socalfunplaces Page 270
Page 270
Artemis did not step back into the house; the resonance of the wood had already told her everything about this dilapidated wooden house.
"So I didn't get it after all..."
Her voice carried a hint of confusion and melancholy, as if she had encountered some incomprehensible problem. After trying to guess the answer, she discovered that the problem was just a fabricated anecdote from unofficial history.
"So what's the point of all this fuss?"
Artemis murmured to herself as if asking a question.
……
Artemis had visited this village when she was very young.
At that time, Herod was in its final glorious moment before its collapse. Elves were everywhere, and people revered the unspeakable and profound power contained in the ancient culture of the elves. So even though all the elves originated from a city on a floating island, humans respected them greatly.
Of course, the elves are worthy of this respect. They have no ambition and are scattered all over the world in pursuit of the true meaning of nature and life.
It is precisely because of this philosophy of non-contention that wherever the elves go, the locals receive unexpected and selfless help, whether it is assisting with construction projects or using magic to improve the environment, all of which bring great changes to the lives of the locals.
The elves' only need is to experience the delicate balance between life, whether in harmonious coexistence or in conflict, that occurs between humans and nature.
Of course, this is a very strange thing for humans. Perhaps it is precisely because of this incompatibility of ideologies that humans will always be humans and elves will always be elves. Although there may be occasional intermarriage between the two, they will always remain distinct.
When Artemis first left Herod City, she followed the trade route from the floating island all the way to Lonely High Village. That was the farthest she had ever been from home. But as the princess of Herod, she was not worried about her journey. Her strong affinity with nature and magic allowed her to grow up healthily even if she picked up trash and ate it anywhere in the forest.
At that time, Dragonhorn Territory was still an unclaimed territory. The former king of the Kingdom of Norard was a conservative ruler who governed the cities within the territory of Twin Gorges Territory, Half of the Mountain Wasteland Territory, and Half of the Forest Sea Territory, making them very prosperous.
Artemis soon encountered the first difficulty of her journey: she could not understand how human currency was used and what the economic logic behind it was. As an elf, she rarely saw any serious transactions in Herod City, except for a few barter transactions.
Fortunately, the villagers of Lonely Hill were well-versed in this kind of trickery. When Atelier was almost swindled out of all her money by a traveling merchant with a novel toy, a middle-aged villager stepped forward and exposed the traveling merchant's arbitrarily setting prices and deliberately damaging the toy to demand compensation, thus saving Atelier's wallet.
Although she later learned that the middle-aged villager had helped her in order to ask the elven forces to crack down on out-of-town merchants, and that they had even deliberately stood by and watched her being cheated at first, Atelius still felt that the help she received was genuine and kind. After all, in the end, the middle-aged man had earnestly taught her a few things to keep in mind when dealing with merchants.
One of the things she remembers most clearly is that "the core issue in doing business is not what you have, but what the other party wants."
As time passed, Ateliers learned many things during her long journey, and her understanding of this statement was no longer limited to the surface meaning of the words as she had in her childhood. She had seen more things in human society, some of which directly verified the statement, and others of similar variations. But in general, she had developed her own insights into it.
Unlike other elves who had already completed their development when they left Herod City, Ateliers, being a child, had not yet fully awakened her elven bloodline. Therefore, her human bloodline gave her a profound understanding of human emotions.
Even after she completed her development and became an adult, she did not lose this strong emotion from her human bloodline. On the contrary, due to the maturity of her elven bloodline, her understanding of human emotions became purer. It seemed that her elven bloodline, which was far removed from superficiality, had filtered out all the impurities in her emotions, leaving only the dazzling brilliance of a diamond.
So when she passed through Lonely Village again after a long absence, and saw that the middle-aged villager from back then had grown old and was being tortured by the harsh village chief, she resolutely stepped in to save him and went to the fields to use her elven magic to help him cope with the next grain requisition.
But Artemis didn't expect that, firstly, human memory is very short, and the man who had turned into an old man didn't remember who she was at all, and thought she was just a busybody.
Secondly, people change.
So before leaving, the old man, full of gratitude, wanted to shake her hand. Artemis extended her hand without thinking much, but she didn't expect him to immediately put a magic-suppressing shackle on her.
Although the magic-suppressing shackles could not completely block the magic power within her, and she could destroy the person in front of her at any time at the cost of mutual destruction, she did not.
The profound bewilderment she felt about human behavior caused a powerful clash between her ego and her inner emotions. This clash continued, from watching the old man joyfully hand her over to the guards, to the guards urging her on with their spears from afar, and finally to being trapped in the dungeon. She still couldn't understand why humans would do such contradictory things.
Could it be that what the old man wants is not a bountiful harvest and safety, but rather to struggle between money and danger?
Artemis found humans incredibly difficult to understand, but she forgot that, in many ways, even humans themselves don't quite understand what they're thinking.
These perplexing days continued until she thought she was about to reach the end of her life. On that day, Latis appeared before her, speaking in a lot of strange and incomprehensible language. Although she was trapped in a deadly situation, she did not seem to feel any despair at all.
She still held onto her innate kindness, hoping that the man who called her "brother" every day could live on, so even with all sorts of confusion, she continued to answer his questions about the world.
Sometimes Ateliers also found it a bit strange. Was this man illiterate? How could he not even know the Goddess of Magic?
As everyone knows, Latis smashed her cage in an extremely flamboyant manner, then stepped on the red dragon that descended from the sky, and extended his hand to invite her.
Things like "drink the strongest liquor and learn from the strongest monkeys"... Atelier Fuss had always been curious about what monkeys were, but unfortunately, the man seemed to think of himself as an all-knowing and intelligent elf, so she didn't have the nerve to ask those many silly questions.
But that doesn't matter anymore. After all, she has gradually resolved her greatest confusion about humanity with this man she now calls "Big Brother" but is actually her lover.
A short life is impermanent yet passionate, a long life is enduring yet distant, and for the half-elf who gradually loves Latis more than her own life, she has seen her truest will.
When life and death no longer matter so much, her love and hate become even more distinct.
Chapter 275 Elf Side Quest 5: Advancing to Sixth Ring Mage
"So you only got thirty gold whites from the village chief in the end?"
Artemis stood outside, looking at the trembling old man inside. For a moment, she really wanted to make the same face as Latis, like an old man looking at his phone on the subway, but she managed to restrain herself.
"...Yes, yes." The old man nodded repeatedly, explaining anxiously, "I've already lost all that money gambling...I used the rest to buy a better set of farm tools, and then I bought a horse..."
Artemis nodded silently. Horses could serve as both a means of production and a means of transportation. In such a poor and dilapidated village, owning a horse that could travel between villages and towns was almost equivalent to transcending the village's commercial circle.
She paused, and the subtle "Inquiry into Nature" effect she maintained at all times rippled through her mind, reflecting the environment surrounding the wooden house in front of her. She frowned slightly, sensing the things around her, and asked in confusion:
"What about your horse?"
"My horse..." the old man swallowed hard, his face full of embarrassment, and said, "...is dead..."
Artemis felt a slight headache coming on. Without needing to say anything, she could guess that it was due to her addiction to gambling, poor livestock management, or failure to purchase hay in time. Such things were perfectly normal for these unruly people.
However, wanting to understand the current situation of the village, she still asked:
"How did you die?"
"Hahaha……"
The old man chuckled dryly twice and stammered:
"I got drunk after losing at cards a while ago, and when I got back I got angrier and angrier, so I made myself drink two jin of ale..."
"...But it shouldn't mean he'd die outright, right?" The half-elf was becoming increasingly speechless.
The old man scratched his head for a few seconds, then covered his face and said in a defiant tone:
"It's probably because the two snakes I soaked in the beer the night before weren't quite dead yet..."
Artemis fell silent. After a long while, she came to her senses, rationally abandoning the thought of these questions, took a deep breath, and said seriously:
“These things have nothing to do with me. I’m only here to explain to you that I have already repaid the debts of the past by helping you escape vigilante justice and improving the rice paddy environment. Although you murdered me and sent me to prison, I do not hate this matter, because this matter has brought me more confusion, and this confusion has finally made me understand humanity.”
She took a step back, and a cluster of delicate white flowers suddenly appeared in her hand. She looked down at the white flowers, and a smile suddenly appeared on her lips.
"However, I must thank you. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have met the one and only love of my life... Ah, I won't share this private treasure with you."
Artemis smiled and bent slightly, scattering white flowers at the doorway of the cabin. Then she nodded and said:
“I am not a law enforcer, so I am not here to judge you. I am also not one of those who let hatred fade with time. Therefore, please spend the rest of your life enduring this somewhat mundane revenge.”
She crossed her arms, placing her right hand on her heart, her left hand first on the opposite shoulder, then gently cupping it above her right hand, and finally lightly brushing it outwards, thus performing an elfin greeting before turning and leaving.
"Wha, what..."
The old man got up with a blank look on his face, poked his head out of the door, and looked in the direction where the elf in the hooded coat had left, his vision blurred by the sunlight.
After a moment of stunned silence, he looked down at the white flowers on the ground. Just as he was about to reach out and pick one up to take a look, he was surprised to find that the white flower had miraculously floated up and then dispersed into his body.
"What is that? What is that?!"
The old man frantically rummaged through his clothes, a sudden, inexplicable panic causing him to instinctively fall to the ground, rolling around erratically and howling meaninglessly.
Finally, when he knocked over his own pile of junk that resembled a garbage dump, he snapped out of his inexplicable panic.
"...What exactly is that?"
The old man, panting heavily, struggled to climb out of the garbage heap, propped himself up on his elbows to turn over, stared blankly at the dark ceiling, his mind a complete mess.
Suddenly, his fingers touched something, and he instinctively grabbed it and held it up to his eyes.
It was a withered green vine leaf, and someone had written the word "thank you" on it in delicate, childlike handwriting.
An overwhelming sense of regret instantly tore at his heart. He felt as if he had fallen into a vast, dark ocean, with countless fragments of memories flashing before his eyes. He instinctively reached out, but could never grasp them.
He then woke up, and in that instant of clarity, he realized that he would spend the rest of his life endlessly regretting the mistakes he couldn't remember.
This is the curse of the elves.
……
……
"I've heard that when the Mother Goddess was still alive, that curse would cause people to experience the cruelty of the 'Sea of No Light,' enduring endless time in an instant, and only elves could survive it..."
Artemis walked along the ridges of the fields in Lonely High Village, gazing at the largest house in her field of vision.
In this scattered village, the village center and the most suitable open area for traveling merchants to stop are naturally the places closest to the village chief's house.
She came here not just to settle a personal score, but for other purposes as well.
First, when the village chief of Lonely Village arrested her and sent her to the lord, she found that the arrest team here was very well-organized and did not seem to be a temporary team. Perhaps many other people had been arrested here before her arrest.
Next, about a hundred miles south of Lonely High Village, there is a small town called "Daoguan Town," which is the place where Latis once lived, as mentioned in the Dragon Horn Lord's secret letter. Ateliers intends to take this route to Daoguan Town to avenge Latis for the oppression he suffered in the past.
After passing through Daoguan Town, she crossed a barren wasteland and arrived at the main trade route in the central part of Dragonhorn Territory. Through this trade route, she could go directly to the main city of Dragonhorn Territory, "Golden Bag City". There, she could investigate the traces of ritual magic according to the description of the guild's mission.
Returning to the current situation in Lonely Village, upon learning of the existence of ritual magic, and recalling the perfection of the previous capture team, Ateliers couldn't help but feel a little suspicious. She guessed that the ritual magic that the Dragon Horn Lord wanted to perform was not just a regular ritual, but a type of ritual with evil and chaotic effects.
In the Kingdom of Norard, ritual magic is not a particularly rare type of magic. However, due to its niche effects, the fact that the magic network does not support casting it online, and the need to use the most primitive method of inscribing magic runes, very few people use ritual magic.
General ritual magic includes "Loyalty Seal," which continuously transforms the minds of people within a certain range, and "Weather Decree," which is similar to artificial rain. However, most of the time, users will choose to request divine assistance... After all, divine magic has similar effects, but it is not as domineering as ritual magic.
As for ritual magic with malevolent effects, Artemis didn't know much. She had only heard that such magic existed, and because she was isolated from the magical world of Norard, she was also unaware of the rumors about this kind of magic circulating among the common people.
However, if she connected her thoughts to the evil rituals, seeing such a well-organized capture team, she began to suspect that she and her older brother might be, like the other people captured, materials for some kind of ritual magic.
"And my elder brother also has a background and bloodline, but I don't know how his bloodline will be activated... The materials I've looked through in the family library don't mention it either, they only say that the Titans' ideas are quite advanced. Hmm, if I could find out the activation conditions, I must help my elder brother..."
Artemis paused, suddenly wishing that Latis was right beside her.
"How happy I would be if he could always be by my side, watching over me as I grow and overcome the troubles of the past... No, no, little elf, you're not a child anymore, stop trying to be cute all the time!"
She smiled and shook her head, then looked up at the village chief's mansion, which was not far away. Her fingers lightly touched the magic book, and with a slight touch of powerful magic, she activated "Invisibility" and "Flight".
……
……
"Village chief, spare me! Ah!"
A heavy riding whip lashed across the back of a young man, who screamed in agony as his hands and feet were bound to a table, rendering him unable to move.
"Stop."
The village chief raised his hand, signaling the guards who were whipping the man to step back. He then stepped forward, frowned, picked up a bowl of boiling water, and poured it harshly over the man's tortured areas. Amidst the man's piercing screams, he coldly asked:
Do you know what you've done?