Chapter 379
Chapter 379: Unexpected
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
Dark Elves were troublesome. Yet more troublesome than the elves themselves was how people discriminated against them.
A large crowd was gathered in front of our horse-drawn carriages. When the Bardi royal knight drew his sword and asked me about the Dark Elf, I furrowed my eyebrows.
“Is it Victoria or Diana? Didn’t I tell them not to go outside for the time being?”
My thoughts naturally moved to the two Dark Elves under my command when I heard that this commotion was about a Dark Elf. I had told them not to leave the embassy hotel precisely because I wanted to avoid trouble.
Unfortunately, neither Victoria nor Diana were the type to listen to orders. The Town Security had plenty of examples where they both violated the rules together. When I thought about how they caused trouble yet again, I became rather angry.
“Dark Elves are so troublesome…”
It was normal for people to have stereotypes and discriminate against others. This was all the more so as transportation and communication was very inconvenient.
Once people formed ideas and cemented what they believed to be “common sense,” they would be obdurate in their beliefs—it would be practically impossible to change their views. Some remote districts were known for their archaic customs from around four centuries ago.
Lorci had perished, but this didn’t mean that the Dark Elves were now viewed in a good light. The great majority of human kingdoms treated Dark Elves the same as demons—they typically captured them and burning them at the stake without caring about evidence of any crime.
If this was some other place, such as Auland or the Northlands, the people would at least pay me some respect. But here…
“What happened?”
I had the knights clear the way and push through the crowds. And, as I expected, I finally saw that familiar dark skin.
“Dian—eh? Who are you?”
Alright. It would appear that I too had stereotyped Diana and Victoria. This time, the individual surrounded by an angry crowd was an unfamiliar male Dark Elf. His grayish-black skin was covered in light burn wounds. It was obvious that he hadn’t undergone the Moonlight Ritual to become a Gray Elf.
He was collapsed on the ground, unmoving.
“…I…I only wanted to live a peaceful life in the city. I didn’t do anything at all!”
His pleas were treated as nothing more than falsehoods. Pitchforks in their hands, the Bardi citizens looked at him with fear and hatred. Far away were naughty children chucking stones at him. Close by, people were evidently even considering tossing torches at him.
Lorci’s mark wasn’t on his body, but nor was there a single Good God’s mark on him. He either hid his own faith or was one of the rare few elves who didn’t believe in the Gods.
“I saw him concocting poison in his wooden house! He even dared to sell his poison! If it wasn’t for the fact that he forgot to wear his evil magical mask, we’d still be fooled by him today!”
A brown-haired, freckle-faced young man pointed at him and shouted angrily.
“…That’s only medicine for common injuries. Haven’t you used it before? You even praised this medicine for being excellent.”
It would seem that this Dark Elf had succeeded at living in secrecy in the Bardi capital but accidentally ended up exposing himself.
“Yes, but you didn’t mention the nasty side effects! Although my external injuries were cured, I had diarrhea for three days straight and was heavily weakened. This medicine of yours is evil—an evil one that sucks people’s lifeforce! Ptui! I was so blind to have believed that you were a good person!” A strong-looking man had an expression of disgust.
“I’ve lived here for ten years without committing a single crime! If I did anything…”
The moment the Dark Elf said this, things turned for the worse. Originally, there were some watching on the sidelines, not caring about what happened. But when everyone heard that this Dark Elf had actually been living here for ten years, they thought about how Dark Elves were supposed to be evil and boiled up in anger.
“…No wonder so many people have gone missing in this area. This darkie must have kidnapped them for his experiments.”
“Only yesterday I had been thinking that there’s been a lot of thefts recently. He’s probably the one responsible!”
“…Could it be that this evil Dark Elf also used some vicious magic on me, making it so that I haven’t gotten pregnant?”
Although this sounded quite ridiculous, this was how reality was in this generation. Even the Middle Ages of my technologically-advanced original world was no different in terms of discrimination.
If some child was rumored to be cursed, then even a pig giving birth to a deformed piglet would be blamed on the so-called cursed child. This was the inevitable result of foolishness and discrimination.
“If that child was Beifeng, then that wouldn’t be discrimination.”
“Don’t even mention it. I also thought about this possibility. Forget it, let’s not discriminate against Beifeng—he’s quite pitiful. I’ve asked him before, and he said he’s not interested in pigs.”
“You actually asked him such a question? And do you really believe what he says? Beifeng also calls himself a normal person… By the way, if we keep chatting like this, the Dark Elf will get beaten to death.”
It was unknown who made the first move, but now the crowd was attacking the Dark Elf with pitchforks and a shower of rocks. This elf would have already died if he hadn’t had a decent power level.
“How odd. He’s not fighting back? Does he have a death wish?”
The will of a powerful individual would be within their bloodline. Just a powerful individual’s anger alone would be enough to make an ordinary person tremble in fear. This was something common to all warrior job class members at the Gold rank. And it wasn’t strange for this male Dark Elf to be a Gold-ranked combat class—he had arrived here ten years ago, after all, and survived all this time. He was obviously no novice.
But the strange part was that he let himself be attacked and didn’t fight back at all. Nor was he even trying to escape. It made me wonder how he had survived so long in the surface world.
I looked around me and confirmed that this was unlikely to be a trap, so I decided to intervene. However…
“Make way! Please make way!”
A relatively handsome young man dressed in extravagant clothing pushed his way through the crowd. His fiery red hair was combed quite neatly, and the sword scar on his face didn’t disfigure him—it made him seem rather heroic.
Judging by his aura, this man’s power level was somewhere between the peak of Silver and the beginning of Gold. From his age—he appeared less than thirty-five years old—he could be considered a genius among humans.
Clad in extravagant golden armor which was more decorative than practical, he had a Myth-ranked equipment at his waist. Following him were two subordinates, who were, at minimum, at the Silver rank.
“The Twenty-Seventh Prince!”
“It’s Prince Mills!”
From everyone’s reactions, it was apparent that this individual who suddenly joined in was actually a prince.
Also judging by everyone’s reactions, he had quite a good reputation. At the very least, the citizens in this business district seemed to really respect him.
Of course, since I was supposed to be here for diplomatic affairs, I had done my homework beforehand. This Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills always kept a low profile and was ranked low among the adopted princes. According to me, however, he would be one of the top five princes most likely to succeed the throne.
To gain advantage in the conflict for the crown, some princes reached out to the royal army and some princes allied themselves with the major merchants. Most princes, however, naturally allied themselves with major domain lords. Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills was one of the more outstanding individuals among the princes. He had racked up numerous combat achievements in his younger days, causing Orloss to personally adopt him as a prince.
Unlike the other princes who mostly tried to curry favor with other major factions, Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills instead walked the path of currying favor with the citizens despite his natural advantage of being a military man. He often appeared whenever there was a commotion in the city and would typically deliver judgement to wicked villains as if he were a Holy Knight hero. Sometimes, he would act like a prince from legendary knight stories, saving damsels in distress or delivering justice to evil merchants. Streetside bards often sung about his legendary deeds.
That’s right—legendary deeds. This wasn’t the Underground where Legend-ranked individuals walked around everywhere. A Gold-ranked grandmaster who wasn’t even forty years old was more than sufficient to accomplish heroic deeds that everyone would sing praises about. In fact, some citizens even organized parades for Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills and requested Orloss to choose Mills as the crown prince.
But in my eyes—no, I should say that in many powerful individual’s eyes— Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills wasn’t nearly as pure as he appeared on the surface. Most of the bards singing his praises had secretly received financial assistance, while the paraders typically had relatives working for him.
And one must ask: just how did he have such excellent luck that he could always appear right when a damsel was in danger or suddenly see through everything right before a wicked scheme came to fruition? Why was he always able to overturn the situation?
“He either arranged all these incidents himself for him to act in, or he has a huge number of spies in the capital waiting at all times for an incident to occur so that he can improve his reputation.”
Considering the fact that the other princes wouldn’t allow him to keep faking scenarios for him to improve his reputation, I felt it was more likely that the Twenty-Seventh Prince possessed a large number of spies. Judging from the situation, it appeared that he was here yet again to improve his reputation.
“…What do you think he’ll do?”
“From the information we have on him, I feel he’s just a pure politician. And a pure politician will never do what he himself wants to do. Instead, he’ll do whatever the citizens want. He’ll say something that matches what the citizens desire so that he’ll obtain plenty of support to become the emperor.”
“In that case, he’ll…”
“Yep. Right now, the citizens want to kill this Dark Elf. This is such a simple way for him to obtain reputation. Why would he not do such a thing? Perhaps we can even the bards singing tomorrow about how ‘The Twenty-Seventh Prince righteously slew the evil Dark Elf.'”
“How terrible. Shouldn’t everything be judged with due process?”
“Hah! Do you really think politicians are ordinary people?”
The Bardi knights guarding us coldly observed the situation with no reaction. These knights belonged only to the royalty and watched on as if none of this had anything to do with them. From this, I felt as if I could tell Orloss’s attitude towards his adopted princes.
And as I expected, I heard 27thPrince Mills shout as he raised his sword:
“Everyone, get back! Be careful of the Dark Elf’s evil curses!”
An enchanted light glimmered on his sword. It seemed that Mills really did intend to slay this Dark Elf. But the strange part was that the Dark Elf still grit his teeth and remained on the ground, with no intention of running away.
Since it had come to this, I felt a little bored. Rather than a scenario of “The Twenty-Seventh Prince righteously slew an evil Dark Elf,” I would have preferred a scenario of “The pure politician prince accidentally bit off more than he could chew and got viciously beaten up.”
Just as I was about to take action, yet another angry shout interrupted me… Why was I saying another?
“Law Incantation, Conviction! Anti-Crime Slash!”
Three caped individuals jumped down from a nearby rooftop in front of Mills. One cried out as she swung her thick greatsword at Mills, one ran over to cast Divine Arts—apparently intending to heal that injured Dark Elf—while the final caped individual simply glared at the surrounding spectators. Her imposing aura alone made the prince’s subordinates freeze, unable to move, while the spectators instinctively retreated.
“Suppressing Silver to the point of not being able to move? That’s at least higher than the Silver rank by two power levels. An unknown Saint-ranked powerful individual?” This time, even the icy-faced Bardi royal knights had their expressions flicker.
As for me, this was the familiar scene of Judgementors attacking with familiar combinations and a Saint-ranked or above powerful individual’s imposing aura… Yawen, Diana, and Victoria, you all really did come out as I expected!
However, now wasn’t the time to give them trouble. From a certain standpoint, as they were currently hiding their identities, them doing this would be more convenient than me. Also, they knew how far to take things and how to deal with such a situation.
At the very least, that was what I believed at the time. I also secretly took a step back. With Diana, the new Saint-ranked Antiholy Knight, nobody would be able to capture them. Besides, I also trusted Diana to do a good job.
However, sometimes there would be no accounting for Murphy’s Law. Unexpected surprises would always happen in the most unexpected of ways…
[High-tier Equipment: Dragonslayer Sword]
[Attack Power: 0-35. Quality: Myth-rank.]
[Special effect: Unbreakable. 100% chance to directly break any weapons ranked lower than Elite. 50% chance to directly break any Elite-ranked weapons. 30% chance to directly break Myth-ranked weapons. 1% chance to break all other high-tier weapons not at the leve of God Equipment.]
[Special effect: Halo of Anti-brilliance. Yes, that’s right, Anti-brilliance. The person who possesses this sword shall become the main character in everyone’s eyes. The main character of a tragedy, that is. The person who wields this sword shall have Luck and Charisma decreased by 10. If the person who wields this sword is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed man, then both will be decreased by an additional 10.]
[Special effect: Berserk Insanity. The wielder of this sword has a 1% chance to enter a berserk rampage. In this condition, the wielder will first focus on killing the family and friends closest to him or her.]
[There are some yellow words written on this sword’s hilt: In ancient legends, this used to be a mythical equipment which represented a person’s status. ‘The treasured dragonslaying sword, the pinnacle of Wulin. But now, there’s a new addendum: This Dragonslayer sword is free for anyone who clicks on it.]
Without a doubt, this was a good sword. However, its disgusting negative side effect would make anyone who wielded it sufficiently long enough to fall into insanity. Only Yawen, who naturally possessed strong resistance against berserk and insane states, was able to use it. She always treated this sword as her personal treasure.
Anyone who fought against this sword without knowing its special effects would be destined to have a disadvantage. Thanks to this sword, the current leader of Town Security was strong enough to challenge those stronger than her.
Perhaps Mills had done too many evil deeds, as his luck was terrible. His longsword, “Anxiu’s Gift,” was already past the Myth rank, which meant that Yawen only had a thirty percent chance to break his sword. Yet its effect just happened to activate on the first attack!
*Clang!*
As their swords clashed, the first attack sliced through the Myth-ranked sword in Mills’ hand. Yawen’s greatsword soon sliced right towards his face.
When Yawen noticed this, she hurriedly tried to stop herself. She was only here to save someone, after all. It wasn’t her intention to kill the prince. But right before she attacked, as an excellent Judgementor, she used Law Incantation: Conviction and Anti-Crime Slash, a golden combination.
Law Incantation: Conviction would judge the previous two hours of a target’s actions. If that person committed a crime, they would be marked with a red light representing evil. The greater the crime, the deeper the red. As for Anti-Crime Slash, that was an attack which empowered one’s sword with the power of Law. It was especially used against criminals, as the greater the target’s crimes, the stronger the attack.
I didn’t know what Mills had done in the previous two hours, but the dark crimson aura surrounding him was evidence that he definitely committed some dastardly crime. And coincidentally, he just happened to come under attack from a Judgementor.
Anti-Crime Slash’s power level against an innocent target would be no more than a light push. In fact, the sword would even blunt itself. But when used against a vicious criminal, it would have unstoppable force.
By this time, Yawen was no longer able to stop even if she wanted to. Law would have no pity for any criminal. Since Judgementors and their Anti-Crime Slash attack were the representatives of Law, and Law Incantation: Conviction had marked Mills as an abhorrent criminal, Anti-Crime Slash’s attack power wouldn’t possibly diminish just because the Judgementor wanted it to.
And so Yawen’s silver sword flashed in an arc, slashing directly at Mills’ face. If this attack connected, it was certain that Mills would die.
Meanwhile, Mills’s real guards had started taking action. The Bardi royal knights wouldn’t watch as a prince was killed right in front of them. Mills also activated his lifesaving magic item. As long as this attack was blocked, or if his helpers arrived in time, he would be able to survive.
But it just so happened to be that Diana used her newly obtained ability in order to stop Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills’s subordinates from taking action.
[Aura effect: Antiholy Barrier. Summon a barrier constructed out of user’s willpower and dispel all magic and divine power effects within. This barrier’s effects depend on the difference in power level between the user and the target enemy. This barrier can be maintained for a medium amount of time.]
And currently, this barrier was blocking off Mills from his potential helpers.
At this moment, all of Mills’s subordinates and the Bardi royal knights became nothing more than mere mortals, losing all their magical powers. Mills’s protective magical item lit up for only a second before dimming. The Dragonslayer Sword was outside Diana’s barrier to begin with, and the silver power of Law on the sword only dimmed slightly as the sword continued its strike.
*Shing!*
The blade clashed into the ground after a ferocious swing that caused blood to fly everywhere. The earth was stained red.
Mills had died with a look of shock on his face.
Alright then. Although I said so much, all that the ordinary citizens saw was only one thing: a caped individual suddenly jumped out, and with a single slice, the well-respected Twenty-Seventh Prince Mills was sliced in half!
“Assassin!”
“Assassin! Someone killed Prince Mills!”
The panic caused a fierce commotion which slightly lifted Yawen’s cape. To everyone’s astonishment, they saw the familiar dark skin of Dark Elves.
“Save us! A Dark Elf murdered His Highness!”
“I recognize that Dark Elf and that sword! That’s the Mage Country Ambassador’s guard! The Mage Country’s people killed His Highness!”
At this instant, Yawen was astonished, Diana was astonished, Victoria was astonished, the Bardi royal knights were astonished, and I myself was also astonished.
However, a history lesson I had once learned in my past life flashed in my mind.
“When Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austria-Hungary Empire was assassinated, not a single person expected this purely unexpected occurrence, the assassination of a relatively unpopular royalty in this small country, to become the spark for World War I!”
“Damn it! Yawen, you idiot with a luck rating of negative E! This is going to become a huge issue!”