“No, Andion. There’s no reason for you to apologize. The ones who should be apologizing are those who barged into someone else’s castle without an invitation.”
Karia sought agreement with a subtle, “Isn’t that so?” but the terrified elves couldn’t respond. Still, every foolish group has a leader. The only elf who hadn’t hidden a defiant glare toward Karia, Berry Wise, shouted at her with a heart full of anger.
“You wicked sorceress! What purpose do you have invading our peaceful forest…?! Guh!”
Instead of an answer, he got slapped across the face. Karia, her face calm but her voice low, ominous, and threatening, warned Berry as he clutched his cheek in shock.
“I ask the questions. If you don’t want to die, you’ll just stay quiet and answer.”
There was no atmosphere for arguing, “How can we answer if we stay quiet?”
She touched her forehead as if the rising anger gave her a headache, then gestured to the air. Sparkling dust rose, and the ground, once plain stone, shot up to form a chair.
The elves stared in awe at the sight. Some, a few mindless ones, even muttered a casual “Wow.”
“First, let’s hear why you tried to set fire to someone else’s castle.”
“Someone else’s castle? This is our forest!”
“‘Your forest’? Since when?”
Berry, his red eyes blazing, tried to retort but didn’t notice that his tone had shifted into formal speech. Karia looked closely at the youthful elf and spoke of the last agreement she remembered.
“About eight hundred years ago, when humans united the continent into one empire, they made an agreement with the elves as well. Respect each other’s territories and do not invade. And if my memory serves, my castle was definitely built on human land.”
“Th-That… was an ancient promise, wasn’t it? The parties involved are long gone, so why should we uphold it?”
“Gone? Has the Castaros Empire fallen? Or have the elves gone extinct? A pledge made between groups doesn’t dissolve just because the signatories die. Doesn’t the wise family of apple trees know that?”
Truly, such a selfish race, thinking only of themselves.
Berry’s face burned as red as his hair in embarrassment. Karia’s logic was undeniable.
Even if the sorcerers had disappeared centuries ago and the elves from that time had all passed on, their intrusion could rightfully be called an invasion.
Justice was with the sorceress standing before them, not those who had set fire to her castle.
“Still, it’s a forest we’ve nurtured for hundreds of years—”
“So you set my castle on fire to show off?”
“That’s—! That’s because you kidnapped and imprisoned our child! Don’t play innocent; we confirmed that Red disappeared in front of here!”
Berry suddenly remembered Red, the weakest and clumsiest elf of the tribe, still a child to protect. The Apple Tree Clan had searched the forest for the missing Red and found Andion.
Seeing him still glaring and full of hostility, Karia frowned.
“Red?”
That name didn’t exist in her memory.
Karia, puzzled, rubbed her chin while Andion quietly approached and whispered in her ear.
“That foolish half-breed who snuck into the castle before—that’s his name.”
“Ah… that one.”
“Foolish half-breed? He’s still young!”
Berry, feeling a hint of conscience, couldn’t call Red clever. But while he could see Red’s flaws, he couldn’t let others speak ill of him.
Even if Red’s stubbornness hadn’t led him to the castle, the entire tribe might have avoided this humiliation!
“But kidnapping? I have no hobby of keeping such a noisy fool around. He came into my castle on his own, and I simply followed procedure. You shoot outsiders near your village too, don’t you?”
“P-Procedure?! Then you didn’t… Red…”
Berry’s face turned pale as he trembled, but Andion calmly confirmed, “He’s still alive.”
Not just alive—“still alive”? Sorcerers are known for enjoying torture…
Karia watched the elves, imagining all sorts of things as they fussed over possibilities, and thought.
“Elves care deeply for their own kind. They risked everything to save one brat and yet worry rather than resent…”
Karia smiled, satisfied at the thought that the elf she had locked in the underground prison might actually be useful.
She ordered Andion to bring Red, and soon a bright-red elf appeared, wearing a vivid red collar.
However, he looked healthier than the elves expected. His cheeks glowed, his skin shiny and plump, and he showed no sign of fatigue, seemingly well-rested.
He even walked holding hands with a little girl, casually biting into an apple.
“Mom!”
At that moment, Alice spotted Karia and ran with all her might. Red couldn’t resist her strength and was dragged along by her small hands.
“Mom, Alice took good care of the big-eared one. We even crunched apples together.”
“Is that so? You’re good, Alice.”
“Red!”
“-Berry? Tongue… uhk!”
Suddenly falling and being dragged across the ground, Red rose with a face full of indignation and dusted himself off.
When he looked up, he saw Berry and the other elves kneeling. He immediately wanted to rush to his family, but the leash around his neck stopped him.
Andion, with a detached expression, held the leash as if he didn’t care about any tearful reunion.
Berry, seeing Red unharmed, pleaded with a face on the verge of tears.
“Please, sorceress, return Red! He is our precious child!”
“-I haven’t even said I’ll release you little ones yet.”
Did they really expect things to end smoothly after invading her castle and setting fires? Karia could only shake her head at their audacity.
Honestly, she didn’t want to deal with these long-eared pests, but time was short, and she had a perfect reason to use them. They knew the forest like the back of their hands and were a sizable group of servants.
“As a practical alchemist, how could I waste this opportunity?”
Karia took a deep breath to control her anger.
“I’ll give you a mission. Find the Starflower from the Dawn Lake, the ice from the Unmelted Lake, the Silver Bellflower on the waterfall cliff, the pure water of the untouched Goddess Spring, and the blue moss of the Mist Garden. Search the entire forest; if you can’t find them, create them. Do this, and I’ll spare your lives and return the brat Red to you.”
These were the ingredients that could be found in the forest. There were others, but she would make those herself through alchemy.
If the elves brought back these items on time, it would drastically shorten her time to make the elixir.
Karia considered this a fair deal. She was forgiving them for setting fire to her castle. However, the elves’ reactions were odd.
“Starflower from the Dawn Lake? What’s that?”
“Mist Garden? Where is that?”
Ah… Karia had overlooked that in the centuries since sorcerers disappeared and alchemy ceased, all the old names had vanished among the elves.
Seeing the elves tilt their heads in confusion, she lamented how peace had led to the decline of their knowledge.
“Andion, explain the ingredients to them and send them off. I need a rest.”
“Yes, mistress.”
She left the situation to Andion and entered the castle, taking the leash of Red. The little elf’s eyes, dragged like a dog, remained sorrowfully on his siblings.
“M-M-Mistress… can I go with my siblings to find those weird plants too?”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
Red knew enough to understand she had taken him as a hostage. He realized that only by staying here would his siblings go search diligently.
But knowing all this happened because of him, he felt uneasy waiting comfortably and wanted to do something to relieve the guilt.
“I’ll do my best, please.”
Karia, however, interpreted his plea differently. Muttering “pesky brat,” she turned her head to nothing in particular and sighed deeply.
Then she reached toward Red.
Startled, he shrank his shoulders and closed his eyes tightly, expecting a strike, but instead she gently stroked his head.
“I won’t hurt you.”
It was the first kind voice he had heard from her.
“Until your siblings come back with what I asked, that foolish ‘torture’ or any painful things won’t happen. Relax, little one.”
