Chapter 233 : Chapter 233
Chapter 233. Enthusiasm
Darkness had begun to gather at the edge of the sky, while on the other side, the sun was sinking toward the horizon.
After their earlier conversation, the two of them first tidied up the surrounding area, cleared out an open space, and lit a campfire.
By the fire, Anna said with a smile,
“I never imagined that one of our elven kin could actually become a mage in the Alliance...”
Fulan scratched her head and asked in some confusion,
“Is it difficult for an elf to become a mage in the Alliance?”
Anna had been emphasizing that point all along, and her initial shock had been extreme, which gave Fulan a bold suspicion.
On top of that, while she had been in the Alliance, she had never seen a single member of another race... well, perhaps she had, but only in the form of corpses or modified humans.
Anna froze for a moment, then continued,
“Maybe because you lived inside the Alliance and don’t have any outwardly visible elven organs, you never ran into those things.”
“The Alliance is famously xenophobic across the continent. It is human-dominated, and within the territory it controls, all you see are humans without any visible traits of other races.”
“About five hundred years ago, the Alliance even wanted to take things further. They planned to develop a device to test the bloodlines of all residents, and if someone’s non-human bloodline reached a certain threshold, they would be exterminated outright...”
“Of course, in the end, that plan died before it could even begin because of a mix of factors... The cost of making such a device could not be controlled...”
“And also because even the humans of the Alliance aren’t really that pure-blooded themselves. But in this world, what pure-blooded race still even exists...”
“Even the elves, who have always prided themselves on pure blood, no longer possess truly pure blood now that the Forest of Elves has already been breached three times and reclaimed three times...”
It was as though Anna had found an outlet for everything she had been holding in, and a flood of words poured from her mouth as she told Fulan many things about the elves.
From Anna’s explanation, Fulan even learned how someone like her—someone without visible elven traits—would be treated among the elves.
For someone like Fulan, who had no outward elven features yet did possess genuine elven organs internally, the matter depended on which elven group was being discussed.
As for the Elven Isles, Anna’s homeland, people like Fulan were rare, but they did exist within the community.
So if Fulan went to the Elven Isles, she would most likely be regarded as one of their own.
But if she went to the elves’ homeland—the Forest of Elves—that would not be the case. Over there, both outward appearance and inner traits mattered.
Even though truly pure-blooded elves no longer existed in reality, the elves there still held an intense obsession with purity of blood.
There, if you had elven ears but could not sense the things other elves sensed, you would be expelled from the Forest of Elves.
Worse still, in the Forest of Elves, if a child was born without both of those traits, it would be regarded as an ill omen.
The child would not be expelled from the Forest of Elves, but both parents would have to undergo penal labor.
“Oh, right. Tomorrow you’re going into that mine shaft to destroy that Undead Creature, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then can you take me with you? We’re both elves, so we can look out for each other.”
Fulan looked Anna up and down and scratched her head. To be honest, bringing along someone she had not known before this was definitely not a wise choice.
However, Fulan could sense that Anna’s identification with her “fellow elf” was not fake.
And she could also tell that Anna probably had some other purpose for going into the mine shaft with her.
“Sure!”
Wasn’t that exactly why she had used the identity of an elf to get close to the other woman in the first place? She wanted to see whether Anna could truly give her a “surprise.”
Still, she also knew that her time was limited. Judging by the growing number of people coming here, Snow Bear Territory probably was not a place worth staying in for long.
So tomorrow, she would spend one full day on the mine shaft and leave enough time for Anna to make her move.
If it took any longer than that, then she would give up directly and return to the Northern Society.
When Anna heard Fulan agree, a faint light flickered in her eyes, and the corners of her lips lifted slightly.
After that, Anna became even more enthusiastic. She took Fulan’s hand and asked her to talk about her experiences in the Alliance.
When the sky had grown even darker, Fulan set up magical traps, kept a certain distance from Anna, and drifted into a light sleep.
---
At this moment, around Fulan and Anna’s temporary campsite, inside the mine where the Undead Creature Fulan was heading for wandered—
Like most mines, the exposed surface ore here had long since become difficult to find, so the workers who had once labored here had opened tunnels leading into the mountain and down below, reinforcing them with timber.
There had long been no workers left here. Even out on the mine grounds beyond the tunnels, skeletons and soulfires wandered from time to time.
Near the workers’ former lodgings, a pair of eyes was peering outside through the cracks of a window reinforced with planks and nails.
The faint glow given off by the soulfires allowed those eyes to see what was happening outside.
“Those undead have gotten stronger again.” Gavin’s voice trembled, tinged with fear.
His eyes, hidden behind the wooden planks, caught sight of a skeleton seeming to look in his direction, and he hurriedly lowered his head, not daring to look that way.
He pressed his ear to the ground. Only after a long while had passed without the sound of footsteps did he finally let out a breath of relief.
He turned his head and looked into the cramped room.
There was someone lying on the ground. The faint rise and fall of his chest showed that he was still alive, but his condition was clearly very poor.
The clothes on that person’s chest had been torn open in a large hole, exposing a hideous crater-like wound that glowed in the dark with the same faint blue light as soulfire.
Staring at that wound, Gavin remained lost in thought for a long time.
Their situation could no longer get any worse. Their original six-man team had now fallen apart—some had left, some were wounded...
He did not know whether this former companion lying on the ground still had any hope of surviving, but he knew that the chances were probably gone.
They had already been driven to the brink. Perhaps the best choice now was to let go of everything, disguise themselves as mercenaries, escape Snow Bear Territory, and struggle for a chance to live.
Just as his thoughts were wandering, a faint knock came at the door. It had a clear pattern: three knocks, then a pause, then five knocks, repeated again and again.
Only after hearing the entire sequence once did he open the door.
Standing outside was a tall figure draped in a black robe. Through the opening in the robe above the chest, one could see that he was wearing cloth armor underneath.
And around him was a thin yellow membrane—that was the Mage Shield of a mage.
This man was also one of his companions: Grant, a mage who had advanced through the Spirit Realm.