After Yoru and I found our second scorched area in the Lunar Forest, we inspected it for a bit in search of clues.
The damage spread for at least a hundred ters in diater, which was pretty shocking. However, this area did have so signs of a battle, and not with a monster.
So of the trees around the burnt-down zone had arrows stuck to them, and Yoru even found a splash of blood on one of the trunks.
I pulled one of the arrows from the tree and noticed that the tip was laced with so sort of poison, which I could only detect since it extruded a bit of MP from it.
Moreover, the arrow had so sort of engraving, and the feathers were of very high quality, leading to believe that these weren’t the arrows of random hunters.
That night, we returned to the base, and I showed the arrow to the group while we were having dinner around the fire.
"Hmm, that looks like an elven arrow..." said Vespera in between bites of her sandwich.
"Oh, yeah! Those engravings look like so that Eve had on her clothes." lina comnted.
"But why would an elven arrow be here?" I asked.
That’s when I rembered. The elven nation of Eldariel was to the west of the Lunar Forest. Still, we were at least one day away from reaching its borders, so it was strange that we were finding their stuff so deep in the forest.
"Maybe they are fighting that beast that keeps burning entire areas of the forest..." said Carli.
"Hmm, should we go check?" I asked the group.
"Well, we can’t really enter their nation, so I doubt they’ll want our help," Gina replied.
Eldariel was a country that was closed off to non-elves, but it wasn’t a decision that they took out of spite for the other races but because they were the ones under scrutiny.
For a long ti, all of the races were allies, thanks to the help of the previous reincarnators, who managed to unite the world.
However, devils always co around again, and at one point, they corrupted certain human nations to the point where they were kidnapping and enslaving any elf that they could find.
This led the chief of the elves to place a magical barrier around their nation that only elves could walk through.
There were so human nations that still had friendly relations with the elves. For example, the Sephyr Kingdom had been allied with the elves for a long ti, which is why they felt comfortable sending Princess Eve to study there.
We had a low chance of actually entering their country, but there was no harm in at least trying.
’Besides, lina is good friends with their princess, so maybe they’ll reconsider...’ I thought.
The following morning, our group decided to explore the west side of our base together instead of splitting up.
Seeing that we had already checked for most of the areas around us, we took flight and moved to a remote location in the forest that we hadn’t seen before.
As we kept walking west in a more carefree manner, we stumbled upon a dagger with the sa engravings as the arrow we found the previous day.
It was an elven dagger, which was already a rare sight, but to find it in the middle of a forest was strange.
Near the dagger, we saw a tree with dried-up blood splattered on it, and after Yoru inspected it closely, he said it slled like elf’s blood.
"I think we can start guessing that the elves are fighting sothing here in the woods..." I said.
Not even a second later, I felt sothing flying towards , and I instinctively caught it in my hand.
"An arrow...?" I pondered, noticing the sa engravings as before and the poison on the tip.
Right at that mont, another arrow flew by next to my face, aid at Vespera. Nonetheless, like , she caught it with ease and looked around carefully.
I was using my "search" spell, but I couldn’t sense anything nearby.
"We are not your enemies!" I yelled, trying to make our attackers stop.
However, my words were to no avail, as a barrage of arrows started raining down on us, making us fly up in the air and cast a massive air orb around us that deviated the projectiles away.
For less than a second, one of the attackers seed to remove his disguise or whatever he was using to hide his presence, and my "search" spell caught up to him.
"There!" I exclaid, crashing down at full speed toward the location where I sensed the attacker.
When I landed, I took out my mithril dagger and grabbed the figure of the man in front of , which was blurry from the dust I had raised with my attack.
Placing my dagger against their neck, I was able to discern their features, and it was indeed a male elf.
"Stop your attacks or say your goodbyes!" I exclaid.
Obviously, I wasn’t going to slice anyone’s neck, but I knew that threats like these worked best when dealing with violent people.
As the dust settled, dozens of elves climbed down from the tall pine trees as my group descended back to the ground.
I quickly removed my dagger from the elf’s neck and gave him a little push of encouragent toward his people, letting him know that I wasn’t planning on hurting them.
"Who are you, outsider!?" exclaid one of the elves.
"My na is Ichiro. We were just exploring the forest and found so of your weapons..." I said.
The elves whispered sothing to each other without replying to my words, still keeping their bows loaded and ready to fire.
"I’m lina Sephyr. Sorry, we didn’t want to startle anyone here..." lina interjected, making a few of the elves widen their eyes.
The elf that was in charge of their group was tall, with a sowhat burly build and long, blonde hair.
After he raised his hand and ordered the archers to relax, he approached us and kneeled before lina.
"It’s a pleasure, Princess lina. My na is Darfin, one of the Elf Commanders..."
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