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[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
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Chapter 30 - The Ones Who Stay and the Ones Who Want to Leave (2)
“If you keep going straight down this road, you'll eventually reach the territory of the Punny Elves.”
Piruril looked around anxiously.
She pointed the way for Clyden’s party and hurriedly disappeared without even saying a proper greeting.
Clyden grumbled as he trudged behind the headstrong Lydis, who was now pleased that things were unfolding as she wished.
Eres and Kaysis silently followed, keeping a wary eye on Clyden.
They walked like this for half a day. All they could see were trees.
Clyden was about to voice his irritation when an angry voice rang out from the dense canopy overhead.
“Human! How dare you trespass into our territory!”
The party tried to pinpoint the source of the voice.
Another shout cut through the air:
“Humans must not enter here! Get out at once!”
Eres stepped forward.
“We have been placed under the protection of the Orc Elf clan! Please trust your kin among the elves—the Orc Elf clan and allow us passage…”
“You dared to trust those pudgy elves? Do you think our Punny Elves are to be taken lightly? Attack, everyone!”
A seemingly endless volley of arrows rained down upon them.
All members of the group, except for Clyden hastily drew their swords to deflect each incoming arrow.
“What the—?”
Clyden recoiled with a tense expression.
He picked up the arrows that Lydis had struck down.
“This is… a plunger!”
A small wooden stick had a flat object attached to it, and it looked exactly like a plunger that you can easily find in a bathroom.
Clyden chuckled when he saw it.
“Even if you have nothing else to shoot, resorting to plungers—really! Hahaha… cough!”
As Clyden laughed at the absurdity of a plunger arrow, one suddenly flew through the air and lodged itself right in his face.
“Mmph! Mmph-mmph!”
“Gah! Lieutenant!”
Clyden struggled as he tried to pull the arrow that had struck him squarely on the face.
Eres rushed over, grabbed the shaft with both hands and yanked it out.
“Mmph! Mmph-mmph!”
Kaysis clinging onto Clyden’s body, Eres pulled with such force that accompanied by a boing sound, the arrow shaft was extracted.
Leaving behind nothing but a flat black object stuck to Clyden’s face.
“Haah, I nearly died. What is this? I can’t see a thing!”
“Hold still for a moment!”
Kaysis took out a small dagger and carefully cut away the part obstructing Clyden’s eyes.
“Phew, now at least I can see a bit.”
Clyden exhaled a sigh of relief.
The flat black object that now completely covered his face with two tiny eye holes carved into it whistled noisily with every exhalation.
Its appearance was rather gruesome.
He struggled to maintain his composure but Lydis began laughing uncontrollably, rolling on the ground.
In no time, everyone burst into uproarious laughter.
“Hoahaha, it really suits you! Ah, my stomach hurts!”
“Phew… cough.”
“Phew-hahaha.”
And aside from Eres, Kaysis, and Lydis, even the elves burst into uproarious laughter that stirred the forest.
“Kyaahaha!”
“Pheh-heh-heh!”
The elves laughed so loudly that they fell from the trees.
The elves burst out laughing as they fell from the trees like berries.
“Damn it, what the…don’t laugh! What the hell are you laughing at? Your teeth are showing! Why on earth are those guys laughing like crazy!”
The more Clyden ranted and raved, the louder the laughter became.
“Ha ha, human! You make us laugh! You are now one of our friends!”
An elf, small in stature with an adorably cute face wiped tears from its eyes.
“Friend or whatever, how on earth do we get this thing off?”
“Well, it’ll come off on its own in about a week.”
“Damn! You expect me to stick with this for a week?”
“Hoho, Sergeant, it suits you so well.”
“Ugh… these fools, still clueless and showing their teeth!”
Clyden glared at Eres and Kaysis, who were giggling with their heads almost touching the ground.
After the commotion in the forest subsided, the elves seemingly very fond of Clyden and guided the party to the village while laughing.
As soon as they arrived, Clyden rallied Eres and Kaysis.
He crossed his arms and looked at the elves with a displeased expression, but the elves walked around him, giggling as if they were having so much fun.
“Human, what’s your name? I’m Pernini of the Punny Elves!”
“I’m Panini!”
“Me too! Me too! I’m Punini!”
“Wait a minute! Are all your names just ‘-nini’ added to words like Po, Peo, Pa, Pi, Py, Pu, and so on?”
“Oh? How’d you guess that! Ha ha ha, you’re a genius!”
The Punny Elves flocked around Clyden, reciting their names.
Clyden scratched the back of his head in exasperation.
“Someone really must have been too lazy to come up with names.”
Clyden teased Punini with a quiet voice.
“Hey, can you make that lady over there just like me?”
Punini, who had been looking at Lydis shook her head.
“No, that won’t work. She has mana flowing through her body so it will soon fall off.”
“Damn it…”
“Ha ha ha! Here! Drink up, drink up.”
The elves chattered merrily as they began serving various dishes, announcing the arrival of a guest.
“Damn, how am I supposed to eat this?!”
Clyden snatched up some food and let out an indignant shout, more laughter from the elves, who continued to clutch their bellies and roll about in mirth.
“Hey! Eres, try cutting this a bit!”
“Ahem… that might be a bit too tricky. It’s so small that if you’re not careful, you might end up injuring your nose…”
“Damn these rotten things! Then how am I supposed to survive a week without proper food?”
“Ha ha ha, here, try this one, try this!”
Punini split an elf fruit about the size of an adult’s head right down the middle, skewered a small stick through it and handed it to Clyden.
“Wow! This looks edible!”
“Ha ha ha, there’s plenty! So, where are you headed?”
“We were on our way to the nearest human village around here. Could you guide us?”
Eres barely managed to shake off the Punny Elves who were holding him.
“Let’s play! Let’s play!”
Punini laughed heartily.
“If that’s the case, don’t worry! I’ll give you our magic tree to use.”
Punini climbed up a tree and quickly snapped off a branch.
“That’s just a branch! What kind of magic is that?”
Clyden surprised at the mention of magic, but Punini continued to laugh and explained.
“Ha ha ha, it is a magic tree. Just think of your destination, plant it upright, and then follow the direction in which the tree falls!”
“Whoa! Really?”
“Absolutely! It’s a toy our Punny Elves use when playing tag!”
“……”
Clyden wore an incredulous expression though it was hidden by the plunger stuck on his face.
“Alright! Let’s set off right now!”
Lydis sprang up indignantly.
“Really, you’re ready to leave already?”
“This is a matter of the Empire’s security! Don’t you understand that time is of the essence?”
“The Empire’s security has nothing to do with us.”
“Quiet! Follow orders.”
“Hmm… you’re leaving already?”
Punini with an apologetic look, clutched Clyden.
“Ah, when the higher-ups order something, you have no choice but to do it. What power does a middle manager have? They’re scorned from above and trampled from below… sigh.”
“Sigh…”
Punini sighed along with Clyden and showed a pitiful expression.
Punini shook her head sympathetically and patted Clyden’s shoulder.
“Sigh…”
The other elves who saw that soon started to follow suit, and the entire village was filled with sighs.
“Sergeant! What are you doing?”
“Ah, yes. I’m on it.”
When Lydis was looking at the scene with displeasure.
Clyden clumsily stood up and tossed a stick to Kaysis.
“Here you go.”
“What’s the meaning of…?”
“Shall I do it then? Or the commander? Are you trying to give orders to the seniors?”
“Ah… No!”
Kaysis hastily caught the stick and carefully planted it upright.
The stick soon tilted and toppled over.
Clyden and his party began walking in that direction.
“Be careful!”
“Farewell!”
“Come play again sometime!”
The Punny Elves soon lost interest and picked a tagger to play tag.
Punini suddenly remembered something.
“I completely forgot to tell them that once you set a direction, it won’t change no matter what other direction you think of.”
Punini was wondering whether he should run after them to explain or not.
When the tagger was decided, he simply lost interest and joined in the game.
“Well, what could happen? Ha ha ha, me too! Me too!”
Clyden and his party wandered the forest for three days, enduring endless hardship.
Clyden glared at Kaysis and shouted.
“Why on earth does this forest never end? Is this a never-ending story?! Did you set it up properly?”
Kaysis could only steal nervous glances at him without uttering a word.
Lydis stepped forward to intervene.
“Sergeant, if we go just a little further, the forest will end and a village will appear. Why be so impatient?”
“Ha… Does this even look like the end of the forest to you? We’ve been trekking uphill on a sloping path all this time! We’re venturing deeper into the mountains. How are we supposed to find a village?”
“Uh… I think it’d be best if we head back to the Punny Elf village. Something doesn’t seem right.”
As Clyden and Lydis began bickering once more.
Eres who was now tired of it, politely gave order to Kaysis.
“That sounds best. Hey, let’s head back to the Punny Elf village!”
“Umm, well….”
“You numbskull! Speak clearly!”
Clyden lost his temper once again.
Kaysis tightly shut his eyes and cried out.
“I’ve been considering a different direction since yesterday! But the direction hasn’t changed!”
“What?”
Clyden snatched the stick from Kaysis and repeatedly set it upright but it kept falling in the same direction.
“You’ve been like this since yesterday! Why are you only mentioning it now!”
“That is…”
“You numbskull, speak clearly! If you stutter one more time, I’ll pull your tongue out and stick it on your bald head!”
“Sniff, I’m scared of you… sniff sniff.”
Clyden was embarrassed by Kaysis’s sudden outburst of tears.
“Ahem, that little punk is crying.”
“Why on earth are you making a perfect corporal cry!”
When Lydis glowered at Clyden with an expression suggesting he’d been well put, he coughed again and comforted Kaysis.
“People can make mistakes! I only get mad because you don’t report problems immediately and drag things out so don’t do that again. There! Just do well from now on!”
“Sniff, thank you.”
As Clyden patted his shoulder to console him, Kaysis looked up at Clyden with a grateful expression.
“Um… but judging from the fact that the direction never changed, it seems it keeps pointing to the very first direction we set. What were you thinking at first?”
“Well, that is…”
“Damn it! Don’t hesitate—just say it! Spilled water must be mopped up!”
“Yes, well… I just thought that maybe we could use this to locate a place where a dragon might be present and then….”
A moment of silence then enveloped the party.
In a low, eerie voice.
“So… you led us straight into a dragon’s mouth?”
“No… it’s just that, I did it without thinking…”
Kaysis trembled and stepped back in fear.
The Flames spurting from Clyden’s eyes where that flat plunger was affixed to his face made Kaysis feel as if his knees were about to give out.
“If that bastard is going to commit suicide, he should do it quietly on his own. Why are you trying to drag us into a group suicide?”
“I….”
“Hey, miss! Are you going to stop him?”
Clyden turned his gaze toward Lydis.
Realizing they were now headed straight for a dragon, Lydis stood there in a daze as if her soul had just left her body.
She turned her gaze away and murmured something about how nice the weather was.
“When in trouble, she always starts praising about the weather.”
Clyden grumbled as he looked at Lydis, his attention shifted to Kaysis.
“You’ve had plenty of grievances against me, haven’t you? Didn’t you think you’d be the one to die before I do when facing a dragon?”
Clyden advanced toward Kaysis.
Kaysis cast a pleading look toward Lydis but she ignored him.
He began trembling like a deer caught in a trap.
At that moment, the ground trembled with a crackling sound and the forest in front of Clyden shook.
“What is that!?”
They all scanned the area, only to see a tree in front of Clyden swaying and a gigantic figure rising alongside the tree.
“A dr… dragon.”
Everyone sank to the ground with Eres’s despairing voice.
The dragon looked around briefly and finally spotted Clyden’s party.
“Mm… who are you?”
“It really is a dragon. To think that telepathy magic could be used so easily.”
Eres muttered with a fearful expression.
The dragon suddenly flared its eyes wide open and began scrutinizing Clyden intently.
Clyden clenched his teeth, striving to steady his trembling body in the face of the dragon’s enormous frame and the intimidating aura it exuded.
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[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
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