Chương 68: Foul-Mouthed Elf

POV: Evelisse Ardentia Seeing an elf outside of their continent was almost unheard of. The only occasions for the elves to venture out of their continent were during the meetings between the world's leaders. Even then, the elves would arrive unannounced, by means no one aside from the leaders knew. There had been no gathering of such importance in my lifetime.

Everything I had learned, from the Church and from the archives of the grand library, said the same thing; the elves kept to themselves, in their kingdom at the far edge of the continent, ringed by wilderness and reachable only through a hidden passage that they alone knew. The kingdom of Silvanis. And yet, an elf was right in front of me. She wore a dark green sleeveless top, brown leather shorts, and boots, all of it built for movement.

Paired with the camouflage from a moment ago, the spell that had rendered her nearly transparent and a spell that swallowed her scent and her footsteps, she was likely a scout. But why? Scouts were commonly sent to observe and spy on something. Did the elves want something with Milo?

"Um, may I—" I stepped toward her, meaning to help her up and ask my questions properly. She answered by hurling an emerald crystal at my feet. It burst in a green flash, and the light seared across my vision and blinded me. At once came the sounds of disturbed earth and bushes shoved aside. Footsteps. She was running. By the time I regained my vision, Luke had already shot past me in her little-girl form, possibly able to track the elf by scent, or by those keener eyes of hers, or both.

I dashed forward, following her. Luke wove through the forest with total certainty, like a hound running down a scent. She never stopped for more than a beat or two, just long enough to fix on the next direction before bolting again, and all the while, the faint patter of the elf's footsteps stayed within reach. I could barely hear them, but it seemed that Luke could pick them out with ease. Camouflage didn't render a person truly invisible; there were always traces of movement, if you watched closely enough.

And by its nature, it left scent and footfall untouched. Masking those would require a second spell, the kind I'd cast myself before during my third venture into Aniaros Forest, alongside Ywain and Mel. As long as I could still hear the elf's steps, it meant she hadn't yet layered that second spell over the first. We had a narrow window before she did, and we needed to close it. The footsteps grew louder, then vanished, replaced overhead by a rustle of leaves. The trees.

She'd gone up, and was leaping from branch to branch. Luke loosed a blast of wind up into the canopy. A thud followed; a miss, most likely, but it had forced the elf to drop to avoid it. The moment she landed, Luke fired an ice blast across the ground ahead, sheeting the soil in a slick of frost. A clever move. Now the elf had two options: back into the trees, or risk the ice. And even if she chose the ice, her sliding would leave visible cues, making her all the easier to pin down.

Sure enough, a faint, near-transparent shape sprang for a nearby trunk, and Luke had read it. She fired upward, and the ice caught the elf mid-leap and froze her solid, and when the block dropped and shattered against the ground, the girl yelped, her full form snapping into view. She sprawled across the frozen earth, tried to rise, slipped, and went down again, chin-first.

"Ow, damn it, shit, you're cheating!" She scrabbled for footing and found none, her boots skating out from under her every time. Luke was giggling openly at the sight, but this was my chance. I cast the floating spell and pushed off toward her, keeping my feet clear of the ice entirely. As I closed in, the girl flung something, a small dagger. I twisted aside; it whipped past me and skittered off. Then she whistled. On pure instinct, I glanced back, just in time to see the dagger streaking toward me again.

She was controlling it. I ducked, and it sailed by and buried itself in the ice.

"Oh, crap!" I hadn't known elves were this... expressive. She whistled again, harder, plainly panicking now. The dagger shuddered where it stuck, straining to wrench itself free, but that gave me all the time I needed. I came down behind her, just as she'd finally managed to find her balance on the ice, and brought the edge of my hand down against the back of her neck. She dropped. Not unconscious, but down; I caught her with my free arm and slid us both off the ice and back onto solid ground.

Luke was applauding, in her way, clapping the ends of her overlong sleeves together as I pinned the girl's arms. Without so much as a length of rope, I'd need to get her back to the house before her strength returned.

"Eve! What's happening?!" Mel came crashing out of the bushes with her staff. She must have heard the earlier commotion and followed after us. Perfect timing.

"What the–an elf?" Mel's eyes went wide.

"Mel, I need you to restrain her. Now." I could already feel the girl's wrist testing my grip, the resistance climbing. Her strength was coming back. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Okay, okay!" Mel chanted, and her staff fired a ring of purple light that snapped shut around the elf's neck. A mid-tier binding, but enough to keep her from casting anything to escape or disguise herself, at least for a while.

"Ugh, let go of me, you lowly human filth!" The elf had her voice back. Perhaps I ought to have put a little more into that strike; elves clearly had better durability then humans.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"But you were spying on us, and we need to understand why." I found some rope in a drawer in Nyx's room and used it to tie the elf to one of the porch pillars—arms up, legs bound— she's restrained in an L shape. She still hadn't recovered enough strength or sense of balance to fight it properly, so it went smoothly enough. Tying someone to interrogate them was not a thing I had ever imagined myself doing. But an elf watching Milo meant something. Likely something big, and quite possibly dangerous.

This was not something elves would do on a whim; whatever had sent her here mattered enough that I couldn't simply let her slip away.

"Let me go!" She strained against the rope.

"You humans, always doing barbaric things like this! You're uncivilized! You play dirty, and every last one of you should be ashamed of yourselves!" I'd tried, several times, to get her name, to ask her plainly why she'd been spying on us. She answered every question with a fresh insult. She was remarkably talkative, which, once again, was nothing like the graceful, aloof image I'd always had of elves.

"Are all elves like you?" Mel, worn thin by the steady stream of abuse, finally cut in.

"What grudge do you even have against humans? We've done nothing to you!" The elf gave a contemptuous scoff, tossing her head as much as the rope allowed.

"You're disgusting, all of you. Humans are low, and vile, and full of nothing but bullshit." Mel flinched at that, then fired back.

"You're just—you're racist! And you still haven't answered the question, you—""Yeah? And what are you going to do about it, shortie?" the elf sneered.

"Kill me? Go on, I dare you."

"Wha—you're about my height!" Mel's voice cracked with indignation.

"If I'm a shortie, then so are you!"

"I'm—" The elf stopped, something flickering across her face as the logic of that visibly caught up with her.

"I'm... I'm petite, the well-built kind at that, which is far more regal than 'shortie', which is what you are."

"That doesn't even make sense!" I could only sigh at the two of them. At one point Luke half-raised a hand, ice already gathering in her palm, aimed vaguely at the elf. She was annoyed, I suspected, by all the shouting was ruining her chances at a nap. I managed to wave her off before she could fire. She pouted, dropped her hand, and went to sit cross-legged in the grass beside Astra.... I really hoped Milo and sis would be back soon. Thankfully, Milo and sis weren't gone long.

The air in front of the house rippled for the briefest moment, and then Milo was standing there, sis beside him with her hand around his wrist. They were holding a bag, presumably some food they bought in Arkhay. I hurried over.

"Did everything go well?"

"Yeah. The mayor says he'll send someone to Astrea by tomorrow at the latest." Milo looked pleased.

"He was thrilled with the materials, too. Said he'd tell the higher-ups in Arkhay to help us out whenever we need it."

"Oh, wonderful, more human scum!" the elf called out loudly from the porch. Sis blinked.

"Who's that?" Milo stepped to the side to see past me, and his eyes went wide.

"Is that... an elf? A real elf?" I'd never heard of a fake elf before, but I decided not to pursue it.

"Yes. She was spying on us. I don't know for how long, but Luke sensed her, and we caught her. She's refused to say anything since." The three of us made our way back to the porch. Mel had dragged a chair out from the house and was sitting off to one side, keeping watch; she'd long since given up bantering with the elf, probably tired of it. Milo stepped up in front of the captive, and was met with a look of pure disgust.

"A human male?" Her nose wrinkled.

"Ugh, you reek. Go and die already!" Milo's face fell. He turned to me.

"Um, do I? I took a bath just this morning..."

"No, not at all! You smell fine!" The words came out of me before I realized it, and I could feel heat rising up my entire face. Sis stepped forward before I could embarrass myself further.

"What's your name?"

"None of your business, smelly human number two!" I saw sis's expression cool by several degrees.

"It seems we'll have to resort to... more extreme methods."

"Oh?" The elf lifted her chin.

"Such as? Torture? Nothing will make me talk. Just you wait, my friends will be here to rescue me soon enough!" Milo, meanwhile, had gone quiet, studying the elf with an odd, searching sort of look, his eyes moving over her like he was trying to place something. Something twisted, small and unwelcome, in my chest. A tightness I didn't have a name for and didn't much like, watching him look at her like that.

"Stop staring, you creep!" The elf squirmed against the ropes.

"I know I'm pretty, but this is a sight not meant for you, or any other human! Take your eyes off me before rashes start appearing on me!" Milo turned away from her and leaned in to murmur his idea to me and sis; a way to make the girl talk. It didn't involve hurting her, but...

"I—I don't think I could do that," I said.

"Well, I can't do it either!" Milo whispered back, alarmed.

"I'd be branded an actual creep for life."

"Though," sis said, a teasing lilt in her voice, "the fact that you thought of it might mean you already are one."

"What are you all whispering about?" Nyx's voice, behind us. Apparently, she had returned earlier too. We stepped away from the porch so Milo could catch her up on the elf without the constant insults. She listened without a single interruption, and when Milo reached the part about his idea for getting the elf to confess, a slow smile spread across her face. Then she turned and walked toward the porch.

"A demon-girl this time?" The elf sneered.

"Second-rate filth, then. All looks and nothing else worth showing."

"Oh," Nyx said pleasantly, "you'll find out what I'm capable of soon enough."

"Nothing will get me to talk, you shithead. In fact—" the elf lifted her chin again, defiant "—go ahead and try every painful little method you can dream up. You'll only discover why none of them will work."

"Who said anything about painful?"

"... What?" Nyx closed the distance, and her fingers came up, wiggling slowly.

"I've heard," she said, "that elves are terribly... sensitive." And as she drew nearer, I watched every trace of that smugness drain straight off the elf's face.