NOVEL WEB Chapter 7
The master has vanished.
The Elf sat down on the spot.
There were no traces of him left anywhere.
He has disappeared.
Was it because she wished for something beyond her means? Or was it due to her futile pleas to the heavens, to her god?
It didn’t matter what the reason was.
The cause wasn’t important.
What mattered was the bittersweet result before her eyes.
*
A cold darkness descended upon the guild where her master’s footsteps had ceased.
For a year, or even two, she sat there endlessly, hoping that just a trace of his warmth remained in the place where he used to sit.
Her eyes looked as if they belonged to a patient suffering from an illness, sunken and lifeless.
Her pale complexion had lost the original fresh mint color, her under-eye bags deepening as if she hadn’t slept for more than three months.
Had it not been for her innate Elf beauty, her appearance would have been akin to that of a hideous creature.
She leaned forward.
Just as she had before,
She buried her face in her knees, silently sobbing almost to the point of a scream.
But no sound was heard.
The once prideful Elf Tribe Leader feared not being trampled upon again.
Nor did she fear the gazes of her kin. She had grown strong.
It was simply that in the past she didn’t know for whom to use that strength.
She was terrified – terrified that her master had left her.
That the fact he had vanished meant he had abandoned her.
At one time, she desperately denied it, believing that if she fulfilled her duties while shaking her head, if she demonstrated a submissive slave’s form again, surely he would return.
He would come back, wipe away her tear-stained cheeks, smile brightly, and embrace the coldness that had overtaken her.
She had no doubt about it.
However, when a month, two months, half a year, one year, and now two years had passed, the hope she had gripped tightly in her heart shattered.
The only glimmer of hope she held was completely destroyed.
Once more she was abandoned.
Once again she was alone.
A gentle master, different from the hideous one she chose to ignore,
The warm master who had rescued her and first shared love with her… or so she believed.
“Why… did you abandon me…?”
Why did you let go of that gentle hand that once led me to light, leaving me alone in a darkness darker than hell?
In the empty guildmaster’s office, she asked.
…No answers came.
Had she known it would stir such wrath, she would not have begged the heavens.
*
The cold and starving flora and fauna began to stir, peeking out into the world. A fresh breeze heralded the season.
It meant a year had come to a safe end.
Three years had passed for the Elves.
The Elf who had wept like a wastrel in the guildmaster’s office a year ago had fallen even further from grace.
Her body bore no sound places, and her heart had long since sank.
Having crumbled completely and fallen from grace, she found herself in a forest and paused.
As she brushed her fingers over her wounds, her eyes reflected nothing.
It was as if she would not capture anything other than her master in her gaze.
Desperately holding onto her blurred consciousness, her staggering steps were ready to collapse at any moment.
Nevertheless, the Elf did not stop her slow pace.
She was yearning to accomplish something.
She was heading toward the place she should now refer to as her former hometown, the disgraceful place that had abandoned her.
*
Rohan, the Elf Tribe Leader, and father of Eleina, wore a very satisfying smile.
A foolish father who had abandoned his own daughter, notorious among the Elves,
Yet contrary to that title, after selling Eleina into slavery, his power had soared to great heights, eventually touching the heavens.
The village thrived, beginning to develop into a city, and it was growing into the kingdom Rohan had dreamed of, one that could very well be called a kingdom of Elves.
With his lips pulling back to a broad grin, Rohan gazed down at the sight of his underlings worshipping him.
Just about five minutes ago…
“…Huh…?”
He had been smiling.
What shattered that smile was a very simple trigger.
An Elf in the form of a woman.
A woman with flowing mint-colored hair was drawing closer, gripping the necks of Elves of all ages in her grasp as she drew nearer to the palace.
Once again, the abandoned Elf had returned to wreak havoc in their world.
Elves in the city began to tremble in confusion.
Why was Eleina here…? More importantly, why weren’t the soldiers stopping the Elf that was trying to invade the palace?
Rohan hastily began his descent.
His rotund body tumbled down the stairs, his expensive clothes rippling and tearing, but he didn’t care.
*
What lay before him were the panting Eleina and the数 of Great Spirits, mocking him.
The forest, animals, plants, wind, rain, sun, clouds – all seemed to flutter around Eleina, comforting her and, conversely, condemning him for rejecting her.
Rohan instantly grasped the reason why the Elf soldiers couldn’t move.
They could not withstand the oppressive presence surrounding her from the spirits encircling her.
There was no way to win against an Elf who was betrayed by the very forest she called a friend, who had been turned away by nature.
“Did you create this…?” Eleina asked Rohan in a cold voice.
“You…? Calling me you…?” Rohan felt a moment’s rage, but quickly quelled it, forcing an awkward laugh.
“Ho… hoho… Uh… of course… I created it… When our daughter… becomes a magnificent Elf one day, I meant to pass it down to her… ho…”
He spoke in the most gentle tone he could muster, filled with the meaning of “I have no intention to fight~.”
Eleina smiled.
Could it be that she was trying to save him? Perhaps this pitiful man who had abandoned her was trying to show her mercy?
Rohan, thinking as much, as the king of the Elves, extended a hand, yet quickly realized that his body wouldn’t move.
His head smacked the ground, his body slumped against the pavement, and he began to lament the situation he could not comprehend.
But it was too late; his head was already stomped upon and shattered.
Smiling brightly at the man she had once called father, she returned the favor to the one who once tried to crush her.
A smile filled with gratitude for the authority he bore, tainted with the filth of power born from excrement.
*
Eleina killed her father and took his throne.
She slaughtered the queen and annihilated those who had ostracized her.
Spreading their remains on the floor, she sat upon the bloodstained throne.
In front of her was the illusion of her master, smiling at her.
She rushed over to embrace him.
…Nothing was felt.
Of course, it was all an illusion.
It wasn’t real.
It was a delusion she created to protect herself before losing her grip on sanity.
With nature beside her and the night sky above, she conjured her master from illusions created with the powers of nature and the distant crescent moon above.
But it was insufficient.
He was unable to support the weight needed to keep her from madness.
Not to mention, it was a fake.
Not real. Not her true master.
‘…….’
She rejected the illusion.
This isn’t my master, she thought.
No sound from nature needed to comfort her.
She only needed her master.
If only her master was there, she could do anything.
Why couldn’t the world let her be happy?
Why had it taken away her beloved master?
Why were they ripping her from him?
“Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why… Why…”
She questioned, but silence followed once more.
It was as if even the heavens feared answering her.
The forest didn’t tell her the truth either. Rather, it couldn’t.
It didn’t know who her master was, nor where he had gone.
…So she sat on the throne.
Imagining the master who was no longer by her side, erasing the illusions she no longer wished to see.
Her heart truly died in that spot.
And it never emerged again.
The people spoke of a queen who merely wept sorrowfully in that place.
An Elf who lost her only reason for living, her beloved pillar, wept bitterly.
With nature as her companion and the night sky above her,
She could only sing the name of the master who was no longer by her side.
“Master… my master…”
Keyal Kralin. My master…
The mint-colored hair that once shone brighter than the sun lost its luster.
Her appearance, which she had adorned for her master, faded away day by day.
Nights spent crying in sorrow only further pushed the Elf into despair.
To her, nothing truly remained.
*
Until suddenly, half a year later, the wind spirit whispered softly in her ear.
“Look! Eleina! He’s back! The one you called master!”
Her hope had been dead.