Land of the Elves
Land of the Elves
Aslan landed at Wearbead Fortress and gathered his companions without delay, departing the barony at speed.
The land of the Elves was their goal, and the Barony of Werbid and every holding along the route or near the destination belonged to King Gerald or his sworn vassals. Swift movement wasn't a choice—it was a necessity.
The one mercy was that their mobility hadn't been compromised.
Their detection capabilities were equally superb. By hustling just a little, the party shook off any pursuers who might have clung to their trail.
Perhaps no one had ever intended to pursue them at all, but whatever the truth, no one followed.
They passed through the Barony of Werbid, crossed Henna's Isolated Wasteland and the Black Swamp, and drove north.
Their destination was Honningal Barony.
The very place where Aslan had released Fay when they parted—a cold fief clinging to the southern edge of the land of the Elves.
As they drew close to Honningal Barony, purchasing or foraging supplies from the farmsteads and villages they encountered, they met no pursuers whatsoever.
Given King Gerald's obsessive tenacity, that was strange.
The road was safer than expected. The tension bled away quickly, and the companions walked on in loose conversation, as if they had never been on edge at all.
When the falling snow had dusted their shoulders and hair white, Ereta turned to Aslan and asked,
"Will it truly be all right?"
Her naturally white hair shone even through the snow that had settled on it, and her pink eyes, soft with worry, made her look twice as gentle as usual.
She fixed those glistening eyes on Aslan, her fingers catching lightly at his collar as she asked.
He returned her gaze for a moment, then turned his head, embarrassed, and answered.
"It'll be fine."
The question and answer omitted a great deal, but the meaning was plain enough.
She feared the path they now walked might lead straight to death.
A perfectly reasonable suspicion from Ereta, who had once held the rank of high priest.
And it was the same suspicion Aslan would have harbored, had he not possessed the knowledge gleaned from the game.
Their road would take them into the land of the Elves.
A special place.
Normally, it admitted no one.
Not human species like Aslan, not even Dragon-kin like Tiyamal.
Only Elves and those whom an Elf escorted could set foot on that ground.
The entry requirements were forbidding enough, but beyond that, the land lay in a polar waste, nearly impossible to find.
A blank canvas of a land, left unfinished and pushed aside when Eternity and Night created the world in primordial ages.
An ice and snow desert where biting cold and driven snow painted everything white and stole all visibility beyond an arm's length.
The land of the Elves existed abruptly within that desolation, at the northernmost edge of the Northern Continent.
And there it was shielded and concealed by the divine authority of Nature and Creation.
No one could find it unless they pursued someone heading straight toward it, as the party did now.
That made caution against pursuit only natural.
Even in the game, pursuit had led to exposure—and the appearance of the Predator's high priest.
So Ereta's worry was understandable. But Aslan was not particularly worried.
The reasons were simple.
First: the Predator's high priest, the Dragon-king, was dead—killed by Aslan's hand and now part of his left arm and armor.
Second: that high priest was meant to be the milestone signaling the game's true entry into the mid-game, the first high priest the player faced. The very being who should have occupied that role had died at Aslan's hands before ever becoming a high priest.
No power could churn out that many high priests in so short a span. Whatever might appear now would be an instant priest, the sort Angie could handle alone, or at worst an ordinary priest.
That was why Aslan was not worried.
"It won't be a problem. If anyone were chasing us, Fay or Tiyamal would have noticed. I would have noticed."
No pursuers. When he added those words, Ereta looked unconvinced and glanced back over her shoulder.
There stood a pitiful Dragon-kin, shivering uncontrollably as the white snow beat against his body.
A Dragon-kin of two and a half meters, all towering height and heavy muscle, quaking in the cold.
The Master of the Bow, wrapped in every scrap of winter gear he owned and still sniffling about how cold he was.
Ereta took that in, then turned back to Aslan.
The gaze she had flicked toward Tiyamal was doubtful, and the gaze she now fixed on Aslan seemed to ask: do you really trust him?
Aslan could not help a small laugh.
When they had first recruited him, Tiyamal had been an irreplaceable source of heavy firepower—a reliable companion in terms of raw ability.
Now he was treated like an oversized fool.
A change that could be taken either way.
Aslan turned his head to look at Tiyamal, as anyone would.
Tiyamal, meeting his eyes, just shivered and let out a pitiful voice.
"Clothes... could I have more?"
Aslan ignored the pathetic request and looked back at Ereta. She gave a satisfied little huff of laughter.
In its own way, perhaps it was a positive change.
Aslan smiled faintly at the thought. Behind him, Richard promptly offered up a garment, and Angie scolded someone as she shared out clothing.
Only then did Tiyamal quicken his steps.
Leaving tracks in the snow that would not last, the party advanced.
Fay led the way.
Two short swords at the small of her back, a greatsword slung behind her shoulders.
The girl walked without any sign of strain while the largest member of their party shivered and suffered.
Her light dress rippled in the biting snowstorm, and her bare white feet pressed into the ground, yet her face bore not the faintest mark of pain or exhaustion.
In this respect, the land of the Elves truly was a place granted only to Elves.
Had Aslan's company lacked someone like Ereta who could command heat, reaching it would have been impossible.
In that polar hell where the blizzard stole all visibility, the Elf girl was complete unto herself.
Those unfaltering steps halted abruptly. Aslan heard her turn and call out.
"We're here! It's home!"
Home.
For every Elf, home meant the land of the Elves.
All that was visible was a world dyed white, a gray-tinted gust of driven snow, but the girl stood proud, hands on her hips.
As if she were boasting about her own house. Rumel watched the Elf girl and let out a voice thick with disappointment.
"...This is the land of the Elves?"
A polar waste where nothing was visible but snow and ice.
Rumel, who had perhaps expected a place of beauty that made one feel the greatness of nature, was openly let down. Richard, sharing the sentiment, spoke up.
"I see neither Elves nor land... Are you quite certain this is the place, Lady Fay?"
Truly, there was nothing but snow and ice. A white hell, by all appearances.
Only Angie, who had tamed the divinity of an Ancient God within her body, could see what lay beyond.
"What are you all talking about? There are Elves, there's land, there's grass and trees. How is this not the land of the Elves?"
The party turned to Angie with baffled expressions. Angie scolded them with her eyes, as if they were seeing things.
Then her golden gaze shifted beyond the blizzard.
"I'm going in first. Ugh, it's cold."
Before their gazes could catch up, Angie adjusted her pack and strode forward.
Into the thick, howling snowstorm.
Her body seeped into the white like a figure dissolving into mist.
"Huh?"
Rumel's startled voice.
Aslan watched the shock register on his companions' faces, and the moment they showed signs of understanding what they had just seen, he spoke.
"Let's go."
They offered no argument. They simply followed Aslan.
Into the savage blizzard that felt as though it would freeze them solid the instant they stepped inside.
And the instant they did, the world flipped behind their eyes. They set foot on ground thick with grass.
A peculiar land.
A barren waste where no life should have been permitted, set in a polar region that seemed deliberately excluded from the world, yet the grass that filled the ground radiated vitality.
Life force, impossible to suppress, scattered in every direction, displaying itself in countless forms.
Flowers bloomed on the ground.
Flowers of every kind and every size.
They blossomed so profusely and spread so far that it looked as if color itself had been poured out in long ribbons.
Trees grew at scattered intervals, each bearing different fruit.
The fruit, ripened to the point of sagging branches, shone with colors so vivid they stung the eyes just to look at them.
Those branches trembled in the breeze, and the companions felt warmth touch their skin.
"Ahh...."
Rumel burst out in wonder, brushing the flower buds with her hands. Thick fragrance scattered each time her calloused fingers grazed the petals.
"Well, this is... wow... this is... haah."
Richard stuck his head past the barrier and pulled it back again, over and over, tilting his head in wonder.
"From this moment on... this elder is an Elf. Ah, great flame... forgive your unworthy child...."
Tiyamal had shed his winter gear and was basking in the warm breeze with his entire body.
"Mm."
Only Ereta wore a faintly uncomfortable expression.
When Aslan looked at her, she hastily smiled, but the discomfort showed through in a quiver at the corners of her lips that came and went before she could hide it.
To Ereta, who carried the divinity of an evil god, the divinity flowing through this space must be unpleasant. Aslan guessed as much.
He observed her expression briefly, then reached out and stroked her hair with a few gentle passes before stepping forward.
Aslan took the lead, and Rumel, who had been peering around at the surroundings, murmured without realizing.
"So this is... the land of the Elves...."
The land of the Elves.
The place where Elves were born and grew.
Those words brought the party back to themselves, and they belatedly looked toward Aslan, who was approaching something ahead.
Ahead of him, a group of Elves appeared, following Angie and Fay.
Elves with hair the colors of flower petals, their eyes wide and innocent.
The faces that came peering forward without a trace of wariness were full of goodwill.
And beyond them stood an enormous tree.
Vast beyond measure.
Its height pierced the sky, its girth seemed to defy physical law—easily the bulk of a modest mountain peak.
Its sheer enormity was stunning, but something else was even more astonishing.
The tree was breathing.
Every time it drew breath in and out, a warm, gentle wind stirred around them.
That was divinity.
The mighty divine authority that sustained this space even after its creator's death.
The party realized what the tree was and stood aghast.
The God of Nature and Creation.
Creator of the Elves, one of the three Ancient Gods who had made the world.
The colossal tree before them was the remains of that nature and creation—the tree that gave birth to Elves.
With senses amplified by Luck and mana, Aslan could feel the blazing divinity wandering within it.
Nature and Creation, even in death, fulfilled its purpose.