Volume 12 Chapter 6 The Hardship Elf’s Tale of Adventure ③
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
When I crossed into the Realm of Man, I found myself deep within a forest. Of course, that was no accident—it was precisely because we elves had drawn the boundary here, pressing the Spirit Realm against this place. Convenient indeed. Another world it may be, but a forest remains our domain. To let intruders escape would be unthinkable.
”Earth Fairy—Gnome.”
At my call, a figure of soil rose at my feet.
”I pursue one who slipped through this barrier. Show me the way.”
The earthen form gave a small nod and began to walk. I had seen it myself: just before the golems fell, a gray-robed man slipped through a rift in the barrier. Likely, he was there to observe their experiment—only to be driven back into the Realm of Man when we struck back harder than he expected. That would be the obvious conclusion. And yet, there was something in his movement that pricked at my mind. Best to advance with care.
Revenge, after all, is most effective when carried out cold.
”Tree Spirit—Dryad. Be my eyes.”
The surrounding trees answered with a tremor of leaves. Now, in this forest, I had no blind spots. No matter how cunning humans pride themselves on being, facing an elf within the woods beneath the spirits’ blessing would never end well. And I would be sure to teach them that lesson thoroughly.
* * *
Led by the Gnome, I walked until the trees whispered to me of enemies ahead. So—they had raised a base in this forest. Dense woods, far from any village: the perfect place for criminals to fester. The fugitive must have lured me here to spring their trap. With the golems, they had hoped to butcher my kin. Failing that, they would drag me here to overwhelm me by numbers.
How insulting.
They had chosen to face an elf in a forest, blind to the folly. The Dryad showed me a clearing ahead, a small fort braced with soldiers upon its wall, crossbows and strange weapons in hand. Around the perimeter, more soldiers lay in wait, ready to rush me once I stepped within. A common ambush. Six on the wall, twelve hidden among the trees.
And they believed this sufficient?
”Tree Spirit. Earth Fairy. Wind Fairy—Sylph.”
With the spirits’ blessings, I strode into the clearing, longbow in hand—open, visible, deliberate. As I appeared, arrows and magic bolts whistled from the fort, and men burst from the bushes to charge me. But—
”Agh!”
”Guh—!”
”Wha—?!”
Stone hands burst from the soil to seize their ankles, vines coiled from the undergrowth to bind and squeeze, and all the while, gusts scattered the incoming arrows and spells.
”Now… it is my turn,” I murmured.
Arrow after arrow flew from my quiver, swift and true. Though I favored other weapons, I was still an elf, and archery lay deep in my blood. One by one, I felled them all until the clearing fell silent.
Too silent. Too easy.
”Weak… far too weak.”
The words escaped before I could restrain them. For all their resources to establish a base this deep in the forest, for all the might to breach our barrier and assail the village—these men, in combat, were pitiful. I could fight a hundred such foes and never falter. Even Soyuz and his girls were a greater terror.
So cunning in schemes, yet so crude in battle. The imbalance was maddening.
Unless… they were bait.
Expendable pawns, meant to lull me into confidence, to draw me into their stronghold for the true strike. That was far more in keeping with their style. Volodya would never have fallen to mere soldiers. No—I would not be deceived.
I cast aside my bow and quiver, taking instead my favored chain whip, and stepped toward the base.
* * *
Inside, the resistance was just as crude. A blade swung from a doorway, a barrage of spells hurled from a chamber. Tricks for amateurs. Against me, under the spirits’ protection, they were meaningless. Hidden blades deflected their strikes as my chain whip lashed out, Undine’s waters turned aside magic bolts, and Salamander’s flames devoured their chambers. Weak. Utterly weak.
And yet what stirred my fury was not their strength, but their weapons.
Devices that drew forth spirit power, caging it into tubes to be unleashed like arrows.
Spirit magic is no tool to be stolen. It is a bond born of years—respect, reverence, sincerity—by which we borrow the miracle of the spirits. To seize their power without gratitude, without devotion, to strip them as if they were mere resources…
That, as an elf, I would never forgive.
I once heard from Soyuz about rings wrought in the likeness of the Water Spirit, the Undine. They had been fashioned, he said, in much the same way as the relics I now pursued. I could not doubt they had come from the same hands.
In other words—this nest of vermin.
”This must be investigated thoroughly…” I murmured.
But I was an Elf, and this was the Realm of Man. Our worlds did not move alike. Though I had honed my craft in battle, I was but a fledgling in the path of an adventurer—barely ten years. To think I could investigate as men did was folly. Should I not entreat them for aid?
No—an adventurer, however green, must walk by trial. Growth could only be purchased through experience. I would test the limits of my own strength first.
For now, I resolved to seize several of these men alive and question them. I would take care, from here onward, not to kill more than I must.
* * *
Such were my thoughts then.
But when I had fought through the rabble and reached the heart of their den—when I saw that—I lost myself.
It was some sort of laboratory, I judged, devoted to Elves and spirits.
Within glass cylinders brimming with liquid floated Elves and Half-Elves, already lifeless, stripped bare, pierced by tubes that riddled their bodies.
Strange instruments of unknown design lay about, and from scattered jars spilled the hum of Spirit Power.
The humans working there turned at my intrusion.
Pale faces, thin bodies draped in white robes, hands fumbling at their tools. They broke like startled deer, fleeing, until I blocked the doorway. Then their fear curdled into simpering smiles, their eyes groveling, as if begging my mercy.
These are the ones…
The ones who twisted Volodya—my brother—into that form, who burned our home to ash?
Before my heart could form the thought, my body had acted.
When I came to myself, they lay as butchered carrion.
What vileness.
What degradation.
What—
This was hatred, pure and bottomless, the first my soul had ever tasted. Against it I had no shield. My chain whip had lashed of its own will, and now the chamber dripped red.
”That I should forget myself to wrath… less than a child,” I whispered.
An Elf’s first duty, as a friend to the spirits, is to master passion. Yet I had surrendered to it utterly. Lucia’s voice returned to me from the past: Your flaw is quick temper and swayed heart. A spirit will never trust you so. At the time I thought, You, of all people, dare say so? But now… how could I answer her at all?
Still—done was done. And from the chamber beyond, I sensed another presence, faint but alive. This time, I vowed, I would not slay.
* * *
I opened the next door cautiously.
The presence within was fragile, devoid of threat—perhaps sickness, perhaps wounds. Even so, information could yet be gleaned. I steadied myself and looked inside.
”…Never seen you before. What is it? You here to use me too?” a voice asked.
She was a human girl. Long black hair, dark eyes, her years perhaps in the late twenties by human count. She fixed me with a flat stare, as though I were no more than a stone on the path.
”Go on then,” she said bitterly. “Take my mouth, my sex, my ass—whatever you like. Just don’t hit me. Don’t hurt me.”
Her voice was drained of all hope.
And how could I condemn her?
She was naked, her limbs pinned by iron into a metal frame, her body defiled by countless stains. The manner of her “use” was all too plain.
This… this was beyond me. Even I could not…
At the least, I could give her rest.
”…Sandman,” I whispered.
From the void came a small spirit in the guise of a bent old man with a great sack. He scattered his dream-sand over her, and gently she sank into sleep.
”This Realm of Man bears burdens too heavy for me still,” I sighed. “Better to leave this to them.”
I drew off my cloak and covered her. Then I summoned a Wind Sylph, that I might reach Soyuz—my one reliable ally here. To him, I would entrust this charge.
For now, I could do no more.
Notes:
• Volodya – A mysterious and powerful elf, never seen by Soyuz before, who seeks to purge Lucia. He exudes killing intent and is strong enough to intimidate Soyuz.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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