“Ow——!!!”
Accompanied by two miserable screams, four people tumbled into a tangled heap in the dark, damp underbrush.
The older female elf didn’t even manage to hold onto her little lantern; with a clang, it smacked against a nearby rock.
The younger elf, meanwhile, landed flat on the muddy ground, getting a mouthful of rotten leaves.
“Ptui, ptui, ptui…”
“Oww, my old back…”
Before they could sit up and see what had knocked them over, a metal dagger gleamed beside them.
Amir pulled out her old standby tools and pressed them steadily against the necks of the two elves, like a snake flicking its tongue.
“…What are you two hiding here for?”
Tch, that’s what you call seizing the initiative and turning the tables.
Back at the Demon King’s Castle, she did the same thing to me.
Damn it, back then I thought the Hero was the type to hate evil and tear apart any demon she saw, so I made up a flimsy excuse to get her to let me off.
…Now it seems putting a knife to someone’s throat at the first sign of trouble is just Amir’s combat habit, isn’t it?
“I, we…”
The female elf pinned to the tree by Amir’s dagger shrank, her pupils contracting.
Feeling the genuine chill against her neck, her whole body stiffened like stone, and she even stopped breathing.
The younger elf, who had been knocked into the mud by Histori’s body, scrambled up, saw the scene, and nearly started crying from fear.
No time to dawdle here. Amir frowned coldly at them and pressed the blade a little closer.
“Talk. You’re skulking in a place like this in the dead of night, plotting something. What are you hiding?”
“…N-no! We didn’t do anything!”
The older female elf waved her hands frantically at Amir.
“It’s just—with the guards patrolling everywhere lately, we wanted to find a quiet spot to hide…”
“That’s right, that’s right! It’s warm and cozy here, we love it!”
“…”
Watching their terrible acting, Histori silently scratched the tip of her nose, feeling a strange embarrassment.
No way.
That lie couldn’t fool even a three-year-old.
Was I really making the same face back then under Amir’s pressure?
“…Wait.”
Just as the two elves were panicking and making excuses, the older one suddenly realized something.
She fought down her inner turmoil, squinted in the faint moonlight, and stared at Histori and Amir’s outfits.
“…You… Who are you?! Guards wouldn’t wear cloaks like that. You’re the ones sneaking around! What are you doing here?!”
Realizing that her own legitimacy wasn’t necessarily weaker than theirs, the female elf’s voice changed pitch.
She pointed at the dark green cloaks on Amir and Histori, her tone thick with suspicion.
“Besides, I’ve lived in these parts for years, and I’ve never seen you before! Spill it! Who are you?!”
In the face of such sharp interrogation, Amir just let out a dismissive chuckle.
“…Who are we?”
She stood up slowly, gracefully put away the two daggers, and straightened her collar.
“We are here on Her Majesty the Queen’s orders, conducting a special investigation.”
As she spoke, Amir casually pulled down the hood covering her head, right in front of the two female elves.
…?
In Histori’s bewildered gaze, the woman who had once possessed pure black hair like the night and deep-set eyes…
…turned into a pure-blooded Wood Elf with long golden hair, emerald-green eyes, and a pair of slender ears pointing diagonally backward!
“It’s normal you’ve never seen us. We don’t usually show our faces in public.”
The golden-haired Amir looked down at the two elves in front of her, shrugged indifferently, and carried a tone of condescending superiority.
“Only when something like this happens are we dispatched by Her Majesty to find out the cause.”
“…”
“…?”
The two elves on the ground were stunned by Amir’s fabricated story.
They sat there dumbly, not daring to utter a word.
Histori, standing nearby, glanced at Amir’s hand, which was hidden behind her back.
In her palm was a familiar little orb, glowing with a faint magical aura.
That was…
One of the three pieces of equipment Amir had pocketed as payment from the Dwarf Forging Vault, a sort of 3D projector in a way.
On the carriage ride to the Elf Forest, Amir had used it to show Histori several things, filling in some of her basic knowledge about this world.
Of course, the resolution wasn’t good enough to fool anyone up close.
But in this dim corner, Amir used it to simulate some elven features on herself.
And since the two elves were already nervous and didn’t dare look too closely, she actually pulled it off.
While Histori was silently mocking her, Amir suddenly wiggled her fingers and gestured at Histori.
…Alright, alright.
When you live under someone’s roof, you do what you’re told.
Histori took a deep breath, then stepped forward in sync with Amir.
She didn’t take off her hood to reveal her face, but she deliberately straightened her back, crossed her arms, and continued the act with a haughty, pressuring tone.
“That’s right.”
Histori coldly looked down at the two trembling female elves on the ground.
“The Elf Forest has faced such a huge upheaval that the whole elven race is in chaos. Her Majesty the Queen, besides reinforcing the guards, specially sent the two of us to investigate in secret—to get to the bottom of this and root out the rats hiding inside.”
She paused deliberately, then addressed the two prisoners in a low voice.
“Now it seems you two are hardly unrelated to this incident, are you?”
Hearing the proud golden-haired elf and Histori sing in tandem, the younger elf, already on the verge of breaking down, completely lost it.
Her face turned pale with fear, and she scrambled to hide behind the other elf.
“M-mi, misunderstanding, milady! That’s not how it is! It really wasn’t us who broke it!”
“…Shut up!”
The older female elf panicked and lunged to cover her mouth, but it was too late.
The words were already out.
“…”
“…”
Histori and Amir’s eyes met silently in the air for a moment, then they both raised an eyebrow.
Broke it? Broke what? How did it break?
If there’s one thing in the Elf Forest that, once damaged, would throw the entire elven race into panic—even going so far as to set up a dragnet lockdown to find the culprit…
…there’s only one answer.
A cruel smile curled at the corner of Amir’s lips.
She slowly crouched down and tapped the older elf’s cheek with the flat of her dagger.
“So it’s you two who turned our Sacred Artifact into what it is now?”
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