Followed by the Chaotic Creature
Punishment From the Ruler

"Grandfather? Why is Grandpa here?" Ask surprised.

"Follow grandpa!"

"No, cake. My friend is in danger. I have to help her. I have to talk to the queen." Reject me.

"You've broken a lot of rules. Get out of our territory without permission. Enter the human world and connect with them. Not only that, you even killed one of the crocodiles. You should already know how much punishment awaits you."

"I'm sorry, grandpa. I didn't mean to be evil."

Grandfather shook his head as if he was tired of my mischief.

"Although you didn't kill the crocodile demon directly, you did help the humans to attack it. One of their tribesmen witnessed the incident and reported the incident to the queen. That's why the queen asked our ruler to hand you over." Grandpa's words instantly froze me.

I'm not just getting caught, but I've been making big trouble. "Are you going to hand me over to them?" Manyaqu scared.

"Of course not. Our ruler is in negotiations with the queen. Therefore the ruler ordered to bring you back and lock you up until there was a result of the negotiation."

I can no longer argue. Grandfather must have gotten trouble from my actions as well.

In a stone-walled room without windows I was locked up in an unspecified amount of time until my true punishment was meted out. I've committed a grave offense. I don't expect to be forgiven.

After a long wait, the thick wooden door finally opened.

"The lord asked us to take you to meet him." Said one of the guards.

The place of the lord of the ruler is in a higher place. Giant trees were like pillars of a magnificent building within a naturally formed forest. There are small waterfalls on the left and right sides. The gurgling sound of the water flowed in rhythm with the river flow below us. On top of that small, clear river was a path formed from the branches of a large tree.

I haven't been to this place in a long time. A beautiful man with his charming charisma stood in front of me. He then told the guard who drove me away to leave us both.

After greeting like ordinary people, I kept silent.

"We haven't seen each other in a long time and talked like this, my nephew." The warm sweep melted the tension between us. It feels hard to believe that the one who leads our nation and the ruler of this region, is my uncle. More precisely my father's brother.

"Yes, uncle." My solute.

"I hope you don't hate me too much for locking you up. It's for your own good and your safety."

"Yes Uncle."

"Right now I speak as your uncle not as your king. So there's no need to tense up so." Her speech. He realized my awkward attitude. How else. Although we were family, we almost never met and talked.

"Regarding your troubles, the queen is willing to let you go and not prolong this matter any longer."

"really?" I'm not believing.

"Because after all the members who were killed also made mistakes and broke the rules. However, the queen still asked me to punish you so that this incident does not happen again"

'apparently punished.' I lamented in my heart.

"I hope you realize your mistake this time. Your actions attacking another tribe almost made the two tribes fight. If that happens, it's all your responsibility."

"Son, act not only see the good and bad, but also see the impact that can be caused. Especially if you are a leader. Your actions will impact your people. So be careful in acting. Later you will also take my place to lead this territory."

"I hope uncle is healthy always and given a long life of thousands more years. So I don't need to replace uncle." Refuse smooth. Uncle smiled softly at my words.

"Then, uncle. What about my friend. The crocodiles are already.." I haven't finished saying yet, uncle cut immediately.

"Your friend is fine. What happened to your friend wasn't the inhabitants of the river."

"If not them then who? Who made Lili that way." I murmured in my heart.

"You're the one who made it that way."

"Me?"

"Son, how far do you recognize your power?" Ask uncle.

"I mean uncle?" I asked back not to understand.

My uncle told me to sit and watch. He holds two cups.

"May this empty cup be the human body. And the cup full of water is yours." Then the uncle moved the water to an empty cup. "This is your strength. This is what you've been doing all this time."

My eyes were trembling realizing something I had just realized.

"On a slight scale your strength helps the human body to recover from aches and wounds. But on an excessive scale side effects will appear. The man who receives your power will be more sensitive to the other world. They'll see what's usually invisible."

"Not all humans are willing to accept this. Most humans are afraid of supernatural beings like us. They will have a hard time living their lives. That's what happened to your human friend."

"The "effect of her side is not just appearing in humans. But also to you. Your powers will erode little by little, and will threaten your life."

"Because it's my kind of creature a little bit because they die sooner."

Uncle nodded. "I made rules also to protect the balance of two different realms. And protect people like you. Because people like you are easily captivated by the human world. By moving away from the human world, people like you can live longer."

Uncle came up to me, grabbed my shoulder and looked at me deeply. "I want you to live longer. Not just hundreds of years, but thousands of years. I don't want you to be the same fate as your parents."

We ended the conversation. My uncle told me to go back to my room. Before parting I asked once about Lili's condition. As long as I'm locked up, the time in the human world must be long gone.

Uncle said he had told someone he trusted to restore Lili's state and erase my existence from his memory. After that live well. He married and had a healthy son. Uncle didn't tell me in detail. He asked me not to see Lili. It's for Lili's good too.

The next day someone picked me up, took me to my place of punishment. I entered the wilderness and suddenly in front of a giant tree.

"The lord asks you to guard this gate for an indefinite period."

"W-what does this mean, uncle? You ordered me to stay here. A place where there are no living creatures but trees! You better get me to the white crocodile queen than to live in a place like this!"

My uncle knows very well how to make a child act like I'm silent not warty.

"Shut up! Who bothers me this early in the morning?" a loud man's voice sounded from within the large tree in front of me. The tree moved and shook the ground around it. I'm retreating.

"What are you?" I shuddered in horror feeling the pressure of strength that could make me fall in an instant.

"I am the guardian of the west gate and the ruler of this forest."

That was my first meeting with the ruler of this forest.