Chapter 370

Chapter 370

Floa set aside all her pride as a Dark Elf.

Until now, the Dark Elves had lived in isolation in order to protect their purity. They had sought survival on their own, without interacting with other races.

The price had been harsh.

Their lives had regressed almost to the Stone Age, and they had even suffered the humiliation of being trampled by orcs.

While crossing the desert after losing their home and following Zeon, Floa made up her mind.

For the sake of the Dark Elves, she would not hesitate to join hands with humans.

Fortunately, many Dark Elves shared her thoughts.

They had many conversations while sleeping rough.

Hardship made their bonds even stronger, and those conversations revealed the true feelings each of them had carried.

That was when they decided.

If a good opportunity came, they would throw away all their pride and seize it.

The older Dark Elves did not find the decision of those young elves very pleasing, but the tide had already shifted to the young elves like Floa.

Floa’s decision was the decision of the Dark Elf race.

She spoke to Go Du-won once more.

“Please accept our clan as residents of this forest. I beg you.”

Floa lowered her remaining knee as well.

At the sight of Floa kneeling and pleading, Go Du-won was greatly flustered.

“P-please stand up.”

“I would like your answer first.”

“Understood. I will accept all of you as members of the Black Forest.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much. We will fulfill our duties and responsibilities as residents.”

Only then did Floa rise.

Go Du-won looked at Floa with a smiling face.

Go Du-won had married an elf and had Har, a half-elf, as his daughter. Naturally, he had no wariness or prejudice against elves.

Because of that, he was able to easily make the decision to accept them as residents.

‘Har will definitely be happy too.’

Har had lived lonely, without friends.

If the Dark Elves joined them, Har would surely welcome it greatly.

When Go Du-won so readily accepted them as residents, cheers burst from the Dark Elves.

“Waaah!”

“The master of the forest accepted us as residents.”

“Now this forest is our home.”

“Hic......!”

Some Dark Elves knelt on the ground and shed tears.

It was a forest where sprouts were blooming.

Right now, they were only as small as a finger joint, but if raised well, they would grow into enormous trees.

One tree, then two trees. If they raised them carefully like that, someday they would form a great forest.

For the Dark Elves, a race of the forest, there was no greater blessing.

At that moment, Zeon said to the Dark Elves,

“As I told you earlier, a spirit is trying to be born here. But monsters that have noticed the spirit’s birth will continue attacking this place.”

“Do not worry. From now on, we will protect this forest.”

“This forest is our home. No monster will be allowed to invade it.”

The Dark Elves answered with determined expressions.

They were born warriors.

As long as they were properly armed and prepared, they were confident they could face any monster.

Go Du-won said to Floa,

“But there is one problem. As you can see, there are no houses here.”

“That is all right.”

“Pardon?”

“The Black Forest itself is giving us shade, is it not? This much is enough for us.”

“But......”

“And originally, we Dark Elves grew the trees we lived in ourselves.”

“Pardon?”

Go Du-won blinked as if he could not understand. Floa smiled and said,

“That was how it was in the world we crossed over from. When a Dark Elf child was born, the parents gifted them a good sapling. The child raised the tree together with them. The tree that grew like that became the child’s house. On Earth, which had turned into a desert, we couldn’t grow trees, so we had no choice but to live in houses made from monster hide. But now the situation has changed. Do you see their eyes?”

Floa pointed at the Dark Elves.

The Dark Elves were looking at the sprouts on the black, carbonized trees as if they had fallen in love.

Their eyes were so sweet it was as though honey would drip from them, as if they would even pull out their hearts and offer them.

“So please do not worry. We will do anything to protect and raise this forest.”

Originally, Floa did not use polite speech toward humans or Dark Elves. But she was addressing Go Du-won with utmost respect.

It was an expression of her will to acknowledge and treat Go Du-won as the master of the forest and her superior.

Go Du-won answered with an uneasy expression.

“But it will take quite a long time to raise those trees, will it not?”

“We are the clan of the forest. We have skills for growing trees quickly. If a spirit is born, we can grow them even faster, so we will not have to suffer for as long as you worry, Master of the Forest.”

“Ah, that phrase, Master of the Forest, is a little......”

“Are you not the master of this forest?”

“Please just call me by my name.”

“We cannot do that. You must be treated in a way befitting the master of the forest.”

“Then l-let’s just make it village chief. Please do not call me master of the forest. This forest does not belong to one person. It belongs to all of us.”

“Village chief? It has a nice ring to it. Then I will call you that, Village Chief!”

“Ah, thank you.”

Somehow, a ridiculous little farce unfolded where Go Du-won was the one thanking her.

At that, the people nearby burst into laughter.

Though it had only been a short moment, after talking with the Dark Elves, they had learned that they were not evil beings.

The more sociable people were already conversing freely with the Dark Elves.

Watching that, Levin smiled and said to Zeon,

“Wow! You did it with Steel Fortress, and now you’re bringing different races together in the Black Forest too. At this rate, aren’t you really going to become an expert at bringing people together, hyung?”

It was a joke, but it was not entirely wrong.

Zeon had made a tremendous contribution to the birth of Steel Fortress, and he was doing the same thing here in the Black Forest.

Zeon did not think much of what he had done, but to people like Levin, it was enough to feel wonder.

At that moment, Zeon suddenly asked Briel,

“When do you think the spirit will be born?”

“I don’t know the details either. But I don’t think it’ll take that long.”

“Then we’ll stay here for the time being too. At the very least, we should watch the spirit being born.”

“Mm!”

Briel answered without the slightest hesitation.

The Dark Elves were not the only ones looking forward to the spirit’s birth.

Briel wanted to see it too.

The first spirit to appear on this land.

---

From the day they became residents of the Black Forest, the Dark Elves began moving busily.

“First, we need to check which trees are sprouting.”

The Dark Elves immediately counted the number of trees where sprouts were rising.

“There are fifteen in all.”

“The trees with sprouts must be protected from monster attacks at all costs. Let’s prepare defenses against monster attacks centered around these trees.”

“Let’s install traps too.”

“What about luring the monsters far away from the trees with sprouts?”

The Dark Elves gathered in one place and discussed how to defend the Black Forest efficiently.

The human Awakened joined them.

“We will also help with making traps.”

“I think digging a moat so monsters have difficulty approaching would also be good.”

“It’s a good idea, but how long would it take to dig a moat?”

“We have Lord Zeon, don’t we? If we ask him, he should be able to make something like a moat in no time.”

“Ah, there was that method. All right! I’ll ask him later.”

“Yes, sir!”

Once the human Awakened joined in, the discussion became even livelier.

The elderly Dark Elves looked at those Dark Elves and humans with eyes full of regret.

“To think they can harmonize with humans so well. Have we been blocking their growth all this time?”

“Haa! If we had known this would happen, we should have interacted with humans a little earlier.”

“From now on, we should leave the future to them and support them from behind.”

“What was that human saying? New wine should be put into new wineskins? Yes, in a new land, new blood should be the master.”

They had to hand over leadership and step back, but they did not look displeased at all.

They knew it too.

A great change was about to happen on this land.

Perhaps the birth of a new era was beginning.

Simply watching that change was a great honor to them.

Soon, one of the Dark Elves who had finished the discussion ran to Zeon.

“Lord Zeon! I have a request. Please make a moat in front of this Black Forest.”

“Even if I make a moat, sand will quickly flow down and fill it.”

“We do not expect it to last forever anyway. It only needs to hold until the spirit is born.”

“How large do you want it?”

“We need to stop large monsters, so I would like it to be at least thirty meters wide and about twenty meters deep. Around three hundred meters in length should be enough.”

“That will not be easy.”

“But it is not impossible for you, Lord Zeon, is it?”

The young elf looked at Zeon with shining eyes.

Even though he was asking for a favor, he showed no shame or apology.

Because the future of the humans and Dark Elves depended on it, the young elf decided to be shameless.

He could repay the favor after surviving.

Survival came first.

Zeon did not dislike the young elf’s shamelessness.

This was exactly how one had to be to survive in the desert.

One had to throw away useless pride and crawl up from the bottom.

Zeon smiled and answered,

“Let’s make it together. The moat.”

“Thank you. Then I will personally show you where to dig.”

The young Dark Elf excitedly took the lead.

After leaving the Black Forest, the young elf pointed out each place where the moat needed to be dug.

Zeon began digging the moat exactly as he wanted.

Sssshhh!

At Zeon’s control, the sand began moving.

An enormous mass of sand, enough that even a hundred years of digging by humans or Dark Elves would not be enough, rolled and shifted away.

A huge moat began to appear in the flat sandy ground.

“Waaah!”

“Insane! He’s practically a human excavator.”

“Even an excavator couldn’t do that. It’s truly overwhelming.”

The people watching from afar burst into exclamations.

It was the site of a miracle that was difficult to believe even while seeing it with their own eyes.

---

“Useless orc bastard. He ended up dying after all.”

A black-robed man muttered as he looked at the ruined Dark Elf village.

The destroyed Dark Elf village was covered in sand.

Everything had been buried beneath sand, so it had taken him quite some time to find it.

At the man’s feet lay Chuangka’s headless corpse. But the bone necklace that should have been around Chuangka’s neck was nowhere to be seen.

“So Krol’s Necklace was destroyed as well?”

The way he learned of Chuangka’s death was simple.

It was because the necklace he had given Chuangka had been destroyed.

A kind of alarm magic had been cast on Krol’s Necklace.

The moment the necklace was destroyed, an alarm was transmitted to the man.

Thanks to that, the man realized that Krol’s Necklace had been destroyed.

The destruction of Krol’s Necklace meant Chuangka had died.

Chuangka had been a kind of test subject.

Though he himself had not known it, he had helped the man in many ways.

“Did the Dark Elves rebel?”

The man tilted his head.

At the moment, that was the most suitable hypothesis.

But soon, he denied his own assumption.

“The Dark Elves had their children held hostage. They would take such a reckless gamble? That is not the way of the Dark Elves I know. Something definitely intervened. This is becoming interesting.”

A smile formed at the corners of the man’s mouth.

If he had been an ordinary being, he would have erupted in anger or fallen into confusion when his plan went awry. But he was not an ordinary being, nor was he a greenhorn incapable of controlling his own heart.

Instead, he found the situation interesting.

“Shall I take a look at those bastards’ faces?”

After looking around for a moment, he began walking in the direction where the Dark Elves had disappeared.