Tale of Discovery

Chapter 197: Deceit ; Pain

"That fool," I subconsciously mutter, which attracts Alais' attention as she anxiously asks, "What's wrong?"

"Would you believe me if I told you that Ari is currently inciting everyone to stop following your lead while insulting my dear cousin?"

"What?" Alais' stupefied voice reaches my ears as I use Clairvoyance to check the situation out.

The thing is, I know nothing about Romalia, as I've yet to meet anyone from there. However, from what I can get from this situation, Romalia falls directly to the north of Nephthys.

Even so, this sure is strange. How did the topic shift from the key and gate to this?

Setting such thoughts aside for the moment, I shift my focus back to what's going on outside.

Quite a distance away from the house, numerous elves have gathered, with more on the way.

The main topic of those already gathered revolved around why they had been woken up in the dead of the night.

In front of the crowd, there is a group of elves who are standing on a wooden table that seems to have been carried out of a dining room.

"She lied to you!" Ari exclaims while the other elves on the table stand right behind him, "Now that we have finally found the key, she wishes to stop us from making use of it!"

"The key is currently in my abode. However, it's now nothing more than a half. That's right, those savages have now gotten their vile blood flowing within the key!"

"I would never call a woman that is accepting of such a thing my mother! She has already betrayed me. Betrayed all of us!"

Hearing his words, I suddenly have the urge to dice him in half using Holy Slash, however, I refrain from doing so.

Such an action would not benefit me in the least. For now, I should take Alais to listen to his words, as it would be quite an ordeal to tell her about it without proof.

I proceed to use Rework on the two of us to completely change our appearance before leaving the house while dragging the spaced-out woman along.

Shortly, we reach the crowd, which has now gotten relatively more hysteric.

"What's going on?" Alais asks while looking around.

"It's Ari," I say, "He's been informing them about your 'betrayal', which riled them up."

"What?" a bewildered voice escapes Alais' lips as she looks over at Ari with a horrified expression.

"No" she mutters as tears begin well up at the corner of her eyes.

Shaking my head, I focus back on Ari, who is still spouting nonsense that the crowd believes to be the truth.

Looks like a war between elves and humans is inevitable - If I wasn't here, that is.

"I will put a stop to this," I proclaim as I begin to scan the crowd for formidable-looking elves.

"Don't hurt him," Alais says in a shaky tone as I feel something tugging my arm.

Placing my hand above hers, I turn my head to look Alais in the eyes with a smile on my lips.

"Don't worry. Ari is just a lost kid who needs some punishing. I won't kill him," I say, as several non-lethal tor- punishment methods appear in my mind.

After a few seconds, Alais nods her head before she attempts to wipe-off the tear streaks on her face and say, "Please."

Seeing her in such a wretched state, I am unable to prevent myself from stepping forward and embracing her.

Stunned, Alais remains motionless as I break the embrace just to give her a light peck on the forehead before saying, "Get as far as you can from the crowd. I'm going to have to resort to underhanded means to deal with this."

A glint of worry passes through Alais' eyes before she ultimately nods her head with a resolute expression.

I run my hand through her silky golden hair before gesturing to her to get moving.

Doing as I instructed her to, Alais moves away from the area, only to stop a good distance away, most likely intending to watch me as I deal with this issue.

Well then, let's do this.

Having already locked onto my targets, I begin to use Indoctrination on 5 separate male elves and give them a short set of orders.

Then, I waste no time in appearing right behind Ari upon activating Time-Stop before lightly tapping every single elf on the table and amplifying the force through Vector Manipulation.

Before Time-Stop ends, I directly dash into the sky only to stop once I'm near where I believe the illusory barrier is.

Then, I use Clairvoyance just in time to witness Ari abruptly being hurled into the crowd as the elves with him all get launched backward.

Before the crowd can make sense of what's happening, I create a tiny version of my usual gateway through Norse Magic, intending to transfer my voice over through it.

"Heretics!" I exclaim while tweaking my voice so that it's much louder and unrecognizable.

Observing the crowd, I can see that most of those present are nervously looking around, while the rest are tending to the elves I just threw off the table.

"You dare lie in my presence?"

The moment the words leave my mouth, the five elves I indoctrinated get down on the ground before they begin rolling around and shouting as if they're experiencing the most painful torture.

Meanwhile, the crowd has gotten extremely anxious as no one knows what's going on.

Well then, I'm done here.

I close the tiny gateway before letting my body fall back to the ground while I turn myself invisible.

Soon, I find myself close to the ground, so I efficiently break the fall and float toward Alais.

Then, I stop using Rework so my appearance returns to normal, before looking over in the direction the crowd is at, only to be pleasantly surprised by the sight of the elves who have divided into through groups.

I'm unable to hold my laughter in, which causes the still-confused Alais to look over at me with an even more confused expression.

"Sorry," I say, "It's just that this worked out much better than I expected it to."

Hearing this, Alais shifts her focus back to the crowd as I follow suit.

Currently, the elves have separated into three separate groups.

The largest group consists of elves who believe that my voice was that of the Great Purpose.

After that, is the group that believes that it's something else entirely; a sacred being or something.

Finally, comes Ari's group along with the bunch who were with him and turned out to be none other than the Council of Elders. They believe that what just happened is a trick that was instigated by an enemy, most likely because Ari has already told them about how 'absurd' I am.

Hearing the things the elves are saying to one another, a smile appears on my lips.

Thanks to Ari, I now have discovered an easy method to control the elves here to do my bidding.

Now, I don't have to worry about a war breaking out between the humans and the elves, as I only have to utter a few words to spread chaos and confusion, ultimately preventing it from happening.

"Ari" Alais' voice reaches my ears, causing me to look over at the arrogant brat, only to find him being surrounded by a group of elves who are holding him down and interrogating him.

Shaking my head in exasperation, I look over at Alais and say, "Don't worry about it too much. Ari is just facing the consequences of being ignorant.

"It's better for him to suffer here like this instead of dying mid-battle during a meaningless war."

It takes her a moment, but Alais nods her in confirmation before she looks over at me and says,

"Thank you. I will do my best to bring him back to the right path."

As I peer into her reddened eyes, I sense a cold glare on me from the distance.

Looking over at where I felt it from, I find Ari scowling at me with bloodshot eyes while completely ignoring the surrounding elves.

A small grin appears on my lips as I turn my head to face Alais before canceling her disguise.

Then, I move closer to Alais and say, "Can I ask for a reward?"

"Reward?"

"Yes," I respond, "After all, I did try my best to make this work."

Alais looks into my eyes for a few seconds before she nods her head and asks, "What do you want?"

"A kiss," I reply without the least bit of hesitation.

Dumbfounded, Alais speechlessly looks at me with widened eyes.

"Is that too much to ask for?" I say in a deflated tone.

Most likely feeling pressured, beads of sweat appear on Alais' forehead as she opens her mouth to utter something, only for her words to get stuck in her throat.

Still feeling the glare on me, I slowly lean toward Alais.

As a response to my actions, a glint of uncertainty appears within Alais' eyes before she closes her eyes and reopens them, only to reveal newfound resolution in them.

"You better not make me regret this," she says before closing her eyes once again, before moving her head closer to me.

Having gotten her consent, I swiftly close the distance between us before gently pressing my lips against hers.

The intensity of Ari's glare skyrockets as I embrace his mother and continue kissing her lips.

After a whole minute, our lips part as we both look into each other's eyes.

In hers, I find guilt and confusion, which is understandable.

So, I pull her to myself and tightly embrace her.

A few moments later, I break the hug and say, "Let's head back to your house, shall we?"

As a response to my suggestion, Alais nods her head once with a red hue covering her smooth cheeks.

I gently caress her head a little before grabbing her hand and walking in the direction of her home.

Behind me, I hear a miserable blood-curling scream, "Wales Tudor! I will kill you even if it's the last thing I do!"

While shaking my head, various thoughts appear within my mind. In the end, all Ari accomplished was granting me a way to control the elves.

How nice of him.