Chapter 223
Chapter 223
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 223
Chapter Title: 65. The Deep Darkness is the Prelude to the Dawn Soon to Come (3)
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The arrogant High Elf couldn't accept his defeat right up to the end.
I could understand his mindset, to a degree.
No matter how sharp the True Dragon Sword of the Leonberger royal family might be, he must have figured a greenhorn who hadn't even lived a fraction of a fraction of his years couldn't possibly surpass him.
In truth, the sword's core had lived several multiples longer than this naive High Elf.
But I saw no need to point that out.
I simply snorted in derision.
Mocking the arrogance of a man who had nothing to his name but his age.
After ridiculing him at length like that, I delivered my verdict.
"Well. The match is over, so now it's time to honor your promise."
The High Elf's eyes trembled as if struck by an earthquake.
"My first demand."
I opened my mouth as I regarded him.
"Apologize."
At my unforeseen declaration, he widened his eyes in round astonishment.
He then demanded to know what exactly he was supposed to apologize for.
In lieu of a reply, I turned around.
There stood the pitiful Half-Elf, gazing at me.
"Gurne."
I called her over to my side.
And toward the High Elf, I invoked the victor's rightful prerogative.
"Your apology belongs to her, not me."
Gurne caught on late to the situation and waved her hands in flustered protest.
Opportunities to extract concessions from a High Elf didn't come often, she insisted. I should demand something long-term and maximally useful instead.
"No spectacle will linger in the memory longer than watching a High Elf grovel before a Half-Elf."
Gurne leaped in alarm at my words, pleading with me fervently to reconsider.
The High Elf fixed me with a rigidly frozen glare.
"Are you commanding a High Elf such as myself to bow before some mere Half?"
"You've got it exactly right."
"I cannot accept this."
"Don't mistake it—this is no request."
I reminded him of our pact.
"Refuse if you will. But know that what you'll forfeit won't be some flimsy pride; it'll be a fragment of your soul as the pact's penalty. Bear that if you dare, and I'll press the matter no further."
His features contorted in abject misery.
Hmph.
He whipped his head away and glowered at poor Gurne.
Killing intent poured from him in waves.
It was utterly contemptible—the sight of a loser who'd fallen to me twice now lashing out at the weak.
Blind to how it only made him look more wretched.
Grind.
After glaring daggers at Gurne for an age, he gnashed his teeth.
"I sincerely hope this Half-Elf is someone of import to Your Highness."
He spat that he hoped she was worth the eternal grudge of a High Elf.
His naked threat didn't make so much as an eyebrow twitch.
I merely prodded him onward with a glance.
Get on your knees and apologize already.
Swish.
The High Elf bent at the waist.
His face twisted in revulsion, as if lowering himself into a cesspit.
Thud.
His knee, bending with excruciating slowness, finally met the floor.
"S... orry."
The silver tongue that had rattled on so glibly now barely rasped out a single crude word.
I watched impassively, then unleashed my presence to crush him without mercy.
Overwhelmed, he crumpled from his half-kneel into a full prostration of atonement.
Gurne stared at the scene in a daze.
The emotions flickering across her face were so tangled, I couldn't begin to fathom her heart.
I could only hope it softened the terror High Elves had planted in her soul, offering some meager recompense for her years in bondage.
Gurne lingered there with that complicated expression for quite some time.
I waited in silence.
Letting her drink her fill of the arrogant High Elf's humiliation.
In the interim, the High Elf made several attempts to rise, only for me to pin him down harder with presence and aura each time—lowering him further still. At last, he abandoned resistance and simply waited.
Nod.
After a good long while, Gurne looked to me and nodded.
I couldn't say what she felt or thought upon beholding the High Elf.
But her rigidly tense frame had slackened, and the face she turned to me was its usual self once more. That was what mattered.
I reined in my presence and aura.
No sooner had the pressure lifted than he sprang to his feet.
"Now for my second demand."
His face was parched as desert sand. I stated it plainly.
"Nectar."
The High Elf, who'd gazed at me with an air of indifference after enduring sufficient shame, now stiffened like stone once more.
"You know what that is..."
"Of course. Your kind calls it the forest's blessing."
He growled in response.
"If you know what it is, then you know its value."
"Even for lofty High Elves, it's said to come but once in a lifetime."
"You think I'd hand over something like that?"
He was set against yielding the Nectar, even at the cost of his presence.
"Bear the pact's penalty if you must—I won't stand in your way. Just don't forget."
I bared my teeth in a grin.
"Refuse the Nectar, and my next demand will be something you could never withstand."
To the uninitiated, it might sound bizarre. But the intent was clear: I'd shatter your presence on purpose, so steel yourself.
Successive breaches of pact.
For an immature High Elf like him, the toll would be far from light.
He might even forfeit the capacity for that gaudy sword dance he'd flaunted before me. In all likelihood, he would.
His face warped in horror.
Yield it, and squander a spare life pointlessly. Refuse, and risk his vaunted presence in ruins.
Caught in torment, neither able nor willing to decide.
I elected to grant him a modicum of mercy.
"Offer the Nectar, and I promise the third demand will be comparatively straightforward."
A mercy too subtle for him to recognize as such.
He agonized over it far longer still.
I savored the High Elf's ever-shifting pallor at leisure.
"Hoo."
The High Elf finally exhaled a heavy sigh.
He rummaged through his possessions and proffered a small silver vial.
A diminutive vessel no bigger than a pinky finger.
My eyes went wide.
The material was no mundane earthly stuff.
A precious metal said to rival dragon bone in hardness—a mere handful enough to forge a sword of legend. The dream of every smith in the realm.
True silver, they called it.
I snatched the Nectar from his grasp.
Caressed the gleaming silver container over and over.
No doubt about it—true silver through and through.
Laughter bubbled up unbidden.
I'd demanded the elixir of rebirth, only to score true silver into the bargain.
What fortune was this?
I clutched the true silver and chuckled for a good spell before finally stowing it away.
Tucked deep in my bosom.
Lest the High Elf demand the vial back.
My request had been for Nectar alone; he had no claim to refuse.
Fortune smiled—the robbed High Elf seemed in no state to protest.
He simply stood there, face vacant as if bereft of the world.
"And the third demand?"
Only after an eternity did he inquire about my final request.
"I'll let you know once I've mulled it over."
I deferred rather than answer outright.
The High Elf breathed a sigh of relief.
Evidently grateful the calamity halted here.
But he'd come around soon enough.
Better to take the hit upfront.
I'd held back the third demand not from pity.
Simply to leave him fretting in suspense, ignorant of what was to come.
The pact would be fulfilled only after he'd suffered plenty.
"I'll send word when it strikes me. Off with you for now."
At that, the High Elf bolted from the scene like a fugitive.
Pride lost. Nectar lost. True silver lost besides.
What a pathetic departure.
Nectar in hand, I made straight for the king's bedchamber.
"I heard your palace in uproar and was just on my way."
I ignored the king's words and strode boldly forward.
Brushing off his quizzical stare, I shot my hand out like lightning.
"What outrage is this!"
The king belatedly resisted, but by then his outer robes and bandages lay undone, his wound laid utterly bare.
At the sight of the king's finally exposed injury, I let out a grim groan.
Skin rotted and festering into a grotesque ruin.
One hole meticulously sewn shut.
A glimpse through the seam of something blackened and necrotic within.
A wound too dire for words.
"You attended council in this condition?"
After staring long at the wound, I forced the question from the king.
"Intending to last another four months like this?"
The king offered no reply.
Only a sigh escaped him.
I hadn't awaited an answer regardless.
"In three days, I will treat Your Majesty's wound. Rest fully until then, enough to endure it."
Only then did the king speak.
"You've managed to procure that elixir, it seems."
"Fortune favored me."
"No mere stroke of luck yields a treasure called 'precious'—you must have labored greatly for it."
In truth, I'd wrested it from a gullible High Elf moments ago, but I held my tongue in the moment.
"Let that labor not be wasted on me."
The king regarded me evenly as he spoke.
"Divine medicine or no, will it grant me another century? Another half? All futile effort."
"Not futile. Ten years? Even one?"
As he moved to retort, I pressed on forcefully.
"One more day alive—live it as Leonberger's king, not some wretched invalid."
The king flinched and fell silent.
I met his gaze steadily, then departed the chamber.
From there, I sought the royal physician at once and commanded preparations to restore the king's vigor to its utmost over the next three days.
And three days passed.
I returned to the king's bedchamber.
The king slumbered deeply, dosed with the physician's prescribed draught.
I stripped away his upper garments and unwound the bandages.
In those three days, the wound had worsened markedly.
I eyed the abhorrent gash, then drew a prepared cloth from my bosom to bind the king's limbs to the bedposts.
Uncorked the Nectar vial.
Whoosh!
No sooner had the lid lifted than an ecstatic fragrance flooded every corner.
So intoxicatingly sweet, I swallowed reflexively before I knew it.
I snapped to my senses and sighed in relief.
Mark my words: had that High Elf ever uncorked it for a whiff, he'd never have surrendered the Nectar.
Presence be damned.
Its aroma was that fatally alluring.
Even I had wavered.
Though the true silver vial still held greater appeal for me.
The chamber's reek of death had vanished into thin air.
I drew a deep breath, then tilted the vial over the wound.
Half the elixir cascaded down.
The king's eyes flew open.
His gaze, dulled by the physician's anesthetics, flickered toward me for a moment.
Then rolled back white.
"Gaaak!"
A inhuman screech erupted from the king's throat.
I crammed a bundled cloth into his mouth.
"It'll be over soon! Just endure it!"
One hand pinned his thrashing form; with the other, I pressed his chest.
Mana surged from my heart, racing along my arm to fingertip.
Into the king it flowed.
I sensed the Nectar's savage energy rampaging madly through him.
I seized the wildly flailing force and wrenched it under control.
Guided it along.
The exact path a certain country boy had trod four centuries past.