Slayers - Volume 16 - Chapter 2

2: A Reunion of Allies in Atessa

The tension at the guesthouse was as thick as could be.

It was me, Gourry, MacLyle, and the mayor. We entered the building and proceeded inward. The soldiers standing at attention should have remembered us, yet they regarded us with suspicion. Nobody said anything the whole time. Eventually, we came to a door.

“Could you perchance explain things now, Sir Mayor?” MacLyle finally asked as we came to a stop. It had been a long walk here from the inn, but we couldn’t exactly talk about a VIP being abducted while in the public eye.

The mayor nodded, knocked on the door, and then opened it without waiting for a response.

Within was the room Gourry and I had visited the day before. It had carpeting, tapestries, a large table and desk, plus a grand canopy bed in the back. There were also several maids present and about six soldiers. It looked just the same as it had—aside from Amelia’s absence.

“When morning broke, the princess was nowhere to be found,” the mayor informed us. He looked around at the soldiers and the maids. “The night shift soldiers and night duty maids all said they were suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion and collapsed. There’s magic that can put people into a slumber, isn’t there?”

“There’s the Sleeping spell,” I said. “But that usually doesn’t work on people who are alert, like in the middle of a fight...”

“Are you suggesting we weren’t being vigilant?!” one of the soldiers barked at me.

I shook my head. “That’s not what I mean. I’m saying we should consider possibilities other than magic. After all, there was no way in hell a Sleeping spell would’ve covered the entire guesthouse... Maybe there was something in the drinks. Or some kind of incense-based soporific. Or either of those combined with a Sleeping spell to enhance it. Did you notice anything like that?”

The soldiers and maids all exchanged a glance, but my suggestions didn’t seem to ring any bells.

The mayor looked at me pleadingly. “Is there any chance that Princess Amelia just slipped out without telling anyone?”

“Well... I doubt it,” I confessed. Knowing Amelia, hearing about the raiders making trouble for the city had probably set her burning sense of justice alight. She might’ve even been eager to dish out punishment. But even so, she would’ve known it was pointless for her to run off on her own when she didn’t even know where their camp was.

“Then... that means...” The mayor’s voice shrank until it disappeared entirely.

Without any other options, I completed his statement. “It’s reasonable to assume she was kidnapped by the people who attacked the city, yeah.”

The mayor’s face grew even paler. “Th-Then we must find her... mobilize local security... yes, I’ll contact the authorities as well...”

“Calm down,” I said reassuringly.

Heedless, the mayor kept pacing around aimlessly. “Calm down?! This is a crisis for me... No, not just me! It’s an international crisis between Zephilia and Saillune!”

“I think it’ll work out somehow.”

“You can’t possibly think— What?” The mayor blinked a few times. “You think this is going to work out somehow?!”

“Yep.”

“How?!”

“I can’t share the details just yet since it might send my plans off the rails, sooo...” I improvised, then looked around at the people in the room. “Just wait and see.”

The wind rustled the leaves in the endless expanse of greenery dappled by soothing sunlight. I was sitting at the base of a large tree, looking up, and the rays kaleidoscopically filtered through swaying layers of foliage. It would’ve been the perfect spot for a picnic, but...

“So, how long do we wait?” Gourry muttered from where he sat next to me.

“Dunno,” I said easily.

“Hey now...” Not even Gourry could just brush that one off. “Were you just BSing them back there? Do you really think this’ll work out?”

“BSing them?! No way. I totally know what I’m doing!” I insisted.

After learning of Amelia’s abduction, I’d advised everyone—including the local security detail—to act as if all was normal. Panicking would only play into the enemy’s hands, I told them, so the soldiers of Zephilia and Saillune in particular needed to be on standby at the guesthouse in case a ransom demand arrived.

Obviously, no one was pleased with my brusque explanation, but the only alternative was a random search through the vast woods—which everyone knew would be pointless. So, as dubious as they all were about my plan, they decided to listen to me.

After that, Gourry and I had prepared bread and drinks for lunch and then set out into the forest. And here we’d been sitting for a while, waiting.

“At the soonest, it won’t be long at all. And at the latest... it’ll be tomorrow morning or so.”

“Or so? Well, I know you well enough to believe you’ve thought this through, but...” Gourry looked all around him. “Do we really have to wait here? We can’t do this in town?”

The grass around us was singed, for we were sitting where we’d tangled with the raiders the previous day.

“The city’s not out of the question, but I think this is the ideal spot.”

“If you say so,” Gourry responded.

Our conversation tapered off, and we spent a little longer sitting around in peace until...

“Hey.” Gourry stood up suddenly and glanced deeper into the forest. “You were right.”

I stood up too and turned my gaze in the same direction. There were two figures approaching us from the trees.

One of them ran up to us as they hailed, “Lina! Master Gourry!”

I probably don’t have to tell you who it was—the supposed abductee herself, Amelia. And trailing behind her was a man in white with a hood pulled low over his eyes.

“What’s going on, Lina?” Gourry asked, his head cocked.

“Long story,” said the robed man as he lifted his hood. His revealed face was handsome enough, but his skin was hard, blue, and inorganic. His silver hair sparkled with a metallic sheen under the mottled sunlight.

Zelgadis Greywords. Me and Gourry’s first encounter with him had been as enemies, but circumstances had led him to join our party. He knew Amelia too.

“Hey, been a while,” Gourry said, waving lightly.

“It has indeed... Wait, Gourry, you actually remember me?” Zel said jokingly.

Gourry smiled breezily in response. “Oh, come on. Of course I remember you!”

“Okay, just to be sure, what’s my name?”

“I know your name!”

“Then say it,” Zel insisted.

Gourry scratched his head bashfully. “C’mon, give me a break.”

“Give you a break?!” Zel, Amelia, and I all cried out in unison. My man’s response was that absurd!

Not even Zel could avoid losing his cool. “Now hang on a minute, Gourry! You didn’t really forget my name, did you?! Say it! I’m not even asking for my full name! Just my first name! Even a nickname would do!” He seemed a little desperate... though I understood why.

Meanwhile, Gourry smiled all the same. “I remember. Don’t worry. You just want me to say it, right? I’ll let Lina here do that for me.”

“Why me?!”

“He forgot it...” Zel whispered, his face awash with despair.

Gourry waved his hands hurriedly in response. “I’m kidding! I really do remember. It’s Zel-something, right?”

“Oh... so you do remember,” Zel said in relief.

...

“Waitaminute, Zel! You’re genuinely satisfied with ‘Zel-something’?” I asked, outraged.

But his response was calm. “Of course I am.”

“Why?!” I demanded.

“Think about it. This is Gourry. It’s impressive he remembered that much.”

“I mean... as long as you’re cool with it, I guess. Anyway, let’s head to the city. Now’s not the time for chit-chat, right?”

With that, we all began the trek to Atessa. Amelia spoke up on the way, “So... I really don’t have the slightest idea of what’s going on.”

Hmm, where to start...

“Well, I’ll tell you what I can. The truth is, when we were fighting the raiders yesterday, I realized that Zel was one of them.” I hadn’t been able to see his face, but he’d used the exact same moves he’d tried on me when we first fought ages ago—so I’d responded in kind to show my recognition. “You’re working with the raiders to help find a way to restore your old body, huh?”

“Was it that obvious?” Zel replied with a slight shrug.

Before meeting us, Zelgadis had been in the employ of a sorcerer named Red Priest Rezo who’d turned him into a chimeric fusion of brow daemon, rock golem, and man to sate his lust for power. As I understood it, he was now on a wandering journey in hopes of discovering a way to restore his humanity. I’d already sussed out that he’d joined up with the raiders to that end, and I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to spill the beans about it until I was entirely sure what was going on...

“But then the envoy from Saillune arrived. I’ll bet the raiders thought they could kidnap her and use her to make demands.” I looked in Zel’s direction. “Except once they got her back to camp, you were in for a big shock. And you knew she’d go on a rampage the minute she woke up...”

“Hey!” Amelia shouted, pouting. “You make me sound like some kind of berserker!”

“Okay, let me ask this. If you woke up and found yourself surrounded by villains, what would you do?”

“What else?!” she responded, clenching a fist. “I’d bring down the hammer of justice!”

“Exactly what Lina said,” Zel groaned.

A small wince crept into my smile. “Zel knew that would ruin everything, leaving him no choice but to save Amelia. He also knew that raiders would give chase immediately, so heading straight for the city would either mean getting caught or giving the baddies time to set up an ambush elsewhere. Moreover, he realized that I’d be anticipating all this too. So we needed to meet up somewhere we both knew. Somewhere no one else would think to look. And where could be more perfect than where we fought yesterday?”

“I see! That makes sense!” Amelia said, beaming.

“Aha...” Gourry muttered vacantly, nodding along. It was crystal clear he remained totally clueless.

Amelia then tilted her head. “So, how exactly did I get kidnapped in the first place? There were soldiers on watch, and even if they all fell asleep, most people awaken when they sense evil intent nearby.”

Well, I don’t think most people do. But you, Amelia? I’d buy that.

Deciding not to say as much aloud, I instead replied, “The soldiers and the maids seem to think a Sleeping spell was cast over the entire guesthouse. That’s probably why you didn’t wake up.”

“Sleeping?” Amelia asked warily. She was skilled in white and shamanistic magic. She knew how the spell worked, and she likely shared my doubts about the Sleeping theory.

“Oh, that? I suspect—” Zel began. But just then...

“Haaang on a second.” Gourry stopped the group in its tracks.

We were some ways out from Atessa. I wouldn’t say we were far, exactly, but far enough that the city was still obscured by the trees.

Gourry’s reason for stopping us, however, was immediately apparent. We all came to a halt and peered deeper into the trees. The next thing I knew, Gourry had his hand on his sword, ready to draw it.

Soon, a figure melted out of the shadows of the woods. They were dressed in the same dark green tunic and pants as the raiders we’d tangled with the day before. Their hair and throat were still covered with sand-colored cloth too, but their face was exposed. Perhaps they’d been in too much of a hurry to track down Zel. Or perhaps they’d decided covering their face wasn’t worth it. Maybe both.

Their face was quite attractive, although I couldn’t peg their gender. When they spoke, however, it was the same male voice I’d traded words with the day before. “What are you doing, Zelgadis?”

“I happen to know this girl. I really couldn’t just let you kidnap her.” Zel gestured toward Amelia. “And despite how she looks, she’s Saillune royalty. You could turn a whole kingdom against you if you’re not careful.”

“As if I care,” the man shot back immediately.

Zel released a deep sigh, then replied, “I knew you’d say that, Tessius. You’re far too reckless.”

“And you’re far too careful, Zelgadis. You act so superior, yet you constantly advocate the most spineless tactics. I’ve deferred to you all this time, but now I see where that gets me.”

Normally I would’ve taken the opportunity while they were catching up to start casting a spell and blast Tessius from an unexpected angle, but in the moment, I couldn’t make a move. I was partly hoping that if I let him talk, he’d get careless and spill some useful info, but more importantly, I had yet to figure out what we were really up against. I could sense a number of presences blended into the surrounding forest, but I couldn’t tell how many there were or their exact locations. Just punking Tessius right away wouldn’t have done us much good under the circumstances, and it ran the risk of setting off his friends.

“Even so,” Tessius said with a sigh, “while I dislike your selfishness, such distaste is hardly a reason for us to engage in mutual destruction. Therefore, if you agree to my terms, I’ll agree to let you all go.”

Huh? Now here’s a change...

“How uncharacteristically accommodating of you,” Zel replied sarcastically, still on guard.

Tessius shrugged a little. “It’s more that I realize that killing you won’t get us any closer to our goal.”

“So, what are your terms?”

“First, don’t get in our way,” Tessius began calmly. “This is less a ‘term’ and more a ‘prerequisite.’ Surely you understand. No one in their right mind would let an opponent go knowing they intend to be a thorn in your side. Once you’ve agreed to back down, then before I tell you my conditions...” Tessius’s even voice drifted by on the wind that rustled the leaves. “Zelgadis, I think you already know this, but I’ll explain our objective officially. I don’t want any misunderstandings, and I’m sure there are some things you can’t judge unless you know exactly what we’re after...”

Near and far, the leaves danced... Just then, Gourry sliced his sword through the air, letting out a sharp sound!

“What?!” Tessius cried as he leaped back, surprise openly visible on his face.

“Hey, Gourry! What are you doing?!” I shouted, roused from my sleepy stupor.

...Wait, sleepy stupor?!

“What did you do?” Gourry snarled.

“You noticed?!” Tessius demanded, sounding truly shaken.

“Wha...? What happened?” Amelia asked uncertainly.

“I think... it was a Sleeping spell,” I answered. “He offered a reasonable compromise to get our guard down while someone else cast Sleeping on us from a distance, I’ll bet.”

Gourry had realized it and drawn his sword to create a sudden tension that overrode the spell’s effects. If he hadn’t... Well, even if we hadn’t actually fallen asleep, it would’ve left us pretty damned flat-footed.

“I didn’t feel like I was letting my guard down, of course,” I added. But I couldn’t deny that the spell had been taking hold of me.

“So that’s what he was up to... Stay vigilant, everyone! Their casters are a cut above!” Zelgadis shouted. “Tessius, I thought you were being unusually reasonable... but if that’s your game, there’ll be no negotiations!”

“Tch!” Tessius clicked his tongue and leaped back.

When he did, four figures appeared from the underbrush behind him. The new figures threw something at us that howled through the air. And then...

“Diem Wind!” Vwoosh!

Amelia had probably been chanting while Zel and I were talking, and she didn’t hesitate to let her spell rip! Diem Wind didn’t do anything more than create a powerful gust of wind, but that was sufficient to knock the unknown projectiles off track. Most were blown away, and as for the handful that kept coming...

Zing! Gourry batted them out of the air with his blade. I caught a glimpse of one out of the corner of my eye as it fell to the ground harmlessly—it was like a dark, knife-like object.

The four new figures stepped forward as if to back up Tessius. Zel and I began chanting.

“Foggul.” Tessius activated a spell of his own a moment before we could finish. I didn’t recognize it, but—Bwash!—with a burst of sound and pressure, a white mist suddenly swallowed up my field of vision.

A smokescreen?! I exclaimed internally. The fog was just beginning to obscure Tessius’s figure, when...

“Flare Arrow!” Zel incanted. A dozen or so flaming darts streaked through the white hovering mist... Or not. In actuality, the mist coiled around the bolts and silently extinguished them.

The mutual cancellation phenomenon?! He used his spell to negate them both... That was what I thought, but the mist remained in place.

“What?!” Zel cried in shock.

“Freeze Arrow!” It was now my turn to sling a spell, and I conjured the icy version of the Flare Arrows that Zel had fired. Instead of disappearing, mine sailed toward Tessius. If they hit, their subzero chill would do anything from inflict frostbite to freeze him in place. I figured it would slow him down one way or the other.

But in response, Tessius unleashed a wind spell that scattered my volley of frigid projectiles. “Diem Wind!”

That jerk! He sure knows how to cast fast! Nevertheless, Gourry was hot on the trail of my Freeze Arrows. Yet before he could get in close...

“Ziglous,” a new voice incanted from behind Tessius. Through my still obscured vision, I could see a few streaks shoot up from the ground.

What?!

They looked like spears thrusting upward... but then they reached an apex and arced back down at us.

Zel, Amelia, and I stifled cries of surprise and moved to dodge the incoming attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see one coming straight for Gourry. He stopped to slash at it with his sword, tearing it into pieces.

The spear-like streaks then twisted and raged like whips or tentacles, as if seeking out prey to ensnare. I could now see that they’d grown out of the projectiles from before. Had the caster used knives as an intermediary to summon the tentacles? Another spell I’ve never heard of?!

I couldn’t escape the feeling that something strange was going on. Obviously, not even I knew every single spell in the world... but still, something about this was off. The shape of it was all wrong. But I could find out what the spell was later!

Amelia took one step to the side. “Elemekia Lance!” she cried, launching her brilliant javelin at Tessius.

But Tessius wasn’t about to just stand there and let it hit him. He dodged it effortlessly with a big leap backward. The light passed in front of him as he did—and nailed one of his friends!

That must have been why Amelia had shifted positions. She’d lined up a trajectory crossing two targets so that even if Tessius dodged, she’d hit the guy behind him. And since Tessius had been blocking his friend’s view, the dude probably hadn’t seen it coming until it was too late. He lurched slightly, then... dissipated without a sound!

“Huh?!” Amelia let out a cry of surprise. Elemekia Lance dealt damage directly to an opponent’s spirit. It couldn’t physically hurt its target, but it would knock them out. It wasn’t the kind of spell that should vaporize someone.

Tessius continued to draw back, getting his distance from Gourry, as the remaining three figures came forward to take his place.

That’s when I cast my next spell! “Blast Ash!”

Vrrrm! With a low rumble, I produced a black sphere. But instead of at Tessius and his pals, I chucked it about knee-high at a tree a little ways away. The blackness expanded to the width of the trunk and then disappeared, taking that section of the trunk with it. With nothing to hold it up now, the tree began to tilt...

Krshfshfshfsh! The leaves of the falling tree shook violently as it crashed toward Tessius’s three friends. My plan was to snipe them individually as they tried to dodge... but they didn’t so much as move. They just let the tree crush them and then sprang up again as though nothing had happened!

What?! Obviously, no ordinary human could do such a thing.

The worst-case scenario was that we were dealing with pure demons. Pure demons were essentially astral creatures that could both be pulverized by spells doing spiritual damage and shrug off physical damage from, say, a tree falling on them. But I’d fought plenty of pure demons before, and these guys didn’t quite strike me as the type. Still, they weren’t flesh-and-blood beings either...

Just as I was putting it all together, a voice spoke from afar. “Olglous.” This time, countless tentacles sprouted from Tessius’s allies and lashed at us! Their clusters were far too dense and numerous to dodge entirely.

Zelgadis crouched down, placed one hand on the ground, and incanted, “Dug Haute!”

The flat earth below yielded to his summons. It immediately rose up, producing countless spires of dirt and stone. Zel had activated the spell in between us and the enemy, effectively conjuring a wall to shield us from the incoming tentacles. Dug Haute beseeched bephemoths, spirits of the ground, to shape the earth around them. He’d probably chanted the spell with the intent to use it offensively, and this little defensive maneuver was on-the-fly improv.

Most of the incoming tentacles were halted by the spires, either run through by them or forced to twine their way around them. A few tentacles still managed to breach the wall, but with their numbers drastically reduced, they weren’t nearly as scary. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Gourry and Zel slicing through them as Amelia dodged. I drew my shortsword and sliced at one coming my way too. Up close, they appeared to be more flora than fauna. So, vines rather than tentacles?

The earthen wall between us and the enemy limited their movement, but it also prevented us from advancing straight forward too.

“To the left!” I called, and the whole group ran with me.

The figures that had unleashed the vines tried to pursue us, but—“Elemekia Lance!”—Amelia fired a second brilliant javelin and demolished another one of them. The remaining two, however, didn’t slow their pace.

Meanwhile, Tessius showed no sign of a follow-up attack. He was still shrouded in his white mist, so I was hoping he’d just split. As much as I wanted to put an end to things there and then, our most pressing objective was getting Amelia safely back to town.

We were on a roundabout detour to get there... when a sense of malice coursed through the area. A moment later, I heard the faint sound of something whistling through the air from my left.

Arrows?!

But before I could even react—Clink!—Gourry had already stepped in and cut the arrow down with his sword. It was pretty clear I was its intended target. If Gourry hadn’t covered me, I’m not sure I could have dodged it.

There was probably an archer—someone other than Tessius—who’d gotten around to our flank. But how were they targeting us with visibility compromised by the mist? This fight was exceptional in a lot of ways, but in spite of everything, my focus had to stay on getting the heck outta there!

Zel fired an Elemekia Lance while keeping an eye on the figures still pursuing us. Meanwhile, I cooked up a spell myself.

“Fireball!”

Where was I aiming? Where the arrow had come from, obviously! The bead of light I fired would zoom through the air and explode in a big burst of flame when it struck something. I couldn’t see the archer, but hitting anything in their vicinity should keep ’em busy.

At least, that was the theory. But before my bead of light could go anywhere, it was enveloped by the mist and vanished.

I felt a chill run up my spine.

I’d finally realized what that white mist really was. It wasn’t a smokescreen or a distraction, and the reason Zel’s Flare Arrows had fizzled before wasn’t just coincidental mutual cancellation. The mist suppressed the activation of fire-type spells. Obscuring our vision was probably just a helpful side effect.

Still... was something like that really possible? Our opponent clearly had some crazy magic up their sleeve. Zel had suggested as much earlier, but damn.

I felt another surge of malice. The sniper probably had their eye trained on me again. Just then, Gourry swapped his sword to his left hand and unceremoniously swung his right.

“Geh!” came a yelp from the direction the archer was hiding.

Wait a second...

“Did you just hit him?!” I couldn’t help yelling out in shock when I processed what had happened.

“Looks like.”

Gourry must have beaned the guy with a stone or throwing knife—which seemed impossible. The area was thick with white mist. We had no visual. And you couldn’t throw a stone nearly as far as you could fire an arrow. Yet without fail, Gourry had...

“How is that even possible?!” Amelia cried in similar shock.

But the big lug simply responded, like it was nothing special, “I just threw in the direction the arrow came from.”

Hoo boy... I knew Gourry was a first-rate swordsman, but this was some truly unreal skill. Our opponents had to have been even more shocked than I was. Gotta take advantage of this!

As that thought entered my brain, suddenly, without any warning... the mist disappeared and I could see again.

“What?!” Tessius howled.

With the fog gone, the earthen spires, the vines twining around them, our two remaining pursuers, and Tessius standing some distance away were all visible.

“What did you do?!” he yelled in a panic.

I smirked in reply. “You want to know?”

In truth, I had no freaking clue why the mist had lifted. But that wasn’t going to stop me from bluffing my ass off. Before I could get any further...

“Elemekia Lance!” Zel speared one of the two pursuing figures.

Fwsh! It exploded in a shower of leaves and vines! Ah, so they were plants animated by and controlled with magic. Plant golems, you might say. I knew of wood golems, of course, but this was my first time seeing one that was just a mass of foliage.

“Tessius! Withdraw!” someone called from the presumed direction of the archer. When I looked, though, all I could see was a veil of green. He was either hiding behind something, or he had on really good camouflage.

“Tch!” Tessius clicked his tongue and swiftly retreated into the trees.

“Not so fast!” I shouted—but didn’t give chase, natch.

Just letting them scarper would be like admitting we were struggling too, so I thought a little bravado would scare ’em off good. Everyone else seemed to realize what I was playing at, because they stayed rooted to the spot. And sure enough, the hostile presences soon vanished from the scene.

“Seems like they’re gone,” Zel said with a sigh of relief and sheathed his sword to mark the end of the fight. “But how did you dispel that mist, Lina?”

Tessius had sounded convinced it was someone’s doing, but... “Wasn’t me,” I replied with a shrug.

“Who, then?” Amelia asked, puzzled.

I smiled indomitably in response. “Why don’t you come out already?” I called.

This was another bit of bravado I wasn’t expecting to pay off, although it’d be cool if it did. The others seemed onto me, however, as they all stood there staring in my direction.

“Okay...” Amelia said, her eyes locked my way. “Who’s that?”

“Who’s what?” I looked behind me... and there stood Alaina. “Bwuh?!”

“Bwah?!” After being startled by my exclamation of surprise, Alaina began silently flapping her lips like a fish out of water.

Curse you, Alaina! You snuck up that close to me with your presence completely cloaked?!

“What are you doing here?” I found myself asking.

She touched something like buttons on each side of her collar and began whispering. Ah... The Regulus Discs. I’d ended up selling them to her at a friend discount, and she’d attached them to her collar like fasteners. She’d probably just whispered the activation incantation.

“The forest was in such an uproar,” she finally replied via the discs as she stood back up. I couldn’t quite understand if that was an answer or not, but I guess her elf senses told her when and where things were going down in the forest.

“Hang on, if you just got here... Are you the one who dispelled that mist?”

“Well... yes...” she replied noncommittally.

At this point, Zel remarked with a curious strain in his voice, “An elf?!”

“Yeah, so what?” I asked.

“Right, I haven’t told you yet,” Zel responded, keeping a watchful eye on Alaina. “Tessius and his band are elves trying to drive humans out of the forest.”

“They’re elves?!” I shouted.

“Yes,” Alaina said, half interrupting me. “And the reason I’m here... is to try and stop them.”

At first, there was just a lot of shouting. Which was perfectly understandable. The abduction of Amelia, a princess of Saillune and an official envoy, was an international incident. Yet Gourry and I had made a few vague statements, gone off to search for her, and returned like nothing was wrong. Plus, Zelgadis looked super suspicious.

Those present included the mayor, MacLyle, Saillune’s captain of the guard, the captain of the Zephilian soldiers stationed at the old lord’s manor, the local security guy named Randa or whatever, the maids, and a few others. Then there were the four of us and Alaina. We’d all gathered in a room in the guesthouse—Amelia’s, to be exact—when the shouting began.

“This is your responsibility!”

“It was negligence of duty!”

“On whose authority?!”

“Would you like sour cream on your scones?!”

“It’s a matter of personal readiness!”

Questions, complaints, grumbles, lectures... Everyone was yelling over each other with such speed and fury that it was hard to tell who was talking to whom.

I waited until they started to get tired of the shouting before I clapped my hands together to get their attention. “Okay! It’s time we sort this all out. We’ll go one person at a time. Ready?”

“Who put you in charge?!” the mayor barked.

“Allow me to take charge, then,” Amelia declared crisply. We’d discussed on our way back to town how I’d find an opportunity for her to lead the discussion. She looked all around the room, making eye contact with each and every person present in turn, then said, “The first thing we need to do is ensure we’re all on the same page about the situation. Then we’ll figure out the enemy’s next move and how to counter it. I’ll entertain questions and suggestions, but I’ll have no more complaints or finger-pointing. Criticism of security over my kidnapping is out of the question as well. Is that understood?”

That’s a royal for you... She said it all so straight and plain, you could even feel the authority radiating out of her.

Once she said that finger-pointing was off the table, the mayor and guard captains didn’t have anything else to say. The local security guys went quiet too. And just as silence overtook the room...

“Would you like sour cream on your scones?”

“Yes, lots, please!” Amelia responded grandly.

The maids swiftly began preparing chairs and tables for a crowd. Amelia sat down, and the others began taking her lead. As the maids began serving tea and scones, Amelia spoke up again.

“Now, let’s begin the introductions,” she said, gesturing to Zel. “This is my personal undercover agent, Master Zelgadis.”

“Personal... undercover agent?” someone whispered.

A bit of a buzz ran through the room, but Amelia ignored it and continued. “Upholding justice demands the grand power of states and armies! But the fact remains that there are places even they cannot reach! That is why I gave this man free rein to conduct undercover investigations, sniffing out various nefarious activities in the vicinity of Saillune.”

This was the strategy I’d fed her—rather, that I’d proposed to her on the way back to the city. Obviously, it was a load of hooey. If we told the town the honest truth about Zelgadis, the mayor and other citizens would either blow up on him or have him arrested. No matter his reasons, and even if he was on our side now, the bottom line was that he had been part of the group that was attacking Atessa. Of course, they were unlikely to start pointing fingers while he was actively working for us, and they’d know we couldn’t afford to lose Zel as a fighter. This was a way we could cover for him, and which he could conveniently repay us for with his knowledge, his sword, his labor, and his cash.

Thing is, the story kinda fell apart if you stopped to think about it. A private investigator wouldn’t have any authority outside of their own country, after all. But when Amelia—both the victim of a kidnapping and a member of the royal family—said it, nobody was going to argue with her.

She continued, “It was a stroke of good fortune that he happened to be infiltrating the raiders’ ranks when I arrived. I shall now ask him to tell us more about them.” She cleared her throat here. “But before we proceed, I’ve asked him to refer to me without title in day-to-day life so that he’ll do the same while on missions. He’ll be doing so during his explanation as well, so do not criticize him for it.”

Amelia had to say as much in advance to keep the mayor and the soldiers from an obligation to jump down Zel’s throat for being disrespectful. That kind of thing was mostly a huge pain for both them and Amelia, but it was just the kind of thing royalty had to deal with.

“I’ll start, then,” Zelgadis began as he took the floor.

He’d given us the quick and dirty version on the way to Atessa, but there were details we hadn’t heard yet. I was curious to hear the rest of the story.

“They call themselves the Forest Hounds. They’re a band of elves led by a man named Tessius Crosaius. They have quite a few sympathizers and supporters, but only about five or six active members. Their goal is apparently to drive the humans out of this city and retake Celcelas Forest, which belonged to the elves long ago.”

“Elves? Retaking Celcelas Forest?” As a few of them whispered, their eyes naturally turned to Alaina the elf.

Under the pressure of their gazes, she calmly stood up, then crouched down and hid under the table. At that reaction, everyone—including Zel and Amelia but excluding me and Gourry, who knew her well enough—fell into stunned silence.

“Ah,” MacLyle began awkwardly. “She has severe social anxiety, so could you please not stare at her?”

A moment later, with much implied eye-rolling, everyone turned back to Zel.

“Wait a minute. You said they were a band of elves, but...” Randa of the local posse piped up. “How can that be? How’d you get in, then? You’re not... an elf, are you?”

“No.” Zel shrugged slightly. “How I ended up in this form is a long story, but I’m still technically human. I met the Forest Hounds’ leader, Tessius, a long time ago.”

I figured he meant back when he was working for the Red Priest, but I hadn’t asked for details.

“I heard rumors that his Forest Hounds were up to something, so I reached out. I assumed he’d turn me down, but they let me join with surprisingly little resistance... though it appears they just wanted me to do their dirty work and then cut me loose when the time came. In fact, they asked me to kill a few people in the city, but of course, I always found excuses to refuse.”

“They wanted you to kill people?” The mayor turned pale.

“I was hoping to steer them toward moderating themselves... I guess they got impatient. They kidnapped Amelia without even consulting me,” Zel explained. “I don’t know if they meant to hold her for ransom or to start a war between Saillune and Zephilia, but either way, I couldn’t let it happen. So I saved her, and here we are.”

“W-War?” The mayor’s face turned paler still. “B-But... why? Why now? I mean, I’ve always known elves lived in the forest long ago... But I’d heard they placed the forest in human hands and left. I’ve even been told the town custom of planting a new tree for every one we cut down was part of the accord we had with them. Even if they were unhappy with the arrangement, nothing’s happened for decades or more... Why are they coming after us now?”

“About that...” I said deliberately. I waited to make sure everyone was looking at me before continuing. “Keep your eyes right where they are. I think the fastest explanation will come from someone incapable of talking if attention is focused on her. So whatever you do, keep looking at me.” Another expression of irritation flashed across the crowd’s faces, but once I got my point across, I said, “Alaina, could you explain? Nobody’s looking now.”

“They’re really not looking?”

“Really.”

“If they look, I’ll run away, you hear me?”

Sheesh, social anxiety is one thing and this is another...

This time, the irritation on everyone’s faces didn’t abate.

“You’re fine. Now tell us what you know about Tessius’s Forest Hounds.”

“Where should I start? Elves used to live in Celcelas Forest. When humans moved in, we coexisted at first, but things changed when they started cutting down trees and smithing. The forest is precious to us elves, but the humans couldn’t give up their livelihood. There was a period of fighting, but the elves decided to leave the forest to the humans if they agreed to plant a new tree for each one they cut down. That was roughly a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“A hundred and fifty...” someone whispered vaguely.

“Yet not everybody agreed. There was a group that opposed the accord and wanted to see the forest returned to elven hands—that’s the Forest Hounds. But their numbers were so few, and they knew that if they tried to do anything, they’d be up against humans and elves alike. Until very recently, they were a holdout in name alone. Except I heard they had a change of leadership recently, and they’ve grown more extreme ever since. If that’s true... and if they manage to do harm to humans... they could inflame a war not just between themselves and this city, but between humans and elves at large. That’s why I was dispatched here—to try to get things under control before they came to a head, and before the Forest Hounds were exposed as elves.”

Aha... Alaina wanted to stop Tessius’s band herself before their identities came out. That’s why she’d initially objected to me and Gourry helping out the local security forces. Of course, even if she’d managed to make contact before we had, given her shyness, I doubt she would’ve convinced anyone.

“So they’re after our land?” the mayor asked. “Even if they take the city, they couldn’t run it, let alone the entire forest, with so few members.”

“I don’t think they’re after the land, exactly,” Alaina said. “It’s not that they want to exploit its resources. How to explain this... The forest is special to elves. Many of us simply can’t stomach the idea of humans disturbing it. Even if you agreed to replant what you cut down in the forest, elves still don’t like the fact that it’s being cut down in the first place. And some humans don’t replant anyway, so some elves feel as though the accord hasn’t been upheld.”

When he heard this, the mayor scowled in displeasure. “Well, I agree that if some people aren’t replanting, then that is a breach of the agreement. But we’re still doing some replanting, and it’s not actually harming you elves directly in any way. They’re causing all this trouble for such trifle?”

“It’s not trifle as far as elves are concerned,” Alaina explained.

The mayor scowled deeper. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure how to explain this... It’s hard to put it into words, but we elves... We just can’t let it happen.”

“How am I supposed to understand if you won’t explain?”

“It makes sense to me,” I interrupted while Alaina struggled. “It’s not a great comparison, but everyone here knows about demons, right? Enemies of creation, seekers of absolute destruction? So ask yourselves this: why do demons seek destruction? If you asked a demon to explain it, you’d probably get a similar answer. Likewise, if a demon asked you why we don’t seek destruction, all you’d really be able to say is ‘we don’t want to be destroyed,’ right? If pressed further... Well, I think you’d come to the same sort of impasse. But even if it’s impossible for us to fully articulate ourselves, we can still try to understand one another. And what we can’t understand, we can still try to accept. That includes the elves’ feelings for the forest. The important thing isn’t understanding why the forest is important to the elves, but rather respecting that it is important to the elves.”

“Hmm...” I wasn’t sure if he accepted that or not, but the mayor cast a momentary glance at the table where Alaina was cowering. “Even if that’s how elves feel about the forest, why breach the accord now, after over a century?”

“That’s more than a lifetime to you humans... But we elves are long-lived, and quite a few of us were alive when the accord was forged. Our elders can recall what life was like before then as children. To us, it wasn’t that long ago. But I suspect that the reason Tessius’s group has begun taking action is due to more than just their change in leadership.”

“I agree there,” added Zelgadis. “Tessius isn’t the type to act without any hope of victory. Something has lit a fire underneath him. But that means we need to be especially cautious for now.”

“In case they get serious?” MacLyle asked.

Zel nodded. “Tessius’s group might see it this way: ‘Zelgadis, the one who told us to be circumspect in our actions, was a traitor. The best way to strike a blow against our enemy is to do the opposite of what the traitor wanted—make a big move immediately.’”

“But aren’t elves, as a race... peaceful, chivalrous, and pacifistic?” Randa asked, his voice trembling.

I couldn’t deny that the methods of Tessius’s gang were pretty far from the image most humans had of elves. I’d fought alongside an elf against demons not long ago myself, so I had feelings about tangling with their kind right now too.

“There are good and bad humans,” I put in, “so it only makes sense that elves come in the same flavors. There are those who abide the law and those who scorn it, those who spurn conflict and those who crave it. Oh, and there’s also a stereotype that humans are stronger and tougher than elves. While that isn’t wrong per se, it’s definitely a generalization. Moreover, they’re formidable foes when it comes to magic. The night they kidnapped Amelia, for instance, the reason everyone in the guesthouse fell so fast asleep is probably because it was a souped-up Sleeping spell courtesy of elf magic. A human sorcerer could never cast it over such a wide area, and it’d be virtually impossible to use on people who were on high alert. They have more powerful versions of any spells we know, plus some that we’ve never even seen before. In fact, we ended up in a little scuffle with the Forest Hounds on our way back to town with Amelia too. They had a spell that could nullify all fire magic, and one to grow animated vines from what looked like throwing knives. Alaina, do you have any idea what those spells are?”

“Let’s see... The one that prevented your fire magic is a modification of a spell used to put out forest fires. The things that looked like throwing knives are seeds of a plant known as a ballud, designed to sprout and grow quickly when a spell is cast on them.”

The room briefly went silent as she spelled it all out so casually. Anyone who didn’t know much about magic was probably just confused, but those who knew what was what were truly taken aback. Modifying a fire-extinguishing spell to negate all fire magic? Easier said than done. Even humans could come up with ways to cancel out individual spells, but generally speaking, you couldn’t suppress multiple spells in a row over a broad area without a magic circle that required a major ritual, or a crapload of magic items.

But the bigger surprise was the fast-growing seeds. To facilitate something like that, you’d need to provide consistent moisture and energy to stimulate growth, which required very complex and delicate control. And to manage that all in the blink of an eye... To be blunt, it was inhuman. We didn’t have that kind of magic power, much less that speed or precision. Meanwhile, Tessius and his band were chucking those spells around willy-nilly.

That’s really the scariest part. Even spells like that are parlor tricks to them. If they start channeling that magic talent into true combat application...

Just then—Bwoom!—a heavy sound shook the room. Everyone froze up as they looked around.

“I’ll see what that was! The rest of you, wait here!” one of the Zephilia soldiers at the door announced as he ran out. We could hear armored footsteps resound down the hall before swiftly returning with a companion.

“Reporting in!” the newly arrived soldier announced in a voice close to a cry. “The city was hit with an attack!” Not a second later—Bwoom!—another roar echoed out. The mayor turned pale, and the soldier clarified, “Correction! The city is still being hit!”

They’re here already?! While the mayor just sat there, white as a sheet, Gourry, me, Zel, and Amelia ran straight out of the room.