Chapter 193 - The Way Back Home (XI)
The elder of the Elf folk do not look like an elder which is expected but seeing him fleeing with us means he is not part of the conspiracy of the other elf folks who gave chase to us.
"Are you sure you are not part of them?"
"They are part of the elf folk before but they no longer care anymore. In their case, they are on the descent to madness and from what I can tell, they cannot be saved anymore. They accepted the blood of the demons and have elected a new elder to lead them. The other elf folks that didn't want to become one were killed by the current elder of that place. I have evacuated everyone who is not part of the alliance of the demon by teleporting them out."
"No wonder they didn't hesitate to attack us after talking a few things," I mumbled.
"So it seems that the daughter of my daughter is the one you guys have with you?" he then pointed out the baby in Goro's arms.
"Huh? How did you know?" Goro was surprised.
"We elves have connections to our family so of course, anyone who is in our bloodline, we can easily detect if they are one of my family or not. We also know whether someone died from far away or not. I already know beforehand that my daughter is dead but she gave birth so I am also aware of her baby. I can detect her baby from the baby that you are carrying. I can also tell that the baby is a girl based on the mana that she releases in her body."
I silently agree with this guy and acknowledged him as the real deal. Aside from that, his face is resembling the Priestess once she grows up. Her resemblance to this elder is uncanny, It was like I am watching at her older male version of herself.
"May I see my granddaughter?"
Goro looked at me and is currently hesitant to do so. But I nodded to him, which means I am allowing the elf guy to see his granddaughter. Goro then removes the hood that is covering the baby and handed the baby to him. The old man receives the baby and just by looking at the baby, his tears slowly fell to his eyes.
"When my daughter was born in this world, she was also this small. And to think she died before me and leave her daughter helpless in this world."
He then looked at the Goro and to me with sincere eyes and handed back his granddaughter to us.
"I will entrust my granddaughter to you for now. If my granddaughter will be with us, she will also be caught up in the trouble I am facing and will be in danger. Please, help my granddaughter to grow up like a normal child."
"Why?" I asked.
"Due to the influence of the demons, it would be best to remove the influenced people from this world. They not only wanted to destroy Resurgia and the other continents but also let the demons ran rampant in this world. To make sure their plans will at least be delayed, I needed to kill them all even though it was like killing the people who were part of my family in the past."
I see. So if we accept this, he will be planning to fight against them and try to resolve this on his own. But for me, I don't accept this and just abandon him from the enemies. Also, this is not the time to just ignore the free exp killing the enemies.
"How about we help with this so that you won't be forced to kill your kin. We are humans and one of us is a goblin and we are not affiliated or connected in any way with the elf folks. This is a good way to stop you from at least tarnishing your hands from killing what you consider as kin."
"What? You people don't need to go that far for the elf folk. This is our problem and I don't plan to drag the other races in this war."
Dolly chimed in, not wanting
As he said that, every one of us received a notification to the questline.
[The Main Quest's description has been updated]
[The Way Back Home]
Info: The baby was successfully delivered to the elder of the elf folk, however, things were not as bright as they seemed to be. The elf folk tribe that was originally welcoming to people has been revealed to be converted to elves who are now influenced by the demons and are now part of the demon army. To reduce the threat and to erase the marks of the demon to the elf folk, you are given a task to eliminate the elf folk.
Warning: Due to the danger of this quest, it was heavily recommended to do it silently. Recommended to have a Saboteur at the party.
Objectives: Kill the acting leader: 0/1
Destroy the demon hearts located in the elf folk village: 0/10
Sabotage the Warning Bells: 0/5
Kill the Elf folks: 0/80
Warning: This is a very long quest. You might have to sacrifice your time in mundane tasks to finish the quest. The difficulty of the quest also increases every time an objective was completed.
Reward: ???
Increased hostility to demon folk supporting the demon lord and some NPCs.
Failure: The quest will begin an alternative way. The difficulty will be reduced but the rewards and the ending of the quest will be drastically different.
...
I didn't expect to see a familiar quest reward. Increasing the hostility of certain NPCs and demon folk. Honestly, this is a double edge quest. You never know which NPC will bear hostility to you once you have done this quest but due to the random chance, a friend NPC might go hostile to you after this so if you have done something like befriending the NPC before this quest but ended up finishing this, despite the influences and friend status an NPC has on you, once they increase their hostility, they will increase more instead.
"Is this safe to accept Bladeheart? One of the rewards is increased hostility to the demon folk and some NPC. I don't know which NPC it was but isn't this risky?" Dolly asked.
"A bit risky yes, but not to the point it was very hard to handle. However, it seems it was a job meant for me alone. You guys would have to sit on the sidelines on this one."
"I hate to admit it but I am into stealth at all. What is the point of doing stealth if you can just burn everything in flames and walk away as nothing happened?"
"Are you some kind of insane maniac who would just randomly throw a fireball to a village and burn it then call it a day?! Besides, I don't think you can even do that! You don't even shout "EXPLOSION!" You are not even Megu-" before Hagane can say anything, a fireball landed straight to his face.
I can only shake my head from their antics.
"Come on guys, be quiet when making some ruckus. We don't want enemies to come out. Also, please keep your eye on the road, Dolly. I know you know how to ride a horse since you were a kid and were already expert on it but remember that you are also pulling a cart with you."
"I know, I know. I won't do it again," Dolly muttered
The elder elf sighed from all the ruckus we are making but he didn't stop us. Once we quieted down, he started speaking again.
"Alright. Since you are all willing to help me with the task, I will be giving brief info about the situation. Getting inside blindly will automatically kill you. That is why I suggested a Saboteur. However, none of you guys is a saboteur at all. Most of you are all combatants and one healer."
"Actually, I can become a Saboteur. I am a Versatile."
"Oh, a Versatile Class. Interesting. Then, in short, you are the one who will be handling my quest?"
"Yes. None of the others are capable of changing classes easily. I am also well versed on how a Saboteur works so you don't have to worry if I mess up."
"Well, that is good to know. Let's get into the camp where we are grouped. I made sure to layer the place with magic to avoid detection from anyone. So if you guys needed to get in, please follow my directions so that we won't get lost."
...
After a few in-game hours, we finally arrived on a huge rock in the mountain a bit farther than the elf folk village.
"Here we are," he said before snapping his fingers. The moment he did, the rock disappeared and the mountain became a forest, and there, a few small cabins were erected. You can say it was a mini village with a poorly created house at the moment.
"Welcome to the temporary refuge are of the elves who have not joined the demon lord."