Chapter 170: The Elf Outcast
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Situated in the Northland, spa.r.s.e of resources, Ta.s.sel Kingdom of the Elves was nevertheless a great place, which was hard to come by.
The renovated cliff and magic-crystal wall became the artificial barrier of the capital, Santander, the endless hardy old pine trees served as the best shelter from wind, the ancient spirit of the Elves contained magical water, which flowed into streams, bringing warmth and vitality in this land, and also turning it into one rare green vitality in Northlands.
Just as Humans in the north were getting upset of the winter beasts in hunger, the Elven natural priests and hunters had tamed them into tractable livestock. Just as all countries in the north were endeavouring throughout the year to prepare the winter rations, the fruit trees under the manipulation of Elven Ancient Tree, were able to produce fruits thrice a year, producing all sorts of the sweet and delicious fruits that grew regardless of the seasons. These fruits were not exported and traded for mineral resources. In time, they would rot away.
A centipede does not topple over even when dead, the Elven kingdoms which had inherited the legacy of the Elves were contemptuous of the Humans as they had the background of nouveau riches. For them, a hundred years was just an instance due to their longevity. Having tremendous time and skills, had they not improved their living environment, those wild Elves in the Knight novels who lived above the trees, were merely an artistic ornament.
Just when the main forces of the Ta.s.sel were galloping amongst the snow land, their territory was as peaceful as ever. The young unicorns and flying horses were playing in the forest, the Elven civilians still had the leisure time to carry out their winter ceremonies, so what about the battle at the frontline? They were confident that the mighty alliance of the four Elven Kingdoms would never fall to the ordinary Humans, not to mention their very elites were going all out this time.
The truth was so, the hundred thousands of Elven armies were a small number, but due to their very high average combat power, just an elite troop of theirs could match the royal guards of the other countries, even their ground force was of formidable soldiers and should not be underestimated.
This was the foundation of the Elves, even today, the weakness of the Elven kingdom, which had inherited the ancient magic and arts, was none other than their population. It took an Elf two hundreds to reach adulthood, and this period was enough for Humans who married relatively earlier to come up with six or seven generations.
A war was fought with comprehensive country power, the population and resources were one of the important factors, as casualties were unavoidable, for even the mightiest sorcerer, would perish in combat or under friendly fire, and such a loss would take almost two to three hundred years to be regained.
The Achilles’ heel of the Elves was none other than their inability to fight in a war of attrition.
And this time, if the main forces suffered tremendous casualties, the Elves would have to undergo a very long time of recuperation. It could be said that the northern Elves would go to any length as they had cast all their lots on the victory of this battle!
In the absence of their main forces, the role of city border patrol was transferred to the rangers who had formed a second cla.s.s army, or an adventure squad.
A Wild Elf ranger, two to three Centaur archers, one to two Elven warriors, were the members of a typical Elven patrol squad. If it was a first cla.s.s battle squad, one to two Elven Ancient Trees, natural priests and flying horse knights would be added, and the strength of those units was certainly on another level.
Even amongst the Elves, there weren’t many Druids who prefer to live on trees, compared to the cities.
In any place, as long as there was the presence of intelligent beings, the trees would always be one of the most important resources. Not only they could achieve the basic functionalities of construction and furniture, they were also the basic ingredients of the artwork of the Elves. Furnished with precious forest regions which were unusual in Northlands, the exported exquisite wood produced by the Elves had earned a lot of foreign currency.
If the Druids who treated forest protection as the most sacred duty were easily amenable to reasoning, they would not be cla.s.sified as terrorists by all the other countries. The Druids were bigoted, the Elves were bigoted too, it was inconceivable how bigoted the combination of both, the Elven Druids was capable of. Their extreme nature protection organisation was the origin and mentor of the other Green Terrorists, all sorts of their secret acts were even graced as the epitome to take an example from.
The moniker of “Anti-Lumbering Little Bear Alliance” would sound adorable, but it had been there for more than ten thousand years. They had been referring to the Druids Terrorists which brought the Elves much headache, they had the esoteric bear transformation arcane and beast training arcane, perhaps any grey bears within the forest could be one of them spying on you, while you hummed a song, chopping wood.
In the end, the Elves were not only the source of the Druids, but also made up most of the Druids, however, most of the Druids would still have an outward occupation which was acceptable by the world.
At this time however, within the temporary campsite, Tasia the Elven ranger who was humming her little tune while preparing dinner, was actually a hidden Druid master, and was also a member of the “Little Bear Alliance”, but lately, she had not been fulfilling the sacred duties of “natural protection”.
The feeds that those pets Tasia had domesticated cost money, she had thus put earning money first, sacred duties second.
To be recruited by the Elven Kingdom to carry out some not so perilous military tasks and fill the spot of Kingdom armies, was indeed a bargain. At this crucial moment, the Elven kingdom would no more be n.i.g.g.ardly, the doubled recruitment fee during the war was alluring for countless mercenaries.
“Ha, this time we are really making money, to think that merely patrolling could make so much money, I hope the war would last longer, I still expect the cowards within the city to increase the recruitment fees. Should the war be elevated, the recruitment fee would increase threefold, or even tenfold.”
Tasia spoke something uncharacteristic of the Elves, but the Centaurs amongst her troops had already gotten used to her personality, and on the contrary, they who held a lower stand in the Elven kingdom, would prefer her straightforward and amiable character, compared to the other arrogant Elven aristocracies.
“Don’t speak such a thing in the city, those self-important Elves would be displeased.” Centaur Boll chucked after counting his recent soaring stipends, he was in a good mood.
“In the past few years, the army on duty was not so relaxed, they had to venture into the wild across the mountains in pursuit of the slave hunting groups, it was not an easy task, in the case of running into any sword saint or senior magic automaton instructor sent by the big Human countries, the pursuer might become the prey. Also in that time, quite a number of patrol squads have gone missing.”
Tasia laughed even more happily.
“Indeed, those slave hunters will bother me no more, they created so much trouble… Pitiful, Princess Suana. How pitiful, how could a good person not end well?”
Recollecting her figure which was as tender as water, even Tasia, who was sick of the Elves, had nursed a grievance.
“…About that matter, I heard a rumour. Erm, just a rumour.”
Grover, the silent Elven warrior popped out, but his words had caught the attention of the comrades.
After a moment of hesitation, Grover finally spoke up.
“The rumor says, there a few doubtfulness about the kidnapping of Princess Suana, the Elven troops who were supposed to safeguard her was pulled over for military training, and the rangers had started to undergo a closed training, even the Moon Glaive royal guards was transferred to the border to take care of some disputes, all of these had given the chance for the slave merchants, who were not particularly strong, to capture the Princess Suana…”
Hearing this, members of the small squad had sunk into a peculiar silence, of course, they knew this rumour, for the past few weeks, this topic had been circulating around any restaurant or market.
The implication behind the rumour was quite evident, the demise of Princess Suana was but within the scheme of Elven King and the Council. Rather than saying that Suana was dead in the hand of Humans, in fact, she was offered by the ruthless Elven King as the sacrifice of war.
“Let’s avoid words without proof, or else we would get into trouble.”
To think that Tasia who had just spoken uninhibitedly, turned out to advise Grover to tread carefully, and just when her words faded, the amiable Elven warrior cracked a laughter.
“No proof? The two legendary warriors in royal guards were suddenly transferred, isn’t that proof? Anrode the “Hand of Kashmir” who had an intimate relations.h.i.+p the princess, even created a havoc in the army because of this, he had allegedly smashed the signboard of the army.”
Grevor was obviously one who supported the Peace-pursuing faction of Princess Suana. They who went through an outrage, in the beginning, had now cooled off to think about the root cause of the death of the princess, and also discovered the few dubious points.
“According to what that was spoken by the Humans, the brains behind the political schemes are always those who would benefit the most from these events, and in this event, the Humans had derived no benefit at all, the only one who benefited from this were none other than the War-pursuing faction of the Elves. That man is incredibly ruthless, Princess Suana was his daughter…”
Alright, these words were blunt enough, when it came to rebuking the Elven king directly.
In an instant, the temperature of the campsite fell drastically, and everyone became silent, after all, it was not good for the civilians to partic.i.p.ate in such matters, the spies and scouts were not exclusive to just the Humans. To be imprisoned due to loose tongues was quite a misfortune, and all sufferings could be spoken to no one afterwards.
Not to mention, Tasia who was actually a Druid, would not be intrigued by this matter. Despite her pity for the princess, she would not go out of her way to fight for her.
And thus, she was trying hard to stop his words.
“Ah, there is a Dark Elf!”
Alright, would Dark Elves appear within the Elven Kingdom? That was obviously a bluff but had unexpectedly amused Grevor.
He laughed while shaking his head.
“Just don’t talk about it if you don’t want, at here, where would you find dark…”
Before he could finish his words, he had fallen on his face with his eyes rolled back, a dark green dagger was stabbed in his back.
“…Though I don’t know how you discovered me, since you have, I shall not let you go back alive.”
A figure wearing dark armour emerged from Grevor’s shadow, the dark skin sufficed to explain everything.
“A Dark Elf is here for real? Perhaps, I should consider being a prophet.”
Just as Tasia was regretting her bad mouth, the Dark Elf scout in front of them who was about Silver rank, again flashed his dagger which was coated with paralyzing poison. In her eyes, that was possible to wipe out an ordinary patrol squad, but taking account of her hidden legendary power, the scout before her was merely a trash with a combat power of 5.
“Aha, take my rolling pin”
The truth went on like the expectation, the Dark Elf who was confidently moving was struck down by Tasia’s rod after just saying a h.e.l.lo. Never would he imagine that an Elven ranger with a crossbow possessed such marvellous skill with the rod, with this paralysing thundershock that came from that wood rod.
“Little lad, you dare to flaunt yourself in front of me. Guys, let’s move, the situation doesn’t look good, he might have accomplices…”
The words left were unnecessary, as a number of shadows surging out from the forest had revealed the truth, again, it had proven the prophetic talent of Tasia.
“…Tasia, please talk less.”
Now, the party was running at full speed. Considering that she in the past had always spoken ill of the Elves, the centaur running in front of them all was filled with a grudge.
However, his words were not answered, turning to look back, Tasia had vanished, what remained there were some grey bears which were dozing off.
And all his comrades had fallen to the ground except the vanished Tasia.
“Law: Faint!”
Right after hearing a voice, a dark grey light flashed and he had lost his consciousness and tumbled down too.
At this moment, a Dark Elven priest riding on black-armoured War Scorpio, approached the fallen bodies. Behind her back, there were tens of Elven scouts with bewildered faces.
“Stupid males, couldn’t even take care of such a weak sacrifice, should the great plan of Spider Queen be affected, I will cut you all into pieces and feed the poisonous spiders!”
Before the eyes, it was the Dark Elven priest delivering rebukes, but in far away, there were sounds of bang-bang percussion. Apparently a ranger but having a great ident.i.ty, Tasia whose adventure experience was vast, knew that it was the marching sounds of a ma.s.sive horde of Sceptile Riders, which could only be afforded by powerful clans. There was only one possibility of using such an amount of Sceptile Riders.
“The superior priest of Lorci and Grey Sceptile Riders? d.a.m.n it. This is certainly not the hunting troop looking for sacrifices. This, is the entire army of the Dark Elves. To attack the Elven Kingdom at this moment, is Lorci insane?”
Obviously, it wasn’t the time for any laments, just as Tasia, disguised as a grey bear, was about to leave, was spotted by the female priest.
” Humph, it’s not my first day mimicking an animal, I’m a professional.”
But straightaway, she realised the dark grey light was being concentrated around the Nine Head Whip of the priest, she started to be panicked as if she had discovered something.
“Forgive me, sister, I will repay you in the future.”
She clenched his teeth and started biting her fallen comrade, closing her eyes.
“Humph, this is exactly how my little Hooi took its food, witness my G.o.d-like acting… They should have gone away.”
When she opened her eyes, however, not only had those Dark Elves remained or turned away from her, but on the contrary, they were actually staring at her.
“Puke, Wahaha, there’s even a vegetarian bear! This Druid is amusing.”
The lady priest was rolling with laughter on the back of the armoured War Scorpio, and now, Tasia just realised she wasn’t eating the right thing, and subsequently, she looked forward and realised that Grevor had awakened and was staring at her in astonishment.
That was a close call, when Grevor had gotten rid of the effects of the paralyzing poison, dodging the big b.l.o.o.d.y mouth, Tasia had bitten off a stack of gra.s.ses and started swallowing.
Obviously, she who tried to hide her gustation wouldn’t taste anything, and so she had bit off the gra.s.s twice.
“Humph, I’m just a bear who loves eating gra.s.ses, why, is there any rule restricting bears from eating gra.s.ses, take my sky flipping bear paw!”
Alright, Tasia who always came up with disgraceful acts at the critical moment had again proven that fact correct. She flew into a shameful rage.