Land of the Elves
Land of the Elves
Night fell, and the moon rose to cast its light across the party.
Their shadows stretched long under moon and firelight, sprawled in a chaotic tangle, and within that chaos lay an unfamiliar comfort.
A tranquility found only in camp. The kind of ease no ordinary band of civilians or mercenaries could ever afford.
And in the midst of that ease, a Dragon-kin with crimson scales let out something close to a sigh.
"...Turn into an Elf?"
"Yes."
Tiyamal's voice carried disbelief and shock.
He knew well what Elves were. His reaction was simple on the surface but threaded through with genuine alarm.
Not without reason.
Richard seemed equally unsettled. After a moment's hesitation, he asked with an awkward expression,
"If you turn into an Elf... is there any real problem with that?"
"Such as?"
"You know. The body gives out and dies, or the person themselves changes into something else...."
"None of that. You just... become an Elf while remaining who you are."
Elves were creations of Nature and Creation, a race without the capacity for reproduction.
All of them bore the appearance of young girls — that was their defining trait.
They had no distinct gender. If one had to assign one, they were all female.
So long as their feet touched the earth, they could regenerate endlessly. Any wound short of instant death would heal.
They needed neither food nor sleep. They required no rest. Elves were a race that verged on immortality.
On the face of it, becoming one sounded like nothing but gain.
Judging by Richard's grave expression, he seemed to hear it that way too.
He was probably worrying whether his betrothed, Maria, could maintain her standing after her father King Gerald underwent the transformation.
But that concern was unnecessary.
There was a reason Aslan was so willing to offer this reward — and why he, with so little lifespan remaining, had no intention of taking it for himself.
Namely: the Elf Transformation reward was a trap.
In the game, it was considered one of the trap rewards.
The reason lay in Elven nature.
Fay was one of the only exceptions, and even she was not entirely free of it.
Elves — children of Nature and Creation, sprouted from the god's remains — were, barring extreme anomalies, beings of absolute goodness and peace.
They trusted others readily. They could not bring themselves to suspect anyone. They took joy in giving joy to others as if it were their sole purpose.
Naturally, all capacity for struggle had been excised from them.
Fay was called the Fighting Elf for a reason.
In all the long history since Elves first appeared, she was the only Elf who had ever been able to fight.
For that reason, even in the game, undergoing Elf Transformation led straight to an ending.
A bleak ending where you abandoned your divinity, lived blissfully as one Elf among many in the Land of the Elves, and met the destruction when it came.
It held no benefit for Aslan.
So he could concede the reward without hesitation.
When he gave Richard a reassuring shake of his head, Richard's blank face remained unchanged as he scratched his cheek.
The crackling campfire tried to carve somber shadows across that face, but Richard's characteristic vacant air nearly erased any such effect.
Aslan glanced at that blank face, then picked up a piece of firewood at his feet and thrust it deep into the flames.
"Aslan, isn't that hot?"
A hand sheathed in black scales. It resembled a Dragon-kin's hand more than a human's.
When it emerged from the fire without a single scorch mark, the Elf who had been resting her deep crimson hair across Aslan's lap had already opened her eyes and caught his wrist.
"No. Not hot."
"That's amazing. Can Fay touch it?"
Contrary to the request for permission, a tiny hand immediately crept over and enclosed his.
Left to her own devices, the small Elf girl cradled the black-scaled hand against her chest, kneaded it gently, then rubbed her cheek against it.
"It's hard."
A soft laugh escaped her. Aslan's lips curled slightly in answer, and Fay closed her eyes, cheek still pressed to the Dragon-king's hand.
She had no need for sleep, yet she tried to rest when the others did. She needed no food, yet she joined every meal. The little Elf's motivations were inscrutable.
Aslan felt no urge to disrupt her rituals. After a moment, he lifted his head.
The party was gathered around.
Aside from Richard, who always slept little, and Tiyamal, who had volunteered for watch duty, the rest were women lost in slumber, their breathing soft and steady.
There was an old man who should have been here. Aslan felt the absence of that empty place with some regret.
As his gaze wandered vacantly over the vacant spot, the young man leaning back against the piled supplies spoke up.
"So, what exactly do you mean to do?"
"About what?"
"After we reach Teveri."
Teveri. At the sound of the name, Aslan lifted his eyes to the sky.
It was clear, free of Nechagni's bitter cold, yet thick with a faint humidity.
Two weeks had passed since they left Nechagni. The party was now in a nameless forest on the road into the Kingdom of Bida.
A marsh-wood not far from the Sanctuary of Sorrow. Aslan swept his bare hand through the grass, still damp from recent rain, and smiled faintly at the vivid sensation against his skin.
"First we'll need to get on a ship."
Tiyamal's face went pale at the mention of a ship, but Aslan paid it no mind.
Teveri.
Also known as the Shadowless Royal Capital.
This royal capital was one of the rare ones — a resplendent capital seated upon an island.
Thanks to advanced magical engineering and technology rivaling that of Belus, the island was perpetually wreathed in bright light.
King Gerald, ruler of the Kingdom of Bida, would be waiting for Aslan's party in that capital's deepest palace.
Which was why Aslan assumed securing passage on a ship was the immediate priority.
"No, not that. After that. When you meet the king, what's your move? And how do we get out? Those things."
That wasn't what Richard had meant. He shook his head and clarified.
"I suspect he'll try to take a companion or two as hostages... I think we need a plan for that."
"...Would the king of a nation really do such a thing?"
Tiyamal's voice was incredulous. The Dragon-kin, wrapped in a blanket, looked to Richard, who shook his head again.
"No — it's precisely because he is a king that he would. I... know a bit about that bastard."
"You know about him?"
When both Tiyamal's gaze and Aslan's turned toward Richard, he nodded with a slightly displeased expression.
"He's the one who killed my mother."
Richard's mother, who had died in the course of some power struggle. A woman of Baramunz warrior stock.
The claim that King Gerald had been the root of that struggle was hardly surprising — even if he hadn't dealt the direct blow.
Aslan studied the gray eyes that still betrayed a trace of that old hatred. Richard exhaled and rubbed his face.
The information was unexpected.
"Anyway... from what I know, he'll definitely try it, so we need to prepare...."
"I know."
Though it was information Aslan already possessed.
At Richard's puzzled look, Aslan said simply,
"I once took a commission from King Gerald. I've dealt with him before."
His gaze dropped, then flicked toward Ereta, who lay curled not far from the campfire.
Translucent skin and pure white hair. Stray strands clung to her skin in a disheveled snowfall of white.
There was likely a connection. But he had no intention of casting blame.
Priests hunting Aslan was practically a given by now.
Still, just looking at Ereta's face brought the events of that time back with painful clarity.
Giant spiders closing off every escape route, setting everything ablaze. Fanatics mounted atop them, and a priest gripping a hand axe.
Without Fay at his side, he would have struggled to get out alive. With her help, he had killed the priest and escaped.
"Gerald sold me out to the Cosmic Inevitability right around the time the commission ended. He didn't even pay the reward. I've known he was a cunning bastard since way back."
"That's right. It was annoying."
Fay spoke up, her eyes open. Her blue-violet gaze was devoid of emotion. She couldn't empathize even with her own past, so to the Elf girl, what happened before was simply what happened.
"Will he try it again this time?"
Fay turned her head and asked. Aslan rubbed his chin with his free hand, then nodded.
"Probably. But this time he won't be able to be that blatant about it."
What happened back then had only been possible because the faction of the Cosmic Inevitability was still at full strength.
Now that the faction was severely weakened and the Three Evils were no longer what they had been, they couldn't orchestrate the same kind of massive ambush.
"He'll still try to take hostages, though."
"...Then shouldn't we do something about it?"
Richard's voice was agitated. He clearly didn't understand Aslan's indifferent response.
"I have methods. You don't need to worry about it that much."
Richard's expression remained heavy with concern, but Tiyamal waved a hand, drawing his attention away.
"Stop fretting. When this bastard talks with that much confidence, there's only ever been one thing that went wrong."
The Veil of Compassion incident, back when they were heading toward the City of Mages. The remark was clearly a reference to that, so Aslan quickly changed the subject.
He drew Richard's attention away from his still-anxious expression and spoke.
"Anyway, after that it's simple. We slip away, head to the Land of the Elves, and retrieve the Seed of Elf Transformation."
He said it as though there was nothing to worry about. Richard nodded, still somewhat dazed.
"But Fay thinks it's a little disappointing."
Fay, who had been resting her head on Aslan's lap, suddenly spoke.
The three who were awake turned to look at her. The Elf girl wore a mischievous smile.
"That thing — Fay wants to feed it to Aslan."
That thing.
The Seed of Elf Transformation.
It amounted to saying she wanted to turn Aslan into an Elf. Aslan's expression twitched into bewilderment. He made a small, questioning sound.
That had come out of nowhere.
Was it because his lifespan was running out? As he looked down at the Elf girl with that thought, Fay simply curled her lips upward, still using the Dragon-king's arm as a pillow.
What surfaced in her blue-violet eyes was something close to obsession. Wearing that obsession, the girl smiled.
A soft, secret smile. The Elf girl, her blood-red twin-tails spilling loose, buried her mouth in the blanket and murmured,
"If Aslan becomes an Elf, he can play with Fay forever! That would be nice!"
Plenty of other things would come to an end as well, but Fay didn't seem to mind.
He wondered if it was a joke. It wasn't.
Aslan had distinctly heard Fay refer to herself as "Fay."
Her speech only took that form when the little Elf was being entirely sincere.
As he hesitated, unsure how to answer, the Elf girl turned slightly and gazed up at him.
The dark emotions seething in her blue-violet eyes sent a chill of sweat down Aslan's brow.
With effort, he smiled. A flustered smile, as he stroked Fay's hair.
"...No. I'll pass."
It would make him happy in a certain sense, perhaps. But that wasn't the direction he wanted his happiness to take.
Fay pouted her lips in disappointment and smiled. The night wore on that way.
The next day, the party reached Wearbead Fortress, where they could find a ship bound for Teveri.