Poverty…

When one hears this term, they think of destitute people who wear rags for clothes, beg for money, and would have no roof to sleep under…

But there is so much more than what it seems.

The place where I was born was often called the Golden Country. Not because it was made up of gold but because even the poorest and most uneducated person in this country would've gold lying around their houses like they were nothing.

People would've so much of this precious metal that they would literally throw them away after a while, not considering whether it was damaged or not. People had too much.

There was no shortage of food in this country, no one died of starvation even if there was a bad harvest or a storm hit the fields. People lived under roofs even if they were thatched and most of them seemed happy. Happy that they were able to live for another day.

Every day, messengers would come from the Royal house and they would speak of how many people died outside the state or how the King's army defeated countless enemies securing more food for our people. Every news made the people joyous and exclaim in cheer but everything was a façade.

Now, one might read this story and think, 'hey, what's so bad about being alive? What's so bad about living when there are thousands dying outside.'

But I'm not like them. I'm not like you.

I was born into a privileged family and had everything since the beginning of my life. I didn't have a shortage of food or expensive clothes. Even the King visited our family from time to time and even though most people would be honored, I wasn't.

I wanted to see the world.

I knew of the sufferings the people outside the state experienced, I heard tales of their misery and pain but I don't know whether everything was true. Was this country really that blessed or whether we were living in a bubble dream of a weak deity or something.

Therefore, when I turned 16, I joined the army in the hopes that the King would take me outside and show me the world. I was wrong.

I was trained in combat; I was trained in survival and various other crafts but I was never sent outside. Nobody was. It was almost as if it was a world created only for the King himself.

For the next thirty years, I searched for every way possible to escape this land.

Sneak past the Guardians… didn't go very well.

Coax the Queen to tell of a secret passage… she sent me down to the King's Wine Chamber.

Jump over the walls… berated and dismissed from service for a year.

And what else…ummm…

Oh! Jumping down the city well because I thought that the drainage would surely lead me outside but for some blasphemous reason, I appeared in the King's Bath…strange…

Finally, when I was forty or so, I appeared before the King and presented my demand upfront.

"Oh! So, you want to go outside and see the 'world'?"

I nodded furiously. "Yes. This place is very boring."

"Boring, do tell me how so. From what I know there are plays of different kinds every week. There is no shortage of women or men to have fun with. There is no lack of money or games, so what makes it so boring?" asked the King with a slight smile. His wide and broad shoulders were armored with giant dragon pauldrons and he wore a large shining gold chestplate. The red cape covered part of his right shoulder while he leaned forward and rested his left elbow on the armrest of his throne.

His golden hair, bright brown eyes, perfect lips, and a straight nose gave him a dignified look and together with everything, the King was magnificent in every way possible.

"I don't mean any disrespect or anything but the plays … are all the same. They have the same lyrics, the same style with the same people playing the same roles with just different titles and names. As for money, I don't even see a need for it when nearly everything in this land is free of cost except for that greedy old couth of the Heavenly God's Inn. He is too stingy.

Also, only children play with games here and if I want to play, they make fun of me. I don't see how I can play them!"

I say with indignation and full passion. The King looked amused. "Well, I have only the Grand Seer to write the scripts of the plays and he gets a little repetitive, I agree. So why don't you take his place and be the Grand Seer?"

"Oh! I-I'm flattered—Wait that's not what I'm after!"

To which the King gives a hearty laugh. "Ah! Humans… so funny." He mutters under his breath.

"Humans?" I ask with a question mark over my head but for some strange reason, not only does the word felt familiar it also felt…

"Yes, humans. I've never met such a strange, enigmatic and mysterious creature as humans. Sometimes they are cheerful, sometimes they are angry and sometimes they are sad. They have so many emotions that even I'm surprised and have to think whether that kind of thing was intentional or not. And their curiosity … ah… human curiosity…. There is nothing more magnificent than human curiosity. Which you've perfectly inherited even after your death."

I frown at the King as if he had gone bonkers but everything he says … seems kinda familiar.

"I can send you outside." The King says with a kind smile but knowing him, I can probably guess that there is some kind of catch to it.

"I can send you outside but it won't be to your world." He replies as he leans back on his throne, waiting for my answer.

"I don't care. I have no idea what you said so I will just ignore it." I reply to which he smiles.

"You will. When you reincarnate. But there is a second condition. Since you desire the knowledge of the world so much, I will send you to a world that can offer so much knowledge that even a God like me would be overwhelmed and drowned. It will be a world filled with gods and devils and everyone would be hunting you. Are you ready?"

My frown deepened and I try to sneakily step back. "I… think I'm getting a little more than what I asked for."

The King's smile broadened. "Well, you did try to seduce my Queen."

"Oh… Hold on a second. I really didn't mean to do that-You know what, catch you later!" I turned around and try to dash outside in a jiffy but he was the King. With a snap of his finger, I was petrified on spot.

"Haha. I'm not that petty." He says but then his smile turns into an evil grin, "I'm very petty. It's hypocrisy and I learnt it from you humans. It's a nice … thing. Very subtle." He says.

Sweat drips from my temple but I could neither talk nor move.

"Anyway, for the sake of an old friend who kept me so amused for so long, let me give you a gift." He says and snaps his finger and immediately, everything in my surroundings starts to twist and turn unimaginably before my vision went black.

…

"C'mon! Stop dilly-dallying!" said a Brass Ogre as it whipped its whip towards a group of cuffed prisoners. The prisoners were wrapped around in ragged, coarse clothes. They were thin as sticks and had oval-shaped faces with dirty yet colorful hair unlike the ogres who mostly had square faces with black or brown hair. Some of them were stocky and had square-faces too but their slightly pointy ears and strangely colored pupils gave away their identity as elven halflings.

Also the wardens, as if trying to justify that who they caught were in fact not ogres, purposefully shaved these 'exceptions' hair and displayed their pointy ears perfectly to the crowd.

Long metal chains connected their cuffed hands and feet together in a straight line and under the stern sneer of the Brass Ogre to a podium which was situated at the edge of the Durbury Creek which flowed through the city of Bremond.

"Kill the impurities!"

"Die halflings!"

"Filth!"

A quite a large crowd had gathered around the podium and shouting curses at the cuffed prisoners.

"Die, you elven spies!"

"Rot in the Pits!"

Soon the cries became fervent and the crowd started throwing objects of varying sizes at the line-up of prisoners. Most silently took the beating and the insults but some tried to talk reason to a crowd of a fervent and angry crowd.

"I'm not a spy. I've been living here for the past 30 years! Believe me, I'm not an elven spy! Zagrog! My friend, you know me for 30 years, explain to them. I'm loyal to the King of Ogres!" claimed a man in his forties but neither his 'friend' nor the crowd bought it.

"Lies! All you say are lies!" cried the 'friend' who hurled a big rock, proportional to the size of a full-grown ogre at the thin elven halfling, almost instantly smashing his face. The crowd followed suit and threw their prearranged projectiles at the already dead halfling.

"Heh! What an idiot!" whispered another prisoner. This guy seemed to be in his twenties with a dark face and blood-red eyes. He too had the signature pointy ears and had short black hair over his dark-skinned body. He was a true-blooded dark elf.

The dark elf lightly pokes at the other, quite smaller halfling elf beside him with his foot. The smaller elven halfling was 5 feet 8 inches tall and was only 16 years old. He had light green colored hair which was now matted with sweat and dirt. His slightly tanned skin was completely covered with three layers of dirt but even then, the dark elf looked at the little elf with perverted eyes.

"Hey, little elf. Tell you what, if I survive this … execution, do you mind if I use your dead body to perform some necromancies… you know, to satiate my … uhm…'thirst'." He smiled lasciviously.

The little elf slightly turned his head and glared at the man with hateful eyes to which the dark elf backed off while making a whistling sound.

"Ooh… feisty." He said, turning back forward.

"Alright, enough is enough!" shouted the Brass Ogre Warden as it walked in front with its shield to avoid being hit himself. Signaling to the other wardens, he shouted with vigor. "Start the execution."

Two smaller Brass Ogres nodded and started the hanging procedure. The first thing they would do is tie the noose around their neck before unlocking their chains. Most of the prisoners would flail and try to pry the noose loose but it was futile. When they pulled the lever and the door under their feet would give away, their flailing would be the pleasure that the wardens would bask in and would make the crowd cheer out louder.

One by one, they tied the noose around their necks, unlock their chains, and pull the lever. Most cried and flailed but when it came to the dark elf's turn, he simply smiled.

The head warden sneered at the dark elf and retorted, "Keep on smiling when that noose tightens around your neck, you slimy bastard!"

"Hehe. I always like suffocation." the dark elf smiled which further angered the warden but he didn't dwell on him long.

He turned towards the little elf halfling beside the dark elf and his expression softened immediately.

"I'm sorry Aren, even though you and your family have done so much for us, sacrificed so much for us, you had to go through this fate. I'm sorry but we can't go against the King's order." He said as he tightened the noose around the kid whose name was Aren.

The kid didn't say anything, he simply stood motionless and cold. The head warden sighed visibly before signaling to the other warden.

With the pull of the lever, at first the dark elf was hanged followed by Aren.

The crowd was much more silent and less enthusiastic during Aren's hanging because even though they were fed with all the spy conspiracies, seeing a kid of 16 being hanged to death was still… too gruesome.

…

At the end of the day, the soldiers of the Bremond dumped the bodies of the prisoners into the Durbury Creek outside the city. Some of the prisoners were hanged by the city wall to ward off potential bandits or thieves but most including Aren's dead body was thrown away.

Strangely though, the dark elf's body was nowhere to be found. The soldiers felt a little perplexed but instead of investigating and perhaps getting berated by their chief, they kept quiet and let it slide.

Dozens of bodies floated through the Durbury Creek throughout the day and were drifted somewhere around its bank, giving the wildlife a feast, they never knew they had.

But that night, heavy storm hit the city of Bremond and the forest around it. It was especially bad as purple lightning creased through the night sky while thunder shook the earth. Ogres, monsters, and beasts of all kind cowered inside their homes, but unaware to them, there was a strange phenomenon going on.

Dozens of dead bodies of elves and elven halflings washed upon the shore of one of the remote banks of Durbury Creek. Most of the time, the wildlife would be having a feast but currently they were all hiding, not daring to come an inch closer to this pile of dead bodies. Why? Because lightning after lighting was hitting a single dead body into charred pieces.

The slightly tanned skin of Aren became blacker and blacker under the constant barrage of the purple lightning while portions of it cracked under the intense heat and stress. Slowly and steadily those cracked pieces magically moved up from his body to his face and formed a strange mask with a white background and stripping black lines. Wisps of death energy swirled out from under the ground and penetrated deep into Aren's body, further blackening it.

After an unimaginable time passed, the storm slowly and steadily passed while the Aren's previous dead body started to twitch uncontrollably.

"Ughh…Arghhh… RAAA!!!!"

…