Everybody dispersed and collected all the bones.
With Stone to Mud and Hand of Magic, Roland easily dug a pit and pushed all the bones that they could see into it, before he put the bucket and the baby in the pit with Hand of Magic too.
His magic power burst out, and the rolling mud covered everything. Eventually, the mud rose into a round tomb and hardened into stones.
All of them were quite grave after they left the village.
It was not until a day later that the atmosphere finally improved.
Looking at the long green horizon of the Elf Forest far away, Suel said regretfully, “I should’ve livestreamed this.”
“Why?” asked the Priest.
Suel sneered. “To show other people what elves are exactly. Now, there’s a strange opinion on the forum. Some people think that elves are kind, beautiful, and righteous, and that everything about the elves is great.”
The Priest shook his head. “It’s unfair to criticize a group for some of the people in it. Some human beings have done horrible things too, but are all human beings evil? The problem is Nature’s Wrath, who caused this. Everything will be fine after we eradicate it.”
Behind Suel, Roland said casually, “I agree with Rommel.”
The Priest was Rommel.
Betta was still in a trance. As the youngest in the team, he was not nineteen yet, and it was impossible for him to calm down after such a tragedy.
Hearing his companions’ disagreement, Suel said after a brief silence, “But in any case, Nature’s Wrath is dead for sure. I won’t let them go, with or without this quest.”
They walked for another day before they returned to their previous rendezvous point.
In the stone house, Schuck and the rest had waited for a while.
They shared their intelligence, only to find that the victims they saw all had a rhomboid hole in their skull, which was clearly caused by arrows.
There was not a second hole in any skull, and no arrows were left at the locations.
The experts among human beings could’ve done the same, but it would require too many of them in order to slaughter a whole village, leaving no survivors.
Human beings had a large population. It was possible to gather such a team, but those people were in different places and belonged to different organizations. It was barely possible to gather them all at once.
Therefore, only the elves could’ve deployed so many expert archers that easily.
The answer was obvious.
At this point, Roland found that not just them, Schuck and Hawk’s squad were not in a good mood either.
Margret was probably the only unaffected person.
After all, a dragon’s viewpoint could be very different from that of human beings.
They rested for two hours, before they found Ans by the lake.
As a “noble,” Betta was responsible for the negotiation.
“We’ve confirmed that it was the elves’ doing,” Betta said hoarsely, not as perky as he usually was. “Now, can you tell us more details about Nature’s Wrath?”
Ans nodded. “Naturally.”
Then, Ans told them the basics of Nature’s Wrath.
Nature’s Wrath had hundreds of members, but of course, not all of them needed to be killed. Only the leadership had to be eliminated.
In Ans’s opinion, there were twelve leaders that had to be killed.
The most important one of them was Ans’s teacher, a Druid close to the level of Legend. He could transform into an emerald dragon.
However, since he was not a Legend, he could only use half the strength of an emerald dragon even if he became one.
The other eleven elves were the administrators of Nature’s Wrath, including the deputies, the supply officers, the field commanders, etc.
After hearing Ans out, Betta took a long breath. “There are hundreds of people in Nature’s Wrath, and we only have ten. Even if we’re undying, it’s troublesome for us to kill so many of them, and they will be warned if we try and fail.”
“I’ll create an opportunity for you, an opportunity where only the twelve leaders will show up,” Ans said with a vague green light flashing in his eyes. “The opportunity will arrive soon, and all you need to do is wait.”
Everybody nodded.
At this point, Roland said, “I have a question.”
Ans looked at Roland. The elves had enough respect for spellcasters too. He said, “Please ask.”
“According to you, the two villages and the town that were slaughtered did take part in slave deals.” Roland stared the elf in the eyes and said, “From the perspective of the elves, Nature’s Wrath should be heroes. Why would you destroy it?”
“Like I’ve said too many times, Nature’s Wrath will consume the elves very soon.” Ans rose and shouted in agony and fury, “You think I like this? But my teacher and his partners are truly mad! Let me tell you the truth. I don’t care how many human beings my teacher killed, but he shouldn’t have pointed his weapons at his own people. Alashee was executed just because he opposed my teacher’s policy, and Barns, another opposer, is now missing. I can’t find him at all.”
Everybody looked at Ans, who suddenly burst into rage, in surprise.
Ans breathed hard. He was quite emotionally unsteady after the catharsis. “I can see that more and more conservatives will become my teacher’s worshipers, until all the elves will be radical and aggressive.”
“Isn’t it great?” Suel snorted and said, “From the perspective of the elves, that’s a sign that you will conquer the world.”
“Great?” Ans jumped to his feet in fury, his handsome face twisted. “Are you mocking me, young human boy? Don’t think that I don’t know that the elves’ doom will be underway once we become aggressive. This world belongs to human beings. We can kill the humans who enslave our people because we have the right to, but if we start a war, we will lose our justification, and all humans will consider us an enemy.”
“You’re not scared of human beings. You’re so strong and proud.” Suel chuckled.
Ans took a deep breath to calm himself down. “We have every reason to be proud, because we’re more beautiful and cultured than you. But it does not change the fact that human beings are the dominators of the world.”
Margret was angry to hear that. She raised her head and said, “Dragons are the dominators of this world.”
Ans looked at Margret and said scornfully, “Individually speaking, the dragons are indeed the strongest, but collectively speaking, dragons are no better than elves. You are just a peripheral race that only has deterrence but no actual power of governance.”
Margret jumped to her feet and shouted, “What did you say, chump?”
Legend had it that all elves were the children of the World Tree, so other races would call the elves chumps when they were pissed.
Ans maintained his mocking smile. “Am I wrong? If the dragons are really a powerful race, why don’t you reign over mankind instead of hiding on Rhodes Island?”
Margret’s face was pale with fury. “It’s because we don’t want to reign over them.”
“The kobolds dig tunnels every day. They certainly don’t want to admit that they’re related to dragons either.”
Kobolds were essentially miniature lizards. It was said that they were a sub-dragon species created by a male dragon and a half-meter-long lizard.
There was no telling how the male dragon did it.
All in all, the kobolds did have a dragon bloodline, though it was quite diluted.
There were often dragon-bloodline Warlocks among kobolds, but due to their congenital deficiencies, they could rarely grow strong.
Hearing Ans’s sarcasm, Margret almost assumed her dragon from and spewed fire at the elf.
Schuck put his hand on her head in time and calmed her down immediately.
Seeing Margret fall silent, Ans decided not to argue with her anymore. He continued, “The elves can’t afford to be aggressive. If we declare a war on humanity, we will be wiped out for sure. There are more than two billion humans on this continent. Even if every elf can kill a thousand human beings, we can only kill fifty million humans in total, which is too small a portion. We can’t win at all.”
At this point, Margret asked in surprise, “How many human beings? Two billion?”
“You don’t know?” Ans chuckled coldly. “It seemed that dragons are even more egotistic and ignorant than elves. I’m told that you are a princess? Well, well…”
Margret was enraged, but she couldn’t come up with a rebuttal. She could only seek comfort in Schuck’s arms.
As for the players, they were all stunned.
Ans had revealed a lot of information just now, including the total population of elves, which was about fifty thousand.
Looking at the silent players, Ans went on, “I understand that you might distrust me or despise me for betraying my people, but I would like to make it clear that I’m inviting you to kill my teacher and my compatriots not because I want to help humans, but because I want to save the future of the elves.
“In any case, if my teacher joins the Council of Elders and the radicals come into power, the conflicts between elves and mankind will reach a peak within a hundred years.”
There was grief in Ans’s left eye and ruthlessness in his right, and on his face, there was the holiness of self-sacrifice.
When the three expressions mixed into one, he appeared like a complete lunatic.
