy name as Moonlight. He looked at me and laughed saying it was related to a story he heard as a kid.
In the story there were two princes who were real friends, when the older brother ascended the throne, the little brother renamed himself Shadow, when the older brother asked why, the younger said it was to always be able to watch your back.
So our real name was actually to be called BrightStarShadow, but then my father intentions would be too obvious and many wouldn't agree as its too risky to have all the royal bloodline taking risk as one, so he used Moonlight instead.
No matter our name, our spirit remained the same, as well as our mission to guard the royal family. That's why from a young age each of us received intensive training to became a personal bodyguards to the royal family.
Up until now it seems like my family had success on it's mission: My first brother was able to became the Prince's personal bodyguard. My second brother became the First Princess's personal bodyguard. My older sister also became the Second Princess's personal bodyguard. And I...
Sigh...
Due to being underage and a guardian trainee I was prohibited from joining the War and received this mission to escort refugees to safety instead. So now my perfectly planned future is no more and my new future seems so bleak that I have no idea where it's going to lead...
We were one of the last refugees batches to go out of the city, taking all able man and women that were left in a forced march toward the neighbor Elven Kingdom.
Fortunately midway through we found and captured some orc scouts.
After "talking" to them, we discovered their next target was exactly the place we were heading to.
Considering their speed and army strength the leader of our caravan decided in changing our route and heading south while a couple messengers were sent to their kingdom to inform the imminent danger.
So we started heading south toward the Human Kingdom.
The journey was pretty hard.
At first we used magic to open and close the trail by moving the vegetation to the sides, but the problem didn't stop at the vegetation, the terrain itself wasn't friendly with many slopes and holes making it hard to push the carts. Our luck didn't help us as rain arrived at night adding a layer of mud that not only delayed us but also endangered us with the new possibility of landslides.
Finally on the second day, after passing through many slippery paths and crossing a river we arrived at a human village on the other side of the mountain.
Our plan was just to warn them of the danger and keep going toward the city but just as we started talking about our experiences a new group of elves appeared, lead by the King's attendant, Geo.
After identifying himself, Geo told us to head toward a safe shelter located in the cave a few hours up the mountain and was going to offer some escort when the rude human girl interrupted. She said she knew the way and was going there herself so she offered to guide us in exchange of us helping them carry their products. Our leader wanted to decline but after seeing the hurry in Geo's face he opted to agree so that he wouldn't need to rely on Geo's men.
After that we took two hours helping the humans pack their things and put them in our carts and finally departed in the evening toward the shelter. Unfortunately it seems like our trip through the forest had attracted attention of wolf pack which sneakily attacked us on our way up the mountain.
...
I was walking right in the middle of the caravan when I heard a young human voice echoes through the mountain.
"Wolf pack up the mountain! Civilians stay near the caravan, guards, prepare for the fight! Stay together and focused! Only counter, NEVER chase!"
While his orders were nothing new and it felt a bit of an insult to have to hear these from a human, none of the orders were wrong so all I could do was follow and focus.
The battle began with the wolfs attacking the front where the young human was located. Seeing them focus on the humans was honestly a big satisfying but this was no time to allow prejudice control me.
Just as I was starting to head out to help I heard him shouting again.
"Maintain the formation! Keep focused!"
Is this guy a masochist? Does he think he will gain something by killing them all himself?
Just as I was going to ignore the order, from behind us another group of wolfs attacked as well.
Did this guy knew this would happen? No, it must be coincidence...
"Keep your guard up! More incoming!"
What? More of them?
I turned to the front, looking for more but didn't see anything.
And just as I thought he was bluffing a shadow suddenly jumped toward me.
"Fuck! He was right!"
Using my lance to block it's teeth, its claws scratched my leather armor as I kicked it away from me.
Succeeding in kicking it, I stabbed the wolf before it could run, ending it's threat. But because I had to step forward to do the step, I distanced myself from the caravan. Although it was not much, it was enough for the wolfs to mark me as prey and jump on me.
Luckily my years of training were enough to take care of this situation. I jumped back dodging one wolf while the other was blocked by my lance's blunt side. I turned the lance around and pierced the wolfs neck, while using the other side to hit the second wolf I just dodged.
"Damn..."
I tried pulling the lance but this time it got stuck in the wolf meat, so instead of insisting I used my hand knife to finish off the third wolf.
After looking right and left I saw no other wolf so I took my time to take back the spear by kicking the wolf corpse down while lifting the spear up.
Splash!
My action ended up slashing wolf blood all over me.
"Uck...Disgusting!!!"
Just as I tried to clean myself from the wolf blood on my face I heard the human again.
"Well done everybody, it seems like this is all of them!"
Sigh, for once, I wish you are right, human...
"Let's keep moving! 500 meters from here we can take a break and go to the river to wash ourselves."
Great! Human, that's the first good news I have heard in a long while....
...
After refreshing ourselves and walking for another hour or two we finally entered the cave and arrived to the large hall inside it.
Curiously there were two skeletons guarding the place and different from what I expected they didn't attack us at first sight.
The human girl walked forward and talked to the skeleton, the skeleton nodded and then walked away while the other kept guarding the entrance...
5 minutes...
10 minutes...
15 minutes...
Tired of waiting, I went to talk to the human girl.
"Hey girl, how long do we have to wait?"
"Hmm... it usually only take a few minutes but maybe the skeleton got lost in the labyrinth, or Plate is occupied..."
"Lost? Really?? Then, can't we send the other one as well??"
"Sigh....I will try...."
The girl talked to the skeleton and sure enough the skeleton went his way to tell his master we arrived...
5 minutes...
10 minutes...
15 minutes...
Arg!!!!!!!!!! Should we just enter by ourselves?
Just as I was almost out of patience a half armored man arrived from the path we came, showing off his chest as if saying look at my perfect eight pack. Really, what the f*** is going on this world? Anyway, the armored exhibitionist passed through us, muttered something to himself and pushed the wall, opening a path, then he gestured us to follow him and walked ahead.
The human girl greeted him energetically and started walking by his side, meanwhile the young human who lead us in the fight against the wolfs stared daggers at the pervert. Me? I don't care, so I just followed after them...
After walking less than 5 minutes our view changed in a incredible way. It was like we had found the sun which had hidden itself inside the mountain to illuminate these underground fields full of life and colors.
The armored exhibitionist took us to the right path and we finally found the place where the other refugees were living, a gigantic hall full of pillars symmetrically positioned with hooks to set up hammocks.
For a second I asked myself if this was really a refugee camp or some hidden elf village, but all my theories went down the drain when I saw the pervert doing his magic again, this time not to open a passage but to expand the hall giving space for all of us. His action stunned me so much that I didn't even hear the speech he said after this, only wondering what the heck is this place?
Suddenly I woke up from my stunned state as I hear a familiar voice coming from behind me.
"Lenon!? Is that you!? What are you doing here!?"