Olive was the oldest elf in their village.

He was old enough to remember the times before the Fruit Salad kingdom was even established.

Yet, just as it was for all the elves, despite his age, he still looked like he was in his late twenties.

He was both old and smart enough to not want to become the leader of the village, hidden away deep in the forests of the Envys territory, so one thing lead to another and he ended up on guard duty.

It was fine, he even enjoyed it...

...until the point in time when the village elder decided to pair him with a hotheaded youngster under the pretense of training the elf who barely reached adulthood.

The guard duty itself was a relatively easy but very important job.

All the people that would come to the forest were supposed to be monitored, and in case they got anywhere near their village, the guard's duty was to use spells to confuse them and lead them away without being noticed.

That plan was almost flawless.

The main point was to not use the spells directly on humans - in case their MDF was really high - but to create mirages and optic illusions to distract them without alarming them to the elven presence.

Such a solution was perfect for Olive since he wasn't a good fighter to begin with, but when it comes to pranks like that, he was definitely the best one to pick from amongst their entire community.

Thanks to that, the elves living on the Envys land managed to stay hidden away through the centuries right under the noses of their enemies.

Well, in that case, why was the plan almost perfect and not perfect?

Since the elf-hunting groups were appearing around their forest more often, the village elder who was Olive's junior, assigned him a helper.

Yes, the already mentioned, hot-headed youngster.

The village elder did that despite Olive's numerous protests and threats about not cooking her dinner anymore.

That's how the old elf ended up teaching a rash young elven archer, who apparently listened to too many stories about the adventurers and great battles and had his head full of the most reckless stunts.

Olive went and used his illusion spells to test the new guy a few times already.

He created the mirages of different humans approaching from different directions.

Every time the outcome was the same!

The youngling shot a warning shot at the illusion...!

A warning shot!

Warning! Shot!

Something that was supposed to be used only when a foreign elf was approaching!

And when just the day before, Olive created a mirage of a black-haired elf, as another test, the kid instantly got out of hiding and approached it INSTEAD of shooting a warning shot...!

The worst fear of the old elf became the truth.

He wasn't teaching a new guard, he was just babysitting a trouble-child.

It was the worst!

...or so Olive thought...

Because the next five minutes proved to be even worse than the actual worst thing he lived through - the suffering he faced while running from the tyrant elven emperor, the venomancer, many hundreds of years before.

...

He was just returning from answering the call of nature.

"...the fuck...?"

The first sign of trouble that he noticed was the absence of the young elf.

That kid simply couldn't sit still for more than five minutes, how come he had enough patience for carefully aiming at the target was already beyond Olive's comprehension.

"Now... where this little fucker went..."

Olive sighed and pulled back his long blond hair, freeing his long pointy ears.

He closed his eyes and used a detection skill.

His ears began glowing and his overpowered skill let him pinpoint the location of his protégé.

Olive could hear everything, even the things that humans were unable to ever perceive.

The life of the plants, the heartbeat of nature...

...the fast heartbeat and held back breath of the idiotic young elf that was pulling the bowstring while using a skill aiming at some adventurers and two monsters by the forest entrance....!

"THAT FUCKING IDIOT...!"

Olive's own voice that he couldn't hold back, almost caused him to go deaf.

Without deactivating the detection skill, the old elf opened his eyes and dashed madly using every body strengthening skill he knew.

He had to stop the hot-blooded cretin at all cost.

While still being a good mile away, Olive was already using his illusion skills, not on the people and beasts by the entrance, but on the other elf to distract him.

"Haa... Have you tried asking them whether a foreign elf showed up here around yesterday or not?"

Olive shuddered when he heard the stronger of two monsters speak up in a human voice.

"...the fuck... they are looking for their companion?!"

But as he heard the continuation of the talk - while still running and doing his best to reach the young elf who stubbornly ignored him - Olive realized that the people out there were not their enemies...

But then the bowstring sung and the arrow disturbed the airflow of the forest, aimed at the monster-like human.

...they weren't the enemies, and yet that fool of a youngster attacked them...!

What Olive hated more than being responsible for giving orders, was wasting the lives of potential alli...

*cling*

"...huh...?"

The certain-kill arrow got blocked like it was nothing.

Olive stopped in his track, feeling as if a pound of ice-cold metal was dumped into his stomach.

That sound...

Did he miscalculated...?

The female wasn't the stronger one amongst the two monsters after all...?

The next thing he heard, was the mana stirring up and gathering in the body of the defense-oriented beast...

And all of a sudden, every plant screamed in absolute terror.

Olive's first reaction was to fall on the ground and hide his head.

The next thing he heard was the sound of some liquid roaring like a raging waterfall and piercing through the treetops, spraying death all around.

Within seconds, countless animals, insects, and plants died without being able to even cry for help.

In his overwhelming panic, Olive didn't deactivate his detection skill and his ears became filled with the disgusting, nauseating sounds of rapidly decomposing organic matter.

The poison instantly killed everything it touched.

But it didn't stop there, it was soaking through the ground as if hungrily searching for the roots of the plants to kill more living things, as if it was a conscious bloodthirsty organism.

Once the position got a hold of the earth, it reached for the skies.

The deadly vapors that were released from anything touched by the liquid became airborne and were carried by the wind, knocking the birds and winged bugs out of the sky, and poisoning even more plants.

There was only one thing that could have caused that.

And Olive was fully aware of it what it was.

Soul devouring venom.

"Veno... mancer... has returned...!"

The old elf shook as if he got seizures.

He needed to run.

He had to run.

There was no time to be shedding tears for the nature nor the fallen youngling.

Olive had to warn everyone back in the village.

The elves cannot fall under the venomancer's rule ever again...!

Even being captured by the Envy family was a better outcome.

In his fear, Olive didn't even account for the fact that the owner of the venomancer title may not be an elf to begin with, nor that the new venomancer might not be interested in elves at all.

The terror that the ancient elven emperor instilled in Olive so many centuries ago all resurfaced at the same time and allowed the old elf to get off the ground and pushed him towards the hidden entrance to the village.

He has to save his brethren...!

This time, he can't fail...!

Not caring for conserving any strength, Olive used all of his available mana to create the most powerful illusions he could to stop the new venomancer from approaching.

Unbelievably strong monsters that could actually pass the mental damage as the physical one.

Walls of trees so durable that not even real battering rams constructed for leveling castle walls would be able to scratch them.

An endless maze that couldn't be traversed and had no exit.

And finally, numerous clones of himself and other elves so detailed that no living being could perceive the difference with any of their senses.

Olive did the exact same thing that used to shamefully run away from the pursuit of the ancient emperor.

He did all the things that let him successfully escape the venomancer's grasp in the past, and even added a few new tricks that he had picked up during his long life.

For a second, he thought he has a chance...

...but then, even without having to rely on his detection skill, he heard a vengeful roar filled with concentrated hatred towards every living being.

"GRAOUGH!"

The roar of an undead...!

The illusions of monsters got ripped to shreds.

The invincible walls were broken through.

The maze got brought down.

The numerous copies got ignored as if they didn't even exist in the first place.

Olive didn't even manage to glance back at the impending terror spreading even more venomous death all over his beloved forest that sheltered the elves for centuries.

The next thing that the ancient elf knew, a cold hand got a hold of his back and he got smashed into the ground causing the soil around him to violently erupt.

"!!!"

With his mouth full of dirt, Olive couldn't even curse nor beg for mercy.

But even if he was brought down, he didn't intend to just get himself get defeated so easily!

Even if his specialty was the illusion spells, his status points and even his weakest skill should be significantly stronger than the average high-level player's of the modern era.

Getting smashed against the ground, although painful, didn't cause much harm...