Chapter 154 - The Hero Is in Your Village

“Have we still not found Filia?”

Two days had passed since the negotiations with the demons. While looking at the elders in the conference room with a serious expression, Patriarch Elway posed the question he had been seeking an answer to during these past two days.

Unfortunately, the several elders in the room shook their heads in response, expressing their failure to locate Filia. Although they had already tasked people with searching for Filia throughout the village and the Elven Forest, none of them had found any traces of Filia.

Of course, while they might have searched the village and its surroundings already, the only place they didn’t search was the Nature Shrine. After all, there was nothing special in the Nature Shrine, and Filia had no reason whatsoever to stay there for several days. This was also a point Alice had considered, which was why she dared to study the elves’ taboos inside the Nature Shrine. In addition, the Nature Shrine was a relatively unpopular secret location for the elves, so nobody would visit it under normal circumstances.

“Ha… To think she would disappear during the time we need her the most… I’m going to have to lecture her about this when she gets back,” Patriarch Elway said, sighing. The demons might not have initiated an attack on the Elven Forest thus far, but there was no doubt that they would feel safer if they could have Filia by their side. “Is there any movement from the demon’s side?”

“Not at all. They are really just waiting for us to hand over the Seeds of Nature. None of the demon soldiers has set foot into the forest,” an elder said, shaking his head with a confused expression on his face. He couldn’t understand why the demon army would behave so peacefully. “Some of our youngsters have even started chatting with the demon soldiers… Moreover, by the looks of it, they seem to be chatting quite happily.”

“Nonsense! Those are demons we are talking about!”

Patriarch Elway nearly exploded in anger when he heard this. Elves had always been extremely conservative, so they didn’t like interacting with other races. It was especially true for the demon race. The only times they would interact with the demon race was when the Demon King initiated a war against the elven race. Naturally, because of this, Patriarch Elway’s impression of the demons was that they were a crazy, cruel, and aggressive race.

Hence, his first response to hearing the elves’ younger generation interacting with the demons’ soldiers was to grow anxious and angry.

“Have those youngsters return to the village immediately! Nobody should leave the village these few days without a good reason!”

After issuing a series of warnings, Patriarch Elway frowned and looked at the elder sitting beside him.

“Has the demon army really made no movements these days? Did they make any rude demands?”

“It’s true. They’ve made no movements these past few days. It seems they are only here for the four Seeds of Nature,” the elder responsible for communicating with the demon army answered. He had already lived for 2,000 years, and he had witnessed the demons invading the human realm and involving the other races in their war multiple times. He had even participated in these wars. So, similar to Patriarch Elway, he did not hold any good feelings for the demons, and he felt that the demons were war machines born for nothing but war.

However, the demons’ actions this time had truly confused him. Based on his interactions with the demon army, he found that the demons weren’t as uncommunicative as he thought, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the demons were asking for the Seed of Nature for an actual purpose.

Because the elves had welcomed the human realm’s “internet,” they now knew that the demon realm’s harsh environment was the main cause for the demons initiating war. They also knew that this harsh environment was the cause of the demons’ irritable and aggressive behavior. In that case, could the demons be seeking the Seed of Nature because it could be used to improve their environment?

However, while he could understand why the demons had initiated these wars, it wasn’t so easy to change the impressions he had of the demons. Not to mention, no matter how normally the demons behaved right now, there was no changing the fact that they were the culprits of the many world wars that had taken place in the past.

Similar to the elder, Patriarch Elway also understood the cause of the demons’ actions. However, he didn’t think that it would be possible for the elves and the demons to reconcile.

The elves were only handing the four Seeds of Nature to the demons this time to ensure the peace and stability of the Elven Forest. In other words, they were only handing them over because of the demons’ coercion. No matter how peacefully the demons behaved now, this situation would inevitably become another reason for contention between the demons and the elves. If given the opportunity in the future, the elves would definitely try to reclaim this debt.

“It would be great if the Hero was here.”

Patriarch Elway suddenly recalled the only Hero that had ever come from the elves. Although that Hero had sacrificed “himself” in battle, “he” had also left a lasting impression on the elves. So, now that the demon army was surrounding the Elven Forest once more, Patriarch Elway couldn’t help but wonder where the newest Hero was right now.

…

“Achoo—” Alice suddenly sneezed while she was studying taboos in the Nature Shrine. Then, while rubbing her itching nose, she said, “I might have caught a cold.”

“Heroes will not be troubled by minor illnesses like these. As existences blessed by God, not only are we immune to minor illnesses, but we also get to experience relatively good luck in life,” Abel the serious elf said, promptly correcting her junior when she heard the latter’s mumblings. “This is also why I attached my remnant soul to Filia. Even as a remnant soul, I can still help her avoid a lot of trouble.”

“It’s just a casual remark,” Alice said, curling her lips. She might be wearing the identity of the Hero, but she wasn’t actually a Hero. Instead, she was only someone with talent rivaling Heroes. So, she wasn’t exactly sure if the Loli Goddess had given her immunity to illnesses when creating her body. That was a question she’d have to ask the Loli Goddess the next time she visited the other party.

Amidst their casual conversation, a dark-green crystal suddenly formed in the palm of Alice’s left hand. The crystal was cube-shaped, and it was filled with earth-attributed mana.

“So you’ve learned Forest Crystallization as well. However, your mana is still lacking, so you can only create a crystal of that size. The dark-green coloration also shows that your mastery over the spell is poor, so there are a lot of impurities mixed in,” Abel said. She was not at all surprised that Alice had learned another taboo in less than a day. She was a Hero, too, so she understood that this was a normal learning speed for a Hero. “Once your mana pool and proficiency improves, you’ll be able to create a huge light-green crystal that can be used to trap enemies.”

“So it’s a sealing spell…” Alice nodded. Then, after closing her left hand and crushing the dark-green crystal, she asked, “How does this taboo compare with the War God’s Lock?”

“It’s inappropriate to compare them with each other. They each achieve different goals. The War God’s Lock is a spell that focuses on keeping the target’s physical body in a state of false death and accelerating the target’s loss of vitality. Hence, it is considered a fatal seal,” Abel explained, sharing her wealth of knowledge with Alice. “The Forest Crystallization, on the other hand, isn’t a fatal seal. Instead, the earth mana inside the crystal nullifies the imprisoned target’s strength and breaks down the target’s willpower. Hence, it is a good spell to use for torturing or breaking a target’s willpower.”

“I see. I get it now,” Alice said, breathing out a sigh of relief. Then, she looked at the other books on the floor and continued, “With that out of the way, this leaves us with only five taboos left. You’ve never learned any of these taboos before, right?”

“Yes. I’ve never seen any of these taboos before, so they should be new spells developed after my passing,” Abel said, nodding as she looked at the five books on the floor. “I won’t be able to share any knowledge or experience on these taboos, so good luck.”