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nCh. 91: Planning from the Situation

n“A power struggle or something?”

nLoren asked her, as that was the only reason he could think of that someone in a lower position would want to kill someone in a higher position, but he knew that he was wrong even as the words came out of his mouth.

nLoren didn’t know much about the fairy race in the first place.

nBased on the way they spoke Loren couldn’t imagine them having something like a power struggle.

nIn fact, Corne looked confused and didn’t understand what she had been asked, so Loren apologized and asked her to continue.

n“So, I want you to kill our chief.”

n“That’s quite a thing to ask, you know? What happened?”

n“So our chief, he became crazy.”

nTurning to put the sight of Lapis trying to take of Feuille’s wet clothes, while Feuille resisted and the two starting to grapple with each other, Loren asked Corne, who sat down on a rock with her shoulders drooped, to explain further.

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nAccording to her, the chief of the fairies started becoming crazy from a little while ago.

nFairies were a whimsical race that liked to pull pranks and tended to be very curious, so the often played tricks on the elves that lived in the forest, as well as humans that entered it.

nIt seemed to have started when the pranks started deviating from the boundaries of pranks.

n“Until then, they were all just silly pranks.”

n“Like what?”

n“For example, switching the salt that an elf was using to sugar, pouring muddy water on top of a human that was walking in the forest. Just things like that.”

n“That’s pretty annoying, but…keep going.”

n“We were just pulling pranks like that, but one day, the chief suddenly told us to raid the food storage in the elf village.”

nThe elves would starve if they lost their food.

nThey would ask other villages for help, so they wouldn’t starve to death, but the damage would be great.

nEven if the forest was plentiful, many of the elves would have to work extra hard to fill it up, so many fairies tried to repel it.

nBut the chief and the fairies around him forced it through, and stole all the food in one of the villages.

n“We asked the chief to return all the food. But not only did the chief didn’t listen, he ate all the stolen food.”

n“All of it!? That’s incredible. It should’ve been quite the amount of food.”

nBut that wasn’t all.

nThe chief and the fairies around him, having tasted the feeling of taking food from the elves, started reaching out to other villages as well.

n“The elves got angry for sure, right?”

nWhen he glanced at Feuille, he had been stripped down to his underwear by Lapis.

nWhile Lapis was humming as she hung his wet clothes, Feuille was hugging himself with a red face, but when he noticed Loren’s gaze, he shook his head.

nSeeing that Feuille didn’t know anything about it, Loren turned his focus back to Corne.

n“The elves did get angry.”

nAlthough her expansive way of talking stayed the same, sadness mixed into her voice.

nLoren thought it was because they had angered the elves, but what Corne said next was completely different.

n“The elves came to protest, and we all thought the chief would apologize.”

nThey thought, which meant that it didn’t go that way.

nAlthough apologizing might not cut it for the excessive act, Loren couldn’t think of another way that could end things peacefully.

nSince it didn’t go that way, it meant the situation worsened.

nIt wasn’t like she was reading Loren’s mind, but Corne slightly tucked her chin, looked down, and the words spilled from her mouth.

n“The chief killed all the elves that came to protest.”

n“I don’t think that’s something you should be saying so calmly.”

nLoren couldn’t help butting in.

nThe one who ordered to steal the other’s food, ate all of it, and was the one who caused all the damage, killed the ones who came to protest just because they came to protest. If this happened among humans, it would become war.

nWhat was unfortunate for the elves was that instead of acting as a whole race, they acted as separate villages.

nAnd when comparing magic skills, fairies had the upper hand in both skill and mana, and the elves were against the chief, which was the most powerful among the fairies.

n“Of course, us fairies suffered large casualties as well.”

nThat was a sad thing for Corne, but she also thought that would be enough to stop the chief.

nIf their numbers decreased, even if the chief was a powerful magic user, it would be harder to force the elves away.

nBut the chief replenished their fighting power in an unbelievable way, and started reaching towards the other elf villages as well.

n“Did he prey on the elves or something?”

nLapis suddenly interrupted.

nAt her words, Feuille’s face stiffened and Corne looked down with a sad look.

n“What do you mean?”

nWhen Loren asked Lapis, who seemed to know what was going on, Lapis started explaining.

n“Elves and fairies are close races, but as a species, fairies are slightly higher in class. So if a fairy meddles with an elf’s body, if it goes well, it could create more fairies from it.”

nAlthough Lapis said something horrible like it was nothing, she didn’t forget to add, ‘It doesn’t usually happen, though’.

n“But this explains the elves being eaten out from the inside and the fairies coming out of the dead elves’ bodies. The chief had been continually using his powers, and eventually became able to spread it so far that it influenced the whole forest.”

n“That’s exactly what happened.”

nCorne confirmed what Lapis had said.

nIt meant that the chief was the cause behind the abnormalities in the Black Forest, and it wouldn’t stop unless the cause was taken out.

n“We can’t let the chief alone any longer. It would cause us fairies who live in this forest to be persecuted, and the elves would be hunted down to extinction.”

n“So that’s why you want us to kill him.”

n“Of course, it’s not like we want him to die.”

nBut it was also true that there seemed to be no other way.

nIn any case, it was very unlikely that the chief, who didn’t listen to his fellow fairies, would listen to a human like Loren.

nAnd since he had also killed all the elves that came to him, it was hard to think he would go easy on them, and it would most likely become a battle the moment they met.

n“But what made him crazy? He wasn’t always like that, right?”

n“Yes…but we don’t know either.”

n“Do you have any idea? Like he ate something different or he put something on weird.”

nCorne’s brows furrowed as she started thinking.

nIn the meantime, Loren lightly hit away Lapis’ hands, which silently reached out to him, as if trying to take his clothes, took off his coat, and handed it to Lapis to hang to dry.

n“Umm. I’m not sure if it’s what caused it.”

n“Anything is fine. We need all the information we could get.”

nCorne nodded at Lapis’ words and started talking about what she had recalled.

n“Actually, we fairies like things that are shiny and pretty.”

nThe first thing that came to Loren’s mind was a crow.

nThe bird, which had a tendency to collect shiny things, took anything it could find to its nest, but sometimes it was things like coins or gems, but apparently fairies had similar tendencies.

n“Most of the things that are collected are taken to the chief, and then he gives them out or decorates the village with them. But a little while ago, some fairies brought in something weird.”

n“Something weird?”

nLoren wondered why they would even think of collecting something they knew was weird, but apparently that logic didn’t apply to fairies.

nCorne then stood up, spread out her arms to the fullest, and told Loren.

n“It was a shiny metal box about this big, and had a design on it that we’ve never seen before.”

n“Alright, wait a second.”

nShe had spread her arms out to the fullest, which meant it was about as large as her.

nAnd Corne was the size of Loren’s palm.

nWhich meant that the metal box was possibly around the size of his palm.

nSo it made Loren think that her description of the box seemed similar to another box that Loren had seen before in a different place.

n“Hey Lapis. I think I’ve seen a box like that recently…”

n“What a coincidence Loren. I was thinking the same thing.”

nThe previous job they were on.

nAt the end of the dungeon during the exam that students took at the adventurer training school, they had seen one of Volf’s fortune, which sealed the evil god of sloth inside it.

nIt was exactly like what Corne had descried, a metal box with complicated designs on the surface.

n“Am I the only one who wants to think it’s a coincidence?”

n“I’d like to think that too…but I can’t think of anything else.”

nIf it was indeed what Loren and Lapis were guessing it was.

nLoren could feel his mood sinking.

nThe last time, their opponent retreated on his own.

nIt could be that it was because it just revived, but the evil god was also quite lazy, living up to his namesake of sloth, and although there were some casualties, Loren believed that it was very little considering that they were against someone who called himself an evil god.

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nBut on top of not knowing what kind of evil god they would be against this time, judging from how much the fair chief had changed, it seemed that it had quite a bit of influence already, and the chances of it backing off easily was very slim.

n“But still, we can’t just walk away after hearing all this.”

n“…I have a feeling your kindness will be what takes your life Loren.”

nThe best thing they could do was find a way to the surface and leave the Black Forest as if nothing had happened.

nBut Loren wasn’t someone who could just leave after hearing the details and circumstances.

n“We owe her one since she saved us. We could at least think of some way to deal with the chief, right?”

n“It doesn’t seem like not doing anything is an option, so I guess we could. Umm, Corne, was it? Please answer the questions that I’m going to ask you. Then we’ll try thinking of something.”

n“O-okay.”

nAfter a sigh, Lapis started asking Corne questions in quick succession.

nWatching her do so, he waited for his coat to dry, thinking that it would be a good sight only if she wasn’t half naked.

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