I Became a Cub in the Elven Kingdom

Thanks to Chris’s prank, the Fairy cubs sped up and finally reached the classroom on time. They had barely settled into their seats, panting for breath, when Lia entered right on schedule.

Lia was a female Fairy. Her beautiful chestnut hair was tied into a long ponytail, and she wore a pale-yellow, straight-cut gown. Her translucent butterfly wings fluttered gently as she flew gracefully to the front of the classroom.

Seeing all twenty-five Fairy cubs drenched in sweat, she plucked the little harp in her arms and smiled warmly.

“Good afternoon, little darlings. My name is Lia, and I’ll be teaching you music.”

Most of the cubs were naturally outgoing. Without the slightest shyness, they immediately began talking.

“Good afternoon, Lia!”

“What do we learn in music? Singing?”

“I want to learn the harp. Can I?”

“Siet taught us a song... It goes like this... Dwarves and goblins fight every day. The goblin stole the dwarf’s treasure. The dwarf smashed down the goblin’s door with a hammer. The goblin got so angry that he dug up the ground outside the dwarf’s house...”

One cub began singing the nursery rhyme Siet had taught them. The other cubs joined in, and before long, all of them were singing at the tops of their lungs.

Lia plucked her five-stringed harp and easily picked up the melody, accompanying the cubs.

At first, Shu Li did not want to sing because he was not very familiar with the song. But all the other cubs had joined in, and refusing to sing would make him seem rather antisocial.

Left with no choice, he took out his “emergency reference guide,” found the phonetically transcribed lyrics to The Dwarf and the Goblin, and quietly sang along.

When the song ended, the cubs still wanted more. Lia lowered her harp and applauded.

“That was wonderful!”

The little cubs proudly puffed out their chests, every one of them beaming.

After clapping, Lia patiently explained, “Siet is your introductory instructor. He mainly teaches language and writing. From now on, I will be responsible for anything related to music. I’ll teach you to chant poetry, play instruments, compose melodies, and write lyrics.”

“Wow, that sounds really complicated!” Angel muttered, scrunching up his dumpling-like face.

“Mm-hmm!” Disio nodded in agreement.

Shu Li’s eyes, however, lit up like light bulbs.

After transmigrating to another world, music was the only thing that still felt familiar to him.

The music of this other world shared the same foundation as the music of his original world: seven basic notes. Although singing in Elven was extremely difficult for him, he had no problem humming a melody.

The classroom grew noisy. Lia played a soothing passage to calm the cubs.

Once they gradually quieted down, she began speaking at an unhurried pace.

“In the age before writing existed, the Elves created music and poetry to preserve the history and culture of their people. Later, while traveling across the continent, a female Elf named Desna fell in love with a clever and handsome human man. She taught him music and poetry, and from that moment on, the first bard appeared on the continent.”

“Music brings happiness, while poetry fills people with longing. Wherever bards traveled, they were welcomed with great enthusiasm. Even today, bards hold a very high status. They are not bound by nationality and can travel freely across the continent. Nobles treat them as honored guests. Whenever nobles hold a banquet, they invite bards to perform Elven poetry.”

As Lia played her harp, she told them about the origins of music and poetry. The cubs listened with great interest.

“Why do they perform Elven poetry?” Budeno asked in confusion. “Don’t humans have poetry of their own?”

Lia played several lively notes. Her dark-blue eyes were as deep as a still pool.

“Because... Elven poetry contains magic.”

“Magic?” The cubs looked bewildered.

Lia nodded. “Yes. Most Elven poems contain magic. Some soothe the mind and help people sleep, some can heal illnesses of the heart, and others can summon elemental spirits. Of course—”

Her tone suddenly shifted. Lowering her voice, she said gravely, “They can also be used to fight and kill.”

“Huh?” The cubs’ eyes widened. “That’s... that’s amazing!”

Shu Li leaned over his desk and wrote furiously, recording Lia’s words in Chinese characters. Whenever he encountered words or sentences he could not understand, he quickly wrote down their approximate pronunciation in parentheses. After class, he would ask the other cubs. If even they did not understand, he would ask an adult Fairy.

Lia glanced in Shu Li’s direction, then continued.

“A bard can sing only fifty Elven poems in their lifetime. If they exceed that number, the magic will turn against them, and they will lose their life.”

“Humans are so fragile,” Angel remarked in his childish voice.

Shu Li agreed.

Humans in this other world were truly pitiful. Not only did playing the legendary harp shorten their lives, even singing Elven poetry could make them die young!

Lia gently shook her head. “When you grow up and travel across the continent, you will meet more humans. Then you won’t think that way anymore.”

There was no shortage of outstanding, exceptional individuals among humans.

By learning magic, they could change their short-lived fate and rise to become some of the most powerful figures on the continent.

Moreover, humans were generally cunning, treacherous, selfish, and greedy. They frequently committed cruel acts that harmed other races.

Some nobles, for example, took pleasure in keeping Little Fairies captive to satisfy their perverse desires. Evil hunters risked their lives to enter the Faerie Forest, brutally capture Little Fairies, and take them to the Human World to be auctioned for enormous profit.

The Fairy cubs before her had only recently passed one hundred days of age. They were still too young, so Lia could not yet tell them about humanity’s cruel side. It might leave them psychologically scarred and interfere with their healthy development.

Shu Li stopped writing and fell into thought.

Lia seemed to be implying something.

Why was she speaking so vaguely? Was there something she was worried about?

Had humans once done something cruel to the Elves or Fairies, making her so reluctant to discuss it? Otherwise, why had the Elven King sealed off the Faerie Forest and permanently barred outsiders from entering?

“All right, that’s enough storytelling for now. It’s time to begin the actual lesson.” Lia placed her harp on the table and raised her voice. “All my little darlings, please fly into the air.”

The cubs were puzzled by the request, but they obediently complied.

Bzzzzzz—

The sound came from dozens of wings vibrating at once.

All the Fairy cubs left their desks and chairs and flew into the air. Several mischievous cubs flew up to the overhead beams and began playing around.

Lia raised her hand and recited a simple spell.

At once, all the desks seemed to come alive. They moved on their own toward either side of the classroom and lined up neatly against the walls, leaving only the chairs behind.

“Woooow!” the cubs exclaimed in unison.

When Shu Li saw his desk carrying his notebook toward the corner, he hurriedly flew over to rescue it.

That was close!

Another desk had nearly crushed his notebook.

He stuffed the notebook back into his belt pouch. The pouch bulged awkwardly, barely able to hold five notebooks.

Perhaps he should make himself a large shoulder bag specifically for carrying his belongings.

As for the storage ring on his right index finger, he intended to return it to the Elven King, so he could not use it carelessly.

When returning something to its rightful owner, it had to remain exactly as it was.

Once Lia had finished moving the desks with magic, she clapped her hands and motioned for the cubs to return to their seats.

The cubs descended one after another, watching Lia curiously and eagerly awaiting her next move.

Under the focused gazes of twenty-five pairs of innocent eyes, Lia smiled mysteriously. She raised her right hand, revealing the gold bracelet around her wrist, and gave it a gentle shake.

Countless points of light leaped out of the bracelet. They scattered and flew toward each cub.

The cubs reached out to catch them, but the lights transformed into small, exquisite five-stringed harps.

“Woooow!”

“They’re harps!”

“This harp is so tiny! I can hold it with one hand!”

“Lia, Lia, are these harps for us?”

“I love it! Waaah!”

“Idiot, don’t bite it! You’ll break it!”

The cubs hugged their new little harps and refused to let go. Their fingers plucked at the strings, producing clear, bright notes.

However, when more than twenty cubs plucked their harps at the same time, the result was not beautiful music, but terrible noise.

Whitehead and Redhead played with no rhythm or structure whatsoever. Shu Li wanted desperately to cover his ears, but he was holding his harp and had no free hands.

A five-stringed harp, as its name suggested, had only five strings and five notes. It was generally used to play simple melodies and was well suited to beginners.

The more strings a harp had, the larger it was.

Cubs had small hands and short fingers, so naturally, they had been given the smallest one-handed harps.

As a music student, Shu Li had majored in violin and had also studied other string instruments. He even knew how to play a forty-seven-string harp.

However, the Fairy harp in his hands was clearly different from the harps he knew.

Apart from having vertical strings, it had no pedals for altering pitch. Instead, there were two small buttons on its frame.

Shu Li tried pressing them. The first and second strings glowed faintly. When he plucked them, they produced two different notes.

So that was how it worked.

Those two little buttons were pitch-shifting keys.

No wonder Siet had been able to play a full seven-note scale on a five-stringed harp.

As long as it could produce seven notes, everything would be easy.

Ignoring the chaotic sounds around him, Shu Li adjusted his posture, plucked the strings, and began playing the classic beginner melody, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

After handing out a harp to every cub, Lia allowed them to explore freely. Even when they produced a mountain of noise, she did not stop them.

Fairies never restricted the cubs’ interests. They had always believed in learning through play and playing while learning, gradually discovering each cub’s talents along the way.

Suddenly, Lia’s ears twitched.

Among the jumble of discordant notes, she heard a complete melody.

Following the sound, she saw the blond cub seated in the back row, playing with a focused expression. His fingering looked immature, but he selected the correct strings with perfect accuracy. He even knew how to use the pitch-shifting keys to alter the tones of the first and second strings.

It was Sperien.

Lia stared at the blond cub with shining eyes.

She might not be able to name every other cub, but she definitely knew the little one blessed by the Elven King.

After all, his halting, stumbling Elven had become famous.

The amusing mispronunciation incident in the dining hall at noon had already spread throughout the entire school. Kumandi had suddenly become the target of everyone’s teasing.

The young Fairies kept waggling their eyebrows at him and repeatedly saying they “missed Kumandi.”

Kumandi, however, had a steady temperament. Instead of getting angry when he heard them say they “missed Kumandi,” he calmly asked, “What do you miss about me? Do you want to practice white magic together?”

Every Little Fairy knew that Kumandi was obsessed with studying. Despite his young age, he had already invented his own magic spells. Any Fairy who “practiced” with him met a miserable end and could not leave their bed for seven or eight days.

The moment Lia entered the classroom, she had spotted Sperien wearing his flower crown.

He truly was different. There was an unusual, fierce determination in him.

Perhaps struggling with Elven had placed considerable psychological pressure on him, forcing him to work even harder.

There had been Fairy cubs in the past who were slow to learn how to speak, but none of them had ever suffered as much as Sperien. They played when they wanted to play, slept when they wanted to sleep, and ate when they wanted to eat, without the slightest psychological burden. Once they grew older, they naturally mastered several languages.

Knowing Sperien’s weakness, Lia had not expected much from him.

Yet what was she hearing now?

A polished, complete, and wondrous melody unlike anything she had ever heard.

The tune was very simple, consisting of only a few notes arranged in different patterns, yet it sounded delightfully cute and made the listener’s spirits soar.

One by one, the other Fairy cubs stopped plucking their strings and stared worshipfully at Shu Li as he played.

Sperien was incredible!

He already knew how to play the harp without being taught!

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star was short and ended after little more than a minute.

Shu Li finished with a flawless final note and let out a long breath.

Not bad!

His musical talent had not disappeared just because he had changed bodies.

He lowered the harp and raised his head in a cheerful mood, only to suddenly meet more than twenty pairs of burning eyes.

Startled, he swiftly folded his wings forward and wrapped them around himself.

W-why was everyone staring at him?

“That was excellent.” Lia smiled and applauded, praising him without reservation. “Absolutely wonderful!”

Clap, clap, clap, clap—

The other cubs joined in, and the applause thundered through the classroom.

Disio’s and Angel’s large eyes sparkled brightly as they gazed at Shu Li with intense admiration.

Their boss truly deserved to be their boss. Apart from speaking slowly, he was amazing at everything!

Suddenly becoming the center of attention made Shu Li nervous for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure. His delicate little face glowed with pride.

After being a hopeless student for so long, it was about time he became a top student for once!

Otherwise, he would truly be letting down the music teacher who had taught him for ten years.

Author’s Note:

Shu Shu: It’s time for my rise!