“The emperor at the time—me and my father’s ancestor—thought this was a dangerous development. He also happened to be the Arch Elf’s older brother.”
“Huh?!” Yuika exclaimed in surprise.
“With his younger brother as dangerous as he was, the emperor attained the legendary power of the High Elf, passed down through the imperial family, in order to protect his people and the rest of his family. It is said he tried to kill the Arch Elf with his High Elven powers, but the task proved too difficult. The emperor was unable to defeat him once and for all.”
Pretty much everything Ludie had said was true. If I had to add anything else, it was the extra detail about how High Elf king’s attempt to kill him caused the Arch Elf’s mind and soul to completely break down for good.
He now held a grudge not only against Leggenze, but against the Tréfle Empire as well. If the Arch Elf were to be revived…
“If the Arch Elf is revived, he’ll kill every person, elf or otherwise, he can get his hands on. On top of that, the more time is spent trying to kill him, the more numbers he will add to his side, until he’s truly too much to handle. In other words, our only hope is to defeat him now. Otherwise, the empire will suffer incalculable losses.”
Simply resealing him would work, too, but in the game, you can only barely make this happen by using a unique tool passed down through the empire, and since the tool wasn’t in our possession right now, this would be impossible.
The Arch Elf could control dead monsters, too, not just humans and elves, and when all else failed, he could summon zombies from nothing. Though, the zombies he summoned this way were weak.
If he manipulated the monsters around him in the Sanctuary, there was a chance the reigning Emperor Marc would be unable to deal with him. If things got that bad, he might prove more than we could handle, too.
This seemed to be why His Majesty hadn’t immediately gone off to fight, and why he had deployed his forces in front of the Sanctuary, in case anything happened.
It was then Claris began to speak with a sour look on her face.
“There’s something I think best to inform you all about. The High Elf who created the seal was Lady Ludivine’s ancestor. Now, as for the descendant of the Arch Elf, well…how should I put this?”
She was being evasive. While I understood why it was difficult to bring up, after coming this far, it was better to just come out and say it. We didn’t have much time to spare either.
“That’d be Anemone.”
When I said this, everyone besides Ludie and Claris looked shocked. They probably all believed she was just a perverted inventor and nothing else. Hell, before I played her route in the game, I hadn’t known any of this stuff, either.
Anemone had a difficult past, and her ancestry was the source of it all.
Be that as it may, if I had known things would play out this way, it might have been better to bring Anemone along with us. Having her here would have made the fight a bit easier. She was well informed about the Arch Elf, being his descendent and all. Not that there was any point in wishing for what could have been.
“How about we leave the Arch Elf backstory at that? We generally covered the broad strokes, and we can look into him all we want after we wrap all this up and go back home.”
Nanami nodded in agreement. “Indeed, while Miss Ludivine and Miss Claris’s explanation was quite engaging, I believe it would be more constructive to think about how best to take down the newly revived Arch Elf. At this rate, the empire will be in danger.”
“Good point. It’s time to switch gears.”
Everyone nodded at Yukine’s comment.
“Hmm. With all these developments, we better summarize everything for a sec. The person sealed up ahead of us is the Arch Elf, a necromancer who controls the dead. After using his power too much, he eventually went out of control, attacking everyone at random, not just his enemies from Leggenze. And we need to do something to stop him,” Yukine said, cleanly summarizing the present situation.
“So, this may just be me, but I sorta don’t get what this whole Arch Elf is in the first place?”
“Strictly speaking, this isn’t quite right, but for now, just think him as a superior type of elf who possesses far greater power than other elves.”
Claris grimaced at my words. She probably had some thoughts about all the different things I knew about. I just wanted her not to prod me about it. Though, considering I was going to go into greater detail from here, she might feel an even greater urge to call me out.
“Okay, let me give a simple explanation.”
I told everyone the following: The Arch Elf could use his power to construct what was essentially a very strong barrier.
While it was possible to break the barrier by hitting it with a tremendous amount of force, the strength required to do so was unrealistic for us to achieve at present.
Another way to easily break this barrier was to hit it with the same power used to create it. Something similar had been done back when he was first sealed away.
“Wait, but by the ‘same power,’ you mean the Arch Elf’s, right? Legendary powers like that just don’t grow on… Oh, I see, there’s also the High Elf you mentioned.”
Everything clicked for Yuika as she spoke aloud. She then turned to Ludie. Yukine also seemed to pick up on the implication, and her eyes fell on Ludie, too.
“Sure, I technically have their blood in me. But Father hasn’t managed to tap into the High Elf’s power, so I seriously doubt I’ll be able to, either. But…”
“But?”
“I have to do something. I know that if I don’t figure something out, the empire, Lilou, Mother, and Father will all be in grave danger.”
“Lady Ludivine…,” Claris murmured, a pained look on her face. I figured she was the one here who felt the most conflicted inside.
“Claris, this is a direct order. Fight alongside me.”
“Of course, Lady Ludie.”
“I also have a favor to ask you all, too. I want you to fight together with us.”
She had to already know the answer without asking. If we weren’t going to fight, we would’ve probably fled by now anyway.
“Of course.”
“An Arch Elf necromancer. Hee-hee, can’t wait to get a crack at him,” Yukine said with a smile.
“Are you sure? You’re really, really okay with this?” Ludie persisted.
“Master, I have heard that in moments such as these, the best course of action is to say ‘Time to shut up’ and kiss her.”
“Where the hell did you get that little nugget of knowledge from, huh?”
If a kiss really was enough to cheer her up, I’d kiss her however much she wanted, and to be honest, I’d never want to let go again once we latched lips. I always wondered, though, where the hell was she getting this weird information of hers from anyway?
“Putting the absur-Nami aside… Ludie.”
“What is it?”
“It’s time to protect the empire.”
“…Yeah, thanks.”
Now that everyone was on the same page…
“Okay then, with all that sorted, we need to come up with a strategy first.”
From there, we discussed how we were going to proceed.
The barrier meant we couldn’t directly inflict any damage to the Arch Elf. In order to defeat him, we would need to destroy the barrier with the power of the High Elf.
Ludie was the only one capable of that. As such, we would have Ludie focus all her efforts on the Arch Elf. Meanwhile, we would fend off the Arch-Elf’s minions.
“So then, the general strategy is for us to protect Ludie. Meanwhile, Ludie will concentrate on attaining the High Elf power and destroying the barrier.”
“Sounds acceptable to me.”
Yukine sounded satisfied. The problem was that alone wasn’t going to be enough.
“Generally speaking, I think this plan is workable, but there’s still one problem.”
“What would that be?”
Yuika cocked her head. I outlined the problem to them, prefacing my explanation by asking them to save the incredulous prodding about why I even knew this for afterward.
“When the battle starts, the Arch Elf will summon his zombie minions, but if possible, I’d like us to leave at least four or five around.”
“Why would that be?” Nanami asked.
“The Arch Elf has to expend a fair amount of his own resources on controlling his minions. As a result, keep in mind that he usually can’t do anything besides keeping his barrier up.”
He was the type of enemy that often popped up in RPGs, the kind that could only get going under certain conditions. As the Arch Elf lost his minions, he would gain more resources to expend and gain the ability to move and attack.
“The Arch Elf is super strong. If we’re going to attack him with such few numbers, he’ll be a lot stronger without any minions at his side. So I want to restrict his available resources as much as possible.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but what you’re saying is this: We’ll reduce the enemy’s numbers down to five total, and then shift over to holding out against their attacks…” Yukine got this far before turning to Ludie. “…while we wait for Ludie to destroy the barrier. After that, we take the Arch Elf down.”
“That’s right.”
In truth leaving just four enemies was fine, but if by some chance one was defeated, the Arch Elf would gain the ability to move, so I went with five for some leeway. That said, this strategy was only based on how things go in the game, so there was the chance that he might join the fray while controlling several minions at once. If things panned out like that, we would need to defeat the minions first and then shift to enduring the Arch Elf’s onslaught.