The Regressed Mercenary’s Machinations Chapter 737

Episode 737 I need to change my plan. (1)

Erenes was a little different from other elves since she was young.
She was born with an outstanding talent for magic and combat.
She learned one thing and learned ten, and even without learning, she created combat techniques on her own.
It was unusual for an elf to be talented in combat. After all, combat is only meaningful if you fight someone and win.
That was the most unsuitable talent for an elf.
She was also very curious. She would often secretly visit elves who had returned from the city and listen to their stories about the outside world.
‘The forest is so boring. Yesterday and today are the same. Nothing changes. But the human world is new every day.’
As time passed, Erenes’ knowledge of the outside world increased. The more she did, the more she yearned for the outside world.
The chieftain and the elders looked at Erenes with concern. Sometimes, there were elves who yearned for the human world to such an excessive degree, and ended up getting hurt.
― I’m all grown up now! I can become ‘the one who conveys the voice of the forest’!
At some point, Erenes began to insist that she wanted to go to the outside world.
Naturally, the elders did not allow it. They thought that Erenes was not ready to go to the outside world.
Despite the continued opposition, Erenes was filled with disappointment, even though she did not show it on the outside.
‘Why can’t I! Even those weaker than me went to the city! I’m strong! I’m stronger than Sir Cylan!’
It is not an elf’s nature to judge by strength. However, Erenes had thoughts that were completely un-elf-like.
She had no choice but to wander the forest every day, practicing her elemental magic and combat skills. That was her only pleasure.
Then she heard news of an intruder. She also wanted to join the pursuit party, but for some reason, she was rejected.
Angry, she left the village and trained alone. Then she met the intruder.
He was the human from the outside world that she had wanted to see so badly. Erenes wanted to monopolize this human for herself.
‘This is not my fault. It’s the fault of the chieftain and the elders who didn’t let me go out into the world. I have a lot of questions about this human.’
She rationalized herself like that, prioritizing her personal curiosity and desires over her mission as an elf.
Of course, Erenes knew that humans were very good at lying. She didn’t believe everything Giselle said.
‘Let’s pretend to believe her for now and let her guard down. If we gently tease her, she’ll find out the truth. It’s still fascinating, after all.’ She
planned to fool Giselle like that and watch for a while. Right now, she wanted to do something with this human.
Of course, Giselle could sense her true intentions from Erenes’s brief expression and tone of voice.
‘Tsk, tsk, that’s too clumsy.’
At her current level, Erenes couldn’t fool Giselle. Her experience was too lacking.
Still, it was a little surprising that Erenes could show such a fascinating side.
‘Well, that’s possible when you’re young.’
Wasn’t Giselle herself a troublemaker when she was young? Erenes could also show various appearances.
‘Hmm, come to think of it… … .’
In the future, she would acquire the dignity and nobility befitting the name of the elven chieftain. However, she would sometimes show a strangeness that did not fit that.
Before coming to this era, I thought that her personality was due to the war with the demonic realm. But now that I look at her, it seems that wasn’t the case.
‘… … Was it an innate tendency?’
Every time I saw Erenes, I could see why elves were called a noble race. However, there were times when I felt that she didn’t seem like an elf.
That dissonance seemed to be due to her nature.
In the future, she was so disciplined that she could hide her nature, but she was inevitably lacking in that discipline now.
‘It’s better. I should have extracted some information while I still don’t know the ways of the world.’
Giselle was a skilled person who could extract information even from trivial conversations. He decided to use this opportunity to become close friends with Erenes.
However, Giselle soon realized how arrogant that thought was.
“How many times have I told you, but you refused? So I tried to sneak out and try to get out… Are you listening to me?”
“Huh? Oh, I am listening.”
“Is it because you ran away? Why do you look so tired?”
Giselle’s face had become haggard. There was a reason for that.
‘Oh, you were such a chatterbox.’
Erenes was so excited by something that he kept talking nonstop. At first, Giselle would chirp along, but eventually she just nodded in agreement.
Even Giselle, who had been trained by Belinda’s nagging and Claude’s nonsense, was no match for Erenes’s chatter.
― Sister… … Just kill me… … .
― Master, please shut that mouth right now. Hurry up and subdue that snout. I’m not curious about the private lives of elves anymore.
Astion and Dark were so tired that they stuck out their tongues. Unable to bear it any longer, the two shut off their own consciousness.
Erenes snapped and got angry when he saw Giselle’s tired expression.
“What? Is it because my story isn’t interesting?”
“No. It’s because I’m a bit distracted by my surroundings.”
“Huh, don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”
In fact, Erenes hid Giselle well.
He sent spirits to the surroundings to tell them that there were no problems, and if any elves came looking for him because they sensed something strange, he hid Giselle and lied to them.
All the elves believed Erenes’ words without a single doubt. The more I looked, the more I realized how close the elves were to each other.
It was hard to believe that these elves would become such idiots in the future.
At Erenes’ confident words, Giselle nodded with a pale face.
“That, that’s right. I’ll only trust you. How much did you say?”
“That’s why the problem is that we elves are so insular. We don’t interact with humans properly, and we don’t let them go out freely. That’s why there’s been no progress even after hundreds of years. That’s why I…”
Erenes talked for a long time about how boring, tedious, and uninteresting the life of elves was. She really seemed to have a lot of emotions built up.
How much time had passed? Erenes said with a brighter face, perhaps because she had poured out all the stories that had been building up in her heart.
“Sorry, did I talk too much? I couldn’t say this to people around me. But I feel better now that I’m talking like this. Thank you for listening to me.”
Erenes smiled bashfully with a slightly embarrassed expression. Giselle also snickered at her. I
don’t know about anything else, but the expression she was showing right now was sincere.
She suspected me of being an intruder, but then quickly became like a close friend.
Although he was unusually clever for an elf, Erenes also had the innocence of an elf.
“Ah, now tell me your story. What did you do in the outside world?”
It was finally his turn. Giselle grinned.
While traveling as a mercenary, he had heard many extraordinary stories, and even if you only considered the events he had personally experienced, they were incredible. He
was confident that he could completely captivate even a naive elf who longed for the outside world.
“I’m not bragging, but I have done many different things.”
Giselle began to tell the story of her experiences, embellishing it a little. As the story progressed, Erenes’ eyes became brighter and brighter.
To her, who had lived in the forest her whole life, Giselle’s story was more stimulating and refreshing than any other game.
“Really? So what happened?”
“You really did that?”
“Wow, you’re amazing?”
“I want to be a mercenary too! It’s so free!”
Erenes listened to Giselle’s story in amazement several times.
If the listener responds well, the speaker is also happy. Giselle made an arrogant expression and acted like she was great.
“Yes, I am such a great person. That is why I was able to receive revelations. But……”
Giselle continued the conversation naturally and asked questions she was curious about.
“It seems like my powers don’t work well here. Even if I hide, the elves know how and come looking for me, right? You found me too. How do you do that?”
“Oh, that’s right! How do you know……”
Erenes bit her lips as she tried to speak. Then she smiled bashfully again and said,
“It’s a secret. We’re not close enough to share secrets yet, are we?”
“Ugh… … . It was like that back then too. I don’t talk about important things.”
Giselle clicked her tongue. It seemed like it would be difficult to know the secret of detecting her right now.
It was quite a distance to the northern forest. The two talked nonstop as they walked.
“We elves are all equal. There are only representatives. But in the human world, there are statuses, right?”
“Yeah.”
“They say the coolest person among them is a prince on a white horse.”
Jiselle thought for a moment. She had little knowledge of the human world, so she had a hard time explaining this to her.
That kind of thing only happened in storybooks.
“A prince on a white horse… Alpoy, right…”
“Huh? Is Alpoy a prince?”
“Not that…”
There was one person who was like a prince. He
wasn’t there now, but he would be reincarnated as a prince in the future.
“You’ll be able to meet someone like that soon. I have a cool friend named Julian. He’s cooler than any prince.”
“Really? I really want to see him once. Oh, I want to go out into the world soon too. I want to go out and enjoy the adventures I’ve only heard about.”
Erenes made an expectant expression. Unable to realize the ugliness of the human world, she was only thinking of beautiful stories like fairy tales.
Giselle smiled bitterly. She thought she knew why older elves were so concerned about education.
‘Erenes must have been educated,
too.’ I guess that’s the nature of elves. Although they were not without wariness, they still believed in beautiful dreams more than reality.
Still, thanks to that, Giselle became close with Erenes faster than expected. It was inevitable that they would do so after talking so much.
Although she still had wariness toward humans, she had lost much of her awkwardness compared to the beginning.
As they got closer to the northern forest, Erenes’ expression became strangely hardened. Giselle asked, seeing that.
“I only know that there’s a problem in the northern forest. What exactly is the problem now?”
Erenes stopped walking for a moment and fell into thought. She seemed to be contemplating how much she should say.
After a while, she seemed to have made up her mind and slowly walked again, opening her mouth.
“We’re almost there. We’ll be able to see the northern forest soon. But before that, let me tell you a little… there was a war.”
“War?”
“Don’t you humans know? In the high mountains of the northern lands, there live wild and strong orcs. They’re called the Red Fang Tribe. We’ve been fighting those orcs all the time.”
“Hmm… fighting the orcs. We humans don’t know much about the area around the Elven Forest.”
The Elven Forest and its surroundings are all neutral zones. This means that humans cannot expand their territory.
If a human city were to be built near their residence, contact between humans and elves would inevitably increase. That’s why the elves allowed only one trading city beyond the forest.
The rest of the area was basically a wild state untouched by any human hands.
‘That’s why there are more monsters in this era than in our era.’
In addition to the forest where the elves lived, there were many areas where the kingdom’s influence did not reach and where monsters were abundant. This was because the lords only cared about protecting their own territories.
How could the most common requests for mercenaries be monster subjugation and escorts in case of monster attacks?
When Jiselle confessed that she didn’t know, Erenes continued her explanation.
“We don’t fight every day. They invade once every few years. They’re after the richness of this forest.”
“So the northern forest was invaded by them?”
“Yes, because that’s the forest closest to them. Of course, we defeated them as always. We’re invincible in the forest.”
Erenes’ expression was filled with pride as she spoke.
Elves are wary of human greed, selfishness, and excessive emotions, but they don’t deny emotions themselves. Naturally, they feel various emotions as well.
In fact, their pride and arrogance toward their race were much stronger than those of other races.
Of course, wise elves know how to control their emotions, but Erenes wasn’t yet trained enough to do so.
She soon grimaced in anger and ground her teeth.
“But those ugly bastards completely ruined our forest. They must have been angry because they couldn’t take over the forest every time, so this time they did something really dirty.”
“What… did they set it on fire?”
“Fire? That’s no problem. We can easily stop them from setting fire as many times as we want.”
“Then?”
Erenes said, glaring at Giselle with cold eyes.
“They joined hands with human warlocks.”
Giselle slowly looked around. Suddenly, her surroundings seemed strangely distorted, and it seemed that she had passed the forest boundary.
The forest reflected in his eyes… …
was in a state of melting and rot.