Chapter 35
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"So, a few moons ago, I happened upon a gang of paupers scavenged for remains. Lily was one of them. She, Nora, and a few humans looked to till the land to feed their bellies. They had nary of things except those that nature gave them. That's how bad their situation was, and that is how the first dawn of our encounter began." Lhorne said. I had no idea what he said, but I thought he was talking about how poor we were.
"Then, I brought them into town as they were freed tailfolk, and humans follow them out of their own free will. None of them were enslaved by the collar. When I met them. As the stars aligned, Lord Edelweiss greeted us. We discovered that the heavens had blessed Lily with mana. She could use fire magic at her own will. Lord Edelweiss, the gracious and kindhearted as she was, granted Lily a small plot of land for her entourage. Though she had land, she had not been granted a seat on the council at that moment. This, I must say." Lhorne spoke so eloquently. The elves heard him with a full smile and enthusiasm, but Lily and Nora could only sigh as we continued to eat in silence.
"Afterward, we came to pick on the rest of the paupers that Lily had left behind. Her heart was caring and warm, just like the magic that god had granted her. Then, we came upon the rest of the gang, still alive and well. As Lily asked them to come to the promised land, these wicked apes turned their back on her." Lhorne continued narrating the story while occasionally sipping the mug given to him to quench his thirst.
"Shiro…"
"No. You may not leave. You are the lord, and he is talking about us. you can't leave just because you are bored." I replied. This is just like a boring meeting about our company's achievements back in my previous life.
"Those wicked apes are even worse than lowly undeath as they sold their own kin. I can't say how much I pitied the rest of the humans that they share a kinship with them. Nevertheless, those apes brought upon the evil star of the human. He is known as Silvester in a foreign land, but we have a name for him. The hunter and the scourge of Edenthal." Lhorne said
"Wait. That one? The one where our expedition failed? Edenthal failures!" Rhander shouted
"Shit! Those apes." Joseph said
"May I ask what the expedition is about?" Lily asked, finally getting interested.
"It is where we attacked a slave caravan carrying our kin. But we failed despite having a hoeth graduates." Lhorne said grimly as he remembered his past sins. "Fifteen elves died there while the rest ran."
"You have restored your honor Lhorne. Feth will undoubtedly treat you for a drink in the heavens." Joseph said. "You are not the only ones that ran that day."
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"I digress. I shall continue. Afterward, the battle of fate ensued. Fellow blessed fought out with their all. The heavens surely coordinated the fight that day. I could feel it in my bones that Lily, Nora, Mattheus, and I were the soldiers of light! We ran together. We fought together against the forces of evil. It is only a few dawns we share together, but at that moment, I felt like we have run and eaten together since childhood." Lhorne said with an exaggerated face. He talked about it so passionately that I wondered if he was telling the same tale about us.
"Then we finally manage to defeat our foe. Light dawned upon us that day as if the heavens applaud our endeavor." Lhorne said." However, our journey does not end. The gods have ordained that we must not be content with just defeating our nemesis. Lily has reminded me once again that our duty as a guardian is to protect; thus, we set forth to assault the human city and save our kin."
"Lily once again used her spell granted by the gods to cause chaos as we fled the city. Our journey was arduous as evil goblins had intruded upon us, but we still prevailed. The bond we shared grew even stronger as I worked together. Finally, we saved our brethren to Regoia where Lord Edelweiss can protect them." Lhorne finally finished her sentence.
"Lily! Stop sleeping! The story is over. We move on to the discussion now!" I shouted in her mind. Nobody but Lily could hear me, so no matter how much I shouted, only Lily would get annoyed.
"And thus is the tale of our deeds. As you may know from the story, Lily is a former slave. And thus, she has yet to be trained in any of our curricula, And we need to address her with a more direct language. Despite her crude language, her heart of compassion is true. I hope you understand this when you converse in the future."
"I see. Why does Master Hoeth support Lily tough? Isn't money enough? Making a former slave into the ranks of nobility, moreover of different races and with zero academic. This is the first you know…." Joseph asked
"Yeah. If it is just a blessing, two more tailfolk received the magic blessing other than her. Tale of water and ice. Magic blessings are so rare, even in the entire elven country. There were barely twenty of them, and the tailfolk that received those blessings were given a lot of money and comfortable houses but nobility…." Rhander also frowned.
"It must be the elves they saved," Joseph said while smiling. "We need to open our arms to whose we have a life debt upon. I didn't find these occasions too disturbing."
"If you put it like that, I also didn't have many things to complain about, but we can't just give nobility to anyone who saves us. Especially to other races, it disturbed the integrity of our nation." Rhander said. Then he followed with an apology, "Apologies for my direct language."
"All right. So, what do you want to do now? Why are you calling us for dinner? Is it just for chatting?" Joseph forwent all of his elven mannerisms and asked a direct question. Lily cheered upon at once.
"Yes! You see, I didn't know what I must do back then. I have never been in command of so many troops. I don't know what to do."
"Judging from your tale, you were only ever in a fight as a team or party? Ah.. team means two to four people, a party means two or three teams, so about ten people." Joseph answered." This is the second year of the primary curriculum going all the way to graduation… how can she doesn't… I mean… how should we teach them?"
Joseph looked baffled as if looking at an adult who couldn't do basic arithmetic and wondering how to teach them. He then looked towards Lhorne and Joseph.
"Well, we can teach her little by little as we go our days here. We are not instructors, but we need to tell Lily about our circumstances if we want to survive this fort." Lhorne made a conclusion, and we ended our dinner for the night,