Chapter 151
Chapter 151
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Reward
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Having stored the staff in my inventory, I returned to where the carriage had been.
The situation here had also been sorted out.
"We took care of all the knights and soldiers... but we missed the mages...."
Luna said apologetically.
"Those bastards tore up their precious teleport scrolls."
Ayla grumbled.
I had missed them too, so I had nothing much to say.
Things in the world never go exactly as planned.
I had somewhat underestimated mages.
No, it wasn't underestimation. How do you stop teleportation?
You have to kill them before they can activate it.
Especially since Absolute Shield was tougher than I'd imagined.
Breaking it wouldn't have been an issue with enough time, but if they escaped in the meantime like they did, there was no answer.
Still, they couldn't spam the shield; its duration was short, and one of them even lost an arm at the end....
"Absolute Shield is an advanced spell that only an 8th-circle grand mage can properly use. That mage was pushing it pretty hard."
Luna, knowledgeable in magic, kindly explained.
"Oh, are you okay from that lightning strike earlier? It seemed like pretty high-level magic...."
Ayla's worried expression was adorable, so I pulled her into a hug by the waist.
"W-what are you doing in a place like this!! I was genuinely worried about you!"
Ayla's face flushed red, but she didn't actively push me away.
A short distance away, I saw Ember happily reunited with her friend.
I had originally planned to wipe them all out and bury them, but the mages got away. Still, since we rescued the elf, it was half a success....
A quiet stone chamber shrouded in darkness.
A brilliant light burst forth, and two men emerged from within.
The chamber's lights automatically turned on.
"Marquis, where is this place?"
"It should be Phaez's safe house..... Urk!!!"
Marquis Alex collapsed to the floor, vomiting blood.
"Marquis!"
"Damn it, the ring's damaged."
Both had suffered internal injuries and would need time to recover.
"That guy was..."
"Even the Tower Lord couldn't overwhelm the two of us so one-sidedly. He's a Transcendent."
Kyle gasped at the word Transcendent.
"A Tr-Transcendent? The one from the Empire...?"
The Transcendent from the Empire.
Even their gender and age were veiled in mystery.
Kyle had only heard rumors.
Some said it was a false rumor spread by the Empire.
"Yes... that Transcendent."
"The Empire tried to assassinate us...?"
"We're not valuable enough to warrant a Transcendent's involvement. I thought the elves had no Transcendent... Is it someone connected to the elves? But their build was too large for an elf."
"An elf?"
"Yes. I just hope there's no deep connection to the elves. If there is, the kingdom could be reduced to ashes."
"Th-that serious...?"
"Yes, that's what a Transcendent is. Thinking about it, maybe it's not that deep. If it were, Erpu wouldn't have stayed intact this long.... Maybe they just passed by and got tempted by the elves? I'd prefer that."
"Marquis Alex, your arm..."
"Damn it... I can just ask a priest to regenerate the arm. The arm's not the problem.... I lost that damned staff.... Unbelievable. Where did that monster come from...?"
Marquis Alex had invested enough gold in that staff to buy a territory.
And he lost it.
His stomach churned at the thought.
It had a tracking spell, but if that guy took it, he wouldn't even dream of retrieving it.
Just thinking about remaking the staff made everything go dark for Marquis Alex.
Luna took a leaf from her bag, placed it on her forehead, and removed it.
The leaf glowed white and scattered.
It seemed like she had contacted the elves.
"I think we should escort the kids to near the elves' forest."
Ember said it was fine, but Ayla and Luna still seemed worried.
It was a hassle, but in the end, I accepted their opinion and had to backtrack the way we came.
Honestly, I wasn't without expectations for a reward.
Still, the fresh chatter of the two young elves, now free of worries, made the return trip anything but boring.
Outskirts of the elves' forest.
We sat around a bonfire, waiting for whoever was coming to pick up the elf girls.
"Is Lady Ayla in a relationship with Lord Un-ho?"
Ember seemed relieved after rescuing her friend.
Even asking such pointless gossip.
"Th-that's..."
Ayla's face turned beet red at Ember's direct, sparkling-eyed question, flustered.
"Hmm... Am I embarrassing...?"
I muttered just loud enough for Ayla to hear.
"Y-yes! Exactly!!"
Teasing her was fun.
"I knew it! So, where did you two meet?"
"Th-that's..."
Ayla stammered, at a loss for words.
She couldn't exactly say she tried to kill me, got subdued, and ended up spending days being relentlessly ravished by me and the forest beauties.
Looking back, it was the worst first meeting.
I hadn't cared about affinity or anything, figuring I'd never see her again.
Yet here she was, my girlfriend now. Amazing.
"What is Lord Un-ho's true identity?"
Ember, full of curiosity, turned to me this time.
"Identity?"
"Yes. You overwhelmed a Sword Master and a 7th-circle mage at the same time... And with your build... Are you a descendant of the legendary giants?"
The elves' gazes focused on me, brimming with curiosity.
"Giants? I'm human."
"Human? No way. You feel completely different from humans. Do you have some unspeakable secret? If you can't tell, just wink with your left eye."
'What... wink at...?'
Was it because I'm not from this world's humans?
Or changes from Body Strengthening?
Either way, they wouldn't believe the truth even if I told them.
"Why don't the elf rangers come out of the forest?"
I asked Luna.
"Once, rangers who went out to rescue elves fell into a trap and were captured en masse, so after that, they made it so they can't pursue outside the forest."
"Couldn't the elves clean up a place like Erpu if they wanted?"
"Clean it up? Then they'd still have to deal with the humans flooding in from Erpu afterward. Elves can't conquer human kingdoms. Even if they did, the other human kingdoms wouldn't stand by. If they're going to fight anyway, better to do it in the advantageous forest."
"So as long as humans don't give up, it's an endless war."
"Exactly..."
Indeed, wiping out Erpu alone wouldn't make humans give up.
In modern society, human rights groups would make a fuss, but...
This was a world ruled by kings and nobles.
Unless the top dogs changed their minds.
Or the elves conquered the world, it wouldn't end.
Both nearly impossible now.
In fact, far more humans died trying to catch even one elf.
Yet humans don't give up.
Pointless indomitable will... desire.
"Guests have arrived."
As I spoke, an elf in robes holding a staff emerged from the forest.
Following were elf rangers with bows on their backs, clad in unified deep green light armor.
The beauties in matching form-fitting outfits made for a striking sight.
"Ah, Lady Anise!"
The elves sitting in a circle around the bonfire stood up at once and bowed politely.
The elf called Anise had long platinum blonde hair.
Strikingly, her eyes were golden.
Her face was beautifully elven, but calm... no, closer to expressionless.
She gazed at me briefly with those beautiful golden eyes.
"Just as Priscilla said... Outwardly similar to a human, but this presence is definitely not human."
"I am Anise, village chief of Segead."
Apparently the village chief of Ember and Silvia's village.
"Park Un-ho."
"Park Un-ho? Unusual name..."
"Just call me Un-ho."
"Yes, Lord Un-ho. Shamefully, you risked danger to save children we had given up on. Thank you truly."
Her expressionless delivery made even the thanks feel ungrateful.
Was this what they called soulless?
"And Ember, Silvia—prepare for discipline when you return to the village."
But saying that expressionlessly instilled considerable fear.
"Yes..."
"Yes..."
Ember and Silvia shrank and bowed their heads.
"We have received a great favor. This is recompense."
Finally, something pleasing came from Anise's mouth.
She pulled a small walnut-like item from thin air and handed it to me.
"Th-that's a Spirit Seed!!"
Luna exclaimed in surprise upon seeing it.
"Spirit Seed?"
"Yes! A precious item from the Tree of Life. I hear even non-Spirit Users can command spirits with it."
I'd been a bit envious of Priscilla handling cute spirits... Getting this as a quest reward made saving the elf worth the trouble.