IRE 40

“Chitaen is all in on this… I see. That was definitely unexpected.”

Still, there was something I couldn’t make sense of.

“Then what were those seven sentinels you sent, the ones you called elite sentinels?”

They’d been the first to be ambushed by the dark elves and had died; the others who survived fled with my mother — what became of them I didn’t know, but they were probably all dead as well.

They seemed like disposable pawns, willing to be thrown away without hesitation, but it didn’t feel like it came from any real will of their own; rather, it was as if—

“…You’re right. They were sacrificial pieces.”

At that the man narrowed his eyes.

No, there were too many things about those guys that made them feel off to be written off simply as sacrifices.

“We didn’t talk to those sentinels. True, we didn’t speak first, but they also showed us such cold disinterest it was almost eerie. Compared to how you all treated us on the first day, it was weirdly distant.”

“…Why think about it so deeply. They were sacrificial pieces. That’s all there is to say about them.”

I had the feeling there was more I needed to hear from him, but I didn’t think I could get anything else out of him right then.

I thought about breaking a few of his fingers and asking again, but time wasn’t on my side, so I went on to the next question immediately.

“Where did the other elves of Chitaen go?”

“To other villages… in the forest.”

“What do you mean?”

“Irian told us the next plan in case he failed.”

A plan?

“The elves’ hero, the so-called slayer of eight War Hammers, the new divine figure — Eldmir Arhitea’s ugly true nature.”

“…What?”

“He lured the last offspring of the beast-kin into the forest to draw the orcs, and actually, the whole thing about him defeating War Hammer was staged. They weren’t War Hammers at all, merely ordinary orcs, and he fabricated the image of himself as the slayer of War Hammer. The elf Eldmir Arhitea is a cursed being who’s a lackey of the dark elves, and he’ll bring great chaos to the forest. In the end he’s a filicide who even killed that mother with his own hands… That’s how the rumors about you will spread. Throughout the forest, even to El Rel.”

I was incredulous.

“Do you really expect such nonsense to take hold?”

Politics like that didn’t suit elves.

Elves were ignorant of political maneuvering; they lived and died for the forest and their duties. They wouldn’t swallow a witch-hunt like that so readily…

“It doesn’t matter whether it takes or not.”

One of the other traitors beside him said.

“In any case, the forest will fall into chaos, and you’ll be ostracized for a while. Even if it’s only to buy time.”

“……”

“In any case, we can make good use of that time.”

I sighed deeply at that.

“Honestly… you lot.”

I stood up.

“You’re all disgusting.”

“Elves will be destroyed.”

“You’re elves too, you idiots.”

“We’ve thrown off that filthy guise and become a new race ourselves.”

“You’re mistaken — you’re not recipients of the El Lyr fragment yet. Do you really think the dark elves will accept you?”

“Hahahaha! Ugh… ugh, cough!!”

The one who’d been laughing loudly suddenly started coughing up blood.

It made my brow furrow automatically.

What the hell. They only burned his legs, so why this show?

Was it suicide by poison?

Just in case, I embedded the healing flame within his body, but black blood kept spilling from his mouth.

Whatever toxin he had, it resisted even spirit flames — it must have been vicious.

“Khrhg… you’re pitiable.”

At that moment Eildre, still shedding tears of pain with a gaunt face, spoke up.

I frowned, but he didn’t care and continued.

“You know nothing. You know nothing at all…”

“Really? Then tell me so I can know too.”

I glared at him with a faint murderous intent.

“Next question. Tell me the exact scale of your kind spread through this forest.”

“Irian said that you’re the same as us but different. Pathetic fools. It’s laughable that you don’t know it’s useless and yet struggle only to protect your kin. Elves are not worth you risking your lives for—agh!”

“You were supposed to answer the question only.”

I burned his other wrist clean off and growled my threat.

“Let’s see how quickly that poison fries you to dust. Do you really think I can’t heal that poison? Even if it means burning the blood channels through my whole body, I could cleanse it.”

That wasn’t a lie, but neither was it entirely true.

Burning the body’s channels could neutralize some toxins, but it wouldn’t cure everything.

As Athyr said, healing wasn’t the true nature of flame. Even if I burned the toxin away it would only buy time; they would still die.

“If you want to die quickly, speak. Before I burn even your rotten souls.”

“…Heh.”

A bitter laugh came from Eildre’s lips.

He whimpered in pain, his gaunt face ruined, barely able to hold his head up; he gave a dying laugh.

“The scale of our numbers in the forest? Hahaha, that’s all you could come up with…? Hoo… sorry, we don’t know either. We’ve already polluted the continent so much we can’t even estimate the scale ourselves…”

My flames had already engulfed his entire body.

They were meant to neutralize the poison, but even so his life faded faster than the flames could burn the toxin.

He seemed to sense his approaching death and kept murmuring faintly.

“Do you really think you can avoid destruction?”

Even as he died his eyes blazed.

“You will be destroyed, leeches of this continent. Not only you, but the filthy children of El Lyr will one day follow after you.”

…What?

“All will die. Haha… you, the continent, every race… they’ll all die……”

“…What do you mean by that?”

“……”

“Hey, you! Come to your senses… damn it!”

I raised the flames higher and burned his body, but the fire could no longer heal him.

He was already dead.

“Dammit! You…!”

When I turned away the other bodies had already gone cold.

No one left to answer any more questions.

“…What the hell was that about.”

All the traitors were dead, leaving only the largest mystery behind.

I burned their corpses like charcoal and thought deeply.

You will be destroyed, leeches of this continent. Not only you, but the filthy children of El Lyr will one day follow after you.

He’d called us “leeches of the continent.” Not limiting his insult to the forest or World Tree, he denounced me — the elves — against the whole continent.

And he didn’t stop at elves; his words extended even to the dark elves he conspired with.

“What on earth is this.”

Were their allies not the dark elves?

No — that couldn’t be.

They had made an alliance with the dark elves; that was why Irian could be so close to the dark elf princess.

Or rather…

‘Could that closeness really be called “friendly”?’

No.

Irian had been smiling the whole time, but that was just his nature; the dark elf princess didn’t look fond of him — if anything, she disliked him. And even though Irian eventually sacrificed himself to let the princess escape, that was a resigned act: if both died, better one than none. He acted rationally because he knew I was after him; it didn’t mean he died out of some noble devotion to her.

That was his kind of person.

“All will die. Haha… you, the continent, every race… they’ll all die……”

The destruction of all non-elf races.

Suddenly they spoke not of the forest but of the continent’s ruin.

But why?

Was he bluffing to confuse me on his deathbed?

No — dismissing it as a bluff would ignore how grave the claim was. I couldn’t simply ignore it.

Think.

Before I lived here I had been a player of this game.

It was odd that I hadn’t known about certain collaborators among the elves.

This was an event directly tied to the World Tree’s destruction.

A being who could deceive all races would also be deceiving players and mocking the world. If it were an in-game event, it shouldn’t be able to hide from players.

So why had they managed to conceal their existence from players and from everyone else?

A being that deceived everyone.

When that thought surfaced I remembered one entity.

“…No way.”

A name came to mind.

“There was such a being. No, such a race.”

But no, surely not.

Then a flicker of memory passed through my mind.

“Pathetic fools, thinking it would help to struggle only to protect kin…”

And—

“The scale of our numbers in the forest? Hahaha, that’s all you could ask? Sorry, we don’t even know anymore. We’ve already polluted the continent to the point we can’t measure our spread!”

They had said they’d contaminated the continent.

Not just the elves or the forest — they said they had polluted the continent to the extent they themselves couldn’t determine how far they’d spread.

“…El Lirdarel.”

That name was one of the gods in this world.

And this world had gods not only for the elves.

“Likest, Ul Rammac, Fenril.”

Human, Dwarf, Lycanthrope.

And—

“Kah Waran.”

Orc.

Those were the patron deities of the races I had played.

“Think, think. I must think.”

Had I never once felt an unease when playing those races? Just as I sensed contradictory harmony among the elves, hadn’t I felt other oddities from those races?

I hadn’t noticed, but from the tainted forest’s spirit I had felt the presence of “them” — hadn’t I?

“……”

My thoughts continued.

I gathered all the information and experiences I’d obtained while playing the game.

I had played many races and seen five different endings, spanning four different races.

The races I’d seen endings for were Human, Dwarf, Lycan, and Orc.

There had been small dissonances while playing.

But because it was a game I had dismissed such things as negligible oddities.

And now, in this world that had become my reality, that subtle unease had grown into ideological enlightenment and led me to uncover collaborators.

So I thought again.

When I played as human, dwarf, lycan, or orc, had I never felt that sense of presence?

The answer: no — I had felt it.

They had simply never occurred to me as being connected to them.

“A being that deceives the whole continent. A third race unseen on the continent, one not available as a playable option to players. A demon race.”

Demonic.

After confirming the eight corpses charred into coal, I turned and headed straight back to where the Kerys sisters were.

For now I’d drop thoughts of demons.

It had all happened too suddenly; thinking more right now wouldn’t bring any solutions.

I needed to focus on the present.

They intended to spread false rumors about me.

They’d drawn my attention, and now every elf of Chitaen had fled elsewhere.

But we couldn’t manage that yet. I methodically started to sort the situation and called the Kerys sisters.

“El.”

“O-opa?” (Note: sisters’ affectionate address)

“Oppa.” (older-brother address)

They stepped out the door cautiously, each calling me by different titles.

“Kerys, did you explain things?”

“Yes. We explained everything.”

“I heard from Sister, Opa. I can’t believe our kin betrayed us…”

“They’re more vicious than our own. Betrayal among our kind can often be seen as instinctual struggle and thus almost predictable. But this—”

Eslin could not finish, tears welling in her eyes. She was grieving for my mother’s death and my situation as though for me.

Ketrit sat in silence, more gloomy than before.

But I had more to tell them, though it wasn’t the time for it.

I looked at them and spoke plainly.

“You must leave Chitaen immediately.”

They’d portray me as a traitor to the forest, a false hero, a filicide who killed his own mother.

If they pursued us they might catch a few, but it would be a bandage on a severed leg.

Although Chitaen was small, it was a village where sentinels mattered greatly.

Even though eight had just been dealt with and most sentinels were neutralized, counting the non-sentinels left still left perhaps ten to twenty people.

In that situation there wasn’t much more I could do alone.

If I couldn’t do it alone there was only one thing I could do.

Find those who could help me.

“Let’s go to Le Luyel.”

It was time to return home.