Dark Elf:Volume1 Chapter3

Chapter 3: Day and Night, Never Stop Learning

Part 1

Deadly parasites.

“Wait, um, hold on.”

Klaus Knockburn forgot all about taking notes on his stick. He just blurted out some words while the forest evening turned to night. He only realized he had used the human language when Slender slowly tilted her head atop him.

He had to shift each letter ahead by two, with consonants and vowels separate.

He focused on converting everything into dark elf and tried again.

“Wait! Parasites? You mean inside me? And what about Brashgain’s resurrection!?”

“I don’t know anything about that. But you passed through the sticky, stringy plants directly pierced by the especially dangerous bones and fangs. Since you had not used the preventative pollen, it was only natural to assume you had been infected with the dragon bugs.”

“What about Brashgain!?”

“Sh.” Slender’s long ears moved and she looked to the side while still sitting on top of him.

“Someone is approaching. But it isn’t just human footprints. I hear metal as well.”

“Is it Elzane’s group? Only the knights would bring horses with horseshoes this deep in a forest so full of tree roots!”

“I don’t want them after me again. Come with me.”

She finally got off of him, the warmth and weight of her crotch vanishing. Only once it was gone did he realize a girl in a tight skirt had spread her legs to straddle him. He so desperately wished he had been given the chance to appreciate it.

“I won’t cry. As long as I live, there’s still a chance of it happening again!!”

“Use our language. And come this way.”

He had expected them to run in some direction found on a compass, but the forest was still full of surprises. Slender crouched down and grabbed a string handle hidden below the grass. She pulled it up and an 80cm square opened in the ground.

“Eh? What!?”

“Use dark elf.”

She had warned him twice now, but he really wished she would be more forgiving of these reflexive statements. She climbed down first and beckoned him in. It was a good thing he wasn’t claustrophobic. He excitedly climbed in with her and she shut the mysterious cover above them. They were now in total darkness, but she pulled out something. It was a glass-shielded lamp the size of an eyedrop bottle. It didn’t look like she had just lit it.

“You were hiding a lit flame…in your cleavage? Th-that sounds dangerous.”

“We are allowed to collect fire after a lightning strike, but we are not allowed to light it ourselves. A-and what does my cleavage have to do with this!?”

That sounded like a weird custom to Klaus. Were fire, water, wind, and earth considered to be works of nature they were forbidden from creating themselves, but fires lit by lightning strikes had been created by nature and were thus acceptable? He had heard that there was a nearly million year gap between primitive people starting to use fire and figuring out how to start fires themselves.

“So you don’t start fires? That explains why I didn’t see any after all my observations. Oh, that also explains why you went to the effort of leaving your village and mixing a hot spring’s water with the river water to bathe.”

“Observations?”

“Um, never mind that!!”

He laughed off the glare she gave him. These reactions were part of what made direct communication so much different from before. It felt like pouring love into his icy wife.

“But this is great too. No, it’s the best!! I feel so fulfilled I swear I’m going to end up pregnant!!”

“?”

He took a look around. They were in a very long horizontal tunnel that appeared to have been dug out of the dirt. It wasn’t very tall, so he would bump his head if he didn’t stay crouched. Slender kept a cautious eye upwards, presumably because of the knights walking around up on the surface. She gestured him forward and she took the lead since she had the only light. Klaus Knockburn had finally received official authorization to chase after the brown girl’s round ass. That tight leather skirt was the most attractive thing he had ever seen.

“But what is this place?” he asked her.

He could see one of her long ears turn toward him while she continued on ahead in a crouch. He had seen this before. It showed she was mildly interested, as opposed to fully ignoring him. Now that he could understand her and had better context for understanding her little idiosyncrasies, he found her cuter than ever.

The tunnel branched off here and there, but it didn’t look like someone had dug this out with a shovel. If so, surely the dark elves would have made it tall enough for them to stand up inside. The materials were odd as well. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all coated with some kind of translucent film instead of just dirt. The film was more than a centimeter thick and it was made of a strange substance that wasn’t quite glass or crystal.

Slender replied while bending over and placing her round butt right in front of his face.

“I doubt the humans know about this place. Because not even the other dark elves know it exists.”

“Eh?”

“Otherwise I couldn’t have snuck you out of the clearing through here.”

This place apparently connected to the clearing where they had tried to burn him. But that only raised further questions. If the other dark elves didn’t know about it, had Slender dug it all by herself? That seemed like a lot of unnecessary work even if she did use magic. And why would she do that anyway? The dark elves appeared to use metal for their arrowheads and jewelry, so had she wanted a monopoly on the mineral resources in this area?

…Oh, right. Jewelry. I forgot to give that back.

Klaus recalled the earring that had initially created a connection between them. It was a crucial writing implement for him now, but she was right here with him. He couldn’t just hold onto it forever.

“Um. You dropped this when you rescued me before, didn’t-”

He trailed off when she turned back toward him. He thought she was responding to him, but then he saw she was holding something in her hand.

…A white snake? No, a bug!? But it’s huge!

“Creepy-crawly.”

“Yikes!?”

Bugs were not supposed to grow more than 30cm long. He had never been more grossed out.

“These things dig holes all through the ground. And their slime hardens on the walls and ceiling, keeping the tunnels from collapsing. The tunnels can be useful in an emergency, but I would prefer not to remain in the dragon bugs’ home for long. So stay quiet and keep moving.”

“Th-these things were…inside me?”

“It’s a possibility.”

The translucent film that wasn’t quite glass or wax was apparently something secreted by these bugs after it hardened. Did that mean they could be found all throughout the forest? He shuddered at this unseen side of the dark elf forest. Was this what Professor Dissection had wanted from that collector?

“Wait. If that fire ceremony was actually meant to drive these things out of me…”

“…”

“Why did you interrupt and let me escape? No, wait…if the ceremony was never competed, what about the bugs inside me!?”

Slender had chosen to use a flame in this cramped indoor(?) space, not because she was unfamiliar with oxygen deprivation, but because the pale bugs avoided lights. He imagined himself trapped down here with those things in complete darkness. A terrifying thought to say the least.

Eventually, their subterranean expedition came to an end.

“This is the place.”

“?”

Slender stopped partway through the tunnel, but he doubted she could be using a map down here. Was there some kind of mark only she recognized? Still crouched down, she pressed her empty hand against the ceiling, which slowly opened. It was another square trapdoor. That must have led them to the deep, damp forest, but the bright light outside dazzled Klaus’s eyes. And that was with the sun nearly set.

“Good…the coast is clear. Hurry on up. If the dragon bugs do get inside you, they really will need to be smoked out of you with herbs.”

“What do you mean?”

“The dragon bugs really are a dangerous parasite. More will continue to be born as long as Brashgain’s bones remain. Humans are not naturally immune, so whenever you enter the forest, we must drive you back out. A wagon passing through on your road is fine, but you can never live here permanently.”

I can’t believe it, thought Klaus. There was nothing special about the Forest of No Return itself. It was only the result of the constant threats from the dark elves trying to keep vulnerable people away.

After viewing the surface (and failing to notice how far up her thigh her skirt had risen), Slender sighed.

“But the ceremony to drive out the dragon bugs with smoke is a drastic measure. It is guaranteed to drive them out, but there is a significant risk of the patient not surviving and dying a painful death. Do you really want to undergo a procedure like that?”

“…”

“An untreated dragon bug infection is deadly, so the elders thought they were doing the right thing. They treat everyone who even might be infected just in case, but I could tell you were the type who would die from what was likely an unnecessary treatment. So I rescued you.”

She climbed out of the hole first, giving him a good view of the underwear below her short skirt. Everything else was made of a tough leather, but these were white and lacy. He was surprised they had the means of making something like that, but then he recalled the delicate, see-through outfits of the dancers like Short Hair.

He really did need to see these things for himself. You couldn’t make assumptions, even about underwear. And the hint of brown skin showing through the thin fabric hit his brain with devastating power. Three cheers for fieldwork!

“Hell yes. I have a new life goal. My peeping days are over. I want her to let me remove those from her.”

“What, more human language? Just hurry up.”

She looked puzzled but was not aware what he was talking about. She powerfully pulled him from the hole, closed the trapdoor, and then hid the small lamp back in her flat chest. It must have used a double layer of glass for insulation.

They had covered a lot of ground in the tunnel, but they were still inside the forest.

How big was the forest in all? He had seen a map when helping his rotten teacher pack back in the royal capital, but the Forest of No Return was managed by the dark elves who threatened and drove out any humans they found. He doubted any humans had ever left the stone-paved road and trekked their way deep inside to take an accurate survey. If the map was only a general estimate based on external observations, it could vastly differ from the reality.

“You said you wanted to know about Brashgain, right?”

Yes. What was the truth there?

“Then come with me. You might not believe me if I told you on my own.”

“Wh-where are we going?”

Slender winked as she answered him.

The idea that the dark elves were an exclusionary species may have been inaccurate.

“Our village.”

Part 2

The sun fully set while they were walking.

The dark elves apparently did not rely on firelight even when it was this dark out. Their hunting skills and pride would play a role there, but it mostly came from a fear of using fire carelessly.

Insects chirped and the starry sky hung overhead.

How much longer would this cycle last? Rosehera, the only hope elf in the world, would have finished the basic structure of her Levazastar Linked Magic Circle and would be beginning on the precise adjustments for this particular situation. She had said she would finish by dawn, but the exact limit was a mystery.

And it was all to stop Brashgain’s resurrection.

It was all to protect the humans, another species altogether.

“What a disaster.”

A largescale forest fire would soon engulf the forest.

When he explained the situation, Slender placed a hand on her cheek. That left her armpit wide open. A dazzling sight.

“I can’t believe an elf would wield fire like that.”

“Eh? Is it that unusual?”

“It is. But this means we are even more pressed for time than I thought. Not even hiding in those tunnels would save us. We need to warn everyone in the village and prepare to fight that hope elf.”

“But…”

“Don’t say it.”

Slender cut him off.

Rosehera and Elzane Livzy, who was borrowing Rosehera’s power, were the top fighters sent by the royal capital. They were a devastating pair. The dark elves had already been easily repelled by them. And that was when Elzane was only guarding the area they would use to prepare the magic circles.

Slender pointed out ahead.

“There. That is our village.”

Klaus nearly dropped his stick at how casual she was about it.

“You’re kidding, right? That’s the elusive village you only have one chance to find?”

“Use our language.”

Slender was super cute when she pouted her lips like that.

“I didn’t expect something so normal. I was imagining some kind of secret place hidden by a magical barrier.”

“No one wants to live in a village that takes so much effort to move in and out of. Besides, not many humans are weird enough to willingly enter the forest.”

So she thought he was weird, did she? He sighed.

“Well, I won’t deny I’m horny for dark elves.”

“Bfff!?”

“Huh? Did I convert that wrong? It’s a two-letter shift, right?”

“Y-you had it right,” replied a blushing Slender in a vanishingly quiet voice.

At any rate, he could see a campfire. He did not see any walls or fences, but a gate made from wooden pillars had been constructed at one point near the village. Two sentry dark elves stood at it.

“Hm. The one on the right will be Braid and the one on the left will be Freckles.”

“What are you muttering about?”

He named them out of habit, earning him a glare from Slender. Oh, right. Now that I know their language, I can just ask them their names. But if I change their names in the middle of my notes, I’ll get confused about who is who. What do I do!? He started trembling, but the two sentries were even more shocked.

“Wh-who is that!? A human?”

“And isn’t he the one who escaped in the middle of the extermination ceremony!? Get him away from me!”

“I’ll cry, goddess dammit!! And you, the freckled one, I’ll hug you and rub my cheek all over you if you don’t take that back!!!”

When Klaus snapped back at them, the two sentries jumped in fright and held each other in their arms. Their soft brown cheeks were pressed together. Their halberds, a combination of a spear and an axe, might as well not have been there.

The dark elf critic gave his opinion on the matter.

“Yeah, a dark elf should really use a bow. Would a thick tome be the next best thing? No, maybe a whip. Eh heh heh.”

“U-umm, so what is this supremely creepy gentleman doing here?”

“Rosena, Patricia, he might spy on you in the nude and dive between your legs every chance he gets, but he isn’t a threat. As you can see, he can speak our language.”

Was her explanation helping him or not? After Slender winked and vouched for him, the other two pulled back their halberds.

His dreams were collapsing around him. It all felt so ordinary. Was there not a single deadly trial he had to pass to gain entrance?

“This is the secret village? Ahh, what a disappointment.”

“Why would we create a village where we threaten to kill everyone who comes along? C’mon, we need to hurry.”

Klaus passed through the ineffective gate and entered the village with Slender.

He doubted there was any magic or a mystical barrier at play, but as soon as he was inside, everything felt strange to him. It was the sounds and the voices. The place was full of life. There were also campfires lit all over the place. They may intentionally have been producing so much light and sound to scare animals away.

The inside of the village felt like another world altogether. He was finally in contact with civilization again.

He saw several log cabins and a few groups were sitting around campfires in between those cabins. There was no light inside the cabin windows, so dark elves must not have used fire indoors, except maybe small candles and lamps. He recalled that they bathed in the rivers and springs outside their village. That meant they wouldn’t have any household baths.

The log cabins did not appear to use nails.

In fact…

“Oh, I get it. They’re made to be dismantled and carried away. The village is so hard to find because it’s constantly being moved around the vast forest!!”

“Yes, and?”

“C’mon, you’re supposed to react with extreme shock!!”

“???”

He was going to have a hard time sharing his excitement with someone who lived here. This meant recording the village’s location on his stick would be meaningless. Instead, he wanted to know how they decided where to go.

He detected the delicious scent of cooking meat. He discovered the dark elves really did use salt. And they also used herbs. He saw salad, stew, grain bread, and what looked like a risotto. It was distributed in ceramic containers. This was what you could do once you had mastered life in the forest. Klaus, a beginner who was forced to eat bugs and barely-cooked mincemeat, was way out of his league. He couldn’t imagine how many steps were involved in accomplishing all this.

The barrels he saw here and there appeared to contain iron sand, which was probably used to create metal products.

“Wow, who is that? He has earlobes!”

“Is he a human? Ohhh, I’ve never touched one before.”

The little dark elves approached him with no caution whatsoever. They wore the same white leather outfits as the others. The skimpy outfits looked so wrong on those small bodies. And they didn’t seem to be old ladies like Little Girl was. The adults…kept their distance, but they seemed to trust him since Slender was with him. They did not appear to be readying poison arrows to attack him.

One of the children massaged his earlobe when he crouched down for her to reach.

“I bet it was a pain getting here.”

“?”

The path here had taken him through a hellish world of survival and mistakes he would much rather forget, but that was not what the little dark elves were getting after.

“She likes to guide people through the forest. Because she loves explaining stuff. So you must be exhausted after she talked your ear off the entire way.”

“Eh?”

Klaus was legitimately surprised by this.

The children didn’t seem to be joking because more of them joined in.

“She’s always saying how stressful it is to sit silently behind the bushes with her bow at the ready.”

“And that after work she goes and screams behind the waterfall to let off some steam.”

Unable to stop the children from revealing her secrets, Slender grew flustered, her hands and her long ears shaking wildly.

“N-no, don’t get the wrong idea! I only like to provide people with some basic information so I didn’t have to help them every time they stumble along the way! It’s all meant to help me in the long run, not because I feel lonely when I don’t talk with anyone for a while.”

“I see. You do like explaining things, don’t you?”

“Shut up. It’s none of your business!!”

When he thought back, he realized Slender had not been alone all that often. Hadn’t she generally been with other dark elves?

“Was she contacting the others because she felt lonely?”

“I can’t understand your human language, so use ours,” said Slender, pulling up her rabbit ears hood as if threatening him.

She seemed like an entirely different person now that he could understand her.

For that matter, the dark elves weren’t exclusionary at all. Klaus had found nothing but surprises since he learned to understand them. Is this what Professor Dissection had wanted to slice open with a scalpel and what Elzane was trying to burn alive because they “had no other choice”? Something had gone horribly wrong in this world.

Among the children, he saw one holding a large paper book and he saw drawings on the ground, presumably made with a rock or stick. They may have had their own fairy tales and children’s stories.

Two of the dark elf children broke a fallen stick in two. But instead of throwing it on the fire, they shared the two pieces. Hooded Slender narrowed her eyes as she explained.

“That is a legend from a children’s story.”

“?”

Did the matching jagged edges act as a password or something?

When he started watching the dancers performing near a campfire, Short Hair blew him a kiss. No screaming and calling him a pervert here.

…Come to think of it, isn’t this my first time seeing them outside of that weird ritual or spying on them from the bushes?

Does that mean I’m an official part of their audience now? And does that mean I can watch as much as I want!? Where’s my stick – I need to take notes. I need to get some very close observations of the dark elf lifestyle. This will be one of the greatest research reports in the history of humankind!!

“Hmph.”

“Gah, ow!? What!? Did you just kick me in the shin!?”

“I can’t understand human language.”

Slender puffed out her cheeks and looked the other way, but one of her long ears was twitching and turning his way. She was looking away, but she was still listening in.

And…

“You were awfully flexible when you were bathing, so were you perhaps interested in being a priest dancer instead of an ace hunt- gwah!?”

“S-s-s-s-stop making assumptions!! My reputation depends on it!!”

“A clenched fist this time…?”

“And what was that about me bathing?”

Where would she hit him next if he didn’t learn to keep his mouth shut? He still had a lot of training to go before he could gladly accept a fisting from his wife, so he frantically shook his head and dropped that line of discussion.

…Ugh, I so want to see her dancing in one of those skimpy outfits.

“Yeah, you’re right. Dark elves look best wielding a bow!!”

“Y-you really think so?”

“You’re the wild type, not a graceful dancer! Ah ha ha. A dancer with this flat a body? Not happening!!”

“…”

For some reason, she stomped on his foot, making him lose his balance and fall right into one of the dancer’s arms. Beads of sweat flew from Short Hair’s lithe, heated body. She did elegantly hold a hand to her mouth and let loose a shriek, but in a playful way.

…But.

After that ordeal, Klaus noticed something odd. He saw several canoes or boats seemingly made by hollowing out logs or Witch Pumpkins, but the carving looked rough, imprecise, and poorly done. Plus, he saw no oars to use with the simple boats, so how could they operate them? There were no fishing rods or nets either. The dark elves must not have developed much of a fishing culture.

“U-um.”

“Yes?”

“Do you dark elves not know how to swim?”

“Do I need to punch you again?”

That suggestion upset her. Language was tricky. Being understood was not always a good thing. But it was true a species that couldn’t swim wouldn’t approach the rivers.

“Yeah, that makes sense. They do love bathing enough to do it more than once a day.”

“Why do those human words sound so indecent?”

…Do they view the water as something that cleanses and washes away scents, not something you get stuff out of?

“Eh heh heh. Yes, washing that beautiful skin clean.”

“What are you fantasizing about? I don’t like a single thing about how you’re acting here. Hey, answer me!!”

Klaus was grinning and staring into space, so Slender grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard.

They were surrounded by a peaceful scene.

Dark elves gathered around the fire to eat dinner and laugh together. Children held out bowls and plates to ask the woman in charge of cooking for seconds. Quite a few scantily clad women were dancing and jangling their yellow gems in time with drums and flute music. A parent and child were leaning together while the mother pointed up into the starry sky, perhaps to teach her daughter about the constellations. They used different tools, but he had seen these exact smiles in the royal capital’s restaurants and public squares.

It all felt wrong to him. Weren’t these the people trying to resurrect Brashgain?

He had expected a strained atmosphere from their resentment of humans or for no one to be allowed out at night. And if they did hate humans, why would they accept him in just because Slender said it was okay?

“It’s like I told you.” Slender peered over at his face with her hands on her hips and her cheeks a bit puffed out. “We don’t know anything about trying to resurrect Brashgain.”

Ropes were tied to a tree’s thick branches and cloth sacks the size of heads dangled down. He had seen these disturbing pieces of art before, but now he saw the children were laughing while smacking them with sticks. It appeared to be some kind of game, but he couldn’t work out the rules.

Slender kept one hand on her hip and gave him a puzzled look with ears twitching.

“Why are you covering your face like that?”

“It’s nothing. Just don’t look at me for a bit.”

…Goddess, I just want to die. Don’t remind me that I thought those were part of some kind of cult ritual.

But as civilized as the village was, it did lack one thing: the lighting of fires. They knew how to use fire, but they never seemed to light one themselves, by friction or flint. All of their campfires and torches were started from other fires they already had.

They probably had a fire preserved in a sacred altar, deep in a cave, or in the elder’s house. If that ever went out, their civilization would screech to a halt. It felt terribly fragile to Klaus.

“Anyway, we need to see the elder,” said Slender. “It would be fastest to speak with her first. She might have some old text I’m unaware of.”

“Um, is the elder like the oldest woman here or something? Who is it? Please tell me I’m not going to find Little Girl seated atop a throne in the back of the village.”

“Who is Little Girl?”

She showed him to the village’s largest house located a short distance from the others. It was large enough to be called a mansion. Since their village was mobile, a bigger building took more effort to move. Whoever lived here had to be powerful.

They must not have needed an appointment because they marched right on in and found the big boss waiting in the back of the mansion.

The elder wore white silk, green gems, and…

“Glasses!?”

That makes sense, thought Klaus entering assessment mode. Glasses is more mature than Slender. By which I mean she has bigger boobs. Like, wow those are big. And she’s wearing that loose-fitting sheer silk instead of the white leather, so she must be a priest. Mature, intellectual, and a priest? Leaders are generally whoever can supply a steady source of food or the leader of an ancient religion, but it looks like the dark elves went with the latter.

Meanwhile, Glasses looked at him like he was a creep and held her arms protectively around herself with her long ears twitching. Unfortunately for her, that only caused her to lift her boobs from below.

“Why did you bring this rude human to me? What kind of person calls someone Glasses just because she wears them?”

“That’s just how he does things. I fell victim to it myself. W-while I was bathing…”

“Yes. And I seem to recall his extermination ceremony was never completed since a certain someone took him away.”

“Oh? I am not accepting accusations from someone who ties people up and starts smoking them to death without bothering to explain it to them or to test if the treatment is even necessary.”

What’s this? thought Klaus, noticing something here.

Strange sparks were crackling between those two. He could have sworn he saw it.

Slender and Glasses pressed their foreheads together as they continued their exchange.

“I always did think you needed to be taught some respect for your superiors. You could also stand to stop acting so brusque when we all know you’re the fragile bunny type that needs someone to talk to or you die of loneliness.”

“Oh, I have plenty of respect for you. Even if you do eat the deer and boars we worked so hard to catch without putting in any work yourself.”

They could not afford to get into a fight now. Rosehera could set the forest ablaze at any moment.

Klaus lay down on the floor.

Drastic times called for drastic measures.

“Now, now, my lovely ladies. If this is going to take long, why not take a seat right here? Yes, one of you on my face and the other on my hips! It’s the perfect position for three people who need to learn how to become very good friends!!!!!!”

“Why in the world did you bring this scumbag into our village!?”

“?”

Glasses shouted tearfully at Slender who didn’t know what he meant and only looked confused.

Slender loved explaining things, but that particular position was too high level for her and she gave up trying to figure it out. Glasses, realizing her outburst proved she did understand, blushed bright, puffed her cheeks out to the limit, and clenched both fists so hard they shook.

Klaus realized something from all this.

…It looks like their official leader isn’t necessarily the most powerful person here.

Glasses glared down at him.

“What? What did you just realize? Out with it, human.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of realizing any great dark elf secrets, Lady Glasses.”

“Adding ‘lady’ to it doesn’t make the name any better!! D-do not forget that I am the village elder! I am the most important person here!”

When she opened her eyes wide and raised her arms (with enough force to make her breasts jiggle up and down), the dark elves waiting outside the mansion silently responded. A composite bow made from multiple woods and animal tendons launched an arrow with greater force than the average mercenary and grazed Klaus’s nose.

It also shattered a window from the outside and pierced an expensive-looking liquor bottle on a shelf on the opposite wall.

Glasses froze with her arms still in the air and began trembling.

“Ah, ahhh, ahhhhh…”

“(Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.)”

“S-stop that, human! What are you writing on that stick!? Don’t you dare leave any record of what just happened!!”

The lovable elder grabbed at him to stop him and Slender winked.

“This is what happens when you guard your mansion with hunters because we’re more effective. You might as well be putting up a sign saying the priests can’t do anything on their own.”

“Um? What can she do?” asked Klaus.

“I specialize in recovery magic.” Glasses kept her cheeks puffed out while she crossed her arms, unintentionally lifting her large breasts. “But with the long dark elf lifespan, our bodies never really show their age. I’ve had time to master my magic to the point that I can heal just about anything, but it’s almost never needed.”

“Yes, and you’re there whenever someone’s in trouble. You don’t need to be useful on an everyday basis, so make sure you do your job when it is needed.”

…So the hunters support their everyday lives and the priests are for emergencies.

If that was her role, Klaus couldn’t bring himself to laugh at Glasses. She was there when she was needed, but the dark elves lived such peaceful lives. Just like with a doctor or a soldier, it was best when she wasn’t needed.

“What is that look of pity for, human?”

“Oh, I was just impressed that someone as incredible as you really exists. You’re so different from our shitty human king who’s obsessed with his own glory and won’t stop counting how many statues he has in the city.”

“Well, excuse me for having no glory or statues. Hmph!!”

Glasses looked sulkily away. But just as he thought she looked kind of cute, someone stomped on his foot.

“…”

Slender was sulking even more with her arms crossed. She was even more cute.

Failing to realize his praise had been genuine, Glasses clicked her tongue.

“So what do you want? You wouldn’t have visited me if it wasn’t a big deal.”

“It’s about Brashgain,” began Klaus Knockburn. “But I’m not talking about the parasites you call the dragon bugs. My teacher, rotten though she may be, told me the dark elves are plotting to destroy the world by resurrecting Brashgain from his bones. And the humans – plus Hope Elf Rosehera – are responding to that accusation.”

“But I’ve never heard anything about resurrecting Brashgain,” said Slender to the dark elf elder. “Are you hiding something from us hunters again? If so, you need to tell us sooner rather than later.”

Glasses slowly raised both hands and stuck out her tongue like a child.

She was aware her mansion’s hunter guards were not going to listen to her here.

“You think we’re messing with Brashgain’s bones?”

Klaus felt some relief setting in. Slender was a reasonable person after all. All the dark elves had been eating and smiling together. Even Glasses, their elder, was a playful person. The village was a pleasant place. It was overflowing with kindness. The contrast to the harsh and unpleasantly unpredictable forest was plain as day.

But it slipped his mind that this village was itself a part of that unpredictable Forest of No Return.

Glasses smiled thinly and gave her answer with both hands still raised.

“Of course we are. We would be fools not to.”

Part 3

Klaus Knockburn did not understand.

His mind had gone entirely blank and this throat felt clogged up. What had that woman just said?

And time had not frozen along with his mind.

“Catherine!!!!!!”

With the sound of scorching friction, Slender pulled the bow from her arm, raised it, and nocked an arrow she pulled from the quiver at her hip.

That was a composite bow and she could boost its power with Archdragon Magic.

The dark elf elder kept her smile while staring down that weapon.

“Calm down.”

“What have the priests been doing in this forest? And without informing the hunters!?”

Klaus thought he was going to faint when he heard it.

Yes. Why hadn’t he considered this possibility? He had noticed the split between hunter and priest dark elves. He had noticed it before he even understood their language. And if there was a division in their village, this was possible.

The hunters and priests could have different plans for their village.

And that would mean an assurance of safety from a hunter like Slender was not enough. Glasses, leader of the priests, might do something else entirely.

For example, she might be resurrecting Brashgain from his bones.

Hadn’t Glasses said her recovery magic could “heal just about anything”!?

The grinning elder moved the fingers of her raised hands, but these were not just finger exercises. She seemed to be making fun of them.

“If you suspect me that much, then go ahead and kill me with that bow. But then no one will be able to stop Brashgain. No one at all.”

“Is that a threat?” growled Slender.

“Just listen.” Glasses sounded like she was trying to talk sense into a stubborn child. “Calm down and I will explain everything. I have nothing to be ashamed of in this matter.”

The tension seemed to have grown to the point that it was its own individual presence in the mansion.

And the unstable equilibrium was not broken by the hunter or the priest.

“Kah…ah…”

Klaus wobbled on his feet, unable to breathe through all that tension. He staggered to the side and Slender relaxed her bowstring so she could support him.

He was soaked with an unpleasant sweat. He hadn’t felt this bad even when he as wandering the dark forest in search of some magic derivative. His rotten teacher was awful in just about every regard, but she was only ever joking. No matter how bad it got, she made sure he would survive to do it all again next time.

…But Glasses is different. She tears everything down so there is no next time. I finally found the dark elves I’ve searched for all my life and now they’ve betrayed me. I’ve never been in so much pain.

“What…but…why?”

“I’m not going to bother converting your human language.” The elder lowered her raised hands and shrugged. “I freely admit we are casting magic on the massive dragon bones found across the entire forest. And not to suppress the creation of dragon bugs. We are interfering with the dragon’s own resurrection.”

“How could you!?” snapped Slender while supporting the weak boy.

“Wait, he said to stop her. He managed to get the words out through his blue lips. “What do you mean ‘interfere with’? You say that like the dragon’s resurrection is separate from what you’re doing.”

“You’re sharp.” Glasses winked and raised a finger. “Simply put, Brashgain will be resurrected sooner or later. His bones forcibly draw energy from the ground and trigger something much like recovery magic. His bones were made to do that from the beginning. All our magical interference can do is influence the ‘sooner or later’ part.”

“And you’re accelerating that process?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

He felt dizzy all over again. What did this mean? Brashgain would resurrect on his own in ten thousand years’ time, but the priests were making it happen in a years’ time instead? Was a year from now and ten thousand years from now not all that different with the near-endless lifespan of a dark elf?

He shook his head and chose to trust Slender. From what he had seen of her, their long lifespan did not leave them detached from the flow of time.

“The polygon and the star.”

“?”

Klaus’s thoughts were pulled a step back from the precipice of despair. The elder had just mentioned two symbols used in his Camouflize magic. Even though they both had eight points, an octagon and an octagram had entirely different meanings. (An octagram’s shape could change depending on how the points were connected, but that can be omitted here.) Generally, a polygon represented the emanation of power and a star represented the gathering of power. But why would she be bringing that up here?

The dark elf elder laughed as she gave the final answer.

“My priests have been accelerating the flow of power to the point that it cannot gather in a single point and the river of energy ruptures, allowing it to scatter everywhere. Simply put, we are preventing the resurrection process from ever making any progress.”

Klaus Knockburn truly could not find any words this time.

“Y-you mean…?” After what felt like an eternity, he managed to ask a question with a tremor in his voice. “The dark elves aren’t trying to resurrect Brashgain?”

“What, disappointed the elder wasn’t a secret villain?”

“N-not at all!”

He frantically denied it and Glasses covered her laughing mouth with a hand.

“The dragon corpse absorbs a massive amount of energy from the ground, so an emanating polygon on its own wouldn’t be enough. The emanation would be too weak and the power would gather back together again. Like it was being drawn into a funnel. So we needed to accelerate it to ensure it had the necessary force behind it. Even if that meant adding a star.” The dark elf elder’s long ears moved gently up and down at that point. “And it might not be entirely wrong to call me a villain.”

She smiled in a way that told him it was best not to say anything here. And she made no attempt to flee.

“We are accelerating the dragon’s power and letting the resurrection process run in vain, but what happens to all that energy after it breaks free? It does harm the world in a different form. Usually as natural disasters like earthquakes and tornadoes.”

“…”

“That’s better than the destruction of the world, right? But it does cause damage. If someone had a loved one’s life taken by one of those disaster, then I probably would look like someone worth killing even if it meant bringing the entire world down with me.”

Klaus felt it wasn’t his place to decide whether or not it had been necessary. He was not the one taking lives or the one having a precious life taken. If he was, he knew his emotions would keep him from reaching a logical conclusion.

“But wait.” Another problem occurred to him. A much greater problem. “Rosehera and Elzane are trying to end this by burning down the entire Forest of No Return! By dawn at the latest! If that happens…!!”

“Yes, it would be a problem. One that puts the entire world at risk.”

The human operation to prevent Brashgain’s resurrection would instead ensure he was resurrected. It was irony of the worst kind. The elder knew all of that, but she still had a question for him.

“So what do you expect us to do with this information?”

“What do you mean?”

“We dealt with that dissection-obsessed freak and his knights, but did that solve the problem? Things only got worse. As you well know after seeing that hope elf’s magic circles. We did nothing wrong. We never threw a glove at you and demanded a duel. All we did was refuse to play by your rules.”

“Oh, hell!! shouted Klaus, forgetting to convert it into dark elf.

Elzane’s group was not evil. But he could not tell them the truth about Brashgain. Hadn’t his rotten teacher said that letting people know about their impending doom would only cause a panic? What if a new cult wanted to use it to destroy the world? What if an army attempted to control the extent of the damage so it would destroy just their enemies? He couldn’t even guess what that chaos would bring. In all likelihood, the current system would collapse and something worse than he could imagine would happen. But even a faulty plan could end up triggering the world’s destruction, so he could not explain all this to the angry people.

And if he couldn’t explain it, the conflict between dark elves and humans would never end. The humans would continue resenting the dark elves. What could he do to end that downward spiral? He squeezed his eye shut in thought. This was going to be a painful decision. He couldn’t get any help from the true allies he had finally found.

“Okay.”

But he said it anyway.

After reaching this point, he wanted to say it.

“I’ll do this on my own. If the dark elves don’t harm Rosehera or Elzane, then the nobles’ grudge will be redirected toward me! That will free Slender and all the rest of you!!!!!!”

The dark elf elder stared blankly at him. Earning that look from crafty Glasses made him glad he had said it. Except he was focusing on the wrong thing here.

A moment later, he heard an icy voice from the girl supporting him.

“Slender? Is that supposed to mean me?”

“Uh, oh.”

“What about me inspired that name!? Can you answer me that!?”

Slender grabbed his collar and shook him while blushing. That may have been something of a complex for her.

Meanwhile, the more mature Glasses held her sides in laughter.

“Pff. Ah ha ha!! I see, I see. So she’s Slender, is she?”

“Don’t think you’ve won this!!”

“All I’m saying is I don’t have to use a vest strap to make my chest look bigger.”

“You had to say it, didn’t you!? We could have gotten through this without specifying my chest!!”

“Anyway.” The dark elf elder pushed up her glasses and wiped the tears from her eyes. “He calls me Glasses and you Slender. I bet he has names for the others too, but this means he doesn’t know any of our real names, doesn’t it?”

“Oh.”

“And it didn’t matter to him that he didn’t even know our names. When he saw someone in need, he decided to risk his life to help them. …You are an awfully kind human.”

She called him a kind “human”, not just a kind “person”.

She was marking him as a member of another species.

That may have been an important distinction for her.

“I now accept you as one of us. From now on, we will invite you into our village whenever you enter this forest.” She stood in front of Klaus Knockburn and lowered her head as a sign of respect. “But at the moment, there is little we can do to help aside from trust you. I, Catherine Apple, am in awe of your courage. The fate of the dark elves and of the entire world are in your hands. Please do everything in your power to save us all, our kind hero.”

Part 4

A cheerful energy permeated the simple village that night.

That was what Slender of the hunters and Glasses of the priests had wanted to protect no matter what. Klaus Knockburn burned the scene into his eyes.

From here on, he was acting on behalf of more than just himself.

Everyone’s lives and futures rested on his shoulders.

…I’m honored.

With that thought, he walked away from the light. The dark elves had excellent archery skills and Archdragon Magic, plus they worked as a group, not as individuals. He would have loved to have them fighting alongside him, but he shook free of that temptation.

He loved dark elves.

So he didn’t want to get them involved. This was a human problem, so it was up to a human to solve it.

“That should about do it.”

He let out a soft breath.

He had made something out of a stick skinnier than a match. The dark elves said they were used to make bird nests and decorative wreaths. He couldn’t use anything as fancy as a rock, so he rounded out the edges of a broken shell on the edge of a boulder and fixed it in place with beeswax.

He had made a ring. It was more about breaking free of his regrets than a necessary part of his plan.

He hadn’t wanted to leave without finishing his plan to make an accessory to win his future wife’s heart. But now it was done, so he had to focus on the upcoming battle.

This would be a clash of ugly human deeds.

“Wait up.”

But as soon as he left the village, someone called out to him.

For some reason, the person he most wanted to protect was approaching him. The forest was not done betraying his expectations, so Slender was chasing after him!

“Wh-what are you doing here, Slender!? The plan doesn’t work if they see you with me!!”

“Slender, huh?”

He coughed, but what else could he do when he didn’t have another name for that girl staring at him with a hand on her hip? And changing names in the middle of his notes would only cause him more trouble down the line. He had stuck with Leader and Little Girl’s inaccurate names, so Slender would just have to accept hers too!!

“Are you sure you can reach your destination walking through the forest alone at night? You do remember where these Rosehera and Elzane people are, don’t you?”

“…”

He was not at all confident. It was entirely possible he would get lost and wander around half in tears until he ran out of time.

Slender winked and pressed a hand against her chest.

“See, you need me with you. I can guide you to the site of your duel.”

“Th-thanks.”

“But if any stray shots come my way, I might just reach for my bow on reflex. I can’t be blamed for responding in self-defense, can I?”

“You’re going to ruin the plan, Slender!”

They continued their discussion while walking through the forest together.

It was a little too dark out to call it a date and he feared that was a large carnivore he heard moving around nearby, but it was still vastly superior to when he had been out there alone. They felt so much closer than when he had been hiding in the bushes trying to guess what she was doing from her few remaining footprints.

“Here.” She pulled something from the cleavage formed by her white vest. “When was the last time you ate any real food? We can’t have you collapsing before the battle even begins.”

He greatly appreciated it.

After all, their food was all handmade, which made this the lovely Slender’s home cooking! I love it! Marry me!! He just about hugged her, but…

“What?”

He muttered to himself in his own tongue without thinking when he saw the small bottle. It contained a collection of fruits – peach, apple, grape, and more – chopped up, dried, and covered in a white powder.

He was surprised to find they had fruits like this in the conifer forest, but that wasn’t the primary issue.

…What kind of choice is this? This is just as awkward as when your smiling grandma recommends you a subpar snack.

Klaus had bitten into a small rodent and a black beetle for sustenance, but he was turned off by this in a different way.

This was from his future wife.

It was her home cooking.

The white powder indicated the super-sweet love behind it. He could not reject it, but he also didn’t quite feel like accepting it. Noticing the awkward look on his face, Slender’s eyes angled upwards in displeasure.

“What, are you saying you won’t eat it?”

“No, ah ha ha. I will, uh, gladly eat it.”

He was so unconfident in his acting abilities he used the human language she couldn’t understand, so she ended up grabbing at him. She must have been proud of it and hated to have it rejected because she opened the lid and stuffed the contents into his mouth.

“Eat it!! See, it’s good now that you’ve tried it! Admit it’s good!”

“Mghghghgh!?”

Choking on dried fruit sounded the same in any language.

Dried fruit still reminded him of an unwanted gift from grandma, but he was surprised to find it was somewhat warm. Which made sense given it had been stored in her cleavage. With the white leather vest pulled tight, she actually did form a cleavage, even if she was less than 80cm. He didn’t think dried fruit worked as a cardiotonic, but he heard his heart pounding in his ears after eating it.

Then there was the sugar. How had she gotten that? The sugarcane didn’t grow this far north, so had they boiled down the inedible Witch Pumpkin? Klaus had felt like he knew his way around the place now, but the dark elf forest was still full of mysteries.

And no matter how much of a granny flavor it had, food was food. It may have been an emergency supply for when she failed to catch anything or accidentally got lost in the forest because the small bottle of dried fruit really packed a punch. The already sugary fruit was soaked in more sugar and the dried fruits may have soaked up the moisture and expanded in his stomach. He felt a lot fuller than he had expected.

“Did you use honey in addition to the Witch Pumpkin?”

“Oh? I’m glad to see you know how to appreciate forest food.”

That was fortunate. If Ghost Turnips or Witch Pumpkins had gone into making the honey, he could indirectly acquire the magic derivative from it.

…I have five uses of Camouflize now. That’s the first time I’ve been fully charged since entering the forest.

Now he could fight using trickery. He still had no idea what he could do against an elite knight equipped with iron and silver and against legendary hope elf, but he could figure something out with his options open like this.

“Hey.” Satisfied that the bottle was empty, Slender spoke to him again. “Did you really stick around to help even though you didn’t even know my name?”

“Um, well.”

He wasn’t sure what to say since agreeing felt like officially branding himself her stalker.

But he was curious about something himself.

“What about you?”

“What do you mean?'”

“Why did you save me from the fire? I’ll be kind of sad if you say you would have nobly saved anyone in that situation…”

“Did the drug make you forget?”

“What drug!?”

That was a scary thing to hear from a dark elf hunter who knew all about mixing poisons and drugs for her arrows. Then again, he had noticed some unnatural gaps in his memory before and after he was initially captured and taken to the clearing and before and after she rescued him from the fire.

“Quiz time.” Slender flicked her long ear – the one wearing her single remaining earring. “When you first ran across me bathing, which ear was I wearing this on?”

“…?”

“You were too busy staring at my naked body to notice, weren’t you, you pervert?”

He didn’t dare tell her how right she was.

And another question came to mind.

“Which ear? You weren’t wearing both of them then?”

“The other earring’s clasp is broken, so it has a habit of falling off.” She laughed and continued on. “So you found it on the ground and walked through those sticky plants, not knowing what they were, to return it to me. That is why you ran across me bathing.”

The rest of that story was far from romantic.

He had been sent running all over the forest because of parasites, knights, and a giant dragon, ultimately finding himself here. He didn’t want to count how many times he had nearly died due to remarkable and very boring reasons alike.

He held a hand to his forehead and sighed, but she seemed to see things differently.

“That doesn’t sound like much, does it?”

She had such a kind look in her eyes.

This seemed like it should have been a disappointment to him, but…

“But it meant a lot to me. The pair of earrings is a gift meant to draw destined lovers together. Admittedly, it’s more of a superstition or jinx than it is a serious ritual, but when you appeared with the ring in hand, it was just like a scene from the picture book my mother used to read me. I had given up on those superstitions long ago, but you made me believe again.”

“…”

Come to think of it, hadn’t he seen the village kids breaking a stick in two and sharing the pieces?

But in the end, that’s all it really was. There was nothing special there and they weren’t the reincarnations of lovers from a past life. They hadn’t known each other’s names, but when they saw the other suffering, they hadn’t been able to sit idly by and let it continue.

They were both people who had continued to pursue their childhood dreams even as their belief in them waned.

They both smiled at about the same time.

That similarity may have been what drew them toward each other from the very beginning.

Both before and after they could understand each other’s words.

“There’s so much we can discuss once this is over,” she said.

“Sure,” he replied.

“There’s a lot I can tell you and there’s a lot I want to hear from you.”

“Sure.”

“So…”

Something had changed.

This wasn’t the chirping insects or the nocturnal animals. They sensed a messier and more oppressive presence out there.

It was the humans.

No other lifeform was more openly indifferent to the other life around it. Slender looked out ahead and spoke with a firm, determined voice.

“Do not let them win. I will never forgive you if you don’t return from this.”

Crack

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!!!!!!

A bolt of lighting really did crash down from the heavens and split a thick conifer tree down the center.

Maybe it was the harm to one of the forest’s trees and maybe it was the ignition of fire in the forest, but the look in Slender’s eyes sharpened.

The dark elves would silently hide in the forest and take up positions before the enemy ever knew they were there, but the knights would make their presence known as they surrounded the battlefield and then charged in for a direct attack.

Had that lightning been fearsome divine punishment or the symbol of humanity’s new toy?

The two halves of the split tree collapsed in opposite directions, revealing someone on the other side. She only wore lightweight chainmail on her upper body for ease of arm movement, but she wore thick armor on her legs, creating a very odd silhouette. Her massive double ringlets spread out to the sides and fell to her ankles. She used a single arm to easily wield a complex lance known as a chauve-souris, named for the side blades that resembled bat wings.

Her sky blue eyes carried a powerful will and her lemon yellow hair had the artificial color of the neon tube experiments held at the royal capital’s school. The unnatural color of her hair seemed to defy the power of nature all around her.

Klaus knew her name.

“Elzane Livzy.”

“So we meet again, boy.”

Had she left her horse behind to prioritize mobility over speed? He could tell she intended to tail his every move so he could never escape. Last Resort Unit’s commander reached a hand out to the pitiful runaway while prepared to kill him at any moment.

She used her other hand to toy with her hair because that was how she controlled her magic.

“Hope Elf Rosehera had hoped to complete her magic circles earlier than expected, but I had her stop until we could find you. Now hurry this way. We can burn away the forest and the dragon bones within once you are safely away. The other knights have already left.”

She approached him and gave him a chance. But he had to refuse. And then she would take his life with her overwhelming power. She might as well have thrown the white glove in his face to declare a duel. That was how a knight forced people to obey.

Klaus just about spat at her feet, but then he remembered this was still part of the dark elf forest. He could not spit on the ground while slender was watching.

He used his words instead.

“What if I said I’m not going back?”

“That’s too bad. …I like you, boy, and I mean it. So I really wish I could find some way to avoid killing you.”

Of course, Elzane wouldn’t have cared if all the dark elves had worked together to oppose her. She would have wielded her devastating magic and repelled them all on her own. So a human like Klaus would have to be insane to try and fight her. The dark elves had taught him how to survive, so he wasn’t going to get dragged into a fight with this knight. His best option was to borrow the dark elf tactics of remaining hidden until he had a winning position and launching a swift attack from there.

…What can I use to do that? I have plenty of knowledge built up on my note-taking stick, but that’s all on the Forest of No Return and the dark elves. That won’t tell me what to do against a human. So my only option is Camouflize. What can I camouflage myself as to get the upper hand here?

There was another crucial factor here.

“Where is Hope Elf Rosehera?”

“Looking for me?”

Thick-soled shoes crushed the underbrush as another blonde girl made a casual appearance. She looked to be around 12 and she wore the loose green garb of a priestess as well as a small crown. She was the one and only hope elf in the world and she spoke with some amusement in her voice but also with a slight pouting of her lips.

“I see you aren’t calling me a saint anymore. You wound me, student.”

The hope elf’s magic was central to Elzane’s tactics. He had no idea how it worked, but Rosehera could apparently “lend” her power to others. That meant any magic cast by Elzane Livzy was given the power of a hope elf. Didn’t that mean the knight wouldn’t be as much of a threat if he could take out Rosehera first?

The knight in the bottom-heavy armor clearly knew that because she looked surprised by Rosehera’s appearance.

“Stay back, Madam Hope Elf. You are not needed here.”

“Oh, don’t mind me. Now, student, you aren’t thinking of defeating me first, are you?”

“Kh.”

“Ah ha ha!! Adorable. Simply adorable. I only lent Elzane a fraction of my power, while I have control of it all, and you think I will be the first to fall?”

…I had a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy.

That monster had been born an elf, but her magical power had been so great she no longer counted as an ordinary elf. She was a higher being who had required the creation of the hope elf species just to explain her existence. He couldn’t hope to break through an opening left by the knight and rush at the hope elf. If that was enough to defeat her, she would still only be known as an elf.

“This is a discussion between knights. Innocent boy, please leave us.”

Elzane moved her heavy lance.

Its tip shifted from Klaus to the girl next to him. What did the distance between them even matter with that lightning magic of hers? She had Slender in her sights.

“And, dark elf, whatever your reasons, you took the life of the honorable Sir Rainbook. You must pay for your crime. Your rules might deem it barbaric, but a life can only be paid for with a life.”

They didn’t have time for these overly dramatic customs.

Klaus clenched his teeth. If the dark elves were slaughtered to satisfy the knights, nothing would remain to stop Brashgain’s resurrection and then the entire world would be destroyed. The knights might be willing to admit to their mistake and accept death, but that wasn’t fair to everyone else who had to die along with them. Elzane had arrived from outside the forest, so she had no way of knowing that the fundamental issue regarding Brashgain had gotten twisted around, but if he said so, it would lead to another problem.

Why had his rotten teacher Reika Kickpleats entered the forest with only her tightlipped #1 student with her?

In order to avoid triggering a panic about Brashgain’s resurrection and the end of the world.

He hated this predicament, but he noticed something odd while going over the conditions in his head.

Yes…

“Wait…why?”

“Boy?”

Elzane gave him a puzzled look, but he wasn’t looking at her. His focus was on the smaller girl with distinctively long ears.

“I get how humans could be confused about the whole Brashgain thing.”

“Oh?” she said, sounding surprised.

She viewed the trembling boy like he was an amusing spectacle.

“We don’t know anything about Archdragon Magic, so we have no way of predicting what it can or can’t do. But Rosehera, you scoffed when you first saw the dark elves’ magic, didn’t you? You called it a mere parlor trick. So you must understand how their magic works. Then you should have realized the truth when you saw the dragon bones scattered around the forest. You would have known the stars drawn on the ground were to accelerate and scatter the energy, not to resurrect Brashgain. You would know that the dark elves have been working to prevent his resurrection, so you would know destroying them would instead lead to his resurrection.”

What if Rosehera had known all that, but feigned ignorance and continued to assist the human knights?

Klaus didn’t know how much of it she had planned. Maybe the deaths of Professor Dissection and Sir Rainbook had been a stroke of good luck for her, or maybe she had sent Sir Rainbook to guard Professor Dissection to set up exactly that situation.

The knights’ presence there had seemed strange from the beginning.

Klaus had to think this through once more. Maybe that eccentric had managed to learn some compromising information on important people to keep his position, but Kyle Hardjuicer’s actions had not been the kind of thing an honorable knight would ordinarily condone. And a noble did not normally accept a short, mercenary-style job away from the royal capital like that. Klaus had never met Sir Rainbook and didn’t know what kind of man he had been, but the average noble would never agree to that unless convinced to do so by some political pressure from above.

Yes. For example, if the one and only hope elf had bowed down and asked him.

“You were never working with the humans to solve this problem.”

So what if she had set this all up, received word of Phase 1’s success from Loinbelt’s carrier pigeon, and grinned behind everyone’s backs?

“Hey, Elzane, when you and your knights were hurrying to prepare for this mission, did that duplicitous elf happen to say she wanted to tag along and settle the score herself because she was the one to introduce Sir Rainbook to this job?”

He was only guessing, but the knight girl’s gasp was all the answer he needed. That meant Rosehera had prepared herself a tear-jerking excuse to join the battle without anyone asking too many questions. And she had been ready to make the suggestion whenever the distant clash might occur.

That settled it.

He knew the blue-eyed hope elf’s true objective now.

“She wanted to wipe out the dark elves so Brashgain could be fully resurrected. All so she could wipe out the very humans who she had tricked into helping her resurrect the dragon!!”

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