“Sale!!”
Liellamires, who was commanding the Fire Arrow Unit, was suddenly right there.
She looked at Salesaya with a voice tinged with sorrow.
“Why did you…”
“Liella…”
Salesaya, her facial features obscured by a vague light, returned a lonely smile to Liellamires’ call.
Then, she faded away, disappearing from sight.
“Sale!? Where did you go!?”
“…How cruel. Can’t you leave her alone? She says she has ‘no face to show’. She’s so serious. Although she already seems to have lost faith in her ancestors, she still feels ashamed that she couldn’t return to the flow of life in the forest as an elf.”
When René said this, Liellamires’s face looked like she had swallowed a stone.
The forest ecosystem, the reincarnation of souls, the changing seasons.
It was an eternal cycle of harmony in the closed world revered by the elves.
However, Salesaya, who should have been the High Priestess guiding the tribe, had deviated from it.
“…Sale, would you go so far as to help Princess-sama? Why?”
“She was thinking of you. That’s all.”
“Sale…”
Suppressing both joy and sorrow, Liellamires gazed into the distance.
Meanwhile, the removal and leveling of the fortress continued at a frantic pace around her. The land veins were contaminated by rough rituals that shortened time. After this, reforestation would be carried out to stabilize the land.
“Don’t stand there dazed, do your job. If you don’t want to waste her feelings.”
“Yes…!”
Liellamires, apparently remembering her position, returned to her duties.
As she watched her leave, Salesaya, who had disappeared, spoke to René in her mind.
Even though it wasn’t telepathy through magic, she was using her connection to René to her advantage, to avoid being overheard.
“Princess…”
“I’m not lying, am I?”
“Yes, this is fine. Thank you very much. If she knows that I am trying to offer my soul to Princess-sama, she will surely… try to stop it.”
The disappearance of one’s soul is the greatest taboo for the human races.
Especially for elves who strongly believe in the concept of circulation.
Liellamires, if she knew what Salesaya was planning, might not necessarily become René’s enemy, but it was almost certain that she would try to stop it.
So Salesaya decided to quietly leave without meeting or exchanging words.
René didn’t criticize her decision.
It would be better for René if everything went smoothly.
Salesaya gave a slight nod and disappeared into René.
“Come to think of it, do elves speak the common language of humans normally? I thought there was an elven language.”
“They do, technically. But you see, most members of human races today are descendants of those who gathered in one place and fought 400 years ago. At that time, everyone started speaking a common language, and elves live remarkably long, right? So the common language remained. If anything, the ones who don’t use the common language are probably the beastfolk whose generations change rapidly.”
While crouched over like a frog, poking something like electrodes into the ground to investigate, Everis answered.
The black cat perched on Everis’s shoulder pounced on René as she approached. She climbed up René’s body, scratching her dress, and curled up on her head. René, in her Dullahan form, was a little worried that her head might come off.
“I like the Elven-accented common language. It has a kind of Elvish vibe and sounds beautiful, like the sound of flowing water.”
“Oh, welcome back. When did you…”
Before they knew it, Tracy was also there.
He, who had infiltrated the fort, was unusually wearing armor, perhaps for disguise.
Everis, who had been examining the state of the land, shook a flask that was turning black like spilled ink several times and nodded.
“You’re getting used to it. Is this just about safe now? If the land veins were further taken, the land veins of the two northern countries would have been uncontrollable from the Gaisenfall Great Forest.”
It seemed that the recapture of the land veins was successful. With this, the land veins of the Gaisenfall Great Forest can maintain the siege of the north.
Because the will of the ancestors was housed in the land veins of this forest, it was possible to absorb magic from the land veins of the surrounding areas by the magic power of the entire forest, allowing them to be taken away.
That’s why the Imperial Blue Army has been unable to adequately supply magic so far, forcing them to engage in petty battles, transporting magic stones from the distant homeland to move cannons.
However, by taking the land veins of the forest itself, the Blue Army could generate enough magic to defend its position. And if the land veins of the forest continued to be taken away, it would be impossible to control the magic to the two northern countries conquered by the Blue Army, and they would become supply bases.
That’s what was barely prevented by tonight’s successful operation.
“But using the same strategy again is going to be tough.”
“I don’t feel like entering the next fort either.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s tough. But if this second fort falls, the eighth fort, which is the furthest into the forest, will have only one supply route left.”
The Blue Army built defense bases like this fort in the forest, created roads connecting the bases, and solidified their control area through the network between bases. Everis was talking about that.
Because this second fort is close to the outer edge of the forest, recapturing and securing it would have a significant impact. At least, one fort would be semi-isolated.
“If we keep putting pressure on the remaining supply routes, it will fall sooner or later. First of all, morale won’t hold up. But for that, we need to increase the number of Dark Elf volunteers by publicizing this victory, while also establishing a posture to defend the site of the second fort as our territory and preventing further attacks from the Imperial Army…”
“It’s quite a tightrope walk.”
“It can’t be helped when we’re outnumbered.”
Counting on her fingers, Everis threw away the measuring instruments she had in her hand and stretched.
A particularly meaningless breast shake occurred, causing the Dark Elf boys who were accompanying Everis to awkwardly avert theirwwwwwwwwwwww eyes.
And as she looked at the bodies of the Blue Army soldiers being dragged out of the burned-down fort and lined up, Everis murmured casually.
“Wasn’t it 20,000? The contract with our ‘client’ this time.”
That’s what Salesaya desired from René as the price for offering her soul.
t was the killing of 20,000 soldiers from the Khenis Empire’s Blue Army.
“Yeah. But now we’ve barely reached 3,000. Including the initial ambush…”
“That’s tough… I wished we could have achieved the quota until we drove the Blue Army out of the forest. Well, it was set as a condition synonymous with driving out the Blue Army, so it can’t be helped. We just have to come up with a good plan with the cards we have.”
Disappointed, Everis shrugged her shoulders.
The more souls with magical potential René consumed, the stronger she became.
In that regard, Salesaya was beyond reproach. She was a top-notch prey, to the point that she could be counted as about four levels above the best, considering her quality when looking at the world at large.
It would have been best to consume her for self-strengthening before the full-fledged battle with the Blue Army, but it seemed impossible. Salesaya didn’t sell herself cheaply and didn’t pay in advance.
“Can we manage somehow?”
“Managing things is my job. Don’t underestimate the world domination consultant.”
Everis’s eyes, like amethysts, gleamed unnecessarily erotically.
She was lively and vibrant.
