Dark Elf:Volume1 Chapter4

Chapter 4: Far and Away, Display Your True Power

Part 1

“Wait.”

The first to express confusion in the dark forest night was Elzane Livzy, the knight with massive twin ringlets that nearly reached her ankles.

“A dragon, wiping out the humans? Boy, what are you talking about?”

Perhaps the issue was on such a large scale that ordinary people couldn’t wrap their heads around it.

But what other scale was appropriate for a conspiracy caused by the one and only hope elf who had become a living legend?

Wouldn’t anything she was plotting need to involve the destruction of a whole kingdom or the entire world?

Rosehera herself continued smiling. She looked like a blonde girl of around 12, but like with a true conspiracy, revealing the truth did nothing to stop her. She made no attempt to hide her arrogance.

“Are you for real?” said the superior being. “Stop acting like this is some kind of accomplishment, you beygukc uzuaq.”

She had some other language mixed in with her human sentence. She also sighed and held out her small hand. But her palm was directed toward the confused knight, not Klaus Knockburn.

There was no light or sound.

“Gah!?”

“Elzane!!”

The skinny boy shouted in concern, but he did not dare approach. He could only watch as powerful Elzane collapsed to the ground. Her unnatural lemon yellow hair trailed after her like a comet’s tail. Once she hit the ground, she stopped moving altogether. She had reined supreme even in this forest by rejecting all the natural colors around her, but now even her face was covered in dirt.

The hope elf’s piercing-covered ears shook as she twirled her raised pointer finger.

“She hadn’t caught on to what you were saying yet, but once she did, I just know she would have taken your side. So I took back the power I had lent her. You can’t blame me for that one, can you, human?”

“By boosting that girl’s strength with her magic, the difficulty of controlling the power inside her gradually grew until her body could not manage it on her own. But she failed to notice because the hope elf was expanding her power.”

Slender explained while glaring at Rosehera.

This appeared to be some kind of side effect. And one Rosehera had neglected to mention. She had kept quiet so she could immediately knock Elzane out by turning off that valve. It didn’t look like there had been any camaraderie between those two. At least not from duplicitous Rosehera anyway.

“She is in an extreme state of deficiency. The standard result of someone using magic too powerful for them. She appeared to be controlling the power inside her using those combs, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough. The hope elf knew that but didn’t say anything so she would have some insurance.”

“My target is the dark elves. I am more than willing to let a human like you go free.”

“Thanks, but no. Besides, the world is doomed when Brashgain is resurrected regardless.”

“You don’t know that. The humans might band together while I’m wiping out the dark elves, deciding they don’t want to meet the same fate. Think about it. I don’t know if you humans are capable of it anymore, but you did destroy Brashgain once already.”

“My answer is the same either way,” spat Klaus. “I will never give you Slender or the rest of the dark elves.”

“And your reason for this foolishness?”

“It would be pretty sad if her side of the chapel didn’t have any guests during our wedding.”

He meant it as a simple joke, but Rosehera’s eyebrow twitched slightly in response. One of her blue eyes changed shape. She was the only hope elf in existence. She could wield unbelievably powerful magic and she had claimed the power that single-handedly repelled the dark elves was only a fraction of her power. But he had found something there. His words had hit home.

“Very well. Then just try it.”

She had no obvious staff or sword.

He heard the sound of something solid scraping together. Rosehera had pulled a scroll from the side string of her underwear and tossed it into the air. It unfurled on its own and hovered over her shoulders and back like a heavenly raiment. It did not even have anything drawn on it. Instead, the blank scroll had evenly-spaced holes with colored pencils stuck inside. Together, they looked like a train track’s rails and ties. There were likely 72 colors in all. He hadn’t actually taken the time to count them, but that was the number of important colors in the field of magic. And he could not let his guard down just because this was not a bladed or blunt weapon. Think of it like a rope ladder. Just rolling it up like a scroll was not enough for all those pencils to fit in such a small space. It may have used some kind of magic there. For example, a conversion a spell that made the 3D into 2D, allowing the many pencils to be stored in the paper when it was rolled up as a scroll.

Hadn’t she drawn out giant magic circles when she was preparing to burn down the entire forest? In her hands, art supplies were weapons of mass destruction capable of devastating entire armies and fortresses.

When her small fingers pulled out a light blue pencil and twirled it around, light surged from the sharp, unused tip. Klaus could tell electricity capable of slicing through metal was being compressed into a single point.

Rosehera smiled with that deadly weapon in hand.

“How long will those invisible and indescribable bonds last under the threat of death?”

“Tch!! Slender, you need to get away from-”

“Kee hee hee. You had the nerve to talk down to me, the one and only hope elf, so do show me a bond that cannot be broken even in death, student.”

The world around him was scorched white.

Part 2

He ran and ran. His eyes and ears had barely recovered. Only the fear he felt told him he was still alive. If Slender hadn’t pulled hard on his hand back then, he would have been vaporized on the spot. He held his future wife’s wrist and ran through the forest night.

This was no longer a battle between people over the human formalities surrounding nobles.

First and foremost, they had to survive. They had to escape their opponent’s view, hide in some blind spot or another, and take up a safe attack position. In the best case, they could win this unscathed. They were up against someone wielding what very well may have been the strongest magic in existence. There was no point in challenging that hope elf to a direct battle.

But Slender was focused on something else while they ran.

“Oh, no. Now the hope elf might start calling me Slender too…”

Silence was always an option. Just because he could speak her language now did not mean saying something was always the right answer.

That aside, Klaus had never imagined the day would come he would be leading a dark elf by the hand like this. If they ran in a straight line, a projectile attack would hit them. Not that a straight line was ever an option in a forest full of bushes, tree roots, boulders, Witch Pumpkins, cliffs, and other obstacles.

The two of them hid behind a nearby tree.

“When did you learn to do that?”

They had a large object to hide them while maintaining several escape routes. Slender, a professional hunter, actually looked impressed, but now was not the time to be reveling in the praise of an expert. …And in truth, he didn’t want to explain he had learned it while spying on her, Little Girl, and Mother bathing. He was well and truly screwed if she sighed and abandoned him here.

Something was coming.

A clear change came over the woods. The bugs and small animals noticed something with their finely-tuned senses and rapidly left the area. It was like the harbinger of a great disaster.

When Klaus peered out into the woods, he saw a crown swaying side to side while a small figure approached. There really was no fooling her. Rosehera was moving straight toward the tree he and Slender were hiding behind. Her scroll was still floating above her shoulders and back and her little fingers wandered indecisively between the colored pencils contained within it.

“No need to hold back on my account, student.”

“…”

“Afraid attacking me two-against-one wouldn’t be fair? Or are you reluctant to run such a small body through with a blade? Yes, yes. If that’s it, don’t let it bother you. That human knight was too unstable to be useful thanks to her righteousness and emotions and such, so allow me to even the playing field.”

“What?”

Next to him, Slender seemed unsure if she should draw her bowstring or not.

“She has something there. Is that…a sword?”

Rosehera had more than just the colored pencils. Did that weapon boost her magic? At this point, he wasn’t even going to bother asking where it had come from. The scroll of colored pencils had already defied logic in that regard.

“T. E. O. D.”

She paused briefly between each letter.

Klaus thought it was some kind of incantation, but her next words proved that wrong.

“The End of Dragons. This is the magic sword which once supplied the finishing blow against Brashgain. It flies all on its own to slay its target, so once I release it from its scabbard…well, you could call this a two-on-two battle, couldn’t you?”

His throat felt as dry as the desert.

It made sense for that to exist, he supposed. It had to have been out there somewhere. Was it 500 years ago that colossal dragon had died? Whatever it was, Brashgain’s bones were now littered across this forest, so the weapon that had slain him had to be somewhere in the world, right? But did it have to appear here and now? What kind of irony was this!? It did explain how her magic could defeat the dark elves’ Archdragon Magic, though.

…It’s always something, isn’t it!?

“Slender, get down!!”

He could have sworn the scraping sound he heard was taking years off his life.

The sword had been released from its scabbard.

Klaus immediately grabbed the silver head next to him and forced it down, which proved to have been the right decision. A moment later, a tree trunk too thick to reach his arms around and a massive Witch Pumpkin were both sliced through diagonally. The horizontal slash passed directly above their ducking heads. If they had remained upright, it would have sliced right through their torsos.

Three triangular sails of light burst from the guard and several blue flames, similar to the burners seen in the royal capital school’s labs, erupted from both flat sides of the blade. Those things allowed it to ride the wind, float, fly, and soar.

After failing to hit its target, the twisted magic sword spread its glowing sails and shot upwards at nearly a right angle. It tore through the leafy canopy blocking the night sky and accurately retargeted them from above. How was this fair? If it could fly any which way through the sky above and scan the ground below, then hiding behind trees and boulders wouldn’t accomplish much. Klaus and Slender ran full speed through the forest, the hard branches and underbrush scratching at their arms and legs, but the weapon flying through the wide-open sky was much faster.

This meant they could neither run nor hide. If they couldn’t play hide-and-seek, then the dark elf tactic of hiding your presence and making a critical strike from behind cover no longer functioned.

…This is insane!! How are that thing’s artificial eyes so good!?

They had already been on the verge of death with only the explosive magic cast by Rosehera and her scroll of colored pencils, so it was obvious what would happen if the magic sword forced them out from behind cover.

They would either be vaporized by the hope elf’s magic or bisected by the magic sword. Klaus could no longer think of any options that didn’t end with their deaths. Was there really a way to defeat this monster?

“Dammit!!”

The sword locked onto them, folded up its glowing sails, and adjusted the flames shooting from the sides of its blade to drop straight down. Klaus grabbed Slender’s hand and took off running to avoid the attack from the sky. It was like a small meteor strike. More than slice with the blade’s edge, it impacted with the ground, scattering small stones and a shockwave in every direction. An invisible wall slammed into his back and he stumbled. The air was forced from his lungs, but he managed to avoid falling. He also never let go of Slender’s hand.

…Think.

He clenched his teeth while running through the forest with all his might.

He could continue thinking as long as he remained alive. Even if he was up against artificial eyes and a devastating magical cannon.

…I’ve already challenged her to a fight, so there’s no backing out now! And it isn’t just my life on the line. All the dark elves’ lives and Slender’s fate are hanging in the balance.

“Over there!!”

The girl pulled hard on his hand, directing him toward a massive structure with the base covered in green moss. He didn’t know what part it was, but it was a piece of Brashgain’s remains.

The sword skimmed just off the ground instead of soaring into the sky. Klaus felt a squeezing at his heart when he heard a disturbing clang from right behind him…but the pain and fear was proof that he was still alive.

They had survived the magic sword’s attack?

But Rosehera was sneering at them from a short distance away.

“Ha ha. That won’t shield you for long! The T.E.O.D. I have released from its scabbard was created to kill that thing. Even if humans have long since forgotten how to create things like it!!”

“Dammit!!”

There really was no safe zone. They could not use the dark elf fighting style of moving silently through the forest, finding a safe hiding spot, and firing an arrow from there. They could not keep up with the hope elf’s magic that swept away the darkness with overwhelming firepower and felled all obstacles standing in the way.

Whether they were for control, amplification, or cooling, Rosehera would occasionally pull a gemlike berry from her pocket and eat it. But they could not get close enough to prevent her from resupplying her magic that way. Carelessly approaching was far too dangerous with that devastating magic and legendary blade after them.

“Kh.”

Maybe he couldn’t end the battle with it, but if they were going to change anything about this hopeless battlefield, the key had to be Klaus Knockburn’s Camouflize magic. There was a chance Rosehera had heard about it from Elzane, but he would still be able to use it to catch her off guard.

But what exactly could he do with it? He had five uses stocked up, but what would he try it with? What lifeforms were there in this forest that could overpower that hope elf!?

…Should I go with direct strength? Or maybe something venomous?

He listed a few possibilities in his head, but none of them sounded promising. That hope elf was a living legend and the T.E.O.D. watching them from the sky on her wordless command was the very magic sword that had slain Brashgain. Nothing sounded realistic. What would one of the usual “strongest animal” options, like a bear or a lion, accomplish here? He was starting to feel like he needed something on a legendary level to even stand a chance.

However.

“Oh.”

The redhead boy realized a fundamental fact. He didn’t know if it would work since he had never tried it, but he reviewed each of the conditions required for Camouflize to work. And he concluded it should work based on that definition.

Of course, things that theoretically should have worked had betrayed him plenty of times in the past.

Reality didn’t always go your way. Trying a new idea on the fly tended to end badly.

But he did not back away. He refused to throw out this hope because it might just work.

“Let’s go, Slender. Come with me.”

“What?”

“I need to confirm at least five things.”

The dark elf girl looked confused by his explanation.

“I’m going to use my magic to get a legend to fight for us!!”

Part 3

Whatever he hoped to do, he had to survive long enough to do it, so running away was their standard play. Klaus and Slender shared the routes they thought were best, pulling on each other’s hand and just barely avoiding the hope elf’s magic and the magic sword searching for them from the sky. They did not hesitate to travel down animal paths and through bushes. Maybe the combination of the boy’s and Slender’s ideas made them harder to predict because he sensed Rosehera’s aim veer away from them on a few occasions.

He knew all too well that they couldn’t keep this up forever.

The question was whether or not they could achieve their goal before death caught up to them and tapped on their shoulder.

“Where to next!?”

“Over there!! Hurry!!”

An explosion of light erupted so brightly it looked more like the sun than a lightning strike, but it was farther away than before. No matter how much powerful magic the hope elf had in her colored pencils, she was still very short even with her thick-soled shoes. Her steps were short and she was walking slower than them. To make up for it, the magic sword spread its glowing sails and moved out ahead of them to cut off their escape route more often. If they charged ahead without thinking, the blade would slice them in two, but if they came to a stop, the magic light would vaporize them. They had to keep multiple escape routes in mind at all times or the enemy would catch up to them.

“We aren’t approaching the village, are we?”

“Why your human language all of a sudden? Are you saying something dirty again? Anyway, come this way. We should see the next attack soon!”

Slender made a mistaken accusation and pulled on his hand to get him running in a different direction. The drop off nearby was growing taller. They may have been close to a waterfall. They couldn’t afford to slow down, but they also couldn’t afford to slip off in their haste.

He heard the rustling of someone stepping on the underbrush behind them. No one who knew the first thing about living in the forest would make so much noise.

“Hello again.”

It was the strongest elf, who only looked like a 12-year-old girl. The nearby drop off and the unsteady footing must have slowed them down enough for Rosehera to catch up.

She moved her small hand from a short distance away and a red colored pencil gave a roar. The magic circle she drew on a nearby rock resembled a complex spiral. No, it was a stereotypical piece of trick art, like a staircase with no top. Impossible shapes could be represented through art and passing power through them would endlessly amplify that power.

The power grew.

After crossing a certain threshold, it was released into the 3D world.

“Is this over already? I was hoping to enjoy myself some more.”

“Slender!!”

They couldn’t afford to be careful with their footing. After a flash of white light, the bedrock crumbled and a large chunk was torn out of the waterfall itself. Klaus held Slender’s shoulders in his hands and jumped from the solid slope. He used himself as a cushion to protect her. Or he tried to, but the white explosion sent them soaring much farther through the air than he had expected.

The sense of falling squeezed at his gut.

The most he could do was clench his teeth to make sure he didn’t bite his tongue.

He landed back-first on the ground with the dark elf girl in his arms. He had hit a patch of soft soil, but that barely mattered. He felt the impact in his organs and he had trouble breathing.

“Gahh!”

He heard a dull cracking sound and felt a pain unlike what he was used to from cuts and contusions. A brand new form of pain exploded inside him.

…Did I break a bone? But which one?

He couldn’t even imagine. He couldn’t even scream as he simply coughed while sprawled out on the ground.

“Gah!! Gh, cough, agh!!?”

“You idiot. What are you doing!?”

Slender grabbed his trembling hands in her own. The disconcerting sound had come from his back, but he could still move his arms. So had it been a rib, not his spine or shoulder blades?

He couldn’t speak.

His mouth flapped wordlessly while he felt something flashing in the back of his mind. The fear of death and agonizing pain opened up what had been locked away in his brain.

The beginning of all this appeared the back of his mind.

His rotten teacher had suggested the dark elves were dangerous. She had said they were taking revenge on humanity by resurrecting Brashgain.

But he could not bring himself to give up on his life-long dream of meeting the dark elves.

He had picked up an earring and wondered if that would help him get to know its owner.

He had chased after her through the sticky plants and that had marked the beginning of it all.

He had not lost the memories after all. Now that they were back, he found they were nothing special.

There was nothing especially romantic there and no crucial information either. It was just an ordinary event.

His back hurt and his lungs weren’t working right, but he still reached over and stopped Slender who was muttering under her breath, pulling a few small bottles of medicine from her chest, and producing firefly-like pale blue particles of light from her palm. He did not know how dark elf magic worked, but the pale light suggested this was recovery magic. However, magically speeding up the healing of his broken rib before it was set would only make things worse. He would have to break it again just to fix it.

Yes.

He could not rest yet. He could not tap out of the fight.

In the end, he was an outsider in the forest and a source of disaster, yet this kind girl was pale in the face as she worried for him. He wanted to protect her.

There was nothing particularly romantic here and he was not fighting out of duty or obligation.

He couldn’t help himself. No matter how small it might seem, he had picked up an accessory and thought she might miss it if it was permanently lost out in the forest. He hadn’t known her name, she was another species entirely, and he didn’t know how much she even cared about the earring. For all he knew, she might have never even noticed it was missing.

But he still couldn’t help but return it.

And if that girl’s life was in danger now, he couldn’t just lie there and die!!

“Ahh, agh, ah!!”

He grimaced, got his body moving, and forced himself onto his feet. He had grown up in a safe city, so he had no idea how dangerous it was to move around with a broken rib. He briefly wondered if the broken bone would pierce one of his organs, but this was more important than that.

He bit a lip that tasted of blood.

He bore with the pain, trusting he had been right to try and protect Slender here.

He wasn’t even thinking about the destruction of the world anymore.

He didn’t care how powerful the legendary hope elf and magic sword were.

He would do whatever it took to ensure that dark elf girl returned alive. He didn’t need some romantic story. He wasn’t going to find one lost in the recesses of his mind, but what did that matter? He was the one who wanted to save her and he knew that was the right thing to do, so he would stand by that decision!!

“Let’s go, Slender. We can still win this. There’s still a chance.”

She only sobbed in response.

“It’ll be okay.”

He rubbed her head.

Now that he knew her language, he knew what to say to his future wife.

“I will make you happy. No matter what it takes.”

What did the pain matter? Why should he care about Brashgain or the T.E.O.D. that slayed him? Maybe Hope Elf Rosehera was acting on some centuries’ old grudge, but that meant nothing to a short-lived human like Klaus.

Was his love at first sight more powerful than anything else in the world?

If he couldn’t answer yes without a second thought, he wouldn’t have fallen in love in the first place.

He resumed walking with an unnatural gait. With Slender supporting him from the side. The only thing on his mind was drying her tears as soon as possible.

The hard grass blades and bush branches sliced at his skin like blades. He started to suspect the tree roots and partially buried rocks were conspiring to twist his ankle. He squeezed out every last ounce of stamina he had. The strange pain and heat in his back made sure to protest every move he made.

The seemingly endless forest would eventually end.

Slender would not want to leave the forest and they were both dead once they lost the cover of the trees.

“How much longer?”

“Just one more. Cough, we still have a chance!!”

…Almost there. We’re so close.

Just then, he heard sharp whistling overhead. The T.E.O.D. was dropping from the sky with a blue light trailing behind it.

It was only a rib, but the broken bone had still slowed him down. And that delay had allowed the magic sword to target them. Slender suddenly pushed him away. He lost the support of her shoulder and collapsed face-first onto the grassy ground. Pain exploded inside him.

He kind of hoped she was making a run for it to save herself.

But instead, he heard a straining sound of her turning around, drawing her bow, and aiming toward the night sky through the gaps in the branches.

“Wko gtijaq’v rayot uv i naiwkvapo wkuqj, dew uw fiq do kitqovvog wa jtoiw ohhofw. Koto u faqwtan iqg iup wkiw rayot. Wkuv uv wko powkag mqayq iv Itfkgtijaq Pijuf.”

She spoke under her breath and Klaus could tell something was gathering in her arrowhead according to some kind of rules.

“Leave my hand and fly forth, Jaws of Nidhogg!!”

Her bow rebelled against the heavens above. The dragon-slaying sword and the dark elf arrow collided and exploded in the sky. The power built up inside T.E.O.D. was unleashed in every direction, rustling the leaves of the forest around them.

But.

A sharp sound pierced through that blast.

T.E.O.D. sliced through the dark elf’s Archdragon Magic to continue along its course. Even after losing its light, the sword that had delivered the finishing blow to Brashgain dropped like a lightning bolt.

It sliced apart the raised bow.

And it stabbed right through the girl’s body.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Klaus Knockburn could no longer breathe.

He refused to believe what he was seeing.

The sword had collided with the arrow on the way down. That must have scattered most of the power built up within it because it had lacked the explosive force needed to form a crater where it landed. But the sword stabbed in to the hilt was still a horrifying sight.

And of all things, Slender held the hilt and guard in her hands. But not to pull it out of herself. Quite the opposite, she was keeping it trapped in her body to protect the boy lying nearby. She couldn’t even remain standing, but she gathered the last of her strength in her bloody hands.

“Stop!!”

The pain in his ribs no longer mattered. He grabbed at the grass to stand up, shouted at the top of his lungs, and ran toward the small body lying on her side with the sword through her gut.

“That’s enough! I didn’t want this!! Sob. How am I supposed to enjoy life – ahh – if I’m the only one that survives!?”

When he clung to her, a small smile formed on her lips. She may not have been able to see anymore due to the blood loss.

She only spoke two words.

“Thank…goodness.”

And her head slumped down. Klaus had gone to the trouble of learning her language, but nothing left his mouth now.

I will marry you.

He would take Slender as his wife, no matter what barriers stood in his way.

And as his wife, she could place all the burden on him. He would do the housework and he would earn a living so she could just live a peaceful life. And seeing her living her best life like that would be all the happiness he needed.

Except now…

“Don’t smile.”

He had no idea how many centuries or even millennia this young-looking dark elf had lived, but how had she not learned something so simple after so much time!?

He wasn’t even sure which language he was speaking anymore.

He clenched his teeth and couldn’t keep the tears from flowing as she shouted down at her.

“I want you to be more selfish. Sob, I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself. I want you to be happy, to smile, and to live a full life. What kind of guy could smile after seeing his wife slice her gut open!? Are you insane!? Dying a stupid death over a silly obsession is supposed to be my job!!”

He yelled so loud he thought he would tear open his own throat.

Because he feared it wouldn’t reach her otherwise.

“So don’t smile like this is a good thing!! I refuse to accept this! Please, say you don’t want to die! Ask me to stop the bleeding!! That’s what people are supposed to do! Let me be proud I could give you what you wanted and you can be happy I used all my strength for you! Not…not this!!!!!! Ahhhh!!”

“My, my.”

He heard the scraping of a scroll containing 72 colored pencils.

And a voice.

“Are you ready to give up now?”

He worked to catch his breath while checking behind him. They were near the edge of the forest, but the end of the trees didn’t lead to an open plain. It led to a precipice that seemed to continue on down into hell. There was no escape.

Rosehera sneered with the scroll floating behind her and the small crown swaying on her head.

He heard a wet splash.

He hadn’t noticed it with his vision flashing in and out, but the hope elf had casually stepped inside a forest stream. It was only ankle deep and something like a sharp white stone jutted out from the water and the nearby greenery. It was a dragon fang.

This was the place.

Oh, so we made it all the way back to the stream where I first met her, Klaus realized.

In his bleary vision, he could tell Rosehera remained unscathed. Her skin maintained its childlike softness. A stark contrast to Klaus and his numerous scrapes and his broken rib, or Slender and her gut pierced by the dragon-slaying blade.

The redhead boy could not even hold his shoulders even and all emotion vanished from his mind.

You’re ****.

A strange tingling filled him as he mouthed two words at Rosehera.

“I am impressed you managed to run nearly 10km. That’s almost all the way across the forest.”

“Thanks, I guess…”

“Now, who should I decapitate first? Or you can emotionally jump from the cliff in each other’s arms if you like.”

“Come to think of it, I forget to ask something.”

His face was soaked with sweat, but he managed to spit out the words. He felt no emotion, only a blank nothingness. He couldn’t take his time trying to negotiate. He had to treat his wife’s wounds as soon as possible.

So he chose to enrage that experienced monster with a single statement.

He wiped the tears form his eyes with a thumb and attacked her with his words.

“Why do you want to destroy us humans so badly? Do you spend every night reliving memories too painful and humiliating to share?”

“Are you offering to go first? I can cleanly vaporize everything below your head and let you watch me dismember that dark elf right up until your head remembers to die and ceases to breathe. In your final moments, you can enjoy seeing the agony and terror on her face as she cries out in vain for your help.”

“Yeah, you wish you could do that.”

His extreme exhaustion and the internal pain of the broken bone didn’t matter right now. Klaus Knockburn spread his arms while using his pale lips to speak.

“Of the three traits, I choose salt. Magic lifeform, reptile, squamata, varanidae, cold blooded. I have grasped thy nature like counting the corners of a polygon or star. The polygon emanates and the star gathers – together they symbolize the control of power. By knowing thee, I become one with thee.”

The hope elf’s blue eyes narrowed asymmetrically, her face twisting in confusion.

The look on her face said she was not interested in a battle to determine the strongest life form in the forest. She was a living legend, so sending a lion or tiger after her was meaningless. Plus, Klaus’s magic only camouflaged his appearance; it did not actually turn him into the life form. Mimicking a dragon’s appearance would not let him breathe fire and camouflaging himself as an angel would not let him fly. Unless it was something large enough to crush his opponent with its sheer size, his camouflage magic had no offensive use. His effort here was doomed to fail, so Rosehera could not figure out why he sounded so confident.

Lucky for him, it took her a moment to figure out what he was after. It even gave him a chance to crouch down and run his finger along the mossy ground with Slender still in his arms. Making all the necessary preparations in front of a powerful enemy was the most difficult part. He used the four elements to grasp the three traits and linked heaven to earth. And he smiled while battered and beaten.

Fangs were littered across this area, which meant another white monstrosity had to be pushing through the forest vegetation. He directed his gaze toward that colossal skull and he unleashed the final incantation.

Yes, he had his eyes on Brashgain’s body.

“Camouflize Decoration – now I am thee!!”

Part 4

“Ah.”

Hope Elf Rosehera finally reacted, but she had waited too long. The boy’s camouflaging had already begun inside the square magic circle.

It had to be possible.

Even if only the bones remained, that thing had once been a lifeform that cracked the ground beneath his feet, caught the wind with his wings, and opened his jaws wide to roar.

This was why Klaus had continued to run away. Why he had run the full 10km from one end of the forest to the other with that girl by his side.

It had to be possible.

He did not have a living sample, but the camouflage magic only needed the basics of the target lifeform. The rest could be filled in with his imagination. So he only needed the power of his mind, like he was reconstructing the original muscles and facial features from a fossil.

That was why he had needed to observe each of the colossal dragon’s bones lying across the forest.

It had to be possible.

His Camouflize worked with any lifeform, so even if Brashgain was a legend, he could become that great dragon and make the ground tremble beneath him as long as he observed the bones, made some calculations, and pictured the end result in his mind!!!!!!

In that moment, the skinny boy’s mind was transported elsewhere. He came into contact with something unseen.

Salt, sulfur, and mercury. From those three traits indicating the shape of the lifeform, he had chosen salt, which prioritized the original form. That was partially because he had his doubts that Brashgain belonged to a species that formed communities of male and female members. He had a feeling that the dragon had become a singular being due to being too abnormal, just like Rosehera.

His camouflage magic only disguised his appearance. It did not remake his mind at the same time, so he did not gain the life form’s memories or thoughts. But he still received a message.

He felt a throbbing.

Unbearable pain spread from a point in his stomach to the rest of his body. He concluded the only way he could have inherited this pain from the original was if it came from a disease. And even while afflicted by a deadly disease, the dragon had been too powerful to ever actually die. He hadn’t even been able to tear out the diseased part of his body. All he could do was beg for someone to kill him.

That may have been why it happened.

He had needed to search out someone capable of bringing him death. He had unleashed great violence upon the humans, trusting that they held that power. In his final moments, when he had been run through by the human blade after an all-out war, the dragon had felt relief. The dark elves were working to prevent the dragon’s resurrection, but that was a blessing for the dragon. He had finally found peace in death, so he would never want to be brought back to a life of agony.

(I’m sorry, Brashgain.)

Klaus understood that pain now. It really was enough to for even a great dragon to weep and wish for death. That very pain and suffering wore at Klaus’s mind the entire time he borrowed the dragon’s power. He had no idea if a human could come down with this disease as well, but he knew he couldn’t bear it. Which made sense when it had been too much for the strongest of dragons.

But he took it anyway.

He accepted this condition. Why wouldn’t there be a cost to borrowing such a great power?

And.

…This is probably just a self-righteous assumption on my part, but I bet that lonely dragon wanted someone he could share his pain and fear with.

Now that I’ve experienced your pain, I will tell everyone your story.

So please.

(Lend me your power. So I can protect someone I love from her own unbearable pain!!!!!!)

And.

That being opened its “eyes”.

“Hi, Rosehera. I can’t seem to pronounce human words with a dragon’s throat and tongue, but I trust that a hope elf fluent in human, elf, and dark elf will be able to understand me. Yes, you’re probably cursing your own intellect right about now.”

“Ah, ahh.”

She was in a daze. That unbelievably powerful hope elf stared up at him in confusion and shook her head to forcibly get her mind working again.

It was a very childish action. The crown on her head looked silly now.

“N-no. No!! T.E.O.D. was created to kill you. And a skin-deep mimicry is no threat to-!!”

She stopped talking when she realized she did not have the sword with her.

In fact…

“You said T.E.O.D. was the sword that delivered the finishing blow to Brashgain. I’m sure that’s true, but what about everything leading up to the finishing blow? The humans at the time would have been on the verge of utter destruction, so wouldn’t every state and every human joined forces to oppose him? It wasn’t just T.E.O.D. There were innumerable great warriors there. That sword alone isn’t enough to destroy the entire dragon. Besides, your sword was already deflected by one of this guy’s bones earlier.”

Rosehera froze while she was reaching down to pull the sword out of the brown girl’s gut.

Klaus Knockburn had only disguised his appearance. He could not open his mouth and breathe fire or spread his wings and fly.

But.

He now had a 10km body and his opponent looked like a 12-year-old girl. A difference like that was enough to create a devastating attack. He could rely on brute force and simply crush her.

“You never did apply the final touches to your fire magic circles, did you? Then I have nothing to fear from you.”

Slender was curled up on her side.

She used her arms and body to cover up the hilt of T.E.O.D. sticking out of her gut. That way she could ensure the boy’s victory and prevent any harm from coming to him.

He loved her so much he thought he was going to die, but it wasn’t time for that. Right now, he needed to display cruelty.

He gave a final, irreversible ultimatum.

No, he announced an execution.

“Hey, little legend, how many of your precious hope elf spells do you have left? Not that it matters. If you don’t kill me with the very first one, I’ll squash you flat. Just like a wee little bug.”

The wind roared.

With a body that size, muscle movement was enough to produce a disastrous gale.

“Ka, ka, ka, ka…”

In that final moment, the hope elf looked up with wavering blue eyes and said something.

She had tears in her eyes and her shoulders shook in a strange half-laughter.

The words she spoke were not human or dark elf.

“Qdo qdukc ixaeq duj up, jv okojv, do guhhoz pajoako lnoyuaep qa jo pa ronv hakc ica.”

Part 5

The colossal dragon vanished like it had been an illusion all along. All that remained was a boy ignoring the pain from his broken rib as he ran toward the dark elf lying collapsed on her side.

“Slender!!”

Her movements remained sluggish even as he shouted and ran over to her. T.E.O.D. must have stopped moving after Rosehera’s defeat because she had removed her bloody hands from the hilt. Her hands now lay limply on the ground.

He didn’t need to be a doctor to know something crucial was spilling out along with her blood. Camouflize only changed his outer appearance, so it was powerless to help her. Not even with the power of a dragon large enough to destroy the world.

“Is it…over?”

That was all she said.

Klaus was too scared to say anything. When he nodded in response, she looked satisfied and started to close her eyes.

He wanted to keep her here. He wanted something – anything – that would give her reason to stay here in the realm of the living.

Only one thing came to mind.

“Marry me.”

The words spilled from his mouth. He had struggled so much in the forest, but now that it was time, they came so easily. He pulled something from his pocket: a simple ring made from a thin stick and a rounded-down shell piece.

The dark elf girl exhibited some surprise.

His face crumpled up as he cried. He spoke through the tears and snot.

“Please, please… Ugh, I can’t live in a world without you. I’ll do anything. I don’t care if I never leave this forest again. So…”

Slender gently raised her hand.

She was responding. What about his request had tugged at her heartstrings? The smile on her face was more like someone calming a small child after a nightmare than it was someone accepting a marriage proposal.

Klaus bit his lip and moved his trembling fingers, bringing the ring closer.

It touched her left ring finger.

But then her lithe hand dropped down.

It hit the ground and ceased to move.

Klaus Knockburn felt something burn out in his mind and he looked up into the sky and wailed.

With that, his fieldwork had ended.

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