Earthling in Uncharted Dimensions

The invitation was unexpected. Yet the boy's face barely changed its expression.

After a second, the boy nodded hesitantly.

Miss Aleria's face brightened and her smile was evident. She straightened her back and walked with an air of pride around her. The smile she beamed around was noticed by the soldiers, but no one dared to probe.

***

3 minutes later.

The two carriages that were used as transportation for the soldiers were now occupied by the women and children. There was old age among them and those who were hurt had to lie down after a difficult day in their lives.

Let me narrate what happened to these women and children.

They belonged to a convoy who were migrating their country. They were travelling as one big family when the bandits ambushed the three carriages full of people with swords and weapons.

The men of the convoy attempted to defend against the bandits. But the inexperienced fighters were proved to be a mismatch for the bandits as they dragged the women away over the blood of their men.

The driver of one of those carriages escaped after loosening the leash of a horse tied to his carriage. He drove zigzag and quickly to evade the chasing attacks.

Fortunately, lady luck smiled at the man and he quickly reached the city gates. In a hurry, the man jumped out of the horse which sprained his leg and disabled his movements.

Shouting the news of ambush, the squad of soldiers who were familiar with that part of the forest were assigned to the extermination of the bandits. Their dedication and diligence resulted in the complete casualties of the bandits.

Of course, the presence of the elf boy in the story acted as a catalyst to quicken the extermination and in decreasing the chances of the hostage casualty.

When the soldiers crossed their swords with the bandits, one or two were injured. This made them difficult to travel on foot.

Therefore, the squad leader and the vice-leader of the squad gave up their horses for the injured. Thus they sat on the horseback while their fellow soldiers walked at a slow pace.

The boy, the reincarnation of Lee Shen, was in the second carriage. Externally, he was silent and calm. But on the inside, he was recalling the memories that he had been recently introduced to.

As a child, he did not have the intellect to assume that the memories he saw were his own. According to the little elf, he is a boy and so is the child in the memories. With the differences in circumstances and surroundings, the boy assumed that the child in the images was trying to convey something.

Due to the lack of information, he decided to believe so and never to share this revelation with anyone.

While being immersed in the thoughts and flashes of images recently uncovered, someone nudged his shoulder. Turning to his left, he saw a little girl with dark hair.

He stared blankly at her, who had a certain sparkling in her eyes. When the elf saw that she is not responding even after half a minute, he turned back to mind his own business.

"Can I...touch them?"

The boy was surprised by the question that fell in his ears. He turned to the girl again without veiling the surprise in his eyes.

The girl briefly pointed at his ears to which he frowned. His reaction was not a sign of being disturbed but more like, 'What?!'.

The women in the carriage were tired and had nodded off. Thus, they did not hear what the girl had said.

The boy did not bother to reply to her and just shook his head in disagreement. The girl's face displayed a tinge of sadness which he had to ignore for reasons.

The carriage went abnormally silent after that and the little elf was not aware of his surroundings since then.

***

Almost an hour had passed.

Back to the train of thoughts, the elf went through the parade of images several times and concluded that the person in the memory is named Lee Shen. The elf, unaware that that boy is he himself, began to dig up the memories Lee Shen had left for him.

Unfortunately, when our little elf uttered the keyword out of the blue, he was only able to unlock the memories from his life on Earth. This ranged from his childhood, ever since he could remember, and to the times he was poisoned by his opponent at the match.

Somehow, the memories regarding his stay at Kathmandu and the monastery have been removed.

But that turned out to be a blessing as his complete, undivided attention was on the training regime Lee Aiguo, Lee Shen's grandfather, used for training him. The images and recordings of these moments created a wave of happiness in his heart and the little elf decided to etch it into his mind by revising it again and again, in case if he was to forgot everything about him.

Though his mind was elated, the expressions on his face were blank and indifferent. This disabled anyone from reading his mind like an open book.

Thank you, Lei Shen.

Feeling that it is necessary to thank this person for these unexpected gifts, the little elf extended his wholehearted thanks to this unknown person. As shown in the images, the elf brought his hands together and conveyed his gratitude.

The elf boy was devoid of any information about himself, so he decided to take the manners and habits Lee Shen had displayed in the fleeting images. Thus, he inherited a sense of justice that consequentially brought forth the side-effect of short-temper, but with an unexpected advantage - immense patience!

Though he had thoughts about taking Lee Shen's identity, he finally decided that it would be too much to exploit someone. He already has taken his behavioural patterns and perspective of justice. To take the mantle of Lee Shen might also bring him unknown troubles, he deduced.