Five slender figures slowly emerged from the dark, dense forest.
They had golden hair, exquisite wreaths of grass on their heads, strong and powerful arms, and emerald-green eyes.
Most striking of all, each of them had a pair of long, pointed ears!
Th-They’re elves?!
Every one of them possessed exquisite features, looking almost like humans in their teens.
The elf at the front carried a longbow in his hand and wore a headband with a brown base and red patterns running across it, giving him an exceptionally heroic appearance.
“Outsider, please forgive me for attacking your companion.”
His voice was like a clear mountain spring, gentle and ethereal.
Just hearing him speak was enough to soothe the minds of many of Valsa’s men.
It was said that elves were naturally attuned to all things in nature.
It seemed the rumors were true.
Even Valsa was slightly affected.
“But you killed many of our people!
We can’t just let that slide!”
Elik had naturally been affected as well, but as Valsa’s veteran bootlicker, he absolutely couldn’t let his Boss lose face at a time like this!
“Please forgive my rudeness once again.
We of the Mountain Spirit race have never harmed innocent people.
We attacked them because they attacked my people without reason, and many of my people were injured by your men!”
The young elf spoke with righteous conviction.
“Uh… ahaha… I see, so that’s what happened.”
Elik laughed awkwardly before quietly saying to Valsa, “What do we do, Captain?
It looks like our people made the first move.”
“Mountain Spirit?
Not elf?”
Valsa’s attention wasn’t on anything else.
Instead, he was questioning the name of their race.
“What elf?
We have always been Mountain Spirits.”
Valsa stopped dwelling on it.
It was just a name, after all.
“Since our people made the first move, and you killed them in response, how about we consider this grudge settled?”
“That is only right!”
Seeing that both sides had reached an agreement, everyone put away their weapons, and the tense atmosphere immediately dissipated.
“Thank you, friend from afar.
Please, you must come to our tribe and be our guests.”
Valsa maintained a calm expression, but inwardly he was wondering:
Are the people of this race really this simple and kind?
Even though there was a conflict just now, they can simply put it behind them after saying they want to coexist peacefully and then invite outsiders into their village?
Or is there some kind of trap?
Valsa narrowed his eyes.
But he was no longer the man who used to worry about every possible consequence.
Whatever trap they have prepared, I’ll simply smash my way through it!
“Of course!
It would be our honor!”
Valsa put on a friendly smile.
Still, he wasn’t entirely at ease.
So he left Adrian behind to guard the ships, along with all the non-officer crew members.
He took only a few officers with him.
Along the way, he secretly left markers behind.
If Valsa and the others encountered danger, Adrian could rush over from outside and surround the enemy.
It would also prevent the Mountain Spirits from taking advantage of the absence of Valsa and his officers to launch a surprise attack on the ships.
…
Everyone walked through the dim forest.
The deeper they went, the darker it became.
The dense trees rustled in the wind, and in the darkness of the night, the sound was strangely eerie.
Just as everyone began complaining about how far away these people’s tribe was, faint yellow lights suddenly appeared around them.
Large numbers of glowing fireflies flew out from the bushes and leaves.
Many flowers radiated a soft, pearly-white glow as well.
The eerie, pitch-black forest suddenly transformed into a fantastical sea of flowers straight out of a fairy tale.
Everyone was captivated by the sight before them, unable to suppress their exclamations of wonder.
“You are the first outsiders to enter this island in over four hundred years,” the elf at the front said.
No.
He should be called a Mountain Spirit.
“Four hundred years?!”
Everyone was stunned, looking at him in disbelief.
“That’s right.
No one has come to this island for more than four hundred years.
You are the first humans I’ve ever seen.”
His voice was so gentle.
Yet the words he spoke sent chills down everyone’s spines.
The rest of the journey was no longer eerie or frightening.
After walking for an hour, they finally saw firelight in the distance.
It was a fairly large tribe.
At a rough count, there were around a hundred households.
Bonfires burned between grass huts and tents, while strange plants covered the houses, emitting a faint blue glow that made the entire village look dreamlike and beautiful.
“We’ve arrived.”
With the return of the five Mountain Spirits, many more Mountain Spirits emerged from the tribe.
Every one of them had a youthful appearance.
“Big Brother Lance is back!
Chief, see?
I told you a long time ago that if it was Big Brother Lance, everything would be fine!”
Lance was the young Mountain Spirit at the front who had brought Valsa and the others back.
Hearing Shiri’s words, Lance scratched his cheek awkwardly.
When he saw Shiri rushing toward him, he quickly scooped the child into his arms.
“Oh!
I forgot to introduce myself.
My name is Lance—Ang Lance.
And this little guy is Shiri, the youngest Mountain Spirit here.
He just turned fifty-eight this year.”
“Uh… fifty-eight… young…”
Everyone was rendered speechless by Lance’s words.
At that moment, a tall Mountain Spirit stepped out from the crowd.
Although he had the same youthful appearance as the others, his eyes revealed a mature wisdom.
The contrast between his expression and appearance was striking and left a deep impression.
“Welcome, honored guests who have traveled such a long way.
Our little village has not had visitors in more than four hundred years.”
“May I ask you… Chief, what exactly is going on here?”
Valsa asked in confusion.
A place with absolutely no contact with the outside world, a place that had never appeared in any records beyond the island, actually existed.
And not only did this island exist, but a race with such extraordinary longevity had survived here for so long.
If the World Government learns about this race, I’m afraid they’ll stop at nothing to capture and hunt them down.
They might even take them away for experiments.
“Hmm… I don’t know how many years ago it was.
Perhaps two thousand years?
Or three thousand?”
“Because of our racial gift, you have probably already guessed that we live for a very long time.”
“Mm.”
“At first, many races from the outside world respected us greatly.
Our long lifespans allowed us to cultivate many powerful members of our race.”
“But as that respect gradually turned into fear and suspicion, our race became increasingly isolated.”
“Because of our arrogance, we were cursed by our natural enemies, the Mountain Demons.”
“They were willing to sacrifice their entire race just to place a curse upon us Mountain Spirits.
The curse prevents our physical strength from ever improving.
The strongest we can become is limited to the physical strength of an ordinary sixteen-year-old human.”
“From that point onward, our Mountain Spirit race could no longer produce powerful warriors.
Because of our physical limitations, whenever we fought our enemies, we couldn’t even withstand a casual strike from them.”
“So our ancestors fled with the entire race.”
“Eventually, our ancestors discovered this blessed island.
From then on, we lived here in seclusion, never communicating with the outside world again.”
◇ THE STORY DOESN’T END HERE…
◇
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