Chapter 7 - The Farm in Irttat

 

Chapter 7 : The Nightingale's Past 03

Her brow bones were as elegantly sculpted as mountain peaks, and those eyes were like a mirror lake sleeping in the embrace of mountains, trembling with dark green ripples in the twilight where mist was fading. She seemed startled and looked over, meeting Mavis's gaze directly.

Mavis was momentarily stunned, plunging into those eyes that seemed shrouded in countless layers of mist, and actually didn't dare move forward.

Was she crying?

Mavis paused, then stepped closer, only to see clearly that it wasn't tears. It was moonlight reflecting in her eyes, creating shimmering waves.

This was a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, about fourteen or fifteen years old, covered in blood, lying on the ground barely breathing. She seemed to have lost the ability to move, yet her eyes still stared intently at her, their emotion indiscernible.

Andas City was located in the southern part of the continent. The people in this region were predominantly blonde-haired and blue-eyed. According to legend, in prehistoric times this had been the political center of some country, so when facing other ethnicities, the people here carried a sense of aristocratic pride. In the manor not far away, nearly eighty percent of the people inside were blonde and blue-eyed.

The girl had fair, delicate skin and smooth, glossy blonde hair. Her aristocratic features were so obvious, yet Mavis had never seen her before.

Who was she?

Mavis had read too many storybooks. At this moment she felt as if she'd been drawn into some conspiracy. Family infighting, political intrigue, all kinds of speculations kept flooding out.

But no matter what, given the current situation, Mavis couldn't bring herself to stand by and watch someone die.

She stepped forward, wanting to check the girl's condition. But the moment she took a step, the girl startled and stared at her intently, as if trying to force her back with her gaze alone.

Then Mavis couldn't care about the girl’s gaze anymore, because she saw something that shattered her understanding of the world.

A pair of pointed ears.

Mavis wasn't an illiterate commoner. At only sixteen, she had already received comprehensive history and politics education. The Orr Continent had three duchies and three major ethnic groups distinguished by hair color, but no human had ears like these.

While she hesitated, the girl still watched her warily, covered in blood. A shocking sight.

If Mavis didn't help her, she would die.

Unsure whether the girl could understand her, Mavis softened her voice and approached carefully: "You're injured. Can I help you?"

The girl seemed to understand. She withdrew that blazing hostility, lowered her eyes, and breathed out a few words as faint as a dying thread, dissipating into the wind the moment they left her lips.

Mavis barely caught them, something like: "Don't call a doctor."

Looking at the girl's pointed ears, she completely understood this request.

Mavis touched the girl’s forehead, it was very cold.

Her whole body was cold. Mavis didn't know how long she'd been lying in this forest. If Mavis hadn't encountered her that night, perhaps when the sun rose the next morning, the mournful sunlight would only futilely caress a corpse.

Mavis thought for a moment, tore her cloak, and tried to bandage the girl's wounds.

She had many wounds on her body. The gash on her abdomen was the deepest, like a wound from being stabbed with a sword, with dark red blood clots congealed on the wound's surface.

Having suffered such an injury and still able to survive, with the wound even showing signs of healing...

Mavis decided to take back her earlier thought. Perhaps she could lie here for several more days without dying—even if she did die, it would probably be from starvation.

When the wound was touched, the girl couldn't help but groan and gritted her teeth.

Startled by this, Mavis made her movements even gentler, and after a long time still hadn't finished bandaging one spot.

Finally, she wrapped the girl's body in her own cloak, entered the manor through the back door, bypassed the crowd, and secretly carried her back to her own room.

After settling her in, Mavis secretly took several pieces of white bread and a few slices of ham from the dining table in the hall, stuffed them in her pocket, and brought them back to fill her stomach.

The girl lay on the bed, struggling to chew half a piece of white bread with water, but seemed to gradually regain some strength.

Mavis, considering herself very tactful, avoided the topic of her pointed ears, pulled over a chair to sit by the bed, and asked: "What's your name?"

"Sophia." The girl's voice lacked vigor, but she still forced herself to rally and asked bluntly: "Didn't you see my ears?"

Mavis choked, then said dryly: "So what's the deal with your ears?"

"You don't know?" Sophia's eyes widened, looking even more surprised than Mavis.

Before Mavis could react, Sophia put on a profound expression: "Let me tell you, I am one favored by the gods, which is why I have such a unique appearance. This time, I was ambushed by demons, which is why I'm so badly injured. The demons are tracking my whereabouts. You must not reveal where I am. Don't tell anyone, or the gods won't forgive you, understand?"

Mavis cooperatively nodded, looking utterly obedient.

Sophia showed a satisfied expression, nodded, and said: "I need to sleep a bit more. Please leave and don't disturb my rest."

Mavis agreed with a smile. Not only did she leave, she considerately closed the door behind her—Sophia probably didn't know that her attempt to appear profound was actually extremely adorable.

Given Sophia's wariness, Mavis didn't believe a single word she said.

The hunting festival ended, but Sophia's injuries still hadn't healed.

One coveted the anti-inflammatory medicine at Mavis's house, the other wanted to figure out the secret of the pointed ears. The two hit it off immediately. After a few polite exchanges, Mavis hid Sophia in a carriage and brought her home.

As soon as she got home, Mavis went straight to the study.

She used to have a casual personality and didn't like reading. She barely finished the courses her mother arranged and basically never touched recreational books, spending almost all her leisure time hunting and practicing archery.

This time she voluntarily buried herself in the study, was well behaved and read books for weeks. Even her mother was amazed.

But even after her mother became accustomed to her diligence, her investigation still made no progress.

Medical texts had no records of diseases involving pointed ears, and ethnology had no records of ethnic groups with such physical characteristics.

In a flash, two months had passed. The girl spent the harvest festival at Mavis's house.

Mavis was worried about Sophia at home, so she just showed her face at the city lord's manor and went back. Thinking she hadn't eaten dinner yet, she secretly hid a large piece of roasted lamb leg sprinkled with rosemary for her.

A pound of spices for a pound of gold. Food seasoned this lavishly was rare even for them. But Sophia showed no particular reaction; this didn't excite her as much as an apple would.

Mavis remembered Sophia's curious expression when she first saw an apple, and felt secretly puzzled.

There were really too many mysteries about Sophia.

By early winter, Sophia's injuries had recovered considerably, and she had gradually grown accustomed to hiding at Mavis's house.

The servants had gotten used to the young master's suddenly increased appetite over the past few months, assuming she was just growing. Mavis's uncle lived at the viscount's house and came home once every half month, and when he did, he wouldn't barge into his niece's room. Her mother did live at home permanently, but had a strong sense of boundaries and wouldn't casually go up to the second floor that belonged to her daughter.

So Sophia safely hid there.

One night, Mavis was habitually buried in the study and finally found a record of the pointed ear characteristic.

It was a very famous legend, one of the speculations about prehistoric human civilization history.

At that time, there weren't only humans on the earth, there were also various other races. Elves in the forests, merfolk in the deep seas, and even dragons, which she had only thought were legends, shared the same continent with humans.

Later, as humans reproduced generation after generation and industry was born on this continent, they needed more and more resources to survive and develop.

Wars over resources thus erupted. They competed with elves for forests, with merfolk for oceans, wanting to conquer this world and have human footprints cover the entire continent.

The war with the dragon race was for another reason. If the conflicts with elves and merfolk were resource wars, then with dragons it was a defensive war. Who could tolerate a sword constantly hanging overhead, living forever under threats from the sky?

Of course, that was the era of humanity. They not only began exploring science but also learned magic, and had the largest population on this land. Although the other races were powerful, their reproductive abilities were extremely low. Each death meant one less of them, while at humanity's reproductive rate, warriors were essentially endless.

Humans won thoroughly and completely, driving the other races from this continent, thus ushering in a new era.

But this was only speculation by some scholars. After all, prehistoric civilization was almost entirely destroyed in the disaster, and the few remaining materials were hardly enough to prove anything.

In these records, without exception, they all described the physical characteristics of elves: blonde hair and blue eyes, snow-white skin, pointed ears, proficient in life magic.

Mavis immediately thought of Sophia.

Could she be an elf?

There were many mysteries about Sophia. Mavis didn't ask, but was actually very curious.

Why did she need to hide her whereabouts? Was it because of that war? Because humans and elves were "mortal enemies," so she worried she would be killed by humans?

How did she get those injuries? Was it really because she was an elf and was hunted down by humans who recognized her?

Mavis shook her head with a wry smile.

It was just a legend, could it really be true? Rather than believing this, it was more credible to think she was sick, with deformed ears, and was thus rejected and hunted as a monster.

After all, such ignorant villages still existed to this day.

She marked the page, put the book back under her pillow, and as she fell asleep, vaguely thought she should go to the pharmacy tomorrow. Sophia's medicine was running low.

Mavis always had a bad habit of putting things anywhere, since there were male servants at home to help organize, she didn't need to worry about these things.

Now she finally learned her lesson.

When she returned from the pharmacy the next day, she pushed open her bedroom door and saw Sophia holding the book from under her pillow, reading it.

On the open page, a crease was especially conspicuous.

Their eyes met.

Sophia dropped the book and immediately turned to jump out the window to escape. Mavis's brain hadn't reacted yet, but her body had already thrown down the medicine box in her hand and rushed forward, firmly grabbing Sophia’s hand: "It's just that your ears are a bit different, isn't it? I have a great-aunt with albinism! What's the big deal! I actually think yours look quite nice—"

Before she finished speaking, Sophia stopped running.

Mavis's brain caught up and she realized what she'd said.

Sophia wanted to run after seeing this book, what did that mean? She wasn't some deformed child at all. She was an elf, a legendary elf, and she ran because she thought she'd been exposed!

The two looked at each other for a moment. Mavis lowered her head: "I thought we were friends."

Sophia went still.

She gazed upon Mavis for a while and said: "Let go. I won't run anymore."

Mavis was afraid of triggering Sophia's wariness again and quickly let go: "Are you really an elf?"

"Uh-huh"

"What about your family? How did you end up lying alone in the forest, so badly injured?"

"My home... is in a very, very far away place."

Sophia turned her head to look out the window at the endless buildings and towers.

The city was like a stubborn scale, growing on this land, extending toward the misty distance.

← Previous Chapter Next Chapter →