The Master had vanished.

The Elf collapsed where she stood. Not a trace of him remained. He was simply gone.

Was it because she had dared to harbor a wish too grand for her station? Or was it because she had offered that impossible plea to the heavens—to her God? Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. The cause was irrelevant. All that mattered was the bleak reality staring her in the face.

In the guild hall, where the Master’s footsteps had ceased, only a cold darkness arrived.

She sat in the seat where he once sat, hoping a lingering warmth might remain. She sat there for one year, then two, waiting aimlessly. Her eyes became sunken and lifeless, like those of a patient wasted by disease. Her pale complexion lost its pristine, mint-like luster, and the hollows beneath her eyes grew dark and ashen, as if she hadn’t slept for over three months.

Had it not been for the unrivaled, innate beauty unique to Elves, her appearance would surely have faded into something resembling a withered hag.

She leaned her body forward. Just as she had done back then.

She buried her face in her knees and burst into tears—a silent cry that bordered on a scream of agony and lamentation. Yet, no sound could be heard. It wasn’t that she feared being trampled again by the monstrous Elf Chieftain. It wasn’t that she feared the judgment of her kin. She had grown strong; she was strong. It was simply that the girl of the past truly didn’t know who she was supposed to use that strength for.

She was terrified. The fact that her Master had left her terrified her. The possibility that his disappearance was an act of abandonment terrified her.

For a time, she tried desperately to deny it. She shook her head, telling herself that if she fulfilled her assigned duties, if she continued to show him the image of an obedient slave, he would surely return. He would return to wipe the tear-stained cheeks, smile brightly, and embrace her cold, shivering form. She had believed this without a shadow of a doubt.

But as a month, then two, then half a year, one year, and finally two years passed, the hope she had been clutching so tightly in her heart shattered. The singular hope she held in her fist had broken into a thousand pieces.

She had been abandoned again.

She was a loner once more.

He was a kind Master, so different from the monstrosity she had been desperate to ignore. He was the warm Master who had saved her and shared love with her for the first time… or so she thought.

‘Why… why did you abandon me…?’

Why did you let go of that gentle hand that led me into the light, only to leave me alone again in a darkness even bleaker than hell? She asked the empty Guild Master’s office.

…There was no answer.

Had she known her prayer would invite such a great calamity, she would never have begged the heavens for anything.

The flora and fauna that had shivered in the cold and starved began to rise and gaze out at the world. The season of gentle breezes had arrived. It meant another year had safely come to a close.

For the Elf, three years had passed.

The Elf who had wept like a broken soul in the Guild Master’s office a year ago was now even more destroyed. Her body was battered, and her heart had long since collapsed.

Broken as one can be, fallen as far as one can fall, she paused upon reaching a certain forest. Her eyes, which traced and felt the scars on her fingers, reflected nothing. It was as if she refused to let anything other than her Master enter her sight.

Forcing herself to maintain a blurred consciousness, her gait was clumsy and she staggered as if she might collapse at any second. Nevertheless, the Elf did not stop her slow, heavy steps. There was a desperate longing in her movements.

She was heading back to her birthplace—no, what must now be called her former home—the shameful place that had discarded her.

Rohan, the Chieftain of the Elves and Elena’s father, was wearing a very satisfied smile.

He was the wretched father who had abandoned his own daughter. His infamy among the Elves was well-known. However, regardless of that reputation, his power had soared ever since he sold Elena into slavery; it was now piercing the heavens.

The village had prospered into a city, and the massive metropolis was gradually becoming the kingdom Rohan had dreamed of—one where he could be called the King of Elves rather than just a Chieftain. Grinning so wide his cheeks bunched, Rohan looked down at the landscape below—at the subjects who worshipped and praised him—and began to smile.

Until about five minutes ago…

‘…Huh?’

He had been smiling.

The reason that smile shattered was very simple. It was because of an Elf in the form of a woman.

A woman approached, her mint-colored hair fluttering in the wind. In her hands, she dragged the severed heads of Elves—men, women, young, and old—approaching the palace step by step. The abandoned Elf had returned to infest their world once more.

The city’s Elves began to tremble and stammer. Why is Elena here… No, more importantly, why aren’t the soldiers stopping that Elf who is invading the imperial palace?

Rohan hurried down the stairs. His stout body tumbled down the steps, and his expensive clothes caught on doorknobs, tearing and ruining them, but none of that mattered.

What he saw was a panting Elena, and…

The Great Spirits surrounding her, mocking him.

The forest, the animals and plants, the wind, the rain, the sun, the clouds—it was as if everyone were on Elena’s side, circling her to comfort her while raging at those who had cast her out.

Rohan realized instantly why the Elf soldiers couldn’t move. There was no way they could withstand the pressure of the spirits surrounding her. At the moment an Elf, who makes a friend of the forest, is betrayed by the forest and ignored by nature, there is no hope of victory.

“Did you build this…?”

Elena asked Rohan in a cold, hollow voice.

You? Using “you” toward her father… Rohan almost flared up in anger, but he suppressed it instantly. Letting out an awkward laugh, he replied:

“Ho… hohaha… haha… O-of course… I built it… To ha-hand it down to my… my daughter… when she becomes a great Elf… ho… ho…”

He answered her in the most gentle tone possible, pouring his heart into the message of: I have no intention of fighting!

Elena smiled.

Rohan—the King of Elves—wondered if she was going to spare him. He wondered if she was showing mercy to the one who abandoned her because he was, after all, her parent. He reached out his hand with a smile.

But then, he realized his body would not move.

His head rolled on the ground, while his torso slumped into the dirt.

His pupils shook as he tried to lament this unacceptable situation, but his head had already been trampled and burst.

As if paying back the father who had tried to trample her to death as a child, she gave a bright smile to the man she once called “Father.” To be precise, she smiled with gratitude toward the authority he possessed. It was a thank-you for the power built upon the fertilizer of filth.

Elena killed her father and took his throne.

She killed the Queen and slaughtered everyone who had rejected her.

She scattered their ashes on the floor and sat upon the blood-stained throne.

In her mind, she saw a hallucination of her Master smiling at her. She ran to him and embraced him.

…She felt nothing.

Of course not. It was a hallucination. It wasn’t reality. It was a vision she had created to protect herself before she went completely insane.

With nature as her companion and the night sky as her comfort, she conjured her Master through hallucinations. Using the power of the forest and the light of the crescent moon, she shaped another version of him, filled only with the virtues she remembered.

The problem was that it wasn’t enough.

To serve as her pillar and keep her from losing her mind, a mere vision was insufficient. Because it was fake. It wasn’t her real Master.

“…….”

She struck the hallucination away.

She screamed that this wasn’t her Master. She didn’t need the sounds of nature or the heavens trying to comfort her. She only needed her Master. If only he were there, she could do anything.

Why wouldn’t the world let her be happy?

Why had it taken away her lovely Master?

What was the reason for tearing her away from him?

‘Why… why… why… why… why… why… why…’

She asked again and again, but only silence followed. The heavens did not open their mouth, as if afraid to answer her. The forest told her no truths. It couldn’t tell her. It didn’t know who her Master was or where he had disappeared to.

…She remained seated on the throne. Imagining the Master who was no longer by her side, she erased the hallucinations she no longer wanted to see and brushed away her own creations.

Her heart, in a true sense, died where it sat.

And she never came out again.

The subjects say that the palace is filled only with the sound of a queen weeping sorrowfully. They say the Elf, who lost her only reason for living and her pillar of love, wails in grief. With nature as her companion and the night sky as her comfort, she only sings the name of the Master who is no longer with her.

“Master… my Master…”

Keyal Klein. My Master…

The mint-colored hair that once shone brighter than the sun lost its sparkle. The appearance she had groomed for her Master withered day by day. The nights spent in tears further dragged down the Elf who had lost her salvation. In a true sense, nothing remained for her.

That is, until six months later, when a Wind Spirit suddenly stormed into the palace and whispered softly in her ear.

— Look! Elena! He! The one you called Master! He has returned!

Her hope, which had been dead, jolted awake.