Outlaws from the Southeastward
Outlaws from the Southeastward
At a glance, it seemed like the threat had disappeared and a lull had set in, but all that had really happened was that my encirclement had shifted from bandits to elves.
In fact, the situation was worse than with the half-assed bandits. I hadn't even known they were nearby. Maybe they'd approached in an instant using the spirit ground-shrink art Asilie had shown me, but whatever the case, they were still a danger.
There could even be more of them than I could see, and since I had no way of knowing how they knew my name or how they'd pinpointed me, if they turned out to be hostile I had to account for a whole host of risks and variables unfolding before me.
I was pretty damn sure I'd never done anything in my life to get stabbed by another race, but you never know, right?
"That's right, I am. And who might you be?"
That said, I had no intention of going in with my tail between my legs or trying to sound them out. I couldn't exactly hesitate to give my name over a reason like that.
At my confident attitude, the elf who'd asked my name twitched an ear in response.
"...You gave up distance without even knowing who we are, yet you admit your identity without hesitation. Isn't that a somewhat careless judgement?"
Huh? That was a very rare reaction.
The face barely visible beneath the hood wore an expression like someone watching a kid who'd just made a mistake. The nuance was clearly that they held the superior position, but... they weren't threatening me with it, and the air was more like they were pointing it out to inform me. It was incredibly subtle. What kind of people were these?
For now, since their reaction came with an odd sort of goodwill, I decided to offer a proper correction rather than argue outright.
"Not careless in the slightest."
"As a small token of thanks for dealing with the bandits, might I ask how you figure that?"
Correction. Not odd goodwill, but exceedingly courteous, moderate, and unmistakable goodwill. In that case, I ought to treat them accordingly.
"Because my needles piercing all of you would be faster than you aiming your bows at me?"
"...Needles?"
Pfeep. The moment I let out a short whistle, the needles shot up from my pouch and flew toward the elves in an instant.
I had absolutely no intention of hurting them. They weren't threatening me, they hadn't shown any aggressive language, and they'd even been courteous. I was merely answering their question by showing them the needles that had stopped dead right beside their heads.
"Say hello. These are my long-range friends, the needles."
Of course, to the people who'd suddenly found hovering weapons next to their heads without even being able to react properly, it probably felt like a threat, but though they were courteous, the friend-or-foe situation was still unclear, so they'd just have to see that much as a cute little prank.
Once I retrieved the needles, leaving behind elves who were visibly wound tight with tension, the elf I'd been speaking with opened his mouth again.
"Asilie met an absurd human indeed."
And at a name I had absolutely never expected to come up here, I was genuinely flustered for the first time.
"That one sentence just gave me a shitload of questions."
My head couldn't keep up, but reading the situation wasn't hard.
Asilie had contacted her people back home somehow, and they had come all the way down to the west to find me. That had to be it. The alternative was that among the elves up north, the ones who knew me had coincidentally come down west, coincidentally heard rumors about me, and run into me. The former guess was ridiculous, but the latter was even more nonsensical.
The problem was how that was even possible. Even if they'd used the elves' forest ground-shrink art for travel, they could communicate too?
"That's fortunate. We also have a shitload of things we'd like to ask."
Fortunately, because the other party was an elf and not an ear-ling, I could see a possibility of establishing a dialogue.
Once the elf who'd reacted to me unstrung his bow, the other elves eased their guard as well. And as they began to remove their hoods one by one, I realized I was surrounded not by classically delicate-featured beauties, but by beauties with rather formidable impressions.
For a split second I thought they were trying to show off their looks and turn me into a dumbstruck squid, and I nearly had to fight the urge to flick someone in the forehead, but I managed to hold back because the elf I'd been talking to offered a handshake with a gaze full of goodwill.
"One who has passed the trial, I am called Cellevian Rizlandes. Commonly referred to as a high elf. Ah, you might have heard this from Asilie?"
"Huh?"
"Asilie is a high elf as well. She didn't tell you?"
Huh. That was news to me.
◈
Because our group had suddenly grown by seven, the magic stone stove alone couldn't fill the space with warmth, and while the other elves built a campfire, the male elf who had introduced himself as Cellevian continued speaking.
His tale included bits and pieces of past stories that I had deliberately not asked Asilie about or that she had chosen not to tell me. Thanks to that, I finally learned how she had ended up captured as a slave and brought all the way to distant Itisel.
"In truth, it was thanks to her that we were able to stop and drive off those elf hunters. Though I hate to admit it, they were so highly skilled that we searched for her in every possible way afterward, but we couldn't find any trace of her, so we'd half given up."
Hunting, in a sense, was a very simple thing.
You just had to understand the target's ecology well, and either have a surefire method of ambush or be outright stronger than the target. In that sense, these elf hunters were in a completely different league from the ones in the fantasy novels I'd read in my past life, or the slave hunters I'd once beaten the shit out of.
Because elf hunters were humans at the aura expert level who valued money over honor and had switched careers for the sole reason that capturing and selling elves brought in an obscene amount of money.
With one or two such humans as the core, the bastards who moved after thoroughly preparing and supplementing their hunting gear were true professionals in that field. Just the fact that they captured and sold elves who could move through the forest using ground-shrink art in the first place made them far from ordinary sons of bitches.
If they'd put that effort into mercenary work, they could've founded their own damn nation.
Naturally, the elves weren't stupid braindead morons and didn't just get rolled over, but the more that was the case, the higher the price of a captured elf soared, so from the perspective of bastards whose eyes had already spun with greed, it only looked like the ultimate high risk, high return.
Asilie had been captured in the process of ambushing one such elf hunter group and killing the three bastards who formed their core. All three were said to be aura expert level, so not only her tribe but the neighboring tribes had all been grinding their teeth over them, and after days and days of aiming for an opportunity, she finally attempted an ambush and succeeded in killing the three, but failed to escape.
Judging coldly, no matter how you looked at it, that was a near-impossible feat for her skill level. She was a capable scout and hunter, a jack-of-all-trades, not exceptionally strong. She'd said herself that outside the forest, she'd struggle against even a single aura expert closing in with intent, so this was official.
Of course, conversely, it meant that inside the forest, she could chew up and swallow experts too. At the same time, it also meant that these skilled elf hunters weren't easy to kill, even though every single elf holding that kind of advantage wanted them dead with one heart and one mind.
In any case, years had passed like that, and then the word had suddenly come. To find me and bring me back. Their hero, whose very survival had been unknown, had abruptly made such a request, so needless to say, the tribe had been thrown into chaos.
"Honestly, even as we hastily assembled a party and moved, we were only half-convinced. It was only after seeing the earring that I became certain. It's truly a relief that you are alive and well."
Just like at the Imperial Academy, it seemed the earring Asilie had gifted me carried multiple meanings and symbols. Unlike Cellevian, who wore a faint smile of genuine relief, the other elves maintained a solemn silence.
"But specifically, what kind of people are high elves? You called them those who have passed the trial earlier."
"Ah, it refers to elves who have passed the World Tree's trials and received its acknowledgment. If I had to make an analogy... you could see it as being like a warrior who has passed mentally and physically grueling training and examinations."
"...Not like nobility?"
"Hahaha, we don't really have ranks like nobility."
Based on my past-life fantasy knowledge, I'd wondered if it referred to people bearing some noble blood or aristocrats, but they were closer to highly honored special forces. Who would've guessed.
"Of course, to us, it carries immense meaning. It is no different from being personally acknowledged by Asha."
"...That's a bit esoteric for me."
"That could be. It's a difference of races. More than that, I'd like to ask you something now. How did you come to meet Asilie?"
Twitch. The ears of the elves who had been maintaining a solemn silence just moments ago all perked up simultaneously.
Seeing that, a rational suspicion crossed my mind that they hadn't been solemn but had just shut their mouths out of boredom, but for now their reaction wasn't what mattered, so I explained our meeting as concisely as I could.
"...So, you fought the bandits who had happened upon the slave merchants who were transporting her after an attack by an unidentified group, and then freed her?"
"Correct."
It wasn't even a complicated story, so I'd wondered why he needed to summarize it, but Cellevian, who had been tilting his head repeatedly, asked again as if reconfirming while I kept my thoughts hidden.
"You were 8 years old at the time?"
"Yes."
When I answered readily, he looked me up and down this time and asked with a profoundly dubious expression.
"...And you're 15 now?"
"That's right."
I was on the big side, so that kind of reaction was understandable. Looking around, the other elves' expressions were even more so, not less.
But for some reason, Cellevian wore an even more serious face as he covered his mouth and pondered, then very cautiously threw out a different question.
"Well, it's been quite some time since I've interacted with the Human Race, so I might be out of touch, but... has the average lifespan of the Human Race decreased significantly...?"
"Compared to elves, it might seem like a moment, but I doubt it's decreased."
One old-timer living an ordinary life in Ogwen had been eighty years old, and he hadn't received any special treatment, so people lived to at least that age. Humans who trained in aura or Mana were said to live far longer, so they probably passed a hundred, right?
I pondered a topic I'd never once thought about since reincarnating and checked Cellevian's expression, only to find him with his eyes squeezed shut by now. Just as I was about to ask what the hell was wrong, his mouth opened laboriously and a small murmur escaped.
"Even for a member of the Human Race, as a mate he's a bit... I mean, isn't he awfully young...?"
...Big Sis?
Just how much did she tell them...?