CHAPTER 81
Knight of the Royal Palace**

Jinwoo frowned. From the way he spoke, the bandit leader seemed to know him. But Jinwoo had no memory of the man.

Even if he couldn't recall the face, he could guess. His only connection to the Dark Elves was that one incident.

‘They must be the ones who attacked Bulkar and me.’

In the Primeval Forest, a group of Dark Elves had attacked him and Bulkar, seeking their souls. Back then, they had been severely outnumbered and had focused solely on escaping. In the end, they had even jumped off a cliff with parachutes.

He’d had no choice at the time. He was still weak, and there was no way he could have won against the surrounding Dark Elves.

But things were different now.

“Kill him! Avenge our fallen comrades!” the Dark Elf leader from that day shouted, his voice sounding just as it had back then. At his command, his underlings shifted their weight onto the balls of their feet to charge at Jinwoo.

In that brief moment—in the infinitesimal span of time it took for their weight to shift, before they could even flinch—

Slice—

The leader’s head flew off.

“……!”

“B-Boss!”

The leader’s expression as his head sailed through the air was the same as when he had given the order—mouth wide open, bellowing a command to his men.

But that head was now separated from its body, rolling across the ground. The Dark Elves’ faces turned pale. Even with their dark skin, the change in their emotions was plain to see.

Jinwoo dove into their midst, his sword a blur.

“Uwaaaargh!”

“Aaaargh!”

The Dark Elf bandits couldn't even put up a fight. They could neither block nor dodge Jinwoo's sword. The most they could do was take a single step back in the time it took for two of their comrades to be cut down.

A wolf in a flock of sheep couldn't have been this overwhelming. A Dark Elf with a bit more courage tried to raise his sword to counterattack, but his head was the first to fly. In the end…

“R-Run! Run away!”

“Get out of here!”

Only a few seconds after Jinwoo had joined the fray, they decided to flee.

They began to scatter in all directions in a disorderly panic. Their leader was dead, and they were just a band of common thieves with no discipline to begin with.

There was no organized retreat. They simply fled like beasts, surrendering to their instincts.

At that moment, the elder's eyes flashed, and she issued a command to the villagers.

“Now is our chance! Fire!”

Her command was sharp and concise, more so than usual, befitting the urgency. A few villagers who had been hiding bows and arrows immediately drew and fired.

They were not trained soldiers, but they were Elves. As natural-born archers, they could shoot arrows with more precision than most human soldiers.

Ugh!

Aaargh!

A few of the fleeing Dark Elves were struck in the back by arrows and collapsed. But they couldn't kill them all. Several managed to escape into the forest.

For a while after, they remained vigilant, but the remaining bandits were long gone.

Only then did the elder let out a long sigh. It was a sigh of deep relief.

“You’ve come again, Jinwoo. Thank you, truly.”

“I came here on some business… What on earth happened?”

At Jinwoo's question, the elder sighed again. This time, it was a sigh filled with worry.

“Jinwoo! Jinwoo! You came to play again!”

“Yeah, it’s been a while, Mari.”

In the elder's house, Jinwoo was being served tea and dried fruit. Mari stood beside him, pacing around without sitting down, clearly excited to see him again.

“Mari, dear, why don’t you sit down and have some of this? It’s very sweet.”

The elder expertly used a lure to coax Mari into a seat. Unable to resist the temptation of sweet fruit, Mari immediately sat down in a chair, making sure to claim the spot next to Jinwoo.

Jinwoo chuckled as he watched Mari munching on the dried fruit with her small mouth. With the child now quiet, he looked at the elder. His eyes were asking for an explanation.

“Sigh… There isn't much to explain, really. A band of bandits attacked and tried to kill us all.”

“Don't bandits usually demand valuables? To try and kill everyone means…”

“They don't seem to be ordinary bandits.”

The elder added that she had only heard rumors before continuing her explanation.

“Are you aware that the Dark Elves and our people are in an alliance?”

“I heard you joined hands because the Mother World Tree is withering.”

“That is correct. The King of the Dark Elves, commonly known as the Black King, and our Queen reached a dramatic reconciliation and signed a treaty to solve the problems of our entire race together.”

However, few were pleased with the alliance. Though they were both Elves, they were born in different places and lived differently. They had cultivated separate cultures for a long time and had often been at odds with each other.

With such a history, a single treaty could not bring immediate peace.

“For Dark Elves to be stealing souls as bandits…”

“It is as you suspect. It is rumored that the Black King is secretly supporting bandits and criminals, ordering them to collect souls. Of course, it is only a rumor.”

To the elder of a rural village like this, it was just a far-fetched rumor. It might have even sounded like a conspiracy theory.

But today, she learned the truth. It wasn't a rumor; it was a fact.

When the elder brought her fingertips together, a white light gathered in her hand. Jinwoo had seen such a sight several times before.

Rona did it, and so did Ipril. The Ego Sword, while not white, also used a green aura.

That light was a spirit.

“Could you deliver news of what happened here to the Lord? As quickly as possible, please.”

The light flickered twice as if to say it understood, then vanished in an instant. It shot toward the sky at an incredible speed.

“A spirit can deliver a message in a single day. Then, the Lord will likely dispatch knights or soldiers.”

“Are you planning to request their protection?”

“To be precise, we are thinking of moving our home. With the Erosion incident before and this attack, it seems the spirit of this land has weakened.”

It was a kind of superstition. In reality, there was no change in the land's energy.

But after 300 years of peace, experiencing two crises in such a short time would naturally lead to such thoughts.

“Won't it be difficult for the entire village to move? Settling in a new place will be a lot of work.”

“It will be hard, but it will be alright. We Elves are a nomadic people by nature. The last 300 years have been unusually peaceful, but moving our village is something we’ve done more than once or twice.”

Come to think of it, Elves didn't farm. The most they did was tend to small vegetable patches.

Moreover, in the forest, even a child like Mari could move about more skillfully than an expert hunter. So, abandoning the village and moving wouldn't be a great burden.

“Jinwoo! You're going to stay and play for a long time this time, right?” Mari asked, sucking on her fingers after finishing a piece of dried fruit.

Jinwoo gave a wry smile. He needed to get to the royal palace and was planning to leave right away.

However.

“Elder, how long will it take for the Lord's knights or soldiers to arrive?”

“It depends on the urgency, but since Dark Elves have appeared, the Lord will dispatch them quickly. They might arrive in three, no, perhaps two days.”

The Dark Elf attack was a clear act of hostility. Of course, if questioned, they would probably just say, ‘They are bandits and criminals, we have no control over them.’

‘Two to three days.’

Jinwoo’s destination was the royal palace of the Delphinia Kingdom. Specifically, the White Tower within the palace—the building where Permu served the World Tree.

However, not only did he not know the way, but it was also unlikely that he, a human, could enter the royal palace with ease.

Ultimately, that meant he had to sneak in somehow…

‘I need information. Especially about the nobles.’

The Elven nobles were the ones called High Elves. He needed information about them.

“I’ll stay in the village until the Lord’s knights arrive. It would be a disaster if you were attacked again.”

“Really?”

Mari's eyes sparkled at Jinwoo's words.

Two or three days wasn't a long time. But for Mari, the important thing was that Jinwoo had said he would stay.

Jinwoo received a grand welcome from the village and was treated with the utmost hospitality. Though, "utmost" only meant a cleanly laundered bed and a slightly more generous meal.

But considering how rural this place was, that alone was enough to feel their sincerity.

At night, when everyone was asleep, Jinwoo went up to a rooftop alone and looked at the mirage of the World Tree visible in the distance.

‘Can you hear me?’

He asked, just in case. He had met the World Tree’s root in Belen Village before, so it might be possible again.

If he could meet her here, he wouldn't need to go to the royal palace or gather information on the High Elves.

But no matter how many times he called out, the glass bead in his chest did not light up.

‘Then how about this.’

Jinwoo took the Sky Sword's Scabbard from his inventory.

The scabbard was covered in an ominous aura of Erosion. That energy slowly seeped out, coiling around Jinwoo’s wrist and forearm like a snake.

‘There it goes again. It does this every time I take it out.’

Despite all the Erosion and Black Flames he had cut down, he had never encountered an energy like this. It acted as if it was obedient to him, like a gentle lamb.

Did it sense that I was thinking of breaking it if it showed even a hint of aggression, and is now trying to curry favor? He didn't know. How could a human understand the thoughts of a scabbard?

In any case, he had taken out the Sky Sword's Scabbard with the intention of luring the World Tree.

‘The root I saw last time showed a strong greed for the energy of Erosion.’

If it detected the Erosion energy emanating from the scabbard, it might rush over just like it did then.

He took it out with that thought in mind, but it remained quiet.

‘No reaction.’

This method had also failed. Jinwoo put the scabbard back in his inventory and let out a quiet sigh.

It seemed he had no choice but to visit the White Tower himself.

He returned to his bed and went to sleep.

Two days passed in the blink of an eye.

“Jinwoo. The knight will be arriving soon. A spirit brought the message,” the elder said.

“Is that so? Should I hide for a bit?”

“I feel terrible asking this of our village's savior, but… please. If the Lord finds out a human is in the village, he will have our heads.”

The elder looked truly apologetic. Jinwoo didn't mind. Her request was perfectly reasonable.

Leaving the village, Jinwoo climbed a distant tree and settled in. He took out a portable telescope and observed the village entrance.

Before long, a single Elf walked toward it. The elder and a few of the village adults went out to greet them warmly.

‘One person.’

Only one had come. It must be a knight, not a soldier.

They weren't wearing the kind of armor one would typically associate with a knight. They wore practical clothes, easy to move in within a forest, with only a breastplate for protection.

With a bow and quiver also visible, their attire was closer to that of a ranger than a knight.

However, the attire wasn't what was important.

What stood out more was the familiar face and black hair.

‘Don't tell me…’

Just then, the person on the other side of the telescope looked up. They seemed to scan their surroundings before their gaze locked onto Jinwoo’s through the lens.

To have noticed him so easily from such a great distance was a sign of extraordinary skill.

“Rona?”

The one who had arrived was not a knight of the Lord, but a knight of the royal palace. Furthermore, she was active on the 5th Floor—an individual equivalent to an S-class Hunter on Earth.

It was Rona, Jinwoo’s own sword master.