The Knight from the Fairytales-Chapter 22: The Ring

The second exit was filled with silence. Beihai held Elsa's hand as they emerged once more, the scene somewhat similar to the previous time, though one had been in a shop while this was in a dilapidated shack.
Beihai grabbed Elsa's shoulders, preventing her from looking back, then knelt down to look at her. His expression showed self-reproach and pain.
He wanted to say something, but quickly turned his head away instead. Finally, as if having made a difficult decision, he spoke.
"Your father took a bag of money and left to find you a new home. For now, you'll be staying with me."
Though he didn't need to make such a misunderstood expression, Beihai didn't know what other expression to make either. After all, he had never abducted a child before - he hadn't even managed to take Little Red Riding Hood, so taking Elsa now was truly challenging.
Though this was quite unfair to Elsa, Beihai had no better temporary solution. He had originally planned to see if any king wanted a daughter during his travels, but such foster arrangements often led to problems.
In these kinds of stories, typically just a few years after adoption, the family would quickly have a daughter of their own, then the queen would become jealous, or her daughter would turn out to be malicious.
After much deliberation, he could only bring her along for now.
Elsa nodded blankly, her eyes filled with confusion - a kind of bewilderment about the future. She didn't know where to go or what to do.
To put it plainly, she had no ability to escape her situation. Whether returning to hell or being abandoned by the knight after he helped her, she had no choice but to passively accept her fate.
Even now, hearing about her father's disappearance, Elsa felt completely unsurprised. Instead, she reached out and grabbed Beihai's armor.
"It seems you've made your choice. I'll teach you how to protect yourself, like some martial arts. And since the world is so big, let's go see it together. You can return after you've grown up."
As for Elsa's father, Beihai really hadn't laid hands on him. Well, he had suffered some injuries, but they weren't serious.
Just some broken bones, and it wasn't without compensation - there was a bag of silver coins, dozens of gold coins, some life skills for living with disabilities, and some fruit tree saplings.
If the man continued his stubborn gambling ways, Elsa's father wouldn't survive the winter. But if he was shocked into changing his ways, he could survive.
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After just a few steps, Beihai was already regretting his decision.
Though he had essentially abducted this young girl, giving Beihai some guilt in his heart. What if this girl returned from her adventures to find her father reduced to a pile of bones without even a tombstone? Would she come after me with a knife?
Or what if she finally returned to see her crippled father hobbling on crutches? Would she seek revenge against me?
Ah, both scenarios are so troublesome. Well, what's done is done - not my problem anymore. With this time, I could already be invincible.
As he thought this, Beihai had already arrived at the palace gates. Two guards prepared to stop him, but soon changed their minds.
The massive city gate was kicked open with one foot. The two soldiers immediately shuddered and lay on the ground, using their hats to cover their faces while playing dead.
This was no ordinary human. With such meager wages, why would they throw their lives away?
The tremendous noise attracted other guards, who came rushing over. Some hadn't even finished dressing properly, running out while holding up their pants.
But when they saw the situation outside, they realized it would have been better not to come out at all.
Elsa watched in stunned silence, truly dumbfounded - mainly frightened. Only legendary giants could accomplish something like this!
The guards were quite straightforward too, "slipping" and falling to the ground, all claiming the ground was too slippery.
Thus Beihai walked directly into the palace unimpeded. As he walked, he explained: "I mean no harm. I come with good intentions, mainly wanting to meet your king."
While speaking, he approached one soldier and gently nudged him with his foot, telling the guy to stop playing dead on the ground - his acting wasn't convincing at all.
Seeing he couldn't keep up the pretense, the soldier quickly scrambled to his feet and immediately began lamenting: "Sir Knight, you've finally come to uphold justice! We've been waiting for you."
With these words, the other soldiers playing dead rose up one by one, gathering around Beihai and beginning to denounce the king's greed.
They made Beihai sound like some savior they had been desperately awaiting, watching for stars and moon, finally welcoming Beihai's arrival.
If Beihai hadn't just arrived in this wretched place with no ballads or bards spreading rumors, he might have almost believed them.
"Your welcome ceremony is quite special," Beihai commented helplessly. Surrendering so quickly offered no challenge at all.
As if understanding Beihai's sarcasm, the soldiers quickly began explaining. Apparently, there had once been a prophecy here, and a legend.
The legend said the king had issued a challenge: use the purest gold to fill an entire otter skin, without a single hair showing.
Then the king would marry off his princess. This challenge wasn't too outrageous, considering there was a princess who made shoes from flea skin and had people guess which one.
This seemed simpler than dealing with flea skin, but in reality it was extremely difficult. This particular skin was clearly special, like a bottomless pit requiring endless amounts of gold.
This caused many challengers to lose their gold. However, as gold was placed inside, the king didn't order it removed but kept it in the skin. With more and more challengers,
A psychology emerged among the people. Some wondered: could I be the next one?
What if I contributed exactly the gold I possessed, perfectly filling the otter skin?
Thus more and more people exhausted their family fortunes, and even wealthy individuals threw gold into it, yet the skin remained unfilled.
Just when everyone was at their wits' end, a particularly unique person arrived. He didn't discard his gold but instead circled the city gathering information.
He heard the story of a craftsman.
There was an exceptionally skilled craftsman whose specialty was creating various magical objects. He had a special ability to transform into a fish.
Once he dove to exceptionally deep waters and discovered a golden treasure vault guarded by water spirits. Initially just wanting to satisfy his curiosity, he never expected the water spirits would publicly mock his clumsy appearance.
How could this master craftsman tolerate such humiliation?
In a fit of anger, he stole all the gold. After returning, he used this gold to create a magical ring that would continuously multiply treasures for its wearer.
Hearing this craftsman's story, the challenger immediately realized this gold could solve the otter skin dilemma.
The challenger went to a waterfall, cast a large net, and soon caught a lively, jumping fish. After catching it, he immediately threatened:
"If you don't give me your treasure, I'll leave you stranded on shore."
The craftsman-turned-fish had no choice but to lead him to the hidden treasure cave.
Seeing the cave filled with gold coins, the challenger satisfiedly released him. But just as the craftsman turned away, a golden light flashed from his finger.
This made the challenger realize he had missed the most powerful treasure. No matter how much the other begged, the challenger forcibly took the ring.
This infuriated the craftsman, who trembled with rage and immediately placed a vicious curse on the ring: whoever obtained it thereafter would suffer terrible misfortune!
When the challenger presented the ring, the king's eyes immediately turned greedy and terrifying upon wearing it. Thus began this kingdom's nightmare.
The kingdom's warriors sought solutions, until finally a wizard gave a prophecy: "The king has been corrupted by his own greed into a powerful evil dragon."
Hearing these events left Beihai utterly speechless.
"That wasn't really a prophecy from the wizard, was it?
But this world is indeed not as simple as it appears on the surface. Mythological stories, no, more accurately, simplified into children's fairy tales."
Beihai pondered privately. Indeed, many fairy tales were adapted from mythological stories.
There were plenty of this type, with the most typical examples found in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales - opening the first page reveals The Virgin Mary's Child.
Those deities and such were truly written about, but interestingly, while such stories existed, the gods themselves didn't exist.
If they did, there should be churches, and if there were churches, there would be statues - these were the most basic elements.
Or faith itself. But this world had none of these, only similar stories.