Volume 2, Chapter 8: Assassins and Blackheart

Discourse #11

Oh yes, before I continue with my story, I am afraid I shall have to do another discourse, seeing that it is quite relevant in regards to my story.

Dark elves—they are a race of dark-skinned humanoids, whose skin tones range from grey, black, and the rare purple. If disregarding their skin color, the only other distinguishable trait they have that differ from humans are their long pointed ears, which jut outward to the sides.

These dark elves can be seen roaming around the various human kingdoms in the human lands, creating a bad reputation for themselves, since most of them are raiders.

They are worse than goblins—stronger and more cunning. But taken collectively, they cannot measure up against the population of the widespread goblins.

This race of dark-skinned humanoids have long been a curiosity of mine. By that, I mean to say that dark elves are a mysterious race. And though I have done some extensive research on them during my past human life, the only information I learned came from wild tales and other accounts.

One such tale I had heard from a traveler and from reading excerpts and treatises on the dark elves was that their main population was somewhere along the south-eastern mountain ranges.

Thus, it was quite intriguing to see these dark elves in the western part of the central area of the continent, in Shail Kingdom, my birthplace. Of course, they are also found in many other human kingdoms, and are usually blights upon these kingdoms, raiding small villages and towns.

I have no doubt that you know this basic fact already, but let me state the obvious.

The human lands, which encompass the southern part of Valian continent, is divided into three regions: southern, central, and northern.

My birthplace, Shail Kingdom, is located near the somewhat unexplored far western area of the central region, bordering the ocean with its western boundary.

Oh yes, by the way, having reincarnated into a dragon has given me a new perspective on my previous race.

That is to say—humans are quite numerous.

Yes, I know, it's not exactly the most elegant of observations, but it is undeniably true. There are countless human kingdoms in the southern Valian continent, so numerous that humans pretty much have dominance over the other races in this area of the continent.

The only race that would come close to dominance in the southern Valian continent would be the goblins, whose numbers come close to matching the humans.

The reason why I am discoursing on dark elves with you now, Marius, is because I had not known back then that my ties with this dark-skinned race would deepen irrevocably.

Indeed, I would know more about dark elves than any outsiders would have the privilege to know.

Now then, shall we get back to my story?

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{291 Days Remaining}

At this moment, I was in the middle of a stretch of forest to the north of the frontier town of Listace. This area was where the supposed forty or so dark elf raiders were last seen heading to. The size of the forest seemed large enough to hide those numbers too.

And despite my somewhat okay tracking skills, I still could not find any signs of the dark elf raiders in this forest. It was as if they had erased their trails, and quite proficiently at that too.

I was beginning to regret coming alone as the sole scout to search out this stretch of forest, where beyond it would lead to the northern plains.

The forest floor felt soft under my booted feet, its soft verdant turf making for easy footfalls. I made my way across the forest for a longer moment, searching for any tracks of those raiders. But try as I might, I could not find any hint that the dark elf raiders had come here. I was beginning to believe that the town chief had been wrong, having pointed toward a mistaken direction. Or perhaps the chief had been subtly lying to me, having been threatened by the dark elves. Or perhaps he was secretly working along with those dark elves. These were some ideas that came up in my mind as I searched the forest.

Some more minutes passed by, and I was about to conclude my scouting a failure, when I noticed the cave. To any casual observers, the entrance of the cave would have only registered as foliage and heavy vegetation.

But right away, I noticed something was wrong. There was a purposeful feel to the foliage and heavy vegetation. On a closer look, I also noticed that the green hidden entrance, behind which I assumed was a cave, gave out a faint blue sheen.

Unmistakable. The sheen was from magic—a blue colored magic.

I could feel a sense of uneasiness looking at the foliage, making me want to turn away from this part of the forest, as if the entrance was nothing more than a wild growth of vines and plants. It was as if there was a subtle nudging on my mind, telling me to avoid this area of the forest. I knew then that this was most likely the hideout of those dark elf raiders.

I crouched slightly, and started a cautious pass, checking my immediate surroundings. I moved behind a large tree, which could have hid a thousand things.

I felt suspicion...it was strange that there was no one around here. The place felt quiet. Too quiet.

Then I felt a jolt on the back of my skull. I immediately turned around, but before I could even see my attacker, the ground beneath my feet exploded. I was thrown more than four feet into the air, and landed on top of a moss-covered tree root with a hard thud, the air exploding painfully out of my lungs.

I recovered instantly. The hardness of my skin, even in human form, after all, was no laughing matter. It would take more than that to injure me. The impact of the explosion, though, had left me a little disoriented.

I stood up and cleared myself of the leaves and dirt covering my black steel armor. Then I looked toward the direction where the arrow had been shot from.

Nothing. There was no one there; just a stretch of tall trees, all of them looking undisturbed. I could not sense the presence of anyone here. The area had returned to its unnaturally quiet state, which was out of place in a forest.

Strange, I thought to myself. Was this perhaps the work of that assassin earlier this afternoon?

I paused in the middle of the step I was about to take, stopped by the strange singing pervading the air. The lyrics were sung by an odd voice, coldly sensual and strangely feminine.

The voice was not human...neither was it in any recognizable language I knew. The only reason I understood this mystifying language was due to a dragon's gift for comprehending any spoken language.

“O, my love, love, love. Do you not notice what I feel for you?”

“Your lips quivering, my heart shaking. I still remember the moment we met.”

“The first time I stabbed you, the first time I felt your sweet blood run down my face.”

“The first time we kissed; I still remember the sweet taste.”

“O, my love, love, love. Do you not notice what I feel for you?”

“I swore to the night sky, that these hands of mine will forever hold you,”

“That my love will last forever, that you would never part from me.”

“Yes...even if Death bars my way. Yes...even if I have to preserve you...”

At the end of the song, the woman walking toward me let out a mad giggle. A huge bow was strapped behind her back, and the top end of a quiver jutted outward from behind her right shoulder.

I stared at the strange sight that was her—my attacker. She wore a revealing attire, silky, skimpy-looking clothing that barely covered her bared body. Her pale, long legs were covered only by the barest of thin strips of golden wrappings. On each side of her forehead, two long horns traveled outward, each of the two curving in reverse directions.

Her long hair, which reached toward her thin, elegant waist, was of an unnatural color—a silvery blue that glowed even in the forest bathed by the few rays of light that managed to penetrate through the canopies.

In her right hand, the four-horned female humanoid held the head of a dark elf. Blood dripped down in an easy, steady flow, suggesting that the head had only been recently beheaded. A look of frozen terror was on the face of this male head.

As the female humanoid walked toward me in slow, graceful strides, all of my senses and my gift for sensing danger screamed at me to run away from this presence.

But I could not tear myself away from the inhumanely beautiful sight that was her. I was rooted to the spot, as if frozen in a moment of time.

Emotions churned inside me as the female apparition walked closer and closer toward me. But for the life of me, I could not discern these powerful feelings, having never felt the full brunt of them.

Then it hit me.

I was feeling fear. A cold, hard fear that settled at the pit of my stomach. It even cut through my dampened emotional capacity.

From this four-horned apparition, I felt a riptide of bloodlust, mixed with an ocean wave of ancient something—I could not discern it. Her emotions were a ferocious, foreign torrent battering at me.

The apparition came closer.

But I could not move. I could not even summon my magic, nor could I even begin to imagine fleeing, or even attacking her.

Finally, the four-horned female humanoid and I were face to face.

She drew a long fingernail toward a side of my face, tracing it around my cheek, until it reached my jaw.

“You,” she said in her mystifying language, “are not human. Nor, it seems, are you a dark elf. How curious.”

I battled for control of my body harder, fighting against the freezing and pressing feeling bearing down on me. Somehow, I managed to speak.

“What are you?” I said in a weak and whispered voice, barely managing to spit out the sentence.

My sentence caused a small surprise to be shown on her face, as if she had not been expecting me to speak.

“Impressive that you managed to weaken my hold on you, even if it was only slightly. Though I find it more impressive that you can speak the same language as I can.”

Then the female apparition leaned into me, her soft lips pressing against my own lips. We were together for just a merest fraction of a second, before the horned female darted backward, a cry of agony resounding from her mouth.

She regained her composure almost instantly afterward though, and turned her golden eyes toward my own emerald eyes.

“It seems that you are marked...” she said in a calm voice, expressing no anger or surprise at the pain she had felt previously.

“Marked?” I croaked out weakly.

“Tell me, do you notice what I am feeling right now?” she asked in her strange, calm voice, entirely ignoring my question.

I thought hard upon her question. Naturally, one would assume anger or perhaps even annoyance since she had cried out in agony from kissing me. But I trusted my observation.

I could, after all, sense that she was a little curious about me. After all, curiosity was a long-time lover and friend of mine, one of the few emotions I could truly feel and know about thoroughly.

“Curiosity,” I answered.

Hearing my answer, the woman gave out a short laughter that trilled vibrantly. “Hmm...it seems you are able to notice what I feel for you. How interesting.” The female apparition stared into my eyes intensely. “Know this as I depart, my love. Your answer has spared your life.”

Then she turned her bared back to me and continued, “Oh yes, it also seems like you have company. Do be wary.”

With that warning, the female apparition disappeared.

And along with her disappearance, I felt the hold on my body break free.

I soon heard the footfalls, the crackles of leaves which could have only been caused by a group of humans or humanoids walking. Then from the corner of the trees, a group of dark elves appeared.

That was the last clear vision I had before I fell down onto the forest floor from weakness. Then a final blurry vision of the decapitated head of a dark elf, which the female apparition had been carrying around, was seen.

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When I regained consciousness, I found myself tied to the trunk of a small tree. Inspecting myself, I found that my weapon and armor had been stripped from me. Thankfully, I had not been stripped naked; the black clothing the eldest had created for me had been left alone.

Looking around, I saw women and children, whom I assumed were the kidnapped victims of the town. I could also tell that I was outside of the forest, most likely at the other side from whence I had entered.

The women and children of the town were not tied to trees like I was. Instead, they were huddled around in six large groups with four dark elf raiders assigned to each group.

Out of the dark elves who were not on guard duty, a dark elf woman came walking toward the spot where I was bounded. Even walking normally, I could observe the litheness and natural grace to her gait.

“I must ask you a question...human. How would you like to die?” she said in a sibilant voice.

Well, that was quite direct, I thought to myself. How amusing that she assumed right away that I was the one who decapitated that dark elf, whom had most likely been a scout. I could, however, see where she was coming from. The evidence, after all, pointed all toward me.

I answered the pretty dark elf woman in a calm voice.

“By your dainty hands, of course.”

“Hah! I admire your composure, human. Make sure to hold onto it while I break you. You shall soon know the meaning of why I am known as Blackheart.”

I did not reply to the woman as I was somewhat relieved that the dark elves had done nothing except carried me here while I had been unconscious.

“No more words, eh?” she said mockingly. She made a small shrug with her shoulders, causing her metal pauldrons to move along with the motion. “No matter, you shall soon be singing words to me.”

Silence was my only reply to her small speech. I was calmly observing the situation I was in, for I could not act too rashly and create unneeded casualties. Thus, I would bide my time for now and await Blackheart's next move, though I had a hint of what she was going to do next.

Blackheart unsheathed a small dagger form her waist and twirled it around with her right hand.

I watched this circular motion indifferently as I listened to the dark elf speak in a low, threatening voice.

“Do you know, my sweet, that humans are social creatures?” Blackheart whispered while continuing to play with the dagger in her hand.

“For example, if I do this!”

The dark elf suddenly stopped twirling her dagger and threw it toward the nearest group of humans. The weapon struck a woman in her back, eliciting a cry of agony from her.

The spectacle of the human woman slumped down on the ground and moaning in pain caused the other dark elves to laugh gleefully.

“Do you see what I mean now, human soldier?' Blackheart continued speaking without even looking backward to see what she had instigated. “Do you not hear those sympathetic, human cries?”

As she said this, my face remained blank and impassive. Her cold cruelty toward the human woman in an attempt to frighten me had barely affected my emotional state. I was not the slightest bit distraught. It was just another reminder of my changed humanity, not that I had one in the beginning even before my reincarnation, looking at it from a somewhat ironic perspective.

“How unusual...you do not seem to be the slightest bit fazed, soldier. Perhaps you are too used to seeing bloodshed?”

Hearing that somehow made me remember one of the sayings of the Shail Kingdom military, which had been common sense to me when I was a human in this kingdom.

How did it go again?

'Death is lighter than a feather, but duty is heavier than a mountain. So you better do your damnedest best doing your duty so that you can hope for a light death.'

Yes, I believe that was how it went.

This saying, however, did not apply to me. And my patience was growing short. I would like to think, in some misguided, feigned humane notion of mine, that the cause of this shortage was due to a human woman bleeding to death in front of me...but reality was not kind.

I realized that nothing good would come from waiting; this was the true reason why my patience had been cut short.

“I grow short of this farce, dark elf.”

Even with my weapon and armor confiscated from me, even with my whole body tightly bound by thick ropes to the tree, I still easily broke free of my restraints. The ropes had dug deeply into my skin with my breaking free, but I felt no pain. No marks had marred my seemingly weak human skin either.

Before the dark elf named Blackheart could even form a surprised face, my right hand had already found her slim throat. Then I gripped hard, crushing her windpipe. I released my death grip on her and the dark elf woman slumped down onto the ground. Then I quickly sprinted toward the nearest dark elf raider after looting her sword, leaving the woman known as Blackheart to await death as her breath slowly slipped away.

This was how the first of my many kills went as I began my methodical slaughter of the dark elf raiders. The looted sword in my right hand became a tool of death, and the screams of the dark elf raiders only confirmed my assertion.

I was merciful in my slaughter, however, giving each dark elf raider only one deathstroke. It did not mattered even if five of the raiders grouped up against me at the same time—only one well-aimed slash from my looted sword, and the dark elf was dead or dying.

Then the inevitable thing happened.

After finally killing ten or so of the dark elves, the remaining ones got the bright idea that taking some of the human women and children hostage would cease my slaughtering. But I knew for a fact that it would be folly to give in to their demands, for once I stopped, the vengeance of these raiders would be swift and cruel.

The personality of Blackheart, who was a mere corpse now, could attest to that.

Casualties occurred.

I could not change this result. I was not an all-powerful being. And even if I had used my magic and went all out, casualties would still occur. And if I had transformed into a dragon...well, let me just say that there would be puddles of blood instead of intact corpses on the ground.

The reason the casualties happened was because the dark elves were sure that I would stop dead in my track if they killed some of the hostages. To their dismay and to my indifference, I only continued killing them mercilessly, perhaps even quicker, since I was a little motivated.

What also contributed to the casualties were the mentality of the dark elves who knew they were in their last living moments. It was a take-everyone-with-you-to-your-death sort of mentality. And I suppose I could sympathize with them a little for that.

By the time I was finished, I counted the bodies of twenty-two dark elves and thirteen human casualties, a few of them children. Some of the dark elves also had ran away, fleeing from fear. Plus, it was the sensible act to do in the face of greater power. I could not chase those few who had fled, for I was reluctant to abandon the human hostages, as there were still other dark elves alive who had chosen to stay and fight.

The slaughter and the personalities of the dark elves, for some reason, reminded me of the incident with the lich. To be specific, it reminded me of the incident where I had been almost killed and the appearance of the voice slicked with pure darkness who had called himself my other self. Strange that I would think of this incident in such a place as this, but I put it out of my mind. I had a task to focus on still.

I searched a while for my longsword and my black armor. It took a while, but I finally found my longsword underneath a dirt-covered cloth near a campsite, where a campfire was still in its preparation stages; kindling, tinder, and wood logs. Such and such.

It seemed to me that the dark elves were already preparing for the night, and at the moment, the sun was beginning to set. Night was rearing its dark head.

My armor, though, I never found.

Strapping the longsword to my waist, I looked around and could see that a majority of the human women and children were huddling together in fear. Only a few had relieved looks in seeing themselves rescued from the dark elves by a strange white-haired man—me.

I tried to appear as unimposing as I could, my hands spread out in a calming gesture and my outward pose took a nonthreatening stance. The truth of my appearance, however, could not be covered. The blood stains on my clothing and my slightly glistening scarlet hands could not be hidden. They were in plain sight.

I realized then that I was quite foolish and that I should have just stuck to appearing commanding, calm, and imposing; the ideal image of a soldier, I suppose.

I cleared my throat loudly, catching their attention. My voice was the embodiment of calmness as I spoke.

“I am Verath, the commander of the squadron of soldiers who have come here to subjugate the dark elves and help out your town. Let me be blunt. Rid your fear and stand up, for there are still some dark elves left. By my count, I have only slain twenty-two of these dark elf raiders, so I am pretty sure there are more left, even if we do not count the ones who fled.”

I waited a second or two for my speech to sink in before continuing. Then I bluntly said, “Now then, I would like for the adults to each gather a weapon from the dark elves and any items that were stolen by them.” I paused for another short moment before continuing. “Any questions?”

A small girl who looked around seven or eight raised her trembling hand.

“Yes?”

Her small lips were quivering as she spoke in a tremulous, soft voice. “Mommy's...dead.”

Two words said in a whisper I could barely hear. That was all it took to make me lose my words. I calmly looked at the small black-haired girl, who had burst into tears at the end of her sentence. She was standing timidly beside the fallen body of her mother.

The small girl did nothing. She only stood there crying.

I felt—

What was it? Was it regret? No, it was not exactly that. Yes, it was more like sympathy.

Call me a hypocritical, cold bastard, but somehow I felt more sympathy for this little girl,whom I did not even know, than for all the human lives I have taken. It was almost close to how I felt when my human father and human life had been taken from me.

“I am...sorry.”

I do not know why I apologized to the small girl, for the three words were useless—they would never bring back her mother back.

A woman nearby finally obtained the courage to shake herself out of her fear and hug the child, softly shushing her in a small, placating voice.

Rain would have been perfect at the moment then, for the girl had set into motion a chain of crying women and children.

Indeed, rain would have been a perfect guise for the sadness. It would have certainly helped, for the atmosphere of loss had the power to even cut through to my dampened emotional capacity.

I could never cry, though. Nor could I ever feel such sadness as these humans. My mind just did not have the capacity for it. Even as a baby or a child, I had been told that I was unnatural, for I did not even cry during birth.

Quiet, too quiet.

Tears were so unfair...

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By the time I found my way out of the forest and arrived back at the frontier town of Listace, it was night and the twin moons, Seli and Vali, were shining brightly overhead.

The men of the town and other women and children ran out to greet the arrivals behind me. The atmosphere became mixed with joy and sadness.

On the other side, my squadron of soldiers greeted me and asked for details of what had occurred. I did not embellish my tale and only bluntly told them that I had killed twenty-two dark elves (I did not tell them of my meeting with the four-horned female though). It also had been an easy feat to make up a small, believable lie as to how I had fainted.

Simple, really. A dark elf had sneaked up on me and knocked me unconscious.

At first, my squadron did not really believe that I had faced off twenty-two dark elves, but the evidence and witnesses clearly told otherwise.

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My squadron and I stayed at the frontier town for one more week, combing the nearby areas and forests for dark elves.

We killed seven raiders in that time.

As for the other remaining dark elves, we found their dead bodies in a strange area of the forest where the ground looked to be upturned, as if something monstrous had erupted from the ground. All the soldiers agreed that the bodies were days old and had been killed cruelly. Decapitations, that is to say.

Only I knew the truth of the matter: it had been the work of that four-horned woman.

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{280 Days Remaining}

Our journey back to city of Asolance took three days as our pace was a little slower on the return trip; we had, after all, time to relax since our pressing quest had been finished.

Although the reason the journey took longer was partly due to our slow pace and needs to relax ourselves, the real reason was because it rained for the most of the three days we were traveling.

Funny how Lady Fate, or was it the whores of fate—the stories and books I had heard and read were quite varied on this—decided that it should rain on our return trip.

An assassin also attacked me on the second day of our journey. This time, however, the assassin was not covered in a faint pink-colored magic. No, this female assassin was covered in yellow magic and shot balls of fire and tongues of lightning at me.

Luckily, none of the soldiers in my squadron had been hurt and we had repelled the assassin smoothly, causing her to flee.

On the last day of our return trip, when we were nearing Asolance, another assassin attacked me. This time, the assassin was male and had no magic.

Well, not exactly. The assassin hiding on top of a tree did not even have a chance to attack me.

I was, after all, on my guard now and had sharpened my senses to that of my dragon form. I spotted the assassin far away and from a distance away, made my magic slowly extend across the ground and carefully shot an earth spike toward him.

Once I confirmed that the assassin was dead, I carefully evened out the ground with my earth magic and buried the fallen assassin's body into the earthen ground.

I did all of this from a distance away, somewhere well over a hundred feet, if I had to estimate. That was the limit distance to my developing magic—I knew that I still could not efficiently draw out the full potential of my born and set magic capacity, so it could still improve.

With more practice, I would learn more about my magic. It was a duty I would not shirk.

I also wondered what I had done to incur the wrath of so many assassins.

Hah. Bloody ashes and whorish fate.

Thankfully, the rest of the journey was peaceful and I arrived at Asolance without trouble.

It was time to report the result of the subjugation to the Third Minister of War.

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Volume 2 (Chapter 9)