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Siris retorted sharply. Repenhardt shook his head.

“No! Doesn’t this village feel off somehow?”

“What do you mean?”

“Siris, you said that the Dahnhaim clan perished 50 years ago, right?”

Repenhardt’s insensitivity in dredging up painful memories was just about to trigger Siris’s anger.

“So you’re saying this village has been in this state for 50 years?”

“…What?”

Only then did Siris light up and stand up abruptly.

It indeed seemed odd. Fifty years were enough for landscapes to change five times over. Moreover, this was the notorious Spelrat Desert. Even majestic rock formations would have eroded into quaint rocks by now.

And yet, this village made of charred wood had remained a ruin for 50 years?

That made no sense. If truly the Dahnhaim clan had been annihilated 50 years ago, nothing but sand should remain here.

“Now that I think about it…”

Siris suddenly snapped back to reality and hastily placed her hand on the ground. Upon closer inspection, it was clear.

It was evident! The village had been abandoned for no more than two weeks at most!

“What in the world…”

Panic-stricken, Siris muttered. Could it be that after the Dahnhaim clan perished, others had settled here? However, the style of the huts and the dinnerware too distinctly bore the Dahnhaim signature. It appeared as if her family had been living here until recently.

Her family, whom she thought had all died…

“Are they actually alive…?”

As Siris murmured dazedly, she suddenly turned her head. A faint voice had reached her.

“…are you…”

“Why, Siris?”

Repenhardt, with his superior aura-user hearing, which was even better than Siris’s elven senses, was puzzled by her behavior. She had heard something he hadn’t?

Shaking her head, Siris thought it might have been a hallucination when suddenly:

“…come help…”

The voice sounded again. Still distant, yet clearer, as if resonating not with her ears but her soul.

“Please help…”

It was the voice of her kin.

Siris abruptly stood up. Her sword Nihillen vibrated slightly at her waist. As if bewitched, she drew her blade. Repenhardt looked on bewildered.

“Siris? Why the sword all of a sudden?”

Siris dug her feet into the sand. Her well-trained, resilient legs forcefully propelled the light elf body forward. Thus, Siris began sprinting across the village, and in a flash, she was running beyond its limits towards the distant desert.

“…Siris?”

* * *

The blistering sun hammered down on the desert, and beneath it, about forty armed men trudged along the path. Each of them had a menacing look, with faces full of scars and unkempt beards, giving off the impression that they might as well have “I’m a villain” written across their faces. It seemed as if they had taken too much responsibility for their faces at the age of forty, as their lives appeared unscrupulously led.

Trailing behind the group were three elves, bound by ropes, struggling to move forward. Among them was a beautiful elf woman, a young boy, and a girl. Their clothes were ragged, almost tattered, and they barely managed to breathe through parched lips, their expressions filled with despair.

One of the men in the middle pulled a leather flask from his pocket and took large gulps. He then cursed aloud.

“Ah, damn it. Hey! Move faster!”

The young elf girl stumbled at his outburst, groaning softly.

“Ah…”

Her delicate, immature body rolled on the scorching sands of the desert. It was a pitiful sight, but no one around her harbored any sympathy. Instead, a man prepared to whip her out of his pouch.

The elf woman spoke in a strained voice.

“Get up, Netina. Don’t show weakness to them.”

“Yes, Shailen sister.”

Even in pain, the girl did not cry. She trembled but gathered herself up again, her eyes filled with venom. The man about to whip her withdrew it, his expression soured, and he muttered grudgingly.

“What are they babbling about?”

Their conversation in Elvish was incomprehensible to the men, and they had no desire to understand. To them, these ‘wild animals’ might as well say whatever they wanted—it wasn’t for humans like them to care.

The man continued to grumble as he led the elves across the desert.

“Damn it, all this trouble and this is all we get?”

A bald man next to him tried to console him.

“Bright brother, maybe we can still make some money by selling these?”

“Idiot! Think about the cost of getting here; we’re at a loss!”

Bright snapped irritably at the man and then took another sip from his flask, clicking his tongue.

“Damn, missing good opportunities and crawling all the way here… This still doesn’t make any money. Life sure is tough.”

Bright was originally a mercenary affiliated with the arena in Chrome City, located near the Rakid Mountains in the eastern part of the Vasily Kingdom. The job at the arena was frankly uneventful. His main duties involved quelling disturbances among the spectators or, on the rare occasion, capturing runaway slaves. It was a leisurely and well-paid life, satisfying in its simplicity.

However, those good times came to an abrupt end a few years ago when he was ruthlessly dismissed from the arena after failing a mission.

Typically, even as a mercenary, one would not be so easily dismissed for failing a mission or two. However, the problem was that the mission was really trivial. It was merely about capturing a runaway orc slave. Bright himself was convinced that the task, though bothersome, was not difficult, and it was natural for everyone else to view it the same way.

“Everything started to go wrong after I met that hick from the mountains….”

Recalling that time, Bright ground his teeth in frustration. While chasing the orc slave in the mountains, he encountered a burly villager because of whom he lost the orc slave and nearly became a cripple. He was truly amazed at their mental strength when they returned to Chrome City in such a state, supporting each other as if they were on some rugged expedition.

Bright and his men were beaten so badly that they spent the next six months lying down. When they finally managed to get up, they had already become the laughingstock of Chrome City.

People did not believe Bright’s story that they had encountered a hermit in the mountains and ended up in such a state. Naturally, they believed he had lost the orc slave and made up a story.

Moreover, they mocked him for how poorly crafted his lie was, typical of a brute. Because Bright had candidly claimed, “That guy, his muscles were so tough that even a blade couldn’t penetrate him!” People scoffed at the notion of a body impervious to blades, arguing that only an aura user could have such a trait, and why would an aura user bother to help an orc slave escape?

Ultimately, unable to secure any work, Bright and his party were forced to relocate to another country, where they continued to receive poor treatment. There, their misfortunes persisted, often losing clients or failing missions. Eventually, they became slave hunters, leading them to this godforsaken desert.

GPT

“Ah, it’s unbearably hot. Really…”

Continuously fanning himself, Bright cast resentful glances at the sun above. He then shouted ahead.

“Hey, Kronto! Don’t you have some magic to cool things down?”

The middle-aged man riding a camel replied irritably.

“No! Do you think magic can do everything?”

Responding abruptly in informal speech, the magician, Kronto, then pulled his robe’s hood over his head and urged his camel forward. Bright watched him enviously. Initially, upon seeing Kronto wear such a robe even in the desert, Bright had mocked, ‘As if anyone needed proof he’s a wizard, sticking to that attire even here?’ But once they were actually in the desert, it turned out that the robe was surprisingly suitable for keeping cool, at least shielding him from this hellish sunlight.

“All the money spent, and I hired this gentleman too…”

Seeing Kronto again made Bright’s blood boil. He frowned deeply.

He had been overjoyed when he first heard there was a wild elf tribe in the Spelrat Desert. Capturing just twenty ordinary female elves could have turned his life around. With that money, he could have opened a respectable tavern and settled down with a widow to enjoy a comfortable retirement.

So, he had spent his entire fortune preparing for this hunt. He bought equipment and supplies, hired mercenaries to fill out his forces, and even summoned a magician when he was short on money. The magician, a high-ranking practitioner of the 6th Circle, had commanded an exorbitant fee. Bright had scraped together every last bit of his and his subordinates’ pocket money to afford it.

Thus, he had risked everything to come here. Initially, it seemed like things were going well. Magician Kronto had successfully located the elf tribe in the vast desert, and they had managed to raid the tribe under the cover of night. The elves numbered barely two hundred, a force that forty battle-hardened mercenaries could easily trample, especially with a magician on their side. At that moment, visions of gold and treasure danced before their eyes.

The problem arose afterward. The elves, despite being attacked in the middle of the night, were alarmingly quick and organized in their response.

The males, wielding swords, guarded the front while the females operated traps and shot arrows from behind. Suddenly, the elderly and children evacuated in perfect unison, vanishing into the distance. Such precision in their evacuation could only be attributed to rigorous training, an enigma as to why these wild beings would undergo such preparations. Had they been attacked in this manner before?

Thanks to the chaos, all that Bright acquired were a few elf corpses, two children who had failed to escape, and a single elf woman who stayed behind to protect them. The rest had vanished without a trace, leaving not even a footprint behind, and not even Kronto’s magic could detect them.

“Ah, the heavens are indeed indifferent! Why must things always go awry when one tries so hard to live well?”

While some indulged in luxury from an inherited elf auction house, Bright cursed his luck, having roamed the desert extensively without striking fortune—a truly resentful sky.

Unable to bear Bright’s constant grumbling, one of his subordinates tried to console him.

“At least it wasn’t a total loss, right? We caught three…”

“Young ones barely fetch any money!” Bright retorted.

Elves, known for their lengthy maturation period, were not lucrative in auctions if young; these elf children, appearing merely eleven or twelve in human years, would take at least thirty years to reach a profitable age. Consequently, few welcomed young elves at the slave markets.

“Moreover, one of them is a male!”

Bright snapped, frustrated. Male elves fetched only a tenth of the price of females, and adult wild male elves had such high s*****e rates that buyers generally avoided them. At least the young one might be used for breeding, selling for a meager price.

“Ah, how much could we possibly get for these?”

Bright pondered as he eyed the following elf woman. Selling her as she was would result in a deficit. However, she seemed skilled with a sword, having carefully observed her as she wielded a crude blade to protect the youngsters. Although just an elf slave, she could potentially break even if sold as a prospective slayer.