Chapter 97

Ger, the Elder, smiled as he saw Calian changed his mind instantly.

Seeing that smile. Calian felt a little embarrassed. He had been agitated until then, but had changed his attitude as soon as they said they would show him the forest path.

In the first place, he had sat down as soon as Ger had said those words, so there was nothing more to say to wrap up this situation, so Calian looked at Ger and just said frankly,

“I’ll do it just for the forest path so make sure you keep your promise,”

“The King of the Human Clan is honest. Don’t worry, elves are a race that value promises.”

Calian frowned.

It wasn’t because he was worried about the promise, but rather that name the elder kept calling him was annoying.

“I’ve already told you my name, so don’t call me whatever you want anymore,”

Ger smiled and nodded without saying anything else.

“Is there anything you can tell me about the elves who went missing?”

“They are male elves in their early to mid-20s,”

“Do they know how to fight?”

“They wouldn’t be a match for your knights, but they do know how to defend themselves to a certain extent.”

Calian, who considered the information so far, frowned as he was having a hard time understanding something. So despite sending out elves who could fight to search for those who had disappeared – how come there were no elves who came across them while looking for Sia?

“So why didn’t you send anyone to look for Sia?”

“Luca said you had taken him under your protection.”

“Aren’t you trusting people too much? Isn’t he your son?”

Ger answered while pointing a finger to his own face,

“I believed it because Sia’s face didn’t look scared,”

Calina recalled the extremely frightened expression on Sia’s face when he first met him as Ger continued,

“And all the young elves in this village are my sons and daughters,”

When he heard that, Calian realised there had been a misunderstanding as he unconsciously made an ‘Ah,’ sound.

When Ger said son he didn’t mean Sia was his real biological son. Calian who realised it meant more ‘a citizen of my territory’ nodded.

“Then the elf called Luca – what did he leave to do?”

Ger shook his head and sighed deeply.

“He should have gone out to make money. He once went out to the human village and became obsessed with money. He has already left the village several times to make money, but there has never been a time like this, where he didn’t come back,”

Calian laughed when he learned why Luca sold sculptures and stole expensive looking objects. Come to think of it, wasn’t Luca the real culprit that got Calian entangled in the Latran incident?

Calian told Ger the truth with a little resentment.

“Did you know that the elf named Luca stole the humans things?”

Ger’s expression changed instantly.

It was understandable – Calian had been surprised too, when he first found out that an elf had stolen something.

“Once I find him, educate him a little. Because of the item that elf stole, things became a little noisy.”

“I understand,”

“Anyway, an elf selling sculptures isn’t a common sight. Starting tomorrow, we’ll start looking for him right away,”

Ger raised his finger and pointed to his right, then his left.

“First, there are two towns on both sides of the forest. One is named Nrika and the other is Sting. If you want to start from there, it might be better.”

Calian who noted the names of the two twins and nodded.

Ger thanked them for the help and ordered another elf to prepare a place to sleep and dinner for their party.

—

The dinner served by the elves was better than he’d thought.

Calian had been worried they would only eat raw leaves or something, but that wasn’t the case at all. He had just bitten into some black bread with orange jam which had a unique tangy taste that helped get the dry rye bread down when he felt a little strange.

It was because of the topic of conversation that had shifted.

Among the knights, what happened at Latran not long ago was still a hot topic.

Calian hadn’t wanted to think about it too much but it wasn’t like he could stop other people from talking about it, so he just listened silently.

But the conversation began to take a slightly strange turn,

‘What could have happened for a sword to shatter into pieces like that?’

The discussion about this spread as though they deliberately hoped Calian would hear and tell them what happened.

“He must have blocked he magic bomb,”

“There wasn’t any soot on the sword. And the magic bomb didn’t explode – you saw that it had been nearly cut through didn’t you?”

The voices got louder and for certain, they were doing this so Calian would hear and explain it himself. Calian pretended not to hear a thing and carried on eating his bread.

The knights turned to Arsen when they realised Calian wouldn’t take the hint and jump into the conversation.

“What do you think?”

Calian’s hand paused for a moment.

He was curious about this too. In the past life, the sword that had never shattered no matter how many times he had used aura, had shattered at Arsen’s hand.

Upon being asked, Arsen held up the knife in his hand instead of answering. The knife began to tinge white as it became instantly covered with frost – and after a moment, there was a sharp ‘ting’ and a large crack formed in the knife. Arsen, who was looking at it quietly, said,

“Of course, the methods for smelting a sword and a knife are different, so swords won’t be broken as quickly as a knife, still, wouldn’t it have been destroyed in a similar way?”

He didn’t seemed to have realised what had happened yet.

At that, one of the knights burst into laughter,

“Breaking a sword? If you put your mind to it, you could even defeat a swordmaster,”

Right. He did.

While Calian was recalling his past life, at the mention of ‘swordmaster’ the knight’s gaze all turned to gather towards him.

“Sword…?”

They were Slayman’s knights. Now that the word Swordmaster had been spoken, the shattered sword reminded them of something else entirely.

Calian smiled naturally and continued eating his bread without a word.

When they met with Slayman, the fact that he could use Aura would be revealed either way, so what if these knights found out a few days before? Well, that’s how he felt anyway.