NOVEL NEXT Chapter 26: Village Of Elves (9)
“Uh-huh?”
“By the way, I don’t know your name. Human, what’s your name?”
She redirected the conversation to ask for Ray’s name according to her own preference.
Even though Ray felt oddly captivated, he responded.
“…Ray. I don’t have a last name.”
“Ray… Ray…”
She repeated his name as if trying to commit it to memory, then nodded her head.
“Yep, got it.”
“But can you stay here forever? Shouldn’t you be going out?”
“Heh. You think my anger of twenty years will vanish in just one day?”
Her expression instantly turned sour as if she was genuinely offended.
After all, even she acknowledged her condition was severe.
Her skin was covered in pus-filled lumps, and her buttocks were so distorted that they were unidentifiable.
Although she had healed without scars, being conscious was undoubtedly a tremendous ordeal for her.
Come to think of it, there was something he wanted to ask.
When had she regained consciousness?
If she had been conscious all these twenty years, that would have been nothing less than torture.
This was a question Ray had always been curious about, so he decided to seize this opportunity to ask.
He looked at Aira and asked.
“By the way, when did you regain consciousness?”
“Regain consciousness?”
She widened her eyes and asked, to which Ray elaborated.
“When you became incapacitated and were lying down, when did you regain consciousness?”
“Ever since I became incapacitated…”
She answered his question, though she wondered why he was asking.
Ray, on the other hand, was stunned.
My God, she had endured that pain for twenty years.
How many times must she have longed for death?
Just because her body couldn’t move didn’t mean she couldn’t feel physical pain.
Of course, she would have felt the pain of her flesh decaying and the agony of her muscles cramping from maintaining the same position for twenty years.
Even just lying still for a day could cause stiffness, so no matter how much power of mana she possessed, how painful must it have been?
Ray sighed.
“Sigh… That was really too much, your kind.”
“It was. I despised them enough to wish them dead.”
“Do you still harbor resentment towards them?”
It was an obvious question, but he felt compelled to ask anyway.
But she shook her head.
“They must have had their reasons. Of course, their actions were wrong, but I can’t say they were entirely evil.”
Ray admired her as she crossed her arms and nodded her head.
She was an angel.
Aira was not an elf, she was an angel.
If it had been him, he might have obliterated the village as soon as he awoke.
Or, it would have been fortunate if he merely destroyed the village.
The days of pain she had endured were indeed long years.
Ray gently placed his hand on Aira’s head.
And then he softly stroked her hair.
Aira was surprised by Ray’s action.
It was what she had always done when she lost consciousness and was lying down.
Tears welled up at that small, seemingly insignificant act.
The tears welled up and eventually rolled down her cheeks.
“Sob… Sob sob…”
Eventually, her tear ducts overflowed.
She had tried to appear strong in front of the elves, but she was just a living being.
She didn’t need to pretend to be strong in front of him.
As she wiped away the endless tears with both hands, she wept.
Contrary to the image she had during their first conversation, Ray quietly stroked her head as she knelt down like a child and wiped her tears.
“Sob… Sob sob…”
With that small gesture from Ray, she felt as if she had been rescued.
In the elf village, she was in a position where no one dared to casually speak to her.
The loneliness she had felt since birth was both her only companion and her adversary.
She, who had grown to detest humans as a race, seeing that the village was always troubled because of humans, felt deeply ashamed when she first received salvation from a human.
But the human didn’t ask for anything in return; he simply tried to improve her condition.
She read books and scribbled on paper, hoping to find even a small clue to heal herself.
Her heart, which had hardened from a lack of love, began to soften gradually.
The message that had failed to reach anyone else finally reached him, a member of a different race.
Even though her own race had abandoned her, his small gestures deeply moved her, as if she could see everything through her own eyes.
Who else had ever shown her such love?
Days passed, and he began to converse with her.
How much she yearned to respond to his words.
She believed that even if she could exchange just one word and one answer, she would be content, even if it meant her death.
From that moment, her life transformed.
She responded in her thoughts.
“Today, I drank tea with Pia. It was my first time trying elf-made tea; it was quite bland.”
‘Yes, elf tea tends to be on the blander side.’
“I read in a book that there’s a flower called Deheur. That’s the flower in the yard, right?”
‘Correct. You know, you remind me of that flower. Do you know its symbolic meaning? Dedication and a smile.’
“Hahaha. Who drew this? Don’t tell me you did? You’re really bad at drawing.”
‘I know I’m not good at drawing, but it feels strange to hear that from someone else….’
He smiled brightly, as if he had heard her response.
With that smile and touch, she felt that salvation truly existed.
And now, he was before her.
The one she had longed to converse with and touch was right before her eyes.
When she first opened her eyes, her heart pounded at the sight of him collapsed next to her.
Contrary to when she grappled with the thought of wanting to die, she felt immense joy when life was restored to her.
And when she first touched the person who had given her that life, she had no regrets, even if it meant giving up the new life she had acquired.
“After her tears ceased, she gazed at Ray.
He appeared youthful, but to elves, age was irrelevant.
Initially, evaluating someone based on their age was a practice exclusive to humans.
In her eyes, as she observed Ray, affection overflowed.
The saintess led the dispatch battalion, comprised of the upper and lower battalions, in the search for the saint.
While systematically enclosing the area with the remaining battalions on the opposite side, she managed to obtain a specific piece of information.
It was a chart of credible information collected from the intelligence she had purchased from the black-market dealer, which consistently seemed to lead back to one noble family.
It was as though they were intentionally concealing something.
Feeling suspicious, she visited Count Gaid’s mansion.
As the count hastily emerged to welcome her, she smiled and inquired,
“Count, how are you? Please excuse my abrupt visit and impoliteness. As you might be aware, we are looking for the new saint, but all the information appears to be obstructed by your family. Could it be…”
Iriel surveyed her surroundings as she spoke.
“…that the saint is somewhere in this vicinity?”
At her sharp inference, Count Gaid began to perspire.
“No, that is not the case. We too are ignorant of the saint’s location. We previously employed merchants to locate the saint, and we obstructed the information to conceal that fact.”
At his justification, Iriel smiled.
“Well, if you were concealing the saint, the holy war would commence immediately. You wouldn’t be oblivious to such a basic fact, would you?”
In other words, it would be preferable to confess before the holy war began.
At Iriel’s frightening declaration, not only the battalion but also the count himself shivered in fear.
Swallowing hard, he stated,
“O-of course. Our family is not concealing the saint.”
“Uh-huh… Alright. I will depart now. I apologize for the unexpected visit. Oh, and…”
She paused momentarily before continuing,
“I won’t ask why you’re searching for the saint… But if you dare to use the saint, I suggest you stop immediately.”
With a beautiful smile, she slightly lifted the hem of her short dress and promptly left to search elsewhere.
Moving with the battalion was slow.
Although it frustrated her, she found ways to utilize the situation.
She had distributed many of her people around the village to gather information and had searched the forests, among other things.
She sifted through the suspicious areas reported to her and looked around the last remaining district, tilting her head in confusion.
She muttered to herself,
“This is strange. If not Count Gaid, then where else could it be…”
While marking the territory of Count Gaid on her map, she became interested in the forest visible next to it.
‘The Forest of Elves.’
A small warning sign was marked on the map alongside its location.