Editing Dark Elf:Volume1 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 9===

It ended exactly how he had expected.

The heavy ceramic pot was shattered on the floor and Klaus was sprawled out on the ground, unable to move.

His hands were tied behind his back and his face pressed against the floor with the old man looking down at him and casually waving a hand.

“No, no. Kill him here and Reika will have my head when she finds out.”

Kyle Hardjuicer was unscathed and surrounded by knights wielding the daggers meant to finish off an injured opponent.

And that included Loinbelt, the baby-faced page who had helped the redhead boy earlier.

“It’s a real shame. Not that I was hoping to make you my elective student at this point. You are already spoken for. My only real option is to write a dissection book that can convey the accurate information to far more people. And to acquire the necessary details, I must first take ''a look inside'' those creatures.”

Professor Dissection exited the tent with the knights, leaving Klaus alone.

“Dammit.”

Klaus squirmed and awkwardly untied the ropes binding his wrists behind him.

He had nearly been burned at the stake when the dark elves tied him up, so rope escape methods had already been on his mind. Admittedly, he had only come up with the extremely simple method of getting his sleeves caught in the rope meant to bind his wrists. The trick to escaping ropes was to create a gap. Once he pulled his sleeves out from the rope, he had some wiggle room between his wrists and the rope.

Since they weren’t weapons, his stick and earring were left out on the table. That collection of his experiences was almost as valuable to him as his life. Only his wife was more valuable than his life.

However, when he tried to get up, he wobbled and fell flat on the ground again.

He had escaped the rope, but he was still weak.

This was the hunger and thirst brought on by extreme physical exhaustion. He had obtained some magic derivative from the Palmtop Mouse, but his ordinary stamina was still an issue. And it wasn’t like he could chase after them and stop them by force. Through some kind of trickery, that old man had managed to get the knights on his side even though he was a commoner and an eccentric. Those military experts would work together to swiftly suppress a skinny guy like him well before he could cause Kyle any harm.

…''I could use my camouflage power to turn into a large animal…no, that wouldn’t work. Changing form wouldn’t bring back my strength and there must be plenty of preserved food here since they left all their supplies behind…oh, but an animal can’t defeat spears and bows and those are powerful military weapons, not just hunting ones.

“So…”

He felt hunger, thirst, pain, and suffering. He could not win this just by indirectly taking the magic derivative built up in a Palmtop Mouse through bioconcentration. No one would blame him if he just passed out here on the floor. That was the ordinary reaction for a living being.

But.

Even so.

“Do you think I’m going to give up on my wife just because I can’t win?”

He clenched his teeth and forced himself up from the ground again.

He walked unsteadily out of the tent.

He heard the neighing and hoofbeats of warhorses, which sounded so out of place deep in the forest.

A few of them had twisted their ankles on the rocks, Witch Pumpkins, or tree roots and a few more had been caught in beartraps or other traps, but that was not enough to defeat trained knights.

The dark elves, the rulers of this forest, were on the run.

Even though they had caused Klaus so much fear.

“''Iqb xaneqwootv, jiwkot itaeqg!! Yo yunn ifw iv i guxotvuaq! Yo yunn gtiy wkop iyib db rtowoqguqj wa hnoo!!''”

“''Uw riuqv po, dew wkob iwwifmog ev hutvw iqg yo fiqqaw now wkop nafiwo wko xunnijo. Fapo yuwk po uh bae ito rtoritog wa gutwb baet kiqgv!!''”

Leader and Curvy, the hunters who had used their silence as a weapon, were now raising their voices. Perhaps that was a sign of how worked up they were, but straying from their usual ways made it sound to Klaus like they were losing.

He seriously doubted their village was in this area.

They would never place their secret village right alongside the human road. Had they been on their way to that garden, or just on a walk? Whatever the case, they must have been unlucky enough to run across the human expedition.

“…”

Klaus kept his eyes peeled for the trap signs as he took up position on a small hill.

A thought occurred to him. He could not let Professor Dissection get away with this. He would save the dark elves from that bastard who felt the need to cut open everything he came across. But when you got down to it, how was Klaus any different? His ''methods'' were different, but he still wasn’t on the dark elves’ side. He didn’t know their language or their customs. Anything he did would only be the self-righteous actions of a human outsider.

Just then…

“''Qyik!? Ykiw, ykiw uv wko poiquqj ah wkuv!?''”

“''Uw’v inn tujkw. Fapo wkuv yib.''”

Any kind of activity stood out this deep in the forest, yet someone had chosen to do more than necessary. And it caused quite a reaction. A dark elf calmly pulled on a small hand. She had long, silver hair and brown skin and she looked to be 15 or 16. She wore a white-bleached vest and a blue tight skirt, so she had to be one of the hunters.

And an earring glittered on just one of her ears.

This was Slender. The attacks were concentrated on her of all people.

The one speaking loudly and being pulled along by her appeared to be Little Girl who had been hiding behind her mother’s back in the clearing. What had happened to her mother? Klaus frowned as he watched that small girl in a dress tripping and falling in the mud over and over and as she sobbed and was forced to run away. Slender could not abandon her, so she would rub the sobbing child on the back and get her running again. The boy gritted his teeth when he saw it. He knew the emotion throbbing in his chest.

…''Go to hell.

He felt burning fury. He felt the same unbearable anger he would have felt if he saw a human child surrounded and brought to tears by a group of fully grown adults.

…''I’m going to marry Slender. Nothing can change that now. But what about the wedding? I can’t have the bride’s side of the guests be entirely empty because of some old geezer’s twisted ideas about science.

He had felt definite fear and confusion when he was nearly burned alive by the dark elves, caught by the beartrap, nearly fell off the cliff, and nearly eaten by termites, but this was the first time he felt his heart burning with such obvious rage.

As a scientist in training, he chose a solid stance against this kind of unreasonable and abominable treatment.

“That’s enough,” he muttered under his breath.

The situation was only going to get worse. The rules he had always lived by did not apply here in the Forest of No Return. He was unarmed and alone while Kyle’s knights and the dark elf village clashed. If he assisted Professor Dissection, the dark elves would be his only enemy, but the dark elves would not take his side even if he assisted them. If he did that, he would have both sides as his enemy. If he let his emotions take over and made a rash decision, he was unlikely to return alive.

But.

He squeezed the earring in his hand.

…''What did Slender do when they were burning me at the stake? Do you think she considered who would take her side and how she would benefit when she chose to save me?

If a dark elf could make that kind of decision, then surely a human could too.	

“I don’t care if I’m just being self-righteous,” he said more strongly.

He was through wracking his brains to find some kind of excuse for his actions.

He didn’t know the dark elves’ language or customs, but he might be able to dry Little Girl’s tears while she searched for her mother and he might be able to prevent Slender from being dissected after refusing to let go of that small hand.

The dark elves scared him.

But he wanted to invite them to his wedding with his lovely bride.

If he wanted Slender to fall for him, that was the kind of human he had to be!!

“I won’t let this self-righteousness go to waste.”