How... Did You Know That?
"How... did you know that?"
The elf Mei was thrown into confusion.
Word of the World Tree Seed had already spread to the dark elves? That information lay behind a veil barrier Elder Yodri himself had raised; it was not the sort of thing that could leak. And Yujun had spoken of the World Tree Seed only moments ago. For the dark elves to learn the seed existed and come crashing down on them in so short a span was absurd.
"You don't need to know. If you want to live, hand over the World Tree Seed."
"What? You mean to fight us with your lives on the line? Are you truly set on seeing this through to the end?"
"We don't want a slaughter any more than you do. But if you keep refusing our demand, we may well have to see it to the end."
"...Do you even have the nerve to face what comes after? You can't be unaware that conflict between races belonging to the Alliance of Other Races is strictly forbidden."
"Which is why you ought to cooperate."
"...Why are you doing this?"
"Who knows."
After a few exchanges thick with feeling, the dark elf raised his weapon.
"We have the numbers. You there, human. Make the choice you know is right."
They had already declared themselves willing to kill even elves. A human like Yujun, they would cut down without a moment's hesitation. Which only made him less inclined to produce the World Tree Seed. He could see exactly what the dark elves wanted.
The moment I take that seed out of my inventory, I only put myself in greater danger.
So long as the World Tree Seed stayed in his inventory, the dark elves could not kill him on the spot.
"Shut up, Gerihil! I don't know how you learned of it, but I will never hand over the seed!"
While Yujun was still weighing his answer, Mei spoke first.
"Is that so? I did warn you."
With that, the dark elf called Gerihil kicked off the ground.
Even to Yujun's eyes the speed was tremendous, and Mei and the other elves had no hope of tracking his form. In an instant Gerihil was in front of one of them, and he drove a dagger into the abdomen.
Thuk!
"Aaaagh!"
The elf collapsed, clutching his stomach. Gerihil planted a foot on his back and leveled the dagger at another, and the elves stumbled backward in a rush.
"Do you truly want to watch your own kind die?"
Gerihil shouted it.
Fwit! Fwit!
The two remaining elves loosed arrows, but two flicks of Gerihil's dagger sent them spinning away with contemptuous ease.
This isn't even a fight.
Yujun realized Gerihil's martial strength was on a level the elves here could not begin to match.
Can I beat him?
The dark elf called Gerihil was well equipped, too.
He's probably around level 200.
What Yujun could rely on now was his items, and his stats, to a point. The Primordial Player title's twenty-five percent amplification to all stats was nothing he could afford to dismiss.
I really might die.
Tension drew sweat into his palms. Eyes fixed on the front, he spread the 176 unallocated stat points evenly across the board.
Now I just have to hold out for three minutes, somehow.
He was wearing the full Frenzied Armor set, whose attack and defense rose by a percentage once three minutes had passed after Combat activated. The effect was powerful enough to overturn a cornered fight, and already a minute had gone by since a dagger had glanced off his armor.
A little under two minutes left, then.
The armor the dagger had scraped was unscathed. The blade the dark elf had thrown had failed to pierce the Frenzied Armor's defense.
I can do this.
Confidence settled over him.
That was when Gerihil set his dagger against the throat of the elf he had stabbed in the gut.
"I'll give you ten seconds. Human. Hand over the World Tree Seed."
Yujun's face twisted.
Why the hell are you screaming at me?
He was the one holding the World Tree Seed, so there was no helping it. The two elves looked at him with pitiful eyes.
"Wait a moment. I'll take it out."
Yujun sighed and reached into the inventory that had opened in the air before him. Gerihil and the other dark elves watched with sharp eyes, daggers already drawn, looking ready to throw at any instant.
He took out the World Tree Seed.
At a glance it looked ordinary, but the dark elves, standing not far off, recognized it at once.
"No mistake."
"So the human had it."
"Tell that one the item is confirmed."
"Understood."
One of the dark elves vanished.
There was Gerihil's confidence again. The situation was hardly resolved, and still he was sending one of his own elsewhere. He would not act like that without considerable faith in himself.
"Human. Set it on the ground."
"And who's guaranteeing my life?"
"I keep my promises."
"I'm sure you do."
"...You doubt me?"
"And I shouldn't? You look suspicious from a mile off."
Abandoning the elves and siding with the dark elves was one option. But his relationship with them was already skewed. Getting out of this and making for the entrance, where the elves were many, was the best course available to him now.
"You'd do better to come along quietly while you're still more or less in one piece. Coughing up the World Tree Seed with your limbs already cut off would be a rather miserable end, don't you think?"
Gerihil's threat was vicious.
Even so, he could not simply hand the seed over.
"What do you intend to do with the World Tree Seed?"
"A human has no need to know."
"Still, I'm the owner of the item. You could tell me that much, couldn't you? Will telling me make it spoil? Where, exactly?"
"You're far too at ease. Confident in your skill, are you?"
Gerihil's eyes narrowed.
"Not really. It just feels like a raw deal to give it away for nothing. I haven't gotten anything out of this."
"Fine. Hand over the seed, and I'll press a few high-grade items into your hands. Will that do?"
"No. That's a bit short."
"...Ha. This is hardly the time to get greedy."
"Sorry. But I'm not giving you the seed."
"..."
An abrupt reversal.
Time's up.
Three minutes had passed since the first attack. A faint smile touched Yujun's lips.
I've dragged this out as far as it'll go.
From his inventory he drew Skunk's Dark Cloud.
◈ An item crafted by the alchemist Viter. The moment the flask is shattered, a great volume of smoke billows forth. The smoke does not disperse, and it persists for a long time.
He returned the World Tree Seed to his inventory, then hurled Skunk's Dark Cloud to the ground.
Crash! Hsssssh—
The glass flask shattered, and thick smoke swallowed everything around them. The item's effect was considerable: the whole area filled in an instant, so dense that even what lay directly ahead was hard to make out.
Caught utterly blind, Gerihil flung a dagger at Yujun in a panic and charged. Yujun dodged the thrown blade, then produced the Scentless Apple and swallowed it in one bite.
His body was already completely hidden by the smoke. If his presence and his scent were erased as well, Gerihil would have no way to find him. Yujun put a good distance between himself and where he had been standing.
"You vile human!"
And who was calling whom vile?
Gerihil, a dark elf with keen senses, put absolute faith in those senses. So even with Yujun right before him, presence perfectly concealed, he believed Yujun was somewhere far off.
Slipping behind Gerihil, Yujun thrust his sword out with everything he had. The blade punched through the dark elf's head, and Gerihil died an empty death.
So killing other races raises my level too.
The rule from War of the Gods—that one's level did not rise from killing one's own kind—seemed to be holding. He had killed a dark elf. There was no turning back now.
Yujun decided to make a complete enemy of them.
He broke into a run. Thanks to the Scentless Apple, he made no sound at all, and the remaining dark elves, no different from Gerihil, never noticed him closing in. Without hesitation he swung his sword at their necks.
Thuk! Shk! Shk!
Before they could even react to the sound of their own being cut down, he had finished all three.
For all their noisy entrance, the end was rather hollow. It had happened because they had underestimated Yujun for his low level. Of course, Gerihil and the dark elves had reason to let their guard down—the gap in level had been that stark. But what was done was done. The dark elves were dead, and there was no one left to blame.
Yujun approached the unconscious elf, took out a mid-grade potion, and poured it over the wound. He had quality potions to spare, and there was no need to be stingy with elves he would have to get along with from here on.
The two still standing were taut with tension in the thick smoke, glancing frantically in every direction. When he came right up to them, Mei startled and backed away.
"It's me."
"Y-Yujun? You're alive? What about Gerihil?"
"I killed them all."
"...You killed them?"
Mei's eyes went wide.
"R-Really?"
"Yes. Talking any further didn't seem like it would get through to them. Was that wrong of me?"
"No... They were the ones who tried to kill us first, so you did the right thing. Anyway, thank you. We're alive because of you."
"Hey! Senia's in danger!"
One of the elves cried out, voice urgent.
"I've already treated her."
"...Treated her, too? How?"
"With a potion."
"You had a potion?"
"Yes. Lucky timing, as it happens."
"Thank you so much! We haven't done anything for you... I feel bad that we only seem to be on the receiving end."
"Not at all. Letting me into the mine is more than enough."
Yujun said it with a smile. It was not a smile that rose from the heart. He simply thought it would be wise to leave the elves with as good an impression of him as possible.
There may come a day I need to borrow the strength of the Alliance of Other Races.
The elves held considerable power within that alliance. The problem was that he was now on course to make enemies of the dark elves.
He had heard they were not originally a race of ill nature... and yet they had been aggressive to a strange degree. There might be some hidden hand he knew nothing about.
Great. All I've done is make enemies for no good reason.
One of them had already gone to report on the World Tree Seed. He would certainly have described Yujun's appearance, so maintaining any good relationship with the dark elves was off the table.
It would have been the same even if I hadn't killed them.
Once the unconscious elf came to, Yujun slipped out of the smoke with the others.
"By the way... what is this smoke? Did you do this, Yujun?"
Mei asked.
"Yes."
"You have so many strange things."
"That's my master's doing. He's an eccentric, so he collected all sorts of oddities."
"I really am curious who he is. It's strange that someone of that caliber isn't better known."
"He never much cared for fame."
"Wow..."
Yujun gave an awkward laugh. Talking about a person who did not actually exist left him with a peculiar feeling.
"What should we do? Dark elves attacking like this is no ordinary matter."
"We should go back and report at once. The mine entrance isn't far... that would be better, wouldn't it?"
"Finding my master's belongings comes first for me... Shall we part ways here for now?"
"But..."
The elves hesitated. They had been ordered to watch Yujun closely and stay with him. Yet they could not ignore the matter of the dark elves either, and so they were caught, unable to do either.