Part 3: I Want This

Night. Full Moon. Dead Silent.

I envy the dead. They get to rest. The temptation of ending it all latches onto the back of my mind, seducing me of eternal rest. For me, who has lived a life before all of this, the temptation is especially strong.

What if in my death, I wake up only to realize all of this elf-life is a dream?

If not, maybe wake up in an entirely different world as someone else, living perhaps my third life from the circle of reincarnation. The thought is not mere fantasy. Even if that is the case, I cannot find the resolve to die yet.

Revenge. This is my life's goal now.

I remember my past life. I am an unproductive member of the society. I am a loafer, a freeloader, and a waste of space. I am being generous when saying this, when in fact, I am something so much worse... I am a Neet, someone who is Not in Education, Employee, and Training.

In my past life, I lacked ambition. I am content with my begging alms, being a part-timer, and earning freelance income from posting novels on the internet. In this life, I can say that I stayed the same. I remain lacking in ambition, drive, and progress.

I am happy to contribute my bare minimum and nothing more.

"Fuck," I swear at my weakness of mind as I drag my chest full of knowledge to my destination in mind.

My mind flashes back to the village, to think the first time I will see blood being shed from my elf kin is through something that terrible. When I think of those times, I feel myself tremble with fear. But I have to overcome this. If I wish to achieve anything, I have to overcome this.

"If only it is that easy..."

And as if the gods of fates are playing a trick on me, an opportunity presents itself. It is the dead of the night, and the full moon offers just enough illumination for me to see. I see a man from my pathway leaning on a tree all bloody and gasping for breath. It is a human male.

Young, and with a powerful desire to survive. I observe him silently. It seems he doesn't notice me as he is busy putting pressure on his wound, and praying on whatever God the young lad believes. I listen to his muttering.

"Oh the Divines, grace me with your healing hands and help me overcome this tribulation..."

It appears he is not particularly praying to a specific God.

I have two choices: leave him to his prayers, or kill him.

I don't have a weapon on me. I feel a touch of relief. Maybe, I can choose not to kill him. But... The indecisiveness is momentary as I realize I am only making excuses at this point... My family has to suffer because I did not act immediately and give it my all. I will stop being lazy from now on. I will stop choosing the easy choices.

From now on, I shall make the difficult decisions with no hypocrisy.

I walk to the bleeding young man. I lack the stealth that most elven hunters possess, thus alerting the human. He fearfully gazes in my direction, and immediately recognizes my silhouette. His eyes focus on my ears, and ferociously tries to stand up. Because of too much movement, the bleeding from his limping left leg and right shoulder begins to profusely pump blood to the outside of his system.

"It is fine." I amicably call him. "I am Art." I friendly tell him, which helps disengage a bit of his hostility. I step one at a time as I stretch a bandage for wounds to him. "Let me help you. I will bandage your wounds." I kindly suggest to him.

The young man whom I assume to not even past 20 years old calms a bit at my non-hostile behavior. He should know it. Through the tales of old and hearsay, he should know at least a few stories about elves.

The elves are a race of pacifists and advocates of non-aggression. In ancient times, they led a nomadic lifestyle going from one forest to another, migrating to new forests, and spreading their population. However in current times, few elven tribes rarely practice this nomadic way, and instead, most have settled in unclaimed groves as their homes.

I carefully enter the young lad's space, allowing me physical contact with him. I lightly flatten the bandage on his shoulder as he leans to the tree, entrusting me with his safety.

"I... Thank you..." The young human softly expresses his gratitude.

"You are naive," I answer him.

"Huh?"

At that exact moment... I dig my thumb from my right hand to his bleeding shoulder. While at it, I pin his legs with mine. I use my left hand to push his right shoulder so as to make sure to immobilize him. I cannot kill him through strangling, or even blunt trauma by beating him to death. I am very unathletic after all, or maybe this is just me making excuses so that I can inflict him with the most painful death currently imaginable.

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The young human screams in pain. His agony reverberates and destroys the silence of the night. "AaAaaAAAGH!"

Because I lack any weapon in my possession, I can only resort to this. I put all of my weight on his waist, making sure not to give the human any space to maneuver and counterattack. "..." I maintain a cold silence as I widen his bleeding shoulder and insert more of my fingers.

The young man can hardly reach me with his only movable right arm. His left arm has become unusable because of my too much abuse. My plan is fairly simple, yet horribly cruel. I am going to kill the young man through the shock of pain.

"AaAaaAAAaaaAAAAAGH!"

Five minutes. Fifteen minutes. Forty-five minutes. Finally, I finish my kill.

The young man dies from the shock of pain with wet tears on his cheeks. At the human's last moment, he has been shouting his mother's name, while begging for me to kill him. It is a tragic sight... But a valuable learning experience nonetheless.

After that first kill, I learned how to make my heart cold.

.

.

.

I wake up with a startle. It is the height of noon, and the scorching sun is burning me. I am lying just beside the chest. Just beside the Great Anisia River, I see a few elves slowly gathering. They are setting up huts in preparation for building a new settlement. I pull my chest and drag it under a tree.

I observe.

The elven race is a primitive race whose methods of survival since ancient times are through wandering. That changes after the humans centralize their power to create a Kingdom. Through slavery, the elves are constantly targeted. There are many reasons why elves choose to stop their wandering lifestyle. Mostly, the biggest reason is because of being hunted for slavery.

Their beauty or long lifespan are a subject of envy, greed, and lust especially notorious among aristocrats.

I watch the few elves building their own huts. In their minds, this is only natural. Many a few move on to their lives, rebuilding what we lost. This kind of thinking has also infected me, considering the long peace of the Lorekleim Forest. It is fine to be destitute. The elves can rebuild after all.

However, that is too much optimistic thinking. I understand that now. I am too naive, too carefree. I am not able to see what is wrong and I have to pay for my mistakes by seeing my family end up like that.

"What are you all thinking!?" I angrily scream at them.

The elves look at me like I am a madman. One brave young elf who I don't recognize speaks up to me. "We are rebuilding," He innocently replies, not an ounce of hesitation in his words. I say foolishness!

"Which Grove are you from?"

The elves refer to their villages as groves. I come from Yoretree Grove where thick trees surround my village. I remember them burning in orange flames intermixing with the scarlet blood of my kin. The memory invokes hate from my stomach.

"I am from Clearwater Grove," The elf answers, with a little apprehension from my hostile gaze.

"Tell me, what does the color of your lake look like now? I know the place. I have been there. I traded books with your Village Chief. My father brought me there in my youth to teach me where we get our cleanest water. Tell me, elf, what is the color of your home's water now?"

"Red," He briefly replies.

"And you are thinking of rebuilding?" I flaunt my hand emphasizing the old and weak elves that surround us.

All of their eyes are on us. I continue. "What are we to rebuild when there is nothing left for us to rebuild? Where are our women? Where are our men? We might be a long-living race, but do you expect the children to grow up fast and give birth to the next generation?"

"Then what do we do?" An old elf I recognize as Yirlung the bowmaker asks me.

"I say we fight back." I hear gasps from my daring remarks.

I am not a warrior myself, but I am brave enough to abide by my own words. Rather than brave, it is more apt that the elves might simply see me as suicidal. There is quiet. The young elf from Clear Water looks at me as if I am a madman. Well, I have gone mad, so he is not at fault.

"Currently, most of our men are traversing the Lorekleim Forest, gathering whatever elf cross their path, and bringing them here." The elves gasp at my words, expressing their worry. I understand their sentiments.

The rules about population control have been a sacred law for the elves for a long time, which allows their prolonged survival.

But in my eyes, it is a flawed and outdated system. If the humans are still using crude stone weapons and lack other means, the idea of scattering the population might be ideal as the harm the humans will be capable of is severely limited, to begin with.

But not anymore.

I remember them all as if only yesterday: their mounted cavalry that tramples on our huts; their refined iron weapons and their cold gleam; their leather armor and steel-plated gear; their more superior bows with steel bolts of various shapes; their organized fighting ability; and then their more superior resources in the form of the weirdly blue solution agent they toss around which burns brightly and vigorously.

The elves need to centralize their power if they have any wish for survival.

Yirlung the old bowmaker approaches me with a steely gaze. "I will fight by your side, Art. But how?"

It is unexpected for Yirlung to be so cooperative. Perhaps, it is because of the familiarity between us considering we come from the same village. "We gather every able elf. We equip them from the iron weapons we pilfer from the dead raiders. And then we track them down. We take back our women, we harass them, we do everything we can to show them we are not to be messed with."

"You are not the first elf to think back of fighting against the humans. Every time the elves show any sign of aggression, the humans always retaliate more than we can handle. And how are we going to catch up to them? They have horses!" Another elf, an elderly grandma expresses her doubt.

The other elves show a look of dread, their skin getting paler at the thought of having to confront the brutal humans.

"Then we leave no one alive. We kill them all." My grand claim seems to have an effect on them as they silently consider how this wishful goal can be accomplished. "We should be still able to track and catch them. The elves they have as captives won't be riding horses, thus they will be significantly slowed."

My words seem to have a positive effect on them. Every one of the elves looks at me with anticipation, waiting for me to point them in the right direction. Even now, I am unsure whether the direction I am going is truly right.

What I only know is that I want this.