“Grr! Kill me!”
The dark elf glared at us as she was bound by Ruey. Her skin was as black as night, contrasting her silver hair. She had onyx irises in her elongated eyes. She was ridiculously beautiful. That being said, I never thought I’d hear that line in real life. Please. That made it sound like we’re the bad guys.
“Now, now. Don’t get yourself excited.”
I tried the understanding approach.
“Don’t touch me! You filthy human!”
I didn’t touch her, nor did I even try to. What a false accusation. This was her reaction for me taking a step towards her? She was treating me like some sort of virus. What was she, five?
I wasn’t too immature as to become enraged at that poor excuse of an insult, but I had to acknowledge the difficulty level of our negotiations to come. She had no intention of hearing out anything we had to say. That being said, if I went and said something like ‘I have no tongue to speak to you with!’ there would be no negotiations to speak of.
“I have no intention of torturing a prisoner of mine, but I don’t appreciate the insults. We may be standing on opposite sides of the matter, but I don’t think any civilized person would insult their opponent for that. What do you think?”
“Wha...?!”
The dark elf flapped her mouth after I said this to her face. Hm. Susceptible to common sense, it seemed. Then there was room for discourse. There are people in this world that counter logic with rage. You can’t negotiate rationally with those people, but only appeal to their emotions. We were fortunate that this dark elf was not one of them.
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Eiji.”
“...Cielz,” the prisoner answered after enough time passed for light to travel three million kilometers.
She must have had quite the internal conflict. I didn’t mock her in any way, of course. I only wore a gentle smile and made a suggestion.
“Let’s talk somewhere else. No one can feel comfortable talking next to a dead body.”
Inside the manor, it was as silent as... well, that wasn’t a good start to the simile. In the hall where the party was hosted, a bunch of drunks were snoring in a dog pile. A horrendous display of naivety.
“Where are you headed, Sir Eiji?”
Mister Dolitos, who was still awake, approached us. Good. With a brief summary of the event, I explained that we were going to ask our prisoner some questions, and asked him to take care of our ex-prisoner’s body. Everyone would surely be surprised to find a dead goblin there in the morning.
“Understood. I’ll tend to it immediately.”
Mister Dolitos agreed, albeit surprised. He kicked one of the town’s watchmen to wake him up. Kick. Kick. What a hostile work environment. Chuckling, we entered the room provided to us. To be accurate, it was Tiamat and I’s room.
Come to think of it, I had spent most of my time in this world sharing a room with her. I mean, there was nothing wrong with an engaged couple sharing a room, but perhaps there was something wrong about us not having acted like it at all. I was over two months into celibate life. Since this hadn’t really bothered me, I must have been more beta than I thought.
“Now, we actually only have one question for you, Miss Cielz,” I said, sitting down on the bed.
Miss Cielz still had her hands tied behind her back. Even though my wild friends had my back, I couldn’t very well untie her in this situation. The dark elf stared back from her seat.
“You have a leader, don’t you? We would like to meet them. Will you tell us where they are?”
I went straight to the point. In truth, we weren’t sure that there was such a being as a Demon Lord. However, it just wasn’t feasible for stray monsters to act that organized. To split up their army and execute a coordinated retreat? No one without experience in war would have come up with that, to be honest.
And it probably wasn’t a coincidence that the goblins attacked the town either. It must have been one of their strategies to slow down the trailing army, with even someone to keep an eye on the battle to keep it somewhat under control. I shuddered, realizing how thorough they were.
“...And then what, human?”
Miss Cielz answered with a question after another long pause. A natural question.
“I wanted to speak with them.”
“About?”
“Things that have happened. Things that will happen,” I said, in a slightly showboaty way.
The dark elf wore a thin scowl.
“Humans and the Dark Side speaking of the future? Ludicrous.”
A full-blown mocking tone. Perhaps the divide between us was wider than I’d thought.
“So much so?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how humans have treated us.”
She glared at me. Hmm. I never knew that to begin with.
“My apologies. I am a Hermit, and don’t know much about the turmoil of this world.”
I intentionally used my title because our conversation wasn’t going anywhere. Until this point, people had usually reacted to the title of Hermit. I was expecting a similar reaction here.
“Hermit?! You accursed Hermits!”
Miss Cielz’s reaction, however, was the opposite of what I had expected. She stomped the ground, widened her eyes, and enraged like she was going to bite me. In fact, if Ruey hadn’t kept her restrained, she would have definitely attacked me. And literally bit me, since her hands were tied.
“You Hermits! Who decimated us nearly to extinction a hundred and fifty years ago?! What could you possibly have to say now?!”
Oh. I got it now. The Demon Lord was vanquished by Shizuru, the hero. When he did, he could not have just gotten rid of the Demon Lord, isolated. The Demon Lord’s henchmen/women must have been destroyed too, or at least nearly destroyed. Guessing from the context clues I had so far, Miss Cielz and the other dark elves were on the Demon Lord’s side. Of course she was holding a grudge. And the hero was a Hermit too.
Oops. I really messed up, bad. I should have known that not everyone would be welcoming of Hermits with open arms. That was a no brainer, and it still slipped my mind. Those Isekai fantasies are the only worlds in which affirmation is given unconditionally. I had made a similar mistake in the past with Tiamat too. I hadn’t learned anything from my mistake. I was pathetic.
“Hm. That may be true, but who are the dark elves to play the victim? Nearly to extinction? Who massacred all of the elves in this world, again?”
Tiamat came in with this sarcastic question. She had come to my rescue after I had fallen silent. I shot my trusty partner a quick glance. She gave me a little nod.
“...”
Miss Cielz had no response.
“I’m not blaming you for it. Both sides are at fault. I only mentioned it to prove the stupidity of war.”
Still in her dragon form, she managed to shrug. In an attempt to destroy the world, the Demon Lord had made many species extinct. Erased many nations from the world map. Then, a Hermit appeared. Shizuru, the hero, stood in the way of the Demon Lord’s army in order to save humanity.
By the time the human army he led had vanquished the Demon Lord, both the Demon Lord’s army and the human army had suffered much. Most of the world had turned to ash. In the century and a half since then, humans managed to regain this much prosperity.
That’s what Tiamat explained to me, and gave me a look that said ‘I bought you time, now wrap up the negotiation.’ Got it. I didn’t fumble that ball with writing on it.
“Miss Cielz... We don’t want to recreate the war of old. I want to speak with your leader in order to prevent such an event from happening again.”
I stared directly into her pitch-black eyes. I was going to make it or break it.