“Um...Liliana...”
“It’s okay.” She hugged me from behind once more. “Getting me out of that prison... You have no idea how much you saved me.” She was trembling once again. “All I had wanted was to just die, but you gave everything back to me. The warmth of the sun, the joy of living, simple happiness... I remembered all of that because of you.” Her fingers squeezed tighter. “And...I thought I’d never see you again. But I did. Just being with you made me so happy. So please don’t apologize,” she whispered, voice trembling.
“I... You also saved me. Not just by healing my wounds. Back then, no one understood me aside from Ante. But finding out that you were still alive, that I could be with you...” I couldn’t begin to express what kind of a difference that had made. “So, thank you. Seriously.” I stroked her hands. “Thank you for staying with me...until now.”
Liliana gulped. I turned around, peering my gaze up into her expression. Now that her legs were back to normal, she was a bit taller than me.
We couldn’t continue like we had been.
“You want to go back, don’t you? Back to the forest.”
Liliana’s face went pale. Though she was at a loss for words, she didn’t try to deny it.
She wasn’t a dog anymore. All her time acting like one had been because that was what she wanted. Even if I were to seal her memories again, I would have to do the same with my memories as Alex. If the Taboo ever broke on me, it would break on her too. And even if we cut off her limbs again just to pretend she was still a dog, there was no way we could trick the night elves. They were far too cunning. Staying in the castle was no longer an option for her. I had spent a long time thinking about what I’d do once her memories came back.
“As for me... I want to send a message to the queen of the Sacred Tree Alliance,” I said.
Right now, the forest elves were at a crossroads. Within ten years, their forests would be on the front line of the war. While Liliana’s mind had surely returned out of a desire to help me, I had to imagine that the threat of war reaching her home had played a part in it as well.
But the elves didn’t know that they had me on their side. And I possessed valuable intel such as the state of the kingdom, the demonic army’s strategy, and the night elf information network. If the leaders of the Sacred Tree Alliance could get their hands on all that info, it would have a huge influence on their actions. If nothing else, it would spare them from doing something stupid out of the belief that winning the war was out of reach, or retreating from the war entirely to try and hold the forests all on their own.
As I rose in standing, the demonic kingdom would inevitably start to decline. With that in mind, the Alliance would be able to focus on drawing out the war for as long as possible. Fortunately, for a long-lived race like the high elves, a plan that would take up to a hundred or two hundred years would be no problem. And if the forest elves didn’t give up, the Alliance would be able to keep fighting.
The longer the front lines held, the longer the eastern reaches of the Alliance could be kept safe. And the more innocent people would be spared.
Honestly, I would have liked to send a message to the Holy Church as well, but I couldn’t risk it with what I knew about the night elf information network. Something top secret like the assault on the Demon King’s castle had been kept under wraps, but the night elves still had a strong grasp on the movements of the white dragons and the leaders of the various nations at the time.
Not being able to rely on humans—my own people—for this was endlessly frustrating. But once word of the night elf information network and their puppet trading companies in the Alliance made it to the queen of the forest elves, no doubt they’d suffer a heavy blow as well.
Liliana gritted her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut and dropping her head. If we wanted to get her out of the kingdom, we were in a race against time. Stopping to think everything through wasn’t a luxury we had. But even so, I would wait for her answer.
“I... I...” Her beautiful face, like a gift from the gods themselves, twisted in pain. “I want to stay with you forever!” She raised her head and looked at me, revealing tears streaming from her brilliant blue eyes. “But...”
But of course. If that was all she wanted to say, she wouldn’t have been in so much pain.
“I can’t... I can’t just abandon everyone back home!”
I knew. I understood.
The saint Liliana El Del Milfrul would never be able to stand idly by while her people were in danger.
†††
Somewhere in the mountains of the demonic kingdom.
“This should be good enough. I can take it from here.” Liliana turned around, wearing the best we could scrounge together to serve as traveling attire. Clothes stripped from the Izanis soldiers, boots that had been adjusted for her size, my leather bag, an assortment of her favorite dried fruit... We had gathered all of that while utilizing various methods to hide the evidence of what had transpired. This included having Layla use her breath to burn away the plants Liliana had grown, and me destroying the souls of the Izanis soldiers.
In order to avoid the dragon patrols, we hid ourselves with concealing magic and stayed exceptionally low to the ground as we flew. After that surprise attack on Fort Aurora, any witnesses would be on the lookout for anyone moving at high altitude, so we used that presupposition against any would-be spies. Even so, we still had to be exceptionally careful. We flew low and only over scarcely populated areas, so that meant we hadn’t actually covered that much ground.
“Sorry. I really wish I could get you at least right to the eastern edge of the autonomous zone...”
After Emergias’s attack, I could justify disappearing for four, maybe five hours tops. If I wanted to make it back to the fortress before drawing any more suspicion, this was as far as I could take her.
“Bringing me this far is more than enough. The forest will guide me the rest of the way.” Liliana mustered a somewhat forced smile as she patted the leather bag she carried.
From here she’d be on her own, trekking through forests and mountains in an attempt to make it out of the kingdom. The trees loved her, she was remarkably powerful when it came to magic and miracles, and she possessed physical toughness to boot. I had no doubt she’d be able to make it.
“Disappearing in the midst of battle does make the most sense,” Ante commented.
At the end of the day, that was how we’d decided to explain her disappearance. The story would go that it had seemed like Emergias had dealt a fatal blow to Liliana. But with all the fighting going on, it had been hard to confirm. Once the fighting had ended, we had done all we could to find her, but she was gone. Unable to accept that, I had immediately jumped on Layla and started searching the surrounding area. I had been so afraid that if I told anyone else, they might kill Liliana on sight out of fear that her mind had returned to her, so I’d gone looking entirely on my own. That was the cover story.