Chapter 367

Chapter 367

“Let go of me.”

A Dark Elf whose hair had gone white was being dragged over by Floa.

He struggled and tried somehow to escape Floa’s grip, but it was useless.

The strength of Floa, a warrior who protected the clan, was not something an aged Dark Elf could shake off.

“Do you think you’ll be safe after treating me, an elder, like this? Floa!”

In the end, having failed to escape Floa’s grasp, the Dark Elf resorted to threats.

Floa threw the Dark Elf she had dragged over in front of the Dark Elves gathered in the clearing.

“Kuh!”

The Dark Elf who slammed into the sand could not hide his bewildered expression.

His name was Karode.

He was the Second Elder of the Dark Elf village.

His authority was so strong that no one in the Dark Elf village dared defy him.

Under normal circumstances, Floa would have obeyed Karode’s orders too. But now, the eyes of Floa and the other Dark Elves looking at Karode were filled with contempt.

“What are those eyes? You dare look at me with eyes like that? What are the warriors doing? Hurry and subdue these bastards.”

Karode shouted at the top of his lungs. But no one listened to him.

Floa looked down at him and said,

“It seems you still don’t understand the situation.”

“What does that mean?”

“Aren’t you ashamed? You joined hands with orcs and oppressed your own kin.”

“T-that was a choice I had no choice but to make. If I hadn’t cooperated with them, our village would already have been wiped from the world by the orcs.”

“Bullshit! If you hadn’t taken their side, we wouldn’t have been beaten so helplessly.”

“You’re mistaken. Everyone knows. They all know how much I devoted myself to our village, and how much I sacrificed. Isn’t that right?”

Karode looked at the other Dark Elves, seeking their agreement. But not a single Dark Elf sided with him.

Every Dark Elf glared at Karode with expressions that looked ready to kill. Only then did Karode realize for certain that something had gone wrong.

He changed his attitude and dropped to his knees before Floa.

“I-I was wrong. Please spare me.”

“Do you know how many of our kin died because of you?”

“I told you, it was a choice I had no choice but to make.”

“Was killing the First Elder also a choice you had no choice but to make?”

“That was......”

In that instant, Karode’s words caught in his throat.

Floa shouted loudly,

“Death to the traitor of the clan......”

“Death to the traitor......”

The other Dark Elves followed Floa and shouted.

A look of despair appeared on Karode’s face.

As someone quick-witted, he realized there was no way he could escape this.

Karode crawled toward Floa on his knees and clutched her leg.

“Please spare me, Floa!”

“Ask forgiveness from the First Elder and the others who died because of you.”

“Floa?”

Slash!

At that moment, Floa cut off Karode’s head with her sword.

Karode’s severed head rolled several meters across the ground.

After ending Karode’s life like that, Floa looked around at the other Dark Elves and said,

“As all of you know, our clan has fallen into grave danger. The First Elder, who led our village until now, has passed away, and the Second Elder who betrayed us is no more. Now we must survive in this desert on our own.”

“......”

All the Dark Elves held their breath and listened to Floa’s speech.

Even then, Floa continued speaking.

“As you can see, we have dealt with all the orcs, but our home has been utterly ruined. Now we must make a decision. Whether we remain in the village and rebuild, or leave this place and pioneer a new home.”

Floa stopped speaking for a moment and looked around the village.

The other Dark Elves followed her gaze and looked around the village.

The Dark Elves’ expressions darkened on their own.

They felt it too.

They knew it would be impossible to rebuild their destroyed home to its original state.

Broken houses could be built again if they hunted monsters.

After all, they were masters of the hunt.

The problem was the land.

When the bone necklace exploded, the ground of the village had turned black. It was not merely the color that had changed. A stench rose from it too.

The energy contained in the bone necklace had polluted the land.

They had tried every method they could, but once the land was polluted, it did not return to normal.

Briel was studying the polluted soil, but she had not found any particular method yet.

“It isn’t just the land that’s polluted. An evil energy has taken root here. If we can’t purify that evil energy, this place will become a land of death.”

Floa and the other Dark Elves also heard Briel’s words.

If they could not find a way to purify this place immediately, the pollution would become so severe that there would be nothing they could do.

At that moment, someone shouted,

“Let’s leave.”

“If making this place normal again is impossible, let’s find a new home.”

Those who raised their voices were young Dark Elves.

They were the young Dark Elves who had been unable to leave this place until now because of the elders’ policies.

They wanted to use this opportunity to move to a new home.

Even if they struggled to rebuild the village here, it was obvious they would live the same dull lives as before.

The desires of those young elves moved the hearts of the other Dark Elves too.

“Let’s migrate. Anywhere would be better than this place, wouldn’t it?”

“We don’t have anything anyway, and what little we had is all ruined. Let’s move somewhere else this time.”

Those who wanted to leave the village held the majority.

With things like this, the older Dark Elves had no choice but to agree to leave the village as well.

The older Dark Elves had no choice either.

Whatever the reason, from the moment Karode betrayed the clan and joined hands with the orcs, they had lost their power.

After hearing everyone’s opinions, Floa finally made a decision.

“Then I’ll take it that everyone agrees, and we will migrate in search of a new home. From now on, pack your belongings within one hour. We’re leaving immediately.”

Floa did not hesitate.

She was the Dark Elves’ de facto leader.

There were no Dark Elves who would defy the words of the woman who had killed Karode, the Second Elder.

After giving orders to the clan, Floa approached Zeon.

After looking at Zeon for a moment, Floa suddenly knelt.

“What are you doing?”

Startled, Zeon tried to raise her up. But Floa shook her head and refused.

“Help us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know it’s shameless. But it has to be you. Please help us.”

“What exactly do you want me to help with?”

“We need new land. You can find land where we can live, can’t you? Because you’re a Sandmancer.”

Floa desperately needed Zeon’s help.

She threw away face and pride alike.

The fact that she knelt before Zeon was proof of that.

At that moment, Briel cautiously spoke to Zeon.

“I’m asking too. Let’s help them.”

Briel almost never asked Zeon for anything.

On the contrary, she had been the one who said she would repay her debt and pushed all sorts of necessary items onto Zeon. Since even Briel had gone this far, he could not refuse.

“All right. Let’s find land where they can live together.”

“Really? Thank you!”

A bright smile appeared on Briel’s face.

Zeon playfully pressed down on Briel’s pointed hat with his hand and said to Floa,

“Let’s search together. There must be a place that can become a new home.”

“Thank you so much! I will never forget this favor.”

Only then did Floa smile brightly.

Zeon helped her to her feet and asked,

“Please stand.”

“Mm!”

“Do you have any place in mind?”

“No! As you know, we almost never left this area, so we don’t know where is good or where is bad.”

“I see.”

Zeon let out a faint sigh and looked around at the Dark Elves.

More than a hundred people were looking only at him.

They were people who had lost their way in an unfamiliar world.

Some had gone in search of the sturdy protective walls of Neo Seoul, and others had entered Elharun, but these people had chosen independent survival.

From the beginning, they were people who could not mix with others.

Just like High Elves, Dark Elves also needed land of their own.

‘I don’t know if there’s still land where they can live.’

Any land where living beings could survive had already been occupied by others.

Whether by monsters, orcs, or another race. Even so, now that things had turned out this way, he had to do his best to search.

‘All right. Let’s give it a try.’

Zeon steeled his will.

---

Before an hour had even passed, the Dark Elves finished preparing to leave.

In truth, there were almost no useful belongings left, so there was hardly anything to prepare in the first place.

“Then let’s depart.”

“Yes!”

At Floa’s order, the Dark Elves began to move.

At the head of the group were Zeon, Briel, and Levin.

Levin looked at the Dark Elves following behind and muttered,

“This sure has gotten spectacular. We only came to hunt Ironclad Ants, but things got this big?”

“You didn’t know? Things always end up like this when you travel with Zeon.”

“That’s true too. Thanks to that, traveling with hyung is nice because it’s never boring. Hehe!”

Levin smiled happily as he talked with Briel.

If it had been anyone else, they would have been angry that their journey in the desert had grown longer, but Levin and Briel were different.

They actually preferred journeys through the desert to cramped Neo Seoul.

This too was a change that had happened after meeting Zeon.

Zeon looked up at the sky for a moment.

The blazing sun was beating down.

The entire desert was heating up, radiating terrifying heat.

It felt as though they had entered a furnace.

Zeon quietly looked around the shimmering desert.

To others, it might all look like the same scenery, but to Zeon’s eyes, it looked different.

The heat varied depending on the sand.

Even under the same sunlight, some places were hotter, while others had less heat.

Zeon moved toward the places where the heat was weaker.

The Dark Elves silently followed Zeon.

No matter how well the Dark Elves had adapted to the desert, walking across burning-hot sand was no easy task. Yet not one of them said a single word about how hard it was.

Not even the young Dark Elf children who had barely learned to walk.

Dark Elves were born warriors.

They possessed bodies and mental strength far stronger than ordinary elves.

Their pride would not allow them to say they were struggling with a hardship of this degree.

The Dark Elves lined up like ants and silently followed behind Zeon. It was an action showing their will to trust Zeon no matter what happened.

Like that, Zeon and the Dark Elves walked for several days.

Whenever they stopped briefly to rest, the Dark Elf children gathered around Zeon.

“Zeon hyung!”

“Oppa!”

Perhaps because they had traveled together for several days, the Dark Elf children treated Zeon without reserve.

The children also clung to Briel and Levin.

They showed especially great interest in Briel, the High Elf.

“Unnie! Can’t you teach me alchemy too?”

“How do you make this, unnie?”

“Nuna!”

Some children stuck close to Briel and refused to leave her side.

To the Dark Elves, a High Elf was also a mysterious existence.

“Will you all get away? You’re annoying.”

Even when Briel scolded them, the children did not leave.

They knew Briel did not mean it.

Even while making an annoyed expression, Briel did her best to answer the children’s questions.

The Dark Elf warriors and adults watched that sight with warm smiles.

Seeing the children run around brightly without worries seemed to ease all the fatigue they had accumulated.

‘For those children’s sake too, we have to find a good home.’

They could not help but worry about the future, and yet also look forward to it.

It was then.

Zeon, who had left the children to Briel and Levin and was looking around, noticed something unusual.

“This scenery feels somehow familiar......”

It was the same scenery, no different from anywhere else, but Zeon soon recalled when he had come here before.

“This place is definitely......”