novelEven if We Look Different from Each Other (4)
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Chapter 101 - Even if We Look Different from Each Other (4)
It was unknown as to how much time had passed after the king of Daitan withdrew from the forest with his troops. However, all the curse and black magic filling up the Forest of Eternity were gone. It was as if they hadn't existed in the first place.
[Nyaa-ah. Burp. ]
All the energy were within the stomach of the little magical beast. She let out a burp.
[Nyaa nyaa nyaa-ah. ]
"Are you satisfied?"
After she ate every drop of the black magic energy, she flew into Artpe's arms. When he took her into his arms, he could see her full stomach.
"I guess you won't be able to eat anything else if you want to digest all that."
[Nyaa!? Nyaa nyaa nyaa!]
He wondered if she wasn't a cat. Maybe, her true identity was a pig. Artpe seriously pondered over this thought as he took a step towards Sienna. She was still healing the Elves. However, Regina grabbed his sleeve.
"Demite."
"Yes.. I already know you are a Demite.... Ah."
"Demite."
Regina's piercing gaze was trying to see into his robe. Of course, he knew what she wanted. Artpe smirked as he took out the Demite. He had succeeding in refining it, and he had also used it in battle for the first time.
"Completed.... . Demite."
He was immediately able to focus Regina's gaze on the Demite. Her eyes twinkled. She looked so innocent that it was hard to believe that she had blown up numerous people not too long ago. He couldn't help but laugh.
"Yes. Here."
"Present?"
"Are you trying to swindle me? You can look at the Demite. You should learn about the proper relationship between a Demite and its magician."
"Proper relationship.... ."
When the Demite was handed over into Regina's hands, the Demite let out a much luminescent more light. She carefully observed the Demite. The Demite in her hand also realized her identity, so it vibrated as it let out a light.
"This is the first time I've seen Demites communicate with each other. Ah. First.... ."
It was a sight he hadn't seen in his past life. As the owner of the Read All Creation ability, his curious was peaked. However, his party member was under hardship, so he couldn't leave this matter unsettled. Artpe left the two Demites alone, and he approached Sienna.
"Heal!"
"H... human... Thank you. Koo-ooh."
"Heal! Please stay here and rest."
She was healing the Elves through Mana that negate all magic. The curse and the black magic had created bruises and tears in their Mana Circuitry. She healed the Mana Circuitry, and she eased their body and soul.
"Ah, oppa."
"Don't over do it, Sienna."
"No, I'm fine. The Elves need to be healed right now."
Normally, she was overlooked, because she traveled with Artpe and Maetel. However, she had already shot past level 260, and she had reached full maturity in her skills. As a special race characteristic of an Evil Reflector, she possessed overwhelmingly more Mana than a human of equal level.
In the brief amount of time, she had already healed close to a thousand Elves. Despite this fact, she had energy to spare.
"If you've regained your energy, please bring the other Elves here!"
"Koo-mmm. Since you are the one requesting it.... ."
"I never realized there was someone amongst the humans that possessed such a kind smile."
As a race, the Elves had a lot of pride. However, the curse had messed with their emotions, and this was followed up by an invasion of the forest by humans. As a cherry on top, the Dark Elf-ification phenomena had occurred. Their state of mind of ragged right now.
Was that the cause?
The Elves had acted as if the world had ended, but they slowly started moving as if they were being saved by Sienna's pure voice.
However, the positive turn to the situation hadn't ended there.
"My god. The elder really did become a Dark Elf."
"If we follow the rules of the forest, we cannot stay in contact with the Dark Elves. It seems the elder did something so egregious that it made him fall......."
"Maybe, something went wrong. We moved with one goal in mind. How could we have broken a rule in such a short amount of time?"
They were suspicious as to why such an abnormally large number of Dark Elves had formed. The Elves had perpetuated a foolish mistake over the long years. A couple of Elves that were brave enough to face the mistake headon started to make their presence known.
"If they did something bad enough to turn them into Dark Elves, shouldn't we have turned into Dark Elves too?"
"No, the World Tree is never wrong!"
"What if it isn't the World Tree······ What if we had been wrong from the start?"
"······what?"
Artpe hadn't desired to give Daitan the victory, and he hadn't wanted to bring down Aedia. Maybe, the event that was occurring right now was something he desired more than stopping the World Tree from burning.
"No, that can't be. That can't be."
"How could it not be? We were cursed by the humans, so we were moving with one heart. So why would some become Dark Elves, while others remain as Elves.... . Is it really true that the Dark Elves are born, because they had broken a rule?"
"You shouldn't even doubt that. !"
"What if that is the truth.... . What does that imply about us? We've been chasing out the Dark Elves under that assumption."
"That is······."
"You are now a Dark Elf."
"You too."
When one Dark Elf was born, it was easy to chase out that individual. It was easy to expel someone from a homogenous group. They hadn't given much thought to it.
However, almost half their number had become Dark Elves. The Elves were unsure about what they had to do. Wives would be separated from their husbands. Children would be separated from their parents. There would be too many cases where this would happen.
"Still, we can't let this be."
"I'm sure we did something wrong."
"Aren't we all the same! Are you going to chase all of us out, because we became Dark Elves?!"
The Elves felt bitter, but the Elves couldn't truly admit that they had been wrong. Still, if they continued to discriminate between Dark Elves and Elves, the community would broken apart. They had no choice but to modify their way of thinking.
However, Artpe was satisfied with this result.
In the end, they would no longer be able to ostracize the Dark Elves.
Those that used to ostracize Dark Elves had become Dark Elves themselves. If they wanted legitimacy within the community, they couldn't spout nonsense such as the Dark Elves were an abomination.
"All right. Everything is perfect now."
After being healed, the Elves and Dark Elves were helping each other. Artpe mumbled to himself. He was content.
This was something that never occurred in his past life, and in the end, the Elves had met a tragic end. On top of that, he had stopped an outbreak of black magic. Of course, he felt pleased.
Sienna watched it all, and it was so ridiculous that she had to refute his words.
"You lowered everyone to create equality.... Oppa's way is too violent."
"I'm not only creating equality. It looks like the only thing the Elves are capable of doing is chew grass. In the future, they will have to face the Demon King's army. It'll be more helpful to have Dark Elves, who are more suited for battle."
"······."
Sienna was about send a Heal spell towards the Elves, but she froze in place. After her body relaxed, she tilted head in puzzlement as she sent a Heal spell towards Artpe.
After Artpe had entered the forest, he hadn't even received a scratch on his body. Therefore, nothing changed when Artpe received the Heal spell. When Sienna saw this, she exaggerated the surprise she was feeling.
"This is strange. I don't feel any evil energy from you."
"Did you just have rude thoughts about me?"
"Yes. Still, it is fortunate that oppa is a human."
"You really did have rude thoughts about me."
Artpe grumbled as he moved to help Sienna. Since Maetel wasn't here, he couldn't share his Mana with Sienna. Instead, he used his magical energy to repair some of the damage done to the forest. He was able to erase the traces of the destruction caused by Roa and the magicians.
"Artpe!"
Artpe was unsure as to how long he had started the repair work in earnest, but it didn't take too long for Maetel to jump into his arms. She had quickly covered the grounds between the kingdom of Tiata and the Forest of Eternity. Artpe received her in a familiar manner, and he placed her down.
"Everything is already over!?"
"Yes. Since you are here, you should transfer some of my Mana to Sienna."
"You really are too much!"
However, she obediently followed Artpe's words. Artpe meditated as he quickly gathered the Mana in the forest and the world. He handed it over to Maetel, and Maetel transferred it all to Sienna.
Lastly, a healing light emanated from Sienna's hands! The Elves, who were scattered all over the place, regained their vitality from the light. It took only several hours to heal hundreds of thousands of Elves.
"Thank you, human. Your name is Sienna?"
"You trespassed into the forest, and you burned the trees. That can't be forgiven.... ."
"However, they didn't raised their weapons towards the Elves. It is said that we should treat the World Tree like our mother. If their actions were done to save the World Tree......."
"······we've decided to accept you as guests. Our greeting is a bit late, but we welcome you into the forest."
Since they were allowing the Dark Elves to stay, were the Elves becoming more lenient in other aspects? Artpe was a bit taken back by the overly positive reaction from the Elves. Fortunately, he would be able to pass on the baton to someone else. She would become flustered instead of him.
"M... my god. I wondered what was going on when I didn't seen any Elves guarding the forest's borders. What the hell......"
It was the Dark Elf Mycenae. She had also rushed through the forest with a heavy-laden cart in tow.
"Artpe-nim, what the hell did you do! Over half of the forest is made out of Dark Elves!"
"I have no idea what happened. Everything is taken care of by my secretary.... ."
"You don't have a secretary!"
When she saw Artpe's sly smile, she couldn't trust his words. However, she didn't think Artpe could corrupt the Elves en masse. That would be too ridiculous. Mycenae could only grind her teeth as she tried to figure out how Artpe was related to all of this.
"Aren't you Mycenae......"
"Why are you in this forest.... . Koo-hmmm. That came out wrong"
Until couple hours ago, these Elves had discriminated against the Dark Elves. They were about to threaten Mycenae, but they shut their mouths.
"Mycenae!"
"It really is Mycenae!"
A portion of the Elves, who had been friendly with Mycenae before she was kicked out, came forward to grab her hands. They were the Elves that still missed her.
"Mycenae, it is ok for you to return to the forest now. We admit that we were wrong. Being a Dark Elves doesn't mean you've fallen!"
"Mycenae, I'm really glad you came!"
"You guys······."
She was dazed as she grabbed the hands of her friends. When she turned to look at the other Elves, she realized that they were all of the same mind.
What the hell happened within the forest!
Her mouth automatically fell open.
"Artpe-nim, what's happened here?"
"It'll take too long to explain it fully, so I'll give you a summarized version."
Artpe looked at the Elves gathered beneath the World Tree as he spoke.
"The fight with the humans is over. I negotiated a treaty with the head of the humans, and they will never interfere in the matters of the Forest of Eternity. Therefore, you guys don't have to worry about fighting against the humans."
"How can this be······?"
"There's no reason to fight?"
"······that's right."
The Elves nodded his head. The Elves had acted in a war-like manner, because they were under the influence of the curse. Now that the curse was gone, they didn't feel the need to fight against the humans!
Artpe smirked as he continued to speak.
"Your minds were being dominated by a curse and black magic. At some level, you know this fact, since the curse had been extracted. It was a plan hatched by the magic kingdom of Aedia. They were trying to lure you guys outside of the forest. It would have weakened your defense, and they would have burned down the World Tree. They put shackles around your minds to dominate you. It was a disaster created by desires of humans. The plan isn't something new. It had been going on for dozens of years."
The World Tree had determined that the Elves and itself were in great danger, so it tried to mass produce Dark Elves to prevent their demise. At that point, Artpe had achieved his goal, and he had unleashed Roa. She had put an end to everything. Of course, as a bonus, Regina had declared her independence.
"I killed every human that had committed crimes against you all. That is why I don't want you to be antagonistic towards the humans that are blameless. This is for the good of humans and your race. Lastly, it is for the good of the world."
"For the good of the world······?"
One of the Elves queried him. She was middle-aged Elf that had been turned into a Dark Elf. She was also one of the elders.
Of course, middle-aged meant that the Elf had lived for several hundred years. If it was her, she would have understood the meaning behind his words. Artpe nodded his head as he spoke.
"Yes, it is for the world. You don't have the luxury to fight against the humans. Moreover, you don't have the luxury to fight with Dark Elves, who are of the same race as the Elves."
"That means······."
"Yes."
Since the humans had already found about it, there was nothing holding him back. Artpe played his trump card. It was a master spell that allowed him to lead all situation towards his advantage.
"We are heroes. We are here to stop the fight between humans vs humans and humans vs other races. We are here to give you a warning against the domination by the Demon King's army.."
He attempted to reveal their identity.
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