The first weeks around that area were peaceful. All the hunting groups did not find the dark elves again, and the settlement’s construction went well, and progressed in a rapid.
Now they had houses to sleep in, and a few farms were getting into shape near the area. Food wasn’t a problem anymore, and with the river nearby water wasn’t either.
Things were going in the right direction, but Arthur could not help but think about these dark elves that showed up a few weeks ago.
Bill said the Elven kingdom had an alliance with the Dragon Scale Empire to fight against the dark races, and the dark elves were part of it, alongside with the orcs, trolls, vampires, and many creatures.
If the dark elves were nearby, then it could only mean 2 things. The dark elves were infiltrated, or the Elven kingdom wasn’t as friendly as they looked. Either way, it was something they had to check, and Arthur decided he would be the person doing it.
The rest of them remained in the settlement. Arthur called out Sully to stay nearby and protect them, as he was already reaching level 70.
“All right, let’s explore this area.”
Arthur had scanned the surrounding area before, but never went that far from the place he was in. It was an immense forest, so it was hard to decide which way to go, but Arthur knew where the elves might be.
“The river!”
It doesn’t matter if it is humans or elves; they needed water. Arthur tried his best to look for other rivers around that area, but it seemed the one near his settlement was the only around in kilometers. So, he used his flight spell and followed the river.
At first, he found nothing, and that concerned him. Were they really that far from the rest of the elves? But soon Arthur spotted a tree far away that looked different from the others.
“Maybe that’s a house?” Arthur thought.
He flew in that direction, but prepared his teleport spell just in case something happened. When he got near that tree, he saw other trees around that one with houses in the insides, and farms all around it.
A few Elven kids were outside playing, and others were taking care of the farms. An idea popped into his mind.
“Will this work?”
Arthur hid and watched the elves. He looked at their appearance, their behavior, everything. After he was confident enough, Arthur changed his appearance to one of an elf.
The idea he had in mind was to act like he had lost his memory, and then get more information from that Elven settlement. If he showed up as a human, the news would travel from that settlement to all the others, and eventually to the Elven capital. That would make it harder for Arthur to travel unnoticed, and perhaps they would refuse to talk with a human.
For that reason, he opted to change his appearance to a young elf that looked similar to him, yet not identical. Arthur changed his hair to a blond long one, and two pointed ears.
He walked towards the Elven settlement, and soon the elves there noticed he did not live there. At least 6 Elven guards showed up, wielding swords and bows made of a yellow ore.
“Who are you?”
They used a strange tongue, but it wasn’t hard for Arthur to speak it, as he knew the language spell, which was incredible.
“I- I don’t know. I can’t even recall my name. Please, help me!” Arthur said as he get down on his knees, and cried.
Elves were kind, so the guards put their weapons down and brought Arthur to the biggest house inside that tree.
There they fed him with a soup. It tasted good, and a warmth of feeling passed through his body.
“You don’t remember what happened?” Ralnor said.
Ralnor was the person in charge of that Elven settlement, and he was trying to learn more about the mysterious elf that showed up in his home.
“I don’t… I woke up near a river not that far from here. I- I can’t even recall my name…”
Arthur did his best to act, and Ralnor believed in it. He did not know if his acting was that good, or was the elves that were na?ve.
“You can stay here as long as you like. There’s an empty house, actually. Someone moved out to live in the capital, so you can stay there. Even if you don’t get your memories back, you can create new ones here.” Ralnor said.
He was an incredible person, and Arthur felt bad for lying to him, but it was necessary to know more about the situation.
If a human showed up in their settlement, then surely the treatment wouldn’t be as good. Perhaps they wouldn’t attack, but getting information as a human would be hard, as elves did not trust humans.
The leader of the settlement gave Arthur new clothing and showed him his new house, which was not that far from where they were. Just like all the others, it was a tree with a house built inside of it. Strangely, it was quite beautiful, and making one of those looked hard.
“How did they do it?”
It was a bigger house than he expected, with 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. One thing that surprised him was that the elves had bathrooms similar to those in his previous world, as if they had the technology and the knowledge to build one.
Not completely the same, as the shower had hot-water because of magic, and the toilet also had a magic in it that made all the poop and pee disappear. To be fair, it was actually better than the bathrooms he knew back in his world, but that the design looked so similar made Arthur wonder.
“That city underneath the desert also looked similar to a city from the modern age. Is this a coincidence or there is more to it?”