Chapter 607: Too Calculating

“I never thought that this legend would be true…”

“What legend?”

“The legend saying the better luck a species has and the stronger they are, the more pitiful and unfortunate their lives will become after being dethroned. Still, having such misfortune is truly…”

Right when I walked downstairs, I heard some people from my party discussing luck. I felt as if nobody would possibly be more experienced than me in this topic…

“Indeed, nobody could possibly be more experienced that you on the topic of misfortune.”

The silly cat who suddenly jumped on my shoulder was making snarky comments aimed at me like always. But, in our soul connection, I could sense that she was extremely delighted as if something really good had happened.

“What good thing happened last night?”

“Nothing, I was tortured like hell all last night. Cough, you should be mature and stop trying to hear about a girl’s private matters… But, there will be something good today. Just wait and see.”

It seemed that I had woken up later than everyone else as most of our party was already in the entrance hall. Margaret was sitting by a table with a serious expression as she calculated something. Adam was laughing foolishly like he always did as he flipped through the gossip magazines. Little Red was taking a nap in front of the fireplace. But, what was with the lollipop in her hands? Was it that her mental age had regressed as well?

“Good morning, Roland.”

As always, Elisa soundlessly appeared right behind my back, startling me.

She was no longer wearing her Lisa’s leather armor from yesterday. Her familiar lace maid attire was quite nice to look at… Cough, cough, I meant, a good fit for her!

I followed her line of sight, and saw some breakfast on the table that had obviously been prepared for me.

“…Is this the final meal before execution?”

Although I kept feeling more and more like something was off, I felt like the best way to deal with things right now would be to maintain my silence.

I looked all around, and everyone seemed to be acting normal. However, the elf mage from Casio’s party, whose name was Yurtla, had a worried expression. Yurtla was constantly asking Margaret some questions. On the table in front of them was a silver dagger.

From what I recalled, this dagger was an object that the unfortunate fellow who was teleported into the Chaos Abyss had left behind. This dagger was also the foundational reason why the adventuring party was being hunted down.

“…Were you able to locate the first major battlefield of the Holy War?”

I had a sudden realization. Earlier, I had been thinking of returning to the mortal plane to find a God or an archmage with the ability to investigate the deceased’s belongings and find where he had come from.

However, Margaret was definitely highly skilled even among archmages. With her mastery of space and time magic, determining the origin of the dagger’s owner probably wouldn’t be difficult at all. I just hadn’t thought of her.

“Yes, I’ve located it. The San Hein Empire, a district in the Moonwheel Capital. Elf Empress Afina’s dream of ruling over all elves will be crushed even though she ascended to her position less than ten years ago.”

“…San Hein Empire? Isn’t that place still embroiled in the elves’ internal war? That internal war which has been going on for ten years, but few High Elves had died?”

I was astonished as my first reaction. This was truly incredible news. It was quite surprising to hear that this natural dimensional portal led to the elves’ territory in the mortal plane.

The will of the Chaos Abyss could somewhat influence the location of the portal in the mortal plane. The elves were truly misfortunate if this was all a coincidence.

But at this time, I couldn’t help but think of Anslo, the former Elf Main God who had become fallen and transformed into a Chaos Evil God. Anslo had intentionally stirred up internal warfare among the already fractured elf tribes so that some elves would survive no matter if Chaos or Order won. Yet, the elves’ territory still became the first major battleground of the Holy War. Right now, I really wanted to know how what Anslo would think of this…

“Coincidence? Highly unlikely.”

While others might have believed that the portal’s location was a pure coincidence, I kept feeling like this was no coincidence at all.

That would be too much to believe it was just a coincidence. Humans were currently the ruling species in the mortal plane. Thus, human kingdoms took up the majority of the land in the mortal plane. The elves’ territory was pitifully small. Not only that, the portal just happened to choose the elves’ most important capital city.

All of the first major battlefields in the Holy War’s history had now either become completely uninhabitable wastelands, or even worse, areas where no lives could enter without perishing. This was because the first major battlefield would always have to face the Chaos Abyss’s first demon wave.

“Endless darkness covered the skies. The Moon Goddess’s illumination was unable to pierce these dark clouds. The legendary demons of the night are nothing more than the first wave of cannon fodder. These legendary demons and devils are nothing more than foot soldiers. Even the majestic dragons are nothing more than steeds under the demon generals. There is no hope for us. Do the heavens wish to destroy us elves? The silver elves and moon elves are still at each other’s throats even in such a time? The silver elves refused to send us reinforcements…”

In a diary about the previous Holy War’s first battle, the elf scholar Wendair had written despairing and realistic records about everything that happened during the first demon wave. He even included a long list of the dead higher-ups and how many elves had died.

All records about the first demon wave of any Holy War would all be records of such despair. The end result of ordinary vigilantes, who were only capable of dealing with local wild beasts, facing off against the Chaos army vanguard was only natural.

If you wanted to survive the first demon wave, you would need luck more than power level. Apparently, this elf scholar Wendair had been seriously injured and left for dead in a river ditch, which was how he luckily managed to survive and write his records.

The ironic part was, the elves had been the ruling species in the previous Holy War. Since they were so powerful, they held control over the most territory in the mortal plane, as well as the richest. It was no surprise that the first battlefield had appeared in the heart of their territory. However, it was a great surprise that the Chaos Faction was attacking the elves yet again even though the elves had long since lost their glory.

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And from what I remembered, the elf scholar Wendair was a moon elf who constantly called out for peace ever since experiencing the demon wave. He was still alive and living in the elves’ Moonwheel Capital. In that case, it seemed likely that he would be able to add a “Volume 2” to his diary of despair.

No wonder Harloys was so happy. To her, those “lowborn bastard elves who repaid kindness with ingratitude” were about to meet their doom, and not having a celebration party was already low-key for her.

But to me, this wasn’t good news at all.

The first demon wave would be highly difficult to deal with. All the human kingdoms in the mortal plane knew about this. That was why they had all signed various military cooperation agreements with each other. Perhaps the human kingdoms would still have many conflicts with each other, and these military cooperation contracts would normally be nothing more than useless scrap paper, but the human kingdoms would still be willing to temporarily set aside their conflicts when it came to the Holy War. These emergency military reinforcements would immensely improve the survival rate for whichever unlucky human country was the first to receive a demon wave.

I had extrapolated several dozen possible scenarios, including the first portal being in the Northlands where transportation was inconvenient, in San Antonio’s heartland that produced so much food, or in the Underground which had an environment similar to that of the Chaos Abyss. However, I had never even tried to calculate the possibility of the first portal opening up in the elven kingdoms. Apart from the possibility being too low, this was even more because of my grudges against the elves.

“If the first portal really does open up in the elves’ territory? This is far too low a possibility. If it really happens, they deserve to have their species go extinct,” I had half-jokingly said back at the time. Yet, I never expected that this possibility would become real in the end.

That was right, I hated the elves. I especially loathed all High Elves other than the wood elves. The only other elf species I had friendly intentions towards would be the half-blood wild elves. That was because the wild elves didn’t have the other elves’ strange sense of superiority and clean freak tendencies. Not only was it me, but also most human kingdoms would likely have the same loathing towards the elves.

The reason? There wasn’t much need to explain. Apart from the open conflicts, there were also so many ridiculous things.

After the elves no longer had overwhelming power, the elves who believed they were smarter than everyone else proved that they were indeed skilled at playing an “international balancing” game. The elves constantly made all sorts of schemes targeting various human kingdoms’ royalty with constant spies and backstabbing involved. If a scheme succeeded, it would weaken humans, and even if a scheme failed, the elves would lose very little. Back in the day, the elves had also contributed to the Mist Kingdom’s destruction. I had also very directly taken revenge by destroying elven kingdoms.

In ordinary fairy tales, such stories would idolize and glorify the elves. Elven slaves were also highly popular with human nobles. However, there wasn’t a single human kingdom or royalty who was friendly towards the elves. The higher-ranked the individual, the more that person would loathe the elves. This was just the complex way that human society viewed the elves.

The fracture between elves and humans was becoming more apparent every day. This was also why the Elven Gods and elven kingdoms were already making movements so early in this Holy War… If elves and humans had a good relationship, and the Elven Gods had a comfortable time in the Order Faction, then there would be no need for them to betray Order and join Chaos.

Currently, the entire world knew that the moon elves and silver elves’ current internal war was completely fake. Everyone simply allowed them to keep up the act.

The elves had two reasons to keep up this act.

Judging from the overall situation, no matter who won in this Holy War, the elves could be on the winning side. At least one species would survive. And since the Holy War was about to start, no matter where the main battlefield was, the elves could refuse any human kingdoms’ requests for reinforcements according to the Order Faction alliance by saying that “we’re currently in the middle of an internal war.”

In the first few years, the elves’ internal war was quite vicious. However, only ordinary elf warriors had died. In the recent few years, while conflicts still occurred, the scale became smaller and smaller. Even up until now, not a single High Elf had died. Still, even then there would be a new conflict every ten days to two weeks. It was probably that since the Holy War was beginning, the human kingdoms couldn’t care less about the elves, and the elves became lazy about keeping up the act.

My guess was that the elves’ internal war would continue until the Holy War ended. It was likely that Anslo had achieved some sort of secret agreement with the will of the Chaos Abyss when he came down to the Chaos Abyss. For instance, a promise such as “the elves will remain neutral in this Holy War, and the Chaos Faction won’t attack the elven kingdoms”, something like that… In fact, when considering the elves’ typical personalities, this was highly likely.

The human rulers were also no idiots. They could also discern all of this, nor had they ever counted on the elves being able to help out in this Holy War. It would be quite good already if the elves didn’t drag everyone down.

But if the first dimensional portal was going to appear in the elven capital…

“It’s even possible for us to go help the beastmen, but it’s impossible to even think about helping the elves. Don’t blame us, since you’ve already done the same thing. It’s already kind of us not to spread salt on your wounds.”

The most likely development would be that the leading human kingdoms would simply watch the show. Even a weakened species would still show strength when faced with the threat of their home’s destruction. It would be a perfect opportunity to test the demons’ strength by using the elves.

Since the relationship and contracts between elves and humans as members of the Order Faction had become nothing but empty words and scrap paper starting several centuries ago, this alliance was obviously an empty one.

“Ha, Anslo and the elves have always been like this, so calculating. But this time, they calculated too much. They always took advantage of small benefits, but now’s the time for them to return everything.”

Harloys’ sarcastic jab at them was quite convincing. I completely agreed with her.

If the Elf Main God had still been in the Order Faction, then the elves could at least have requested reinforcements from the Order Gods. At the very least, the Holy Light Faction would be forced to protect them, and if the Holy Church got involved, the human kingdoms would at least have to make a show of helping out.

If only the elves hadn’t used up so much of their strength and lost so many of their footmen in their internal wars, and if only the elven species could all cooperate with each other, their ability to deal with the first demon wave would have been much stronger.

If the High Elves hadn’t played around with their “elven elegance style of diplomacy”, they would have at least had a few ironclad allies who would help them in their time of need. I could one hundred percent guarantee that if the first portal had opened up in the dwarves’ territory, the surrounding human kingdoms would all have sent the dwarves their full support.

“No matter how you look at it, the only possible result is to use the entire elven species to fight against the first demon wave, followed by the destruction of all elves…”

No wonder why this elven mage was so anxious. It was likely that he’d never thought that any of this would concern himself before, but now that he discovered that his people and kingdom were in a crisis, and he was one of the individuals in the middle of it all with the most danger, of course he would be panicked and anxious. It would be strange if he wasn’t.

“Could it be that the elves and demons secretly formed an alliance?”

“Absolutely impossible. Demons are pure chaos. The first demon wave will absolutely destroy everything without caring about enemy or ally. Don’t underestimate the fundamental nature of demons. The most famous part about Donatis is that he’s capable of maintaining his reason in the midst of a demon wave.”

Harloys unhesitatingly showed how delighted she was. However, I truly had a headache.

I was quite clear about the elves’ personalities. I really couldn’t just casually give out this information that the first portal would be in the elves’ capital. It would still be acceptable if the elves tried to immigrate elsewhere on a large scale, but if the elves instead tried to fight the human kingdoms for more territory before the demon wave arrived, this would start a brand-new internal war in the Order Faction.

Hope that the elves would accept their terrible fate and fight to the death against the demon wave? I wasn’t so naïve.

“I’d really like to know what Anslo is feeling right now…”

At this moment, in a certain dimension of the Chaos Abyss, three Main Gods were currently locked in an internal battle on the Chaos Faction. One of the three participants was Anslo, the former Elf Main God who was now in such a crisis regarding his species.