Chapter 8 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 8 : The Nightingale's Past 04
"She said she came from the Esti Mountains, that she was lured out by a human—all for a pair of eyes."
Hearing this, Garcia suddenly stood up: "You're saying she was tricked away from here? Ten years ago!"
Mavis pressed her lips together and nodded.
"No wonder..." Garcia murmured, a look of sudden understanding crossing her face.
"What?"
"Nothing, please continue." Garcia sighed.
Mavis took a sip of water, her voice low and hoarse: "I originally thought elves were just a legend. I didn't expect that was only true for us ordinary people in small places."
"Sophia told me that the important people in the royal capital have always known of the elves' existence. That green gemstone called 'Resting Elf' embedded in Audrey III's crown isn't a mineral. It's the eye of an unfortunate elf."
"In the human world, elven eyes are the most precious gemstones. After being removed and specially processed, they become as hard as real gems while retaining a clarity that mineral gemstones can't match."
"Most importantly, they symbolize the enslavement and conquest of elves, a power beyond the scope of humanity. The king's crown is adorned with them, great nobles fervently pursue them underground, and a single elven gemstone can sell for an astronomical price."
Garcia shuddered. Lucita pressed her lips together.
Gouging out elven eyes, then trying various methods to process them... how many elves had to be killed before humans perfected such a “marvel”?
Lucita recalled that in the thin town chronicles at home, there was only one sentence about that period of history:
"Elves, merfolk, and even the remaining dragons were driven by the massively expanding humans in prehistoric times into the depths of the Esti Mountains."
For five hundred years, elves had lived in seclusion in the Esti Mountains. The history of widespread hunting must have occurred in prehistoric times.
It was said that the disaster five hundred years ago destroyed almost all of humanity's civilized heritage. Who would have thought that these great nobles' perverted hobbies could be passed down so completely. One couldn't call it anything but ironic.
Now that elves were rarely seen and not easy to kill, wouldn't they only become more and more precious?
"Oh, right—"
Mavis gave a cold laugh: "How did she know all this? She was sold by that con artist to a great noble. When I saw her in the forest outside Andas City that day, she had escaped from a great noble's dungeon. She'd been fleeing for a full half month and was at the end of her rope."
"I originally wanted to wait for her injuries to heal and send her home. What a pity."
Mavis gripped the cup tightly with both hands, looking down at the floating flower petals in the water.
The grace of a noble house lasts no more than five generations.
In September of 565, the Kingdom of Eaton, which had lasted nearly two hundred years, finally came to its end during the reign of its sixth monarch.
The legend of founding monarch Selina Eaton still shone in the history books. She fought her entire life, unified the nineteen cities of the south, established the Kingdom of Eaton, and formed a tripartite balance with the Spring Kingdom and the Kenting Kingdom. Each new monarch who ascended the throne would declare they would inherit the will of Selina I, but this country still inevitably declined.
By the time Audrey III came to power, the country was already tottering.
Perhaps without that great drought, Eaton could have lasted another twenty years, but there are no ifs in this world.
In years of famine, the upper classes still enjoyed themselves at various festivals and banquets. Great nobles paid enormous amounts of gold coins for a single elven gemstone. The king wanted to close off the mountains for hunting and drove out all the commoners foraging there, leaving them to starve to death at the foot of the mountains.
Until the enemy's iron hooves trampled through the city gates, some people were still flirting among their lovers in the mild intoxication of wine.
The fall of the city seemed to happen in a single day.
Mavis's home was also broken into. Her mother was stabbed to death before her eyes. Four or five soldiers surrounded her, revealing mocking expressions like cats toying with a mouse, closing in step by step.
Hatred? Fear?
Mavis couldn't distinguish what emotion filled her chest. She only knew to draw the one sword in the house—a sword never before used, inlaid with gems and silver thread—pointing the tip forward threateningly.
Mavis normally prided herself on being physically strong, but before these soldiers who had spent years in the military, a sixteen-year-old noble teenager was still too frail.
She held up that toy-like sword, which only elicited roaring laughter.
A tall, sturdy soldier walked over with a grin, about to snatch the sword from her hand. Mavis struck back with a slash, cutting a large gash in her outstretched arm. Skin and flesh curled open, thick blood flowing down the arm and dripping from the elbow.
The expressions of several soldiers changed instantly. That soldier was about to kick her, but Mavis rolled aside on the spot.
"Useless."
The lead sergeant, her face full of brutal features, spat at that soldier. She kicked Mavis in the chest, pinned her beneath her boot, wrenched the sword from her grasp, and raised it to strike.
Mavis closed her eyes tightly.
But that sword never fell. She opened her eyes to see Sophia gripping that sword, thrust deep into the sergeant's heart.
Sophia coldly withdrew the sword. The soldier's body crashed backward, her wide eyes still holding a trace of shock.
She swept her hair behind her ears and extended her blood-stained hand to Mavis.
In that moment, she overlapped perfectly with the blood-covered figure Mavis had first encountered in the forest.
Mavis grasped Sophia’s hand and stood. Before she could steady herself, vines burst from the floor, coiling tightly around the remaining soldiers.
The soldiers struggled with difficulty, desperately clawing at their necks with their hands. Their faces turned a sickly purple, making gasping sounds like fish struggling on a dried-up beach.
Gradually they stopped moving, falling in various poses in the living room.
Sophia withdrew the vines and turned to ask her: "Do you have anywhere to go?"
As expected, Mavis shook her head.
Sophia smiled and said: "Go to the Esti Mountains. There's a town there. The people are all very good. You will be safe living there."
Mavis instinctively asked: "What about you?"
Sophia paused: "I still have some things to do. I won't be going back for now."
Normally Mavis was quite tactful. Sophia thought that after saying this, she wouldn't ask any more.
In the past, this would indeed have been the case, but perhaps the shock she'd suffered was too great. As if unable to hear Sophia's unspoken meaning, Mavis gripped Sophia's sleeve tightly: "What are you going to do? Can I come?"
Sophia had no prepared response and was momentarily at a loss, only able to say: "I can't tell you. It's very dangerous."
Mavis said: "Are you going to the royal capital to take revenge on the people who captured you?"
Sophia nodded vaguely.
Mavis's mind worked quickly: "Take me with you. I can help you hide your identity. You don't have identification papers, how will you get into the royal capital? Fight your way in by yourself?"
Sophia didn't answer, pressed her lips together, and put on a very determined attitude.
Mavis took a step back: "All right then, can you at least help me find my uncle? It's not far, just at the viscount's house. I want to know how he is."
Sophia still didn't answer.
Mavis waited a moment, then dejectedly let go of Sophia's hand: "All right, then..."
"Fine." Sophia cut off her words, grabbed her arm, and headed outside.
Mavis followed behind her in a daze.
They encountered some soldiers on the road, but Sophia lashed them away with vines, and the way was unobstructed.
The viscount's front gate stood wide open, the courtyard in disarray. The two searched room by room and finally saw a corpse at the corner of the second-floor corridor.
This graceful, always elegant man, once the dream lover of countless women in Andas City, lay semi-undressed on the dark red corridor carpet, still clutching a crumpled sheet of music in his hand.
In a daze, Mavis remembered that this carpet had originally been ivory white.
Mavis's last hope was shattered. In a single day, her family had been destroyed and her loved ones lost.
She licked her dry lips and said: "I need to... I need to bury him..."
"There's no time." Sophia seemed exceptionally cold, grabbed her and left: "We go first. Any later and I'll die. If I die, you won't be able to get out of this city alone."
Sophia said this too calmly. For a moment Mavis didn't react and was simply dragged away by her.
"Sophia, Sophia, Soph... what are you talking about?" Mavis struggled and roared: "Explain yourself, why would you die!"
Sophia ignored her, detoured to the kitchen to gather some bread and stuffed it in her pockets. When her own pockets were full, she stuffed more into Mavis's, until neither of them could fit any more. Then she dragged Mavis out of the city without obstruction.
Sophia kept her vines out. Soldiers who were intimidated kept their lives, while those who charged forward with swords all suffocated on the spot. Vines and corpses piled up into a road leading out of the city.
From the moment she finished taking the food, Mavis stopped struggling and followed her in silence.
Because Sophia's condition looked truly terrible. She was trying hard to control her breathing, but her steps were as insubstantial and weak as sleepwalking, and an abnormal flush crept across her cheeks and neck.
Even with all her pain and confusion, facing Sophia in this state, she knew she couldn't cause trouble. Otherwise both of them might perish here.
Between life and death, she suddenly corrected a small linguistic error in her mind—not two people, but one person and one elf.
Mavis let out a laugh.
She followed behind Sophia, walking through the city streets as if on a tour.
Nobles and commoners who normally lived as if in two different worlds now lay dead together without distinction, scattered across the streets in all directions, their red blood mingling together.
Perhaps only at this moment were they truly like residents growing up in the same city.
Sophia brought her to the forest on the city outskirts where they had first met, and went no further.
This was only five miles from Andas City, still far from a safe zone, but Sophia couldn't walk any farther.
She braced herself against a dawn redwood and curled into a ball, trembling continuously.
"Sophia!"
Sophia pressed her forehead against the tree, her back to Mavis, gasping as she said: "Listen, Mavis. No matter what you see, don't be afraid. Follow me. We'll go to the Esti Mountains together, and you'll have a new life."
"What's wrong with you? What's happening? Are you sick?" Mavis asked incoherently: "How can I help you, Sophia? Tell me, just like at the beginning..."
She didn't continue.
Sophia had disappeared. A beautiful lake-blue nightingale stood on that white nightgown.
It was the same nightgown Sophia had worn while hiding at Mavis’s home. She had no other clothes.
The pockets still bulged with the white bread she stuffed in.
Mavis froze.
After a long silence, she said hoarsely: “Now it’s one person and one bird.”
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