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Volume 11, Chapter 281: Oozing Mud

I distorted my lightly oiled lips while leaking some words.

「Listen, Eldith. This is your last chance to turn back. 」

While trampling on the snow, we reached past the halfway point of Flimslat. Eldith replied, under the chilly sky, where the cold wind blew and pierced the skin like needles.

「…C’mon, stop calling me Eldith. Look, I’m just a traveling elf now. 」

Eldith, no, the traveling elf, tilted her winter hat lightly while standing by my side. No, I didn’t think she was serious. In fact, her blue eyes had a mischievous color, and her expression was somewhat cheerful.

Her tone and facial expression were far from what Eldith would show as the Queen of the Elves. Looking at the usual Eldith, she seemed like a completely different person.

No, rather, this could be her original expression.

A cool breeze touched my cheeks. Even though it was not that strong, I felt pain in my cheeks as if I had been bitten by a small insect.

I moved my lips slightly while narrowing my eyes.

「When you step into a place that’s not your territory, bad things will happen. It’s a common story.」

Eldith grabbed her hat with her thin fingers and brushed a little bit of hair.

「Who decided that my territory was only in the forest? …And if what you say is true, your territory should be next to your Queen, so why are you in the mountains like this? 」

As expected, Eldith, who raised her cheeks while staring at me, looked rather mischievous. I leaked my breath. Then, my breath immediately turned white and flew into the air like it was blown away by the wind.

I shall stop, since it didn’t look like I could persuade her with just a trick. Ever since Eldith began to fulfill her responsibilities as queen, she seemed to have become quite good with her mouth. Unlike when she was in that tower, her tongue became now quite sharp. If I gave my words poorly, I would get a painful reprisal.

Besides, we were already stepping through the middle of the Flimslat Mountains. If she wished to return home from here alone, and if she became distressed somewhere, then the consequences would be very bad.

Of course, Eldith was different from the other elves, but it was still insane for an elf to act alone in the snowy mountains.

Elves were called the forest people. If an area did not have trees, they wouldn’t live in there. Rather, their habitat was only comprised of a very small area.

They preferred warmer, calmer places with less climatic variation. That meant a region isolated from the surrounding world. In that sense, the Hanging Gardens of Ghazalia was truly suitable for an elven kingdom.

The race of the elves was, so to speak, an unchanging race. Their bodies, their voices, their thoughts, and even their way of life, not much of it changed throughout their lives. They said that in their lifetime of a hundreds of years, they believed in only one thing and did only one thing.

Elves were particularly averse to the concept of change, and thus, intolerant. That was probably the reason why elves didn’t like the human race that much.

Humans could change their bodies and voices instantly. Their thoughts and way of life could change in just one day. None of this was possible for elves.

Elves thought of humans as fickle beings. They couldn’t understand humans. On the contrary, humans thought that elves were quite stubborn themselves. How could they not change a single thought through decades?

In the end, elves and humans only spoke the same language, but their essence was entirely different.

In any case, for those who hated to change terribly, the extreme cold that pierced the skin and tightened the body was too unbearable. It was like a threat that showed its deadly fangs. Just by sitting in there, one would feel that horrid sensation.

No matter how many clothes the elves wore, they were essentially incapable of responding to change. It would be different if they had lived in extreme cold from the beginning. Eldith’s profile was also turning pale for some reason.

Unknowingly, Eldith’s long and thin fingers were holding my hand. Even though we were both wearing gloves, I could tell that her fingertips were as cold as icicles.

She squinted her eyes for a moment, and then, lightly squeezed my hand.

「Well, our destination is none other than the Giant’s Bed. It’s natural that this place is not very compatible with elves.」

Filaret said so while brushing away the snow powder that was entangled in her black hair. Perhaps, to make it easier to move in the snow, her hair was tied up and that appearance changed the atmosphere around her.

Filaret was also from the East, so she probably wasn’t immune to the cold, but her complexion was much better than Eldith’s.

Eldith responded to Filaret’s words by blowing away her white breath.

「It’s been a long time for us since the giants oppressed the elves. Speaking of that, even those monsters used to prey on humans. This endeavor is not only incompatible with elves, but with humans as well.」

As soon as she finished speaking, I could see that the eyes of black and blue intersected for a moment. After a brief and piercing encounter, I raised my eyebrows.

I didn’t know much about it, but Filaret and Eldith didn’t seem to get along well with each other. Their meetings were somewhat cold from time to time. Could it be said that the true nature of those who used magic and those who used the spirited arts was now manifested here? At least in the past, neither of them had ever acted like that.

By the way, in that journey Eldith was in a state that lacked sanity. Relationships with people were almost non-existent. If that was the case, it would not be strange if her current appearance and way of dealing with people had changed.

Besides, Eldith wasn’t the only one who changed. Filaret, who was leaning a little towards me, and Caria, who was swinging her silver hair in front of me, had changed as well.

Everyone had changed from what they used to be, as if something was taken out of their minds. There was no difference in their essence, but there was still an unmistakable change.

I didn’t know if that change was good or bad, since I was not god. I didn’t have the eyes to see the future or the authority to judge things, so I couldn’t know.

Yes, everyone had changed, and probably me too. At least that was what I believed. I had decided that I’d never expose myself to a situation where resignation consumed my heart like in the past. My eyes naturally caught them.

Caria’s silver eyes turned around for a moment, and Filaret and Eldith exchanged some words even though they weren’t compatible.

If I looked only at the current situation, I could no longer find any remnants of the past. It made me want to think that everything that happened in the past was just an empty dream.

Even so, since I was with them, I always remembered the past.

When I slightly closed my eyes, I could vividly picture the days when I still had nothing in my hands, and when I stretched out my hand longingly, but couldn’t even feel my fingertips. A green flame burned my eyes slightly. The heat itself was floating on the backside of my viscera.

This swirling emotion could not be expressed in a single word. The relics of the past were still inside me.

Oh, what an unbelievable thing! Caria Burdnick, Filaret La Volgograd and Eldith; these girls whom I once longed for and kept looking at their backs were now reaching out to me. Even so, my consciousness was still in the journey of the past.

It felt terrifying. The past was where the paint was added from above and oozed out as disgusting mud. From deep inside my brain, I stretched out my white hand but it crawled towards me. I tried to shake off that unbearable feeling.

In order to do so, I’d have to force it out into the open and step over it. I wanted to stand alongside these brilliant heroes.

I was sure my childhood friend would say the same thing.

A brown rat decapitated himself in Ghazalia, slashed a coward’s feet in Belfein, and trampled his former self in the Sanyo Plains. Then, there was only one thing left to do.

The Journey of the Past…I had no choice but to settle the journey of salvation.

I had to do it. Yes, that’s all I had to do. I was well aware that the peace that came from sneaking around while ignoring the past was not a good thing. Otherwise, there was no way Ariene would hold my hand.

The treasure sword at my waist made a throbbing sound.

Ahead of my vision were the ruins of the Great Temple, one of the destinations of my former journey.