Wars are never a good thing.
When the last war between the elven kingdom and the human kingdom occurred, everyone ended up suffering as a result, even the ones who had nothing to do with the war.
The losses were sky high, to say the least.
Since the elves have low fertility rates, the impact was rather devastating.
It would take the elven kingdom at least a century to replace so many losses.
Elven King used to use this as an excuse to justify his breeding spree, even though he did this long before the war ever occurred.
But now, less than two years after the last war, a new war had been declared.
Anyone who ended up in between would end up as collateral damage.
Such was the case for many demi-human tribes.
It was bad enough when the conflicts were only between humans and demons.
Demi-humans were counted as second class citizens at best and slaves at worst. But with the declaration of war, the independent demi-humans tribes were forced to make their moves for the sake of survival.
As far as demi-humans were concerned, they were simply fighting for their lives.
Humans would enslave and torture them for entertainment while elves would treat them as animals and use them for body parts.
But with their tribes and clans being far smaller in numbers, they would try to hide and observe the conflicts between the humans and elves, waiting for a perfect opportunity to strike.
Sometimes this type of approach was successful, but more often than not, demi-humans found themselves beaten at the hands of humans and elves, with nothing good awaiting them in the end.
This was all the humanity’s fault.
The human hero, as far everyone knew, had done the unthinkable.
Not only did he raid the elven kingdom in time of peace and kill their king, but he also massacred nearly the entire royal line.
Now, the elves were not simply fighting due to their inherent dislike of humanity. They sought revenge.
They were out for human blood.
Unfortunately for them, everything was going exactly according to a certain man’s plan…
* * *
“What a drag. Why do I have to be here, of all places?”
“Royal brother-dono, it is your duty as the prince of our kingdom…”
“Shut up! Don’t call me that! I was forced this stupid crown on my head only three days ago and now they expect me to fight in their stupid war? Why the hell would I want to do that?”
Zephyr couldn’t help but express his ire at his current situation.
It was an idiotic, to say the least.
An idiotic war declared by an idiotic kingdom.
And maybe he was the idiot for ending up dragged into it.
But it was not like he had much of a choice.
Half of the blood flowing in his veins was still that of the elven origin. Because of it, he could not disobey the order of the one who sits upon the throne of the Elven Kingdom.
Licia Mu Neverius, daughter of late Elven King, Rarius Au Neverius, and the current Elven Queen had decreed as such.
She was Zephyr’s younger half-sister and unfortunately, his new ruler.
Every one of the direct royal line other than Princess, now Queen, had been annihilated.
The only reason the likes of Zephyr still kept their lives, he suspected, was because they were illegitimate, bastards of the late king.
A prolific breeder, King Rarius was, to say the least.
Because of his goal of creating the strongest kingdom, he sought out powerful females to bear his children, whether they wanted or not.
Using his authority and power, that was an easy task to accomplish.
Countless powerful women of other races ended up being his victims.
Of course, such children were always illegitimate, bastards, treated as second class citizens among elves.
Zephyr was the result of such a sad circumstance.
Because he was Elven King’s illegitimate son, he grew up under the supervision of the kingdom, unlike many other bastards that were simply left to die.
Apparently, his mother was once a Holy Knight, captured by the Elven King.
Many women ended up broken after Elven King’s treatment and his mother was no exception.
Zephyr could still remember her empty lifeless eyes as they seemed to stare into nowhere.
The one time he saw a spark of life within her was when she saw his face, and in a fit of anger, she brandished a knife at him.
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As a result, one of Zephyr’s ears ended up shorter than the other, cut in half by the cold steel knife.
Realizing what she had done in a fit of fury, his mother turned the knife on herself.
Zephyr was not quick enough to stop her.
The royal physicians arrived, but it was too late.
He could still remember cradling his mother’s body as her heartbeat grew slower and slower, and she bled out on the floor.
The wound on his ear healed, but it was never the same. Rather than a standard elven ear, it looked more like that of a human. Because of this, Zephyr earned the mocking nickname of “Half-ear, Half-blood”.
Unlike many half-elves that looked more like their non-elven parent, Zephyr was a strange case, with his appearance being primarily elven.
Only his brown eyes were the indicator that he was not a pure blood.
Perhaps because his face grew to resemble the Elven King, his father, that his mother had finally snapped.
Considering everything, Zephyr could hardly blame her.
When he finally managed to confront his father over his mother’s death, Elven King simply replied:
“It is of no concern to me. She was just another womb, nothing more”
Elven King said it with a note of disgust, as though Zephyr’s mother did not even amount to an afterthought.
Ever since then, he grew to hate the Elven King, with all his heart, but could do nothing due to not having enough power to go against him.
Many of his victims hated him, but after he broke them there was no coming back for them.
To elven people, Elven King was the being of highest authority, second only to Mother, the Goddess of Nature.
All his life, Zephyr thought of the Elven King as an evil that none had a chance of defeating.
But then, something unprecedented occurred.
A man known only as the Knight of Death swooped in like an eagle and tore the Elven King apart, quite literally.
Zephyr was there when the Knight of Death put up his ‘performance’ and what he saw back then was still burned into his memory.
His father, the man he despised with all his being, tied to a cross, with all his limbs chopped off.
That was the moment Zephyr realized that although the Elven King was an evil embodied, there was someone far bigger out there.
A being whose evil easily exceeded that of the God-King of the Elven Kingdom, such a being had graced them with his presence.
It was like looking at a descent of the True Evil God.
Zephyr clearly remembered that fateful day.
Every elf started to suddenly lose access to their magic, but not Zephyr.
As a half-elf, he was immune to whatever was happening all over the capital.
When he saw what was happening to the Elven King, he could have done something to stop the perpetrators, Zephyr was confident that he was strong enough.
But why would he?
Knight of Death made his most cherished dream come true.
A stronger evil had appeared and punished the foolish king for his sins.
While he was normally in control over his emotions, Zephyr couldn’t help but tear up, not from anger or grief, but from sheer bliss.
The sheer satisfaction and happiness he felt in his heart was beyond words to describe.
Finally, someone did what he could never do.
Finally, the Elven King got exactly what he deserved, if not more.
If Knight of Death ordered him to kiss his boots at that moment, Zephyr would have complied without protest.
That was how strongly he felt about this.
After the so-called ‘tragedy’ occurred, the Elven King’s death was announced shortly after.
His only surviving legitimate heir, Licia Mu Neverius became the next ruler of the Elven Kingdom.
And then, another war was declared.
As an order of the Queen, all of the illegitimate children of late Elven King were gathered and were given royal titles of Princes, Princesses, Counts, Barons etc… and were tasked with leading the troops to war.
Same was true for Elven King’s extended family.
Long ago, Elven King competed for the throne with his siblings, and after he emerged victorious, his siblings were executed. But their children and grandchildren remained.
With Queen Licia’s decree, those elves were now counted as part of the royal family.
Many of them were foolish enough to believe that if they proved themselves in the war, then they would be the next in line for the throne after Queen Licia’s passing.
They were ambitious but foolish lot, regardless.
All of them were being used as expendable sacrifices.
Zephyr saw through the lie right away but could not disobey, not directly anyways.
Elves are bound due to blood magic.
Disobeying the one who sits upon the throne would activate that magic and will force them to obey, and if they resist further, it will kill them.
As half-elf, Zephyr suspected that he could resist that blood magic, to a certain extent, but did not want to take his chances.
Also, even if he could survive the blood magic, refusing the Queen’s orders would make him a traitor to the Elven Kingdom.
He would be caught and executed on the spot.
That is why; Zephyr chose to use a simple loophole.
Queen’s official order was “Go to War”, but there was no command that said to “Stay at War”.
So, by extension of such logic, there was nothing wrong with going along at first to the sites of battles, and then sneaking away while everyone was busy fighting.
Zephyr was not a fighter and as far as magic goes, he was about average by elven standards, which made him, by human standards, around a low tier hero at best.
But there was one magic that he was nothing short of an expert at using.
Magic that made him invisible to eyes and ears, and made his mana signature near-impossible to trace.
It was an ultimate trump card for a man who wanted to avoid any unnecessary fights.
Many elves were fanatically loyal to their ruler and their kingdom, prepared to sacrifice their lives for such a cause.
Zephyr on the other hand, saw absolutely no reason to fight in a foolish war, much less for the sake of avenging his hated bastard of a father.
The other bastards and distant royals can waste their time and lives fighting this pointless war, Zephyr had other plans.
Just after the battle started, Zephyr cast the
It was an absolute carnage to witness.
Both sides suffered enormous losses.
At least twenty or more humans died for each elven life.
From what he was told, humans have already lost two heroes to this sudden war, the Knight of Land and Knight of Justice, but they still had many powerhouses on their side.
One such powerhouse suddenly entered the fray.
Each swing of his frozen sword was coated in an element of ice.
Zephyr: ‘I believe they call him the Cold End, Knight of Ice’
Elven swordsmen put up a valiant fight against him, but the end result was still the same.
The elven side had clearly lost.
The battlefield now resembled a scene of a frozen wonder, much like the snowy mountains up north.
Many ten meter long ice spikes extended out of the ground; impaling countless elven victims.
It was not like it was an effortless victory; the human hero was on his knees, breathing heavily, and bleeding from his many injuries.
But the outcome was clear, humans had won this battle.
Zephyr: “Fools”
Their bravado and needless patriotism had got all of them killed while he wisely chose to step aside.
At least now, nobody could tell the tale of Zephyr the Coward, or Runaway Zephyr, instead people will think of him as yet another fool who threw away his life for the sake of his kingdom.
Zephyr: “Now then, I wonder how that pervert is faring? I heard he got sent on a secret mission by the Queen…What could he be up to?”
The pervert in question was his fellow half-blood, Favio.
Although both were half-elves, Favio was different from Zephyr, with his more human-like appearance and being unrelated to the Elven royal line.
Due to both being outcasts, they ended up bonding.
But even if Zephyr considered Favio his friend, there was something about Favio that sent chills down Zephyr’s spine.
Unlike Zephyr, who operated at ‘Couldn’t care less about the world’ mentality, Favio was a thrill seeker, a pervert of the highest caliber.
He was a man who wanted to witness the highest form of suffering that could be inflicted at the most massive scale imaginable.
It was far beyond a simple fetish, at this point it was borderline an obsession.
Zephyr: “Too bad he was not there to see the spectacle at the capital, I am sure he would have loved it”