111
Chapter 111
The Chief couldn't understand the current situation at all.
The intruder who suddenly stormed in had subdued not only the Sentry but all 12 Guardians of the Great Forest in less than 10 minutes.
He had even just blown up the World Tree in the most bizarre way imaginable.
That alone was already confusing enough to be unbearable.
For some unfathomable reason, the man who burned the World Tree stood before the Chief with a calm expression.
The tale of the foolish Alchemist who tried to break a branch of the World Tree and ended up rotting away entirely was well-known.
Merely breaking a single branch was enough to bring down such a Curse.
Yet that man had burned the sacred tree whole and received no punishment whatsoever.
And what was strangest of all,
'Why am I perfectly fine right now?'
Was the fact that he himself was completely unharmed.
The World Tree was burning.
None other than the World Tree was burning.
An existence indispensable to the survival of the Elves. Something that could be called the source of life had lost its form and been completely destroyed.
Yet he felt nothing.
The energy of the World Tree was still being felt.
And strangely enough, from that bizarre white-haired man.
"What on earth have you done?"
He couldn't grasp the situation at all.
What that bastard had actually done, and what nonsense he was spouting about saving their child.
That was why the Chief had asked the man, but.
"You're the one who should be explaining, not me."
The white-haired man said so and walked toward him. The man, who had somehow gotten right up in his face, suddenly grabbed the Chief's hand.
A sudden, unexpected action.
The Chief was about to yell what he was doing, but before he could, his consciousness began to fade.
A wave of excruciating pain.
The pain was so intense that everything before his eyes warped and distorted.
A bizarre and grotesque sound echoed.
Until the man released his hand, the Chief didn't even realize that the sound was his own scream.
The Chief broke into a cold sweat as he looked at his left arm.
The arm that had been perfectly normal just moments ago was now horribly mangled, looking as if it would start rotting at any moment.
The Chief recoiled in terror, stumbling backward from the man. But with his senses and body wrecked by pain, there was no way they would function properly.
He ended up collapsing ungracefully onto the floor.
The white-haired man, covered in blood, looked down at the Elf and opened his mouth.
"Our child's location—you told the Prince, didn't you?"
"That's...."
He could feel cold sweat running down his back.
The Chief felt like he was about to lose his mind at any moment.
The Bloodlust and hostility when the Prince was mentioned.
The ability to pull off something this irrational.
When he put those things together, there was only one conclusion.
Standing before him was Black Fang.
The Leader of Black Fang had come to them.
The Chief quickly racked his brain.
Resistance wouldn't work against someone capable of bringing down the Holy See. If he wanted to live, he had to come up with some kind of plan.
After thinking for a long time... he cautiously spoke up.
"W-We were actually threatened too. They said they'd kill us if we didn't cooperate...."
Black Fang was known for being kind and humanitarian toward the weak, even going so far as to support the Slums.
In truth, they had been the ones to actively initiate cooperation with the Prince, but he harbored hope that if he played the victim, they might be lenient.
However....
"Think carefully."
Before the sob story could even begin, the Leader of Black Fang spoke first.
"I've already used the disposable Predation Buff. There's no reason to stick to burning anymore."
Predation Buff, disposable, and such.
Words he couldn't make sense of.
But he could clearly feel the statement about having no reason to stick to burning, and the Bloodlust pouring down on him.
The Chief immediately grasped the gravity of the situation.
...He had been complacent.
Upon hearing the report that the man had even healed someone he had already killed, he had unconsciously let his guard down, assuming he wouldn't be killed either.
Standing before him was an overwhelmingly powerful being.
An overwhelmingly powerful being who could kill him whenever he wished.
There was only one course of action to take before such a presence.
"I-I'm sorry!"
He flattened himself on the ground and begged while confessing the truth. There was no way that man wouldn't see through his lies.
The only thing he could do was speak the truth with his own mouth and beg for forgiveness.
And so, the Chief revealed everything he knew, from the circumstances of how they came into contact with the Prince to the details of the ritual.
Just as he finished his entire statement....
His entire body began to rot away.
A hand pressing down on the head of his kneeling form. Through that point, he could feel all of his life force being drained away.
"Why...."
I clearly confessed the truth. I did exactly as ordered. I had no idea why this was happening.
The Chief asked the man, but.
"Telling the truth is one thing, but a punishment is still a punishment."
That was the only answer he received.
His consciousness gradually began to blur.
The old Elf had thus reached the end of his miserable life.
*****
Finishing the absorption, I felt the energy hovering around my body increase ever so slightly.
He was a guy whose thoughts were plainly visible on his face, incapable of even telling a lie.
It seemed the power he possessed was actually quite remarkable.
He was using the same Staff as the Elf Chief from 10 years ago, so he was probably the representative of the Elves.
'Well, it's a moot point now.'
He actively cooperated with the Prince and even tried to hide that fact. I had no intention of letting a bastard like him live.
I released my grip on the old Elf, now a corpse, and stood up.
I could feel their gazes.
The stares of hundreds of Elves keeping a wary eye on me from a distance.
And before long... one of them approached me.
I couldn't kill another one and waste the disposable Predation Buff. The one I had struck down once and healed.
It was the Elf known as the First Guardian.
"What is it that you want?"
Her tone was far more polite than before.
It was only natural, in a way. If she had any sense, she would have grasped how the current situation was playing out.
I answered the Guardian.
"Pay the price for what you've done."
"The price..."
"You're going to fight the First Prince so we can get back the Half-Elf you sold."
The Elf's face turned pale upon hearing my words. She spoke in a desperate voice.
"R-Right now. Are you telling us to turn against the Empire?"
Well, it wasn't strange for her to react that way.
The subjugation of all Demons and monsters in the Demonic Realm.
The ones capable of pulling off something like that so casually were none other than the Empire. If I forced them to face off against such an opponent, of course anyone would have that kind of reaction.
"That is... no matter how you look at it, that's too unfair. That's practically telling us to die!"
Sure enough, the woman before me said exactly that.
It proved she wasn't a Guardian for nothing.
Acknowledging their mistakes to some extent, yet arguing that death was too heavy a punishment.
After listening to that entire speech, I opened my mouth and spoke again.
"I know."
I know, alright.
It was essentially a meat shield role. Half of them would probably end up dead.
Thinking about it coldly, this was too heavy a punishment.
However....
"I know. But so what?"
What did that have to do with me?
Even if she were a pure Elf, pinpointing the location of a Half-Elf with mixed blood was never an easy task.
It required a long time, a complex ritual, and above all... it was something that could only be accomplished if 'everyone' cooperated.
Every Elf here must have cooperated in tracking down Ciel's location.
So why should I pass a fair judgment?
I despise these bastards.
Just as they had cooperated with the Chief's plan without caring whether Ciel lived or died.
I, too, couldn't care less about what happens to these shitty bastards, so I will drive them into the jaws of death.
I am no saint.
That blunt, absent-minded kid I know is far more precious to me than a bunch of Elves who sold us out without even knowing us.
"You seem to be misunderstanding something. This isn't a proposal. It's just a threat."
Without hesitation, I withdrew the energy of the World Tree.
Just that alone was enough to make the Elves start screaming and collapsing.
"You don't have the freedom to choose."
Obedience.
No other option was given, nor did I plan to offer one.
I declared as such in front of the dying Elves.
*****
"Hmm...?"
Engrossed in repairing the Holy Sword, Rob's expression suddenly clouded with doubt.
Just now. For a very brief moment. He thought he had witnessed something utterly bizarre.
However....
Upon seeing his foolish subordinate ruin a precious Artifact with a ridiculous mistake, Rob erased the doubt from his mind and ran to the furnace.
Well, in a way, it was an obvious result.
Because it seemed like the Holy Sword had briefly turned black.
Such an absurd thing couldn't have possibly happened in reality, after all.