Concerning the Vanished Elves
Lusteria’s once-tangled hair, which had been in complete disarray over the matter of the missing elves, regained its smooth and neat texture beneath Neromeltia’s gentle and skillful touch, returning to its usual charmingly rounded style. While her hair was being tended to, Lusteria had been steeped in deep comfort, so pleasant was her master’s touch that she even wished time would slow down; against her will, her head began to nod drowsily. The uniform she wore still bore faint creases, yet overall it had recovered its original tidy appearance.
“My lord. If it pleases you, may I speak?”
“By all means. From now on, if there is anything you wish to say, do not hesitate. I have no interest in cumbersome formalities.”
Oun, who had intended to wait until his lord had a moment of leisure before reporting, had no choice but to remain quietly in place until Lusteria’s hair was fully arranged. He had planned to report what he knew only after his lord’s affairs were settled, yet Neromeltia not only granted him permission to speak but also assured him of the right to do so in the future. To Oun, who despised empty ceremony and impractical customs, Neromeltia’s words brought not mere satisfaction but genuine joy.
“As expected of my lord! Then I shall speak without reserve! Everything the future queen said is true. At present, the Caboni Forest and the surrounding Decastras Mountain Range are encircled by hordes of the dead.”
“W-wait, queen!?”
“No! … Me, of all people, a queen…!!”
More shocking than Oun’s report itself was the title he had used for Lusteria, and the intense reactions from those involved stemmed entirely from that unexpected form of address. Yet the one who had uttered the remark, Oun, merely tilted his head with an expression that showed he had no idea what was wrong.
“Is there some problem? Since you address my lord as ‘master,’ I assume you are still a servant, but given how highly my lord regards you, anyone can see you are the absolute candidate for queen, are you not?”
Indeed, the way Neromeltia looked at her adorable secretary was so sweet it could be described as dripping with honey, and Lusteria’s response was no different. To any observer, the two appeared unmistakably as lovers whispering affection. However, Neromeltia found another question in Oun’s statement and felt the need to confirm whether the ogre had misunderstood something.
“I am, for the time being, a woman.”
“…? What does male or female matter? It is said that heroes have always favored the company of women, so there is nothing strange about my lord taking a wife. Whether husband or wife, taking as many as you please would not be strange at all!”
“…You truly are a remarkable fellow with no prejudices whatsoever……”
Neromeltia herself belonged to the type who believed gender made no difference when it came to giving and receiving affection, but since ordinary common sense always assumed the husband took the wife, she had asked merely to check whether Oun had mistaken her gender. The result was that Oun was an open-minded individual free of prejudice, and Neromeltia found that aspect of him quite pleasing. There was a profound freedom in Oun that did not exist in the rigid and pedantic Crawford.
“Good. I like you, Oun. In any case, continue your report.”
It was the moment when Neromeltia’s impression of Oun, previously colored by his sweaty, muscle-flexing demeanor, took a favorable turn. She felt she could build a good relationship with him; as long as he did not wander about drenched in sweat or constantly showing off his muscles, there would be no other inconvenience. Of course, she also clearly understood that one should not expect too much from this mass of muscle called an ogre.
“The wraiths wandering the plains in groups are all composed of zombies. For some reason, they do not set foot in the Caboni Forest. According to legends passed down, they clashed repeatedly with Humian armies in the past, and when the Humians could not hold out, they erected barriers to confine the zombies, completely withdrawing from this region.”
Though it remained unclear why the zombies avoided the Caboni Forest, Neromeltia and Beatrice could see that their earlier predictions had largely been correct. It was possible the Humians, deeming there was little worth taking here, had abandoned occupation and isolated the area instead, yet it defied common sense that the Humian army, which had reduced the Demon Lord’s castle to ruins and occupied the Astaris continent, had failed to repel the zombie hordes and thus relinquished the region.
“In fact, the zombies encircle not only the Caboni Forest but also the Taego Forest located a little farther south along the Decastras Mountain Range, so the barrier the Humians built is far longer and more massive than one might imagine.”
“The Taego Forest—is that not where the elves reside?”
“That is correct. Of course, if the elves were still there, they would have benefited greatly from the zombies, but those frail, prideful fairies abandoned even their own homeland and fled. According to the words of our ancestors, they looked down on ogres who live only a few hundred years while claiming to live for thousands, yet in the end, they were the first to turn tail and run. It is laughable!”
Oun clenched his fists and voiced his unfavorable view of the elves. At the mention of the Taego Forest, Neromeltia’s heart began to churn with complicated emotions. There were elves in Hemonigent as well. However, they were dark elves, despised among their own kind, and by accepting the dark elves, Hemonigent could never maintain good relations with the elves. From the beginning, the elves had been highly exclusive toward other races and maintained an extremely overbearing attitude even in diplomacy, resulting in almost no friendly relations with any other species. They had distinguished their own kind solely by skin color, branding them with the derogatory name “dark elves” and exiling them. The exiled dark elves, branded as ominous harbingers of calamity due to rumors maliciously spread by the elves, had been unable to settle anywhere. It was Neromeltia who had accepted them, granting them both a place to live and the rights of citizens, and at the same time, Hemonigent’s already strained diplomatic relations with the elves had deteriorated to the point of complete severance.
Neromeltia herself had been so disgusted by the elves’ atrocities—driving their own kin to the brink of extinction—that she had wanted nothing to do with them, yet Terraris had now reached the verge of destruction. Though she wished she could say the elves could perish for all she cared, if they were still alive and seeking help, she felt she must assist them whether she liked it or not. If she turned away from those in desperate need simply because she disliked them, she would find it difficult to live with a clear conscience.
“Then are you saying there is not a single elf left in the Taego Forest at present?”
“…I do not know for certain. While the Humians are a problem, I have heard that the Taego Forest itself is dying from severe pollution. Since the elves are a race that lives by drawing upon the forest’s vital energy, once the woods began to wither from contamination, they apparently left in search of another pure location.”
“Foolish creatures. Instead of protecting their precious home, they chose to flee. With all of Terraris polluted, they have either lost their vital energy and withered away or become slaves to the Humians.”
Listening to Oun’s account, Beatrice openly disparaged the elves with a contemptuous gaze. Since Beatrice had spoken only with strength and coldness, and her words were not incorrect, Neromeltia felt no particular need to correct or point anything out. Given the elves’ usual overbearing attitude and strong pride, Neromeltia thought they would likely choose death over slavery, yet considering their timid nature—abandoning even their own forest despite their outwardly firm demeanor—she could also imagine them lamenting their fate and becoming slaves. If they had become slaves, they would have been taken to Esteronan, the last Humian city on Terraris, where they could at least live in the artificially clean environment the Humians had created; thus, even if abused and killed as slaves, they would not have to worry about dying from pollution. Setting everything else aside, without clear evidence of the current situation, it was difficult to guess what had become of the elves, and she could only speculate on the most probable scenario.
“In truth, we have not neglected to scout the Taego Forest. However, even from a distance, the forest appeared terribly polluted, with everything withered and dead.”
“Then there would be nothing alive in that forest, let alone elves.”
“…Well… because that could not be confirmed, we have continued sending scouts at regular intervals. We dispatch them once every year or two, but each time, the warriors assigned to the scouting mission become lost and wander. They say that instead of reaching the heart of the forest, they end up walking out of it again, so we know nothing about what lies inside.”
Neromeltia, Lusteria, and Beatrice all felt a clear conviction at Oun’s words. This was clearly not the testimony of people who had simply become lost by natural means. Most who had genuinely lost their way would offer clear reasons such as “I could not tell where I was” or “I wandered about unable to find a path forward.” When the unrealistic testimony emerged that they had suddenly found themselves outside the forest while walking, the answer was all but decided.
“It seems there is a magical barrier!”
“Yes. I thought the same, Lust.”
At the mention of a magical barrier, Oun’s face turned pale. It meant they had repeatedly sent precious warriors into an uncharted region inhabited by an unknown entity capable of using magic, and he could not hide his dismay. Whether a living being still remained to maintain it or an ancient spell continued to activate on its own was unknown, but the fact that the warriors had nearly been endangered remained unchanged.
“Shall we head to the Taego Forest first?”
“W-wait, my lord!! It is dangerous! Please meet with the baron first and hear the rest of the story before deciding! I cannot simply send my lord into an unknown and perilous place!!”
“…Baron?”
The six-hundred-mentol-tall giant who had frantically blocked Neromeltia’s path fidgeted anxiously, desperately trying to stop his lord. His feet shuffled restlessly, and even his massive hands trembled; the sight clashed comically with his enormous muscular frame, yet Neromeltia had to pay closer attention to his words. Having believed that only the ogre village existed in the present Caboni Forest, the sudden mention of a noble title like baron implied the presence of another race. Moreover, they had already met all the individuals in these villages who held plausible positions, and none among them could be called a baron, which only strengthened her certainty. The only titled individuals in the ogre village were the chieftain, the assault captain, and the internal affairs supervisor. Even their titles were things like chieftain or assault captain; “baron” was a designation entirely at odds with their culture in every respect.
“There is an orc village halfway up the mountain range, and there is an orc baron there! He is a disagreeable fellow who acts high and mighty despite his small stature, but he does know a great deal! He would be familiar with the Taego Forest as well, so let us go see him first!!”