Editor: Areth Kyntaul
“Brother! Brother! Wake up! Hurry up and wake up!!”
I had a cup of cold water splashed on my face at night to wake up. I opened my eyes quickly.
Never pour water on a man’s head when he’s sleeping looking up. It sucks and hurts incredibly. It’s the exact same feeling as when you are sentenced to death by drowning. It really induces the same terror as suffocation.
“Wh-What’s the matt-?”
Before I could finish, Freya covered my mouth. She checked her surroundings vigilantly and in a soft voice said, “Be careful, brother, there’s someone coming, and it doesn’t look like they’re harbouring any good-will. It’s that group of merchants. Everybody is asleep like you right now. All of the elves are basically drunk. Look at this, brother.”
Freya placed a sheet of paper on my shirt. I borrowed the light provided by the torches to read it. It was a very simple recruitment advertisement. But it had Galle Village written on one part of it. I thought about it for a second. It looks like Galle Village is short on workers. But the time period for recruitment was…
A few days ago. In other words, when everyone gathered for the celebration a few days ago. Which means that the people here came for work. No, maybe it was because they believed that Galle Village was producing gold, and all the females came to get gold-jewellery made. As long as gold is involved, people will get obsessed it. After being an apprentice for a few years, they’ll be able to create gold-jewellery. They could then grind it into gold-powder afterwards and it would become theirs.
“Brother, maybe we have discovered the most frightening case. This is my new discovery. See this? Brother, this is a bone! This was a bone that was found in that pile of ashes. It wasn’t burnt completely! The charcoal we saw wasn’t charcoal but burnt corpses!!”
Freya’s gaze was filled with terror. The terror that was soon to befall me woke me right up. It looks like this place is much more frightening than I imagined. This is no elf-trafficking case. This is… this is… this is inviting men here and killing them and then kidnapping the women!
I looked at the elves sound asleep in all directions, even Luna was sound asleep. I couldn’t wake her up no matter how much I shook her. Freya looked at me, nodded and said, “Your guess is right. They definitely spiked the drinks. But it wasn’t as effective on you since you’re mixed-blood. That group of merchants is coming over now.”
“Just them?”
“Yes, because all the other elves who were preparing to assist are dead.”
Freya nodded. I noticed that the pearl-necklace on her chest was missing. I made a wild guess, “Freya, did you poison them?”
“Yes. The villagers of this village have all become rotten to the core. They were planning to sell the elves that came for gold. Of course, it’s not their fault, but the fault of the tax official. The tax official threatened the villagers into doing this so that his issue wouldn’t cause the capital to be disappointed.”
I clenched my teeth.
This sort of thing will incur everyone’s hate. A regional official doesn’t represent himself, but the government. I can’t believe the tax official came up with such a sinister plan for the sake of his own desires and to fatten himself up.
That group of merchants are definitely involved too. They definitely had a hand in plotting it.
“Brother, we must hide now. They should be coming over to take people away soon. I poisoned them, but the poison is only effective on elves, so all of the elves in this village who were assisting them are dead. That group of merchants will definitely do everything in their power to kidnap the female elves!”
“What about Luna then?!”
“Leave her here! Onii-sama! Don’t worry about Luna for now. She will definitely return to your side. The most important thing right now is for us to hide! We aren’t armed. Forgive me for being blunt, but you don’t have any fighting capabilities while I can’t last long in a fight due to my body. So we have to go to the stables now and see if there’s a horse available.”
Freya grabbed my arm and dragged me towards the village. She was so tense and anxious that she reverted back to her old way of addressing me. It looks like we’re in a real pinch here and have no time for some brother-sister game. Freya’s body started to give in. It looks like she ran back here as fast as she could.
I only found out what Freya had been up to during the time she went away later on. She first went and formed a friendly relationship with the tax official and found out that the village had to offer him gold tonight. At the same time, she found out about their shortage of people who could refine gold.
She then heard about the recruitment flyer from a husband-and-wife couple. Once she got a grasp on what was happening, she poisoned the wine in front of the village chief’s house before running to the gold mine with everything she had.
She got the dog to sneak in and bring out a bone while there weren’t many people around thanks to the celebration.
She then ran back here after all of that.
“How did they transport the people?!”
“Obviously with the horse carriage! Onii-sama, their horse carriage is used for transporting people! If my guess is right, they smuggle the gold in through those fruits. They just didn’t give us the fruits with gold. Onii-sama, we don’t have a second to lose. We just need one horse. Miss Luna will be fine!”
I looked at Luna who was sound asleep next to me. I tried to see if I could pick her up, but a person who’s sleeping is particularly heavy. Even if I wasn’t affected by the drinking and didn’t drain myself with all that dancing, intimate hugging and smooching, all of my limbs were blatantly powerless so I just didn’t have the strength. I had no way of taking Luna along at that moment.
“Onii-sama! Hurry!!!”
========================
At the same time, at the northern army camp.
“!!”
Vyvyan suddenly opened her eyes wide. She sat up in a violent fashion and placed her hand on her chest, where her heart was racing while she panted. She had seen her son get hit with an arrow in her dream. He had been shot in his thigh with an arrow by a group of people dressed in black under the moonlight. After falling off his horse, he had been hung up, and his throat was pierced with another arrow. Vyvyan knew that it definitely wasn’t a dream, but one possible future.
Her ability was mind-reading, but she had another ability on top of that; clairvoyance. She could tell what a person wanted to do because she had clairvoyance. Her brother could see the past, while she could see the future. However, the one caveat she had was that she could only see one possible future.
“Fuu…”
She breathed gently and didn’t say a word. However, her blood-red eyes, which looked like they were dripping blood due to her anger, told the whole story. Nothing in this world held any meaning to Vyvyan. But she would not allow anything or anyone to threaten her son.
If they’re going to threaten him, then regardless of whom it is or what the case is, Vyvyan was dead-set on gouging their hearts out.
And this time, it was definitely not like the deer hunting festival last time. That time, Mera had hesitated for a long time, so she wasn’t such a big threat to her son. But it was precisely because of that, that she didn’t notice it. It was different this time, though. Since she could see it in her dream, it was a clear indication of the severity of the matter this time.
If the previous assassination was considered the work of shabby assassins, this time, it was a trained mercenary group in pursuit.
She stood up and got dressed. She then waved her hand and vanished from the camp, leaving just a leaf that was blown past by the wind.
Lucia was lying underneath the moonlight. She curled up and continued to breathe evenly and gently. She didn’t know what took place afterwards as she was still imagining herself and her handsome husband’s appearance in her dream…
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