Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 845: Ran Away for a Fair

Ethan smiled down at the little girl, Xeisha, her small hands still wrapped tightly around his leg as if he were some kind of human shield. She stared back at him for a long, searching moment, wide eyes studying his face with a seriousness that felt oddly mismatched with her size. Then, slowly, she loosened her grip, stepped back, and turned her gaze toward Xenon, her expression sharpening.

"You..." she said, lifting a tiny finger and pointing straight at him, her voice suddenly haughty and accusatory. "You’ve befriended a human, Xenon! Just wait until I tell Father. You’ll be in so much trouble!"

She had grasped the situation immediately. Ethan clearly knew what Xenon was, and Xenon had just broken one of their clan’s most sacred laws. No contact with humans, under any circumstances.

Xenon did not even flinch at the threat, but Xeisha did not give him time to respond. She began edging backward, carefully putting space between herself and Ethan, her eyes flicking around the room as she searched for a way out.

"Not so fast!"

The one person no one had been paying attention to moved. The Mad Engineer lunged forward, his hand snapping out and grabbing the back of the little girl’s neck.

"YIPE!"

The change was immediate. The moment his fingers closed, Xeisha’s form shimmered and folded in on itself, her body shrinking and reshaping in a blink. In the engineer’s hand now was not a girl, but a squirming, silver-furred Husky pup, writhing with indignation.

"Whoa!" the engineer exclaimed, staring at what he was holding with genuine shock.

Ethan blinked, just as stunned.

"Let go! You mustn’t hold her like that!" Xenon rushed forward, his voice sharp with alarm as he carefully took the small canine from the engineer’s grip.

As soon as the hand released her scruff, there was a soft poof. In Xenon’s arms, the pup vanished, replaced once again by the little girl, cheeks flushed and eyes blazing.

"You grabbed me again!" she shrieked, twisting in his hold so she could point furiously at the engineer. "I am extremely angry! I told you many times, no grabbing! Don’t you speak Wolf-tongue?"

Her outrage was so exaggerated, so theatrical, that Ethan had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

"I don’t!" the engineer replied earnestly, his face a portrait of pure confusion.

"Pfft." Ethan failed completely, a snort escaping before he could stop it. These two were clearly operating on an entirely different wavelength.

"Xenon, he bullied me! Hit him for me!" Xeisha demanded, slipping fully into her spoiled-princess routine. In her fury, she had completely forgotten that Xenon was supposed to be escorting her back home.

Xenon glanced apologetically at Ethan and the engineer, his look practically saying you see what I’m dealing with, before tightening his hold.

"My task here is done," he said firmly. "I must return immediately."

The words seemed to snap something into place. Xeisha’s eyes widened as she remembered her situation, and she immediately began struggling in earnest.

"No! I won’t go back! I worked so hard to get out! I haven’t even been to the amusement park yet, and I’m not leaving!"

She wriggled fiercely, but Xenon’s grip was unyielding.

"Amusement park?" Xenon frowned down at her.

"Yes!" she shot back. "Why do you think I trained so hard to shapeshift this young? I wanted to go so badly!"

Xenon’s frown deepened, while Ethan could only shake his head, torn between disbelief and amusement. All of this trouble, he thought, was for a trip to the fair?

"Don’t look at me like that!" Xeisha snapped, catching his expression. "I want to go! Sister Jenita said it’s the most fun place in the human world. The spinning horses, the pirate ship, the giant swing..." Her voice drifted off, filled with genuine longing.

At the mention of the name, Xenon’s expression hardened. His voice dropped, cold and serious.

"Jenita?" he said slowly. "Don’t tell me you went to the Forbidden Vale. Running away was bad enough. You already cost the High Shaman ten years of his life. Your punishment will be severe. And if they discover you entered the Vale..." He exhaled heavily. "Do you want to end up like Jenita, trapped there forever? And you’d drag her into even deeper trouble as well."

The last words were clenched with frustration.

"Wha...?" Xeisha’s defiance evaporated. The weight in Xenon’s voice finally reached her, and fear flickered across her face. "I’d... get Sister Jenita in trouble?"

She lowered her head, fingers twisting together as she suddenly looked very small.

"Now you’re scared?" Xenon said tiredly. "Did you think at all before you ran?"

"I... I wasn’t planning on going back," she mumbled, barely audible.

"You—!" Xenon’s voice rose, and she flinched.

But she quickly stiffened, glaring up at him again. "Don’t yell at me! You’re all the same! Don’t think I don’t know! You all want to leave too. That time you and the others got drunk on stolen wine at the back ridge, you said if you ever got the chance, you’d run away to the human world as well!"

She jutted her chin out triumphantly.

Xenon froze, guilt washing over his face. "How... how did you hear that?" His eyes widened. "The missing bottles of elderberry brew. That was you?"

Xeisha nodded smugly. "Your hooch was terrible. I took one sip and threw the rest off the cliff."

Xenon stood there, speechless, a new wave of anxiety creeping in. Princess Xeisha was infamous for gossip. If she ever repeated their drunken confessions, the consequences would be disastrous. But then she continued, catching him off guard.

"Relax. It wasn’t just you," she said breezily. "Father and the other elders say the same things whenever they drink too much honey-mead."

Xenon’s eyes went wide. The very elders who constantly warned the younger generation about the horrors of the outside world secretly shared the same forbidden longing.

As Xenon and Xeisha continued their argument, their dynamic painfully clear with the young princess somehow holding the advantage, Ethan quietly pieced everything together. The truth was obvious now. The Extreme South was not a paradise to them, but a gilded cage, bound by ancient customs and unyielding tradition. Leaving required either enormous preparation or a rare flaw in the Seal.

Xeisha had escaped with help from this Jenita. Xenon had been sent through a temporary breach, one opened by the combined power of many clansmen. His earlier threat about his clan marching north if he died was likely nothing more than a calculated bluff. Clever. Very wolf-like.

But to Ethan, this was more than idle revelation. It was information, and information meant leverage.

’If they all want out,’ he thought slowly, a new idea taking shape, then maybe they don’t have to be enemies. Maybe, one day, they could be... recruits.