The Eternal Darkness Descends
The elves of the Great Forest were spending another peaceful day.
True to their nature as long-lived beings, they were an unhurried people, and their lives had always been steeped in leisure and comfort. A century could pass without a single incident and they would simply shrug and say, Well, it's been quiet lately — that was how thoroughly at ease they were.
The biggest recent topic among them had been the Third Princess's enterprising schemes. When the still-young princess suddenly announced plans to venture into human territory, the elves had waved it off with fond amusement. Her Highness is still so green~ Elves around the age of a hundred often felt the urge to leave their stifling forest behind, and they figured the princess had simply reached that stage.
But once word spread that the Third Princess had steamrolled even the elders and was actively recruiting participants for a merchant caravan to infiltrate human lands, the elves stirred for the first time in ages.
Really? We're actually going to start dealing with humans? The question raced through the forest, and two camps quickly formed. One side argued that history and tradition alike made it unnecessary for elves to extend a hand first to such inferior creatures. The other countered that, well, a little exchange with humans might not be so bad at this point. The two factions clashed with considerable passion.
Of course, "considerable passion" among elves meant that the more free-spirited members of each camp gathered somewhere comfortable, sipped tea, and exchanged remarks along the lines of Does that sound alright to you? I'm not so sure… and Still, trying it once couldn't hurt, could it? In other words, pure armchair debate.
And while the two camps were busy airing their opposing views over tea, the Third Princess had already put her plan into motion.
Then, roughly three weeks after the plan began, an unforeseen catastrophe came barreling toward the Great Forest.
There was one thing Felix had failed to fully grasp and had overlooked.
The illusion magic enveloping the Great Forest did more than conceal the World Tree and the elves' dwellings from outsiders. It was also laced with a signal enchantment that would immediately alert them the moment anyone breached the boundary.
Which meant that the instant Tene set foot at the edge of the Great Forest, their identities had already been exposed.
Elves lived an average of a thousand years at minimum. That vast lifespan fostered a particular habit: nearly every one of them spent their lives honing some craft to its absolute limit through relentless training and research. Swordsmanship, archery, magic — they practiced without end. An elf of a thousand years, the sort who spent ordinary days brewing tea with nothing better to do, could still bare-handedly neutralize a dozen fully grown, armed adults without breaking a sweat.
And the Great Forest was packed to the brim with beings exactly like that.
Even so, there existed a creature that could make even such people foam at the mouth and topple over backward. A dragon.
The moment Tene crossed the Great Forest's border, the colossal wave of her presence slammed into the elves without mercy. Three hundred twenty-four fainted on the spot. One hundred three convulsed and seized. Fully two-thirds of the forest's elves went rigid with terror.
Yet among them, a few recovered their wits with remarkable speed — the great elders who had lived a comfortable three thousand years or more. They gathered everyone still capable of moving and launched a rapid defense.
The distilled essence of millennia of refined mana took shape and streaked toward the sky, followed by countless spells that embroidered the heavens in their wake. The barrage that poured down was so densely saturated with magic that a mere graze would have reduced most living things to dust. Even a Demon King of the demon race would have struggled to survive a direct hit from magic of that caliber.
And yet.
"Impact confirmed!"
"Well?! What happened?!"
"…Target still intact! Continuing descent!"
"Good gods…!"
"We're finished…!"
"The Eternal Darkness is coming…!"
"O World Tree, what are we to do…!"
Even after taking that entire storm of magic head-on, Tenebrix Nox continued lowering her altitude toward the Great Forest without so much as a scratch.
"K-keep firing! We have to drain its strength somehow! We must protect the World Tree!"
Even in that bleak and despairing moment, El Grisa Norton Zius — the third of the five fingers of the Elder Council — spat as he roared. He already knew magic was useless, but they could not simply stand there and take it lying down.
There's no way to know why the Eternal Darkness has suddenly awakened… but what I must do now is protect the World Tree's seed, no matter the cost! For that, this old man's life is a small price to pay!
"Listen well, all of you! We sleep here today! Before we go to the World Tree's side, resist with the pride of elves!!!"
Norton Zius assumed the other elders were already racing to fulfill their own duties. He understood this place would become his grave, yet he did not yield an inch, rallying the younger elves before him and shouting for them to hold the line to the end.
So long as the World Tree's seed survived, the elves would not be truly extinct. If they could only secure the seed and flee, the elven bond would endure.
Bolstered by Norton Zius's speech, the elves steeled themselves and clenched their staves until the wood threatened to snap.
"Second volley! Ready… fi—"
"WAAAAAIT!!!!!!!!!!"
An elf came sprinting in at a dead run and hauled Norton Zius to a stop just as he emptied every last scrap of air from his lungs to bellow the signal for the second barrage.
"Messenger from Her Highness the Third Princess— huff! Orders to cease fire immediately— huff!"
"…What? Are you certain Her Highness said that?"
"Yes! Huff…! Hah…! A-and…! She also said to temporarily drop the barrier and guide them in for a safe landing— whew…! That's everything…! Augh, I'm dying!"
The messenger, gasping for breath amid elves whose staves were already charged to the brink of discharge, finished shouting the remaining instructions and collapsed right where he stood, dragging in ragged lungfuls of air. Cold sweat soaked him from head to toe — proof of how desperately he had run to deliver the message in time.
"Uh… Elder? What should we do?"
"Do we shoot?"
"Nngh…!"
As the messenger's words spread, the elves aiming their staves at the sky wavered in place, neither firing nor lowering their weapons, waiting on Norton Zius's next command.
"…All units, cease fire. We follow the Third Princess's orders."
After a long stretch of agonized groaning, Norton Zius finally chose to heed the Third Princess and call off the bombardment.
The elves promptly lowered their staves — and exchanged looks of pure shock. So the rumors that the Third Princess had the Elder Council wrapped around her finger were true. Even previous generations of royalty had fretted and flinched before the council, yet here was Norton Zius, the stubborn third finger of that very body, obeying the Third Princess without hesitation. It was a sight that left them reeling.
"Clear the area at once, and warp the illusion magic so they can land here."
"Y-yes, sir…"
The elves who had stood down from the barrage busied themselves preparing to receive the black dragon — even as their legs kept giving out and their staves kept slipping from nerveless fingers.
…I-is it over…?
Once the relentless magical bombardment finally quieted, Tene slowly opened the eyes she had squeezed shut and mumbled to herself.
"W-wow, holy…! Whoa…! Hah, seriously…! I… ugh… wow…!"
"You okay back there? Sounds like your language circuits just got fried."
"Y-you— you you…! You wouldn't be okay either if it were you!! Without Tene we would've been dead for real!!!"
Behind her, Rosaria — who had been holding her breath the entire time — shrieked as though she never wanted to relive what had just happened. Magic had come screaming in like artillery shells, rattling eardrums and spinning vision into a nauseating whirl. If Tene hadn't tanked every last spell, they would have been reduced to powder before they could even open their mouths.
"But we had Tene. She's a dragon — magic like that was never going to punch through. Still, elves really do specialize in elemental magic, don't they?"
"You know, sometimes you're a real crazy bi— I mean, crazy bastard. I genuinely feel bad for Tene."
Felix only grinned as if he'd expected every bit of it, coolly analyzing the elves' magic. Rosaria stared at him with a dead-serious scowl.
…Huh? Look down there! That!
"What is it? Looks like they're calling us over."
"They just finished blasting us with everything they had, and now?"
At Tene's signal, Rosaria poked her head out and looked below. The dense jungle that had filled their view moments before rippled and shifted, revealing a broad plaza. Elves stood gathered there in a great circle, clustered as tightly as ants.
"H-hey. Shalle? Miss Shalle?"
"Mmh…? Mmh… sorry, Mom… I was wrong… mmh…!?"
"Snap out of it!"
"…Hah!? I-I'm alive, right?! I'm alive?!"
"You're alive, so look at that."
Rosaria tilted her head at the scene, then shook the drooling, unconscious Shalle awake from her sleep-talking stupor.
"Uh, um… that's the plaza in Helio Forest, where we elves live… Looks like everyone's gathered. But the illusion magic is down? What's going on?"
"So that means they want us to come down there, right?"
"Probably. They tried bombarding us, it did nothing, and we haven't retaliated, so I think they're calling us over to talk at least."
"Hmph! They should've done that before shooting all that magic crap! These bastards, I swear…!"
"Dear. We did drop in unannounced, and we brought Tene with us. I think their reaction is understandable. I expected something like this might happen, after all."
"Wait, Fa— Mother?! You knew?! About this?!"
Rosaria recoiled in horror as Freya calmly agreed with Shalle's assessment and admitted she had anticipated the whole situation.
"I already knew how extraordinary Tene is. And when most people face a terror they can't resist, they thrash for a moment before quickly falling in line, don't they?"
"I figured there would be a bit of a ruckus, but that we'd end up talking eventually. Still, they folded faster than I expected. I thought we'd get at least a few more spectacles like the one just now."
"…Did you deliberately not tell Shalle or that collapsed elf to contact them ahead of time?"
"If we don't give them time to prepare, we hold a much greater advantage, don't we?"
"…"
"H-humans…! So scary…"
C-can we go now?
Faced with Freya's utterly serene confession that she had planned all of this, Rosaria was left speechless. Shalle, for her part, finally understood why the adults had always warned her to be careful around humans — and her hands and feet began to tremble of their own accord.
"Well, we'll figure it out once we get there. Let's go!!"
At Darian's booming cry, Tene slowly reduced her altitude and began her descent.