The meeting of Freya and Jaal did not lead to much, the old elf easily obtained much useful information, while Freya got a promise that was to her liking.
"In that case, I say goodbye, Freya-sama" -at the edge of the forest, old Jaal had been escorted by Freya and twenty soldiers.
"Don't forget your promise, old man."
"Of course not, Freya-sama, I will personally select the retinue that will come later."
Faced with Raven's absence, Jaal could have waited for Raven return to talk to him about the future of the Grey Elves. However, fearing that his people would be unable to deal with the uncertainty, he decided to return to his village to tell them that dialogue was possible. For apparently the current priority of humans was to build a castle as quickly as possible.
Something like negotiating peace using in exchange any kind of support required by humans seemed feasible.
As to the reason why Freya was saying good bye personally to the old elf , this was due to the great enthusiasm that the promise that the old elf had made to her provoked in her.
Jaal's promise to Freya was simple, the old elf would later send a retinue of beautiful elven women to negotiate. Of course, old Jaal had in mind to leave this task to Erabel, that which was really consistent with the promise made to Freya.
"Freya-sama, we have more visitors" -Royner Londinium pointed towards the interior of the forest, where it was possible to see a large group of elves approaching.
Due to her BIO, Freya's position among the NPCs was the most complex, on the one hand, she was a General as well as Nike, however, she was also Raven's younger sister and, therefore, she was also the daughter of the supreme god of battle.
For these reasons, even though the NPC's loyalty to Raven was absolute, the care they gave to Freya was comparable to that given to Raven, after all she was also the daughter of their god. So, Royner Londinium and Teress Ambroce escorted Freya escorted Freya to the edge of the forest.
"Those fools..." -Jaal feared the worst.
"I'll go and see what they look like."
"Wait Freya-sama!"
Before Royner finished his words, Freya just disappeared.
"Tsk. Teress!"
"Yes!"
Teress and Royner wasted no time, together with the twenty soldiers who accompanied them they ran towards the group of elves inside the forest.
Like Raven, Freya was now level 20 and as a result, her class had improved and some of her skills had been unlocked.
Magical Arts Adept> Maiden of the Magical Arts (Level 10) > Princess of the Magical Arts (Level 50) > Empress of the Magical Arts (Level 80). These were the classes that Freya would have access to as her level improved.
"Don't hesitate, those must be the only soldiers in the human camp right now!"
In response to Libel, his comrades uttered a powerful cry.
"So, that's what the elves look like, the legends exaggerate too much, Father really didn't put much effort on create them."
Libel's and his enthusiasm were suddenly interrupted by those words exclaimed in a slight tone of disappointment.
With great surprise the elves realized that just at the center of their group had suddenly appeared an unknown being. It was what appeared to be a human girl with long silver hair, snow-white skin and supernatural silver eyes.
Before, thanks to their privileged eyes, the elves had noticed the presence of what appeared to be an unusual silver-haired girl next to Jaal. Now, the sight of that little girl in front of them dismayed them to such an extent that no one of them wavered and all fired their bows in panic.
Libel himself was one of the first to fire his bow at that silver-haired girl.
No matter how this human was now in their midst, that human child had no chance of surviving, about a hundred arrows fell on her from all directions.
The arrows traced beautiful straight trajectories to accurate vital points, however, to the elves' consternation, in a radius of three meters around of that human girl, every arrow without exception stopped and remained motionless floating above the air as if they refused to damage her beautiful appearance.
"As Nii-sama said, not having an absolute leader is really problematic."
After those words that seemed to be addressed to them with a certain pity, the elves came out of their state of shock as they contemplated a magical circle that covered the entire area with that little girl right in the center.
"Ice Prison" -the girl made a delicate movement with her pale and fragile hands.
Before any elf could try to understand what was happening, the ground beneath her feet shook slightly and immediately a large number of huge columns of ice emerged from the ground that caught several them insides.
"Libel-sama!"
It all happened in a matter of thousandths of a second. As she contemplated a column of ice emerging from Libel's side, Sernil rushed towards him to push him out of the ice column's trajectory.
By the time Libel fell to the ground as a result of Sernil's strong push, his eyes opened with surprise and horror as he watched Sernil trapped inside that column of ice.
Libel looked around only to discover that of those of his companions who had somehow avoided those columns of ice, they were completely astonished and as motionless as those trapped within those pieces of ice.
Probably because of the large number of ice columns, the air became cold.
"I-am... I'm a Vieri!" -Libel stood as he threw his bow to the side and took the short sword hanging from his waist.
Libel's enormous pride removed those columns of ice from his vision and also temporarily blocked from his memory what had happened. His eyes were only able to focus on that silver-haired girl, and with the short sword in his hands, he rushed towards her.
Suddenly, in Libel's vision a young man in beautiful ornate light armor stood in her way.
Those human soldiers that stand before next to Jaal had finally arrived.
Despite the clear equipment disadvantage, trusting in his superiority over humans, Libel did not avoid confrontation with that human.
Once he had that human in his grasp, Libel swung his short sword without hesitation in search of that soldier head. Time changed its rhythm and began to slow down.
Libel's first attack was easily blocked by that human's beautiful silver sword. Libel was not surprised, and in fact this was what he expected.
As he withdrew his sword Libel tilted his body for another attack, the elves were much more agile than humans and his eyes could capture images at a faster rate than the human eye was capable of.
Libel showed a faint smile as he swung his sword again in search of that human's legs. Even if he was not able to injure the human because of the armor he wore, a heavy blow to the legs should serve to knock him down.
Just five centimeters from reaching that soldier's leg, Libel's smile froze suddenly. The blade of a beautiful silver sword blocked his attack again.
Libel did not have time to process the fact that his second attack was also easily blocked, a left fist hit his face hard, causing him to roll several times on the ground.
Libel's body stopped only because his back hit the trunk of a tree. However, again Libel did not have time even to feel pain, that human was already rushing on him.
Libel quickly rose to his feet and raised his sword to block that human's attack. Both swords collided, and along with the sparks this caused, a breaking sound was heard.
As his long ears twitched, Libel's eyes opened wide as he watched his sword break.
Best quality steel striking against an impoverished iron alloy, which also had a considerable number of decades since it had been forged. There was nothing supernatural about the result.
With Libel's sword barely serving to deflect the trajectory of the enemy sword a little after it broke, that beautiful silver sword fell on Libel causing a great cut on his face.
The cut was not fatal, but it was brutally effective against Libel's morale.
Because the blood blurring the vision of his left eye, Libel released his sword and stepped back as he covered the wound with his hands.
Libel's back met again with the trunk of that tree on his back, his mind was completely clouded not by the physical pain he was still unable to process, but because his pride had been totally shattered by being easily overcome by a human.
"Libel-sama!"
Just as the human soldier was about to make another attack on the defeated Libel, three elves came to his aid.
Two of those elves confronted the human soldier while the third ran towards Libel.
"Libel-sama, you must leave, as long as you live, there will always be hope for our people."
When he heard that, Libel's body shuddered. His eyes gave a quick glance at his surroundings, one by one those of his companions who had managed to avoid those columns of ice were defeated by the hands of that twenty's human soldiers.
The elves had thought for centuries that in a one-on-one confrontation they could easily defeat a human, and this was true in the vast majority of cases. However, these twenty humans were easily defeating them even when the elves outnumbered them two to one.
Fortunately, that silver-haired being did not continue to attack them with her powerful magic, she simply kept observing with fascination the columns of ice that she herself had created.
All this caused that which had blocked part of Libel's mind to finally break. Vieri pride became insignificant and was completely devoured by a feeling that Libel did not know, fear.
"Go away, Libel-sa...!" -the elf in front of Libel insisted, but was unable to concretize his words.
Increasing even more the fear in Libel, an arrow came from the back of that elf towards his head, however, that arrow had not simply stopped. Extraordinarily, that arrow went through that elf's head in front of Libel and then drilled his shoulder to finally stop over the trunk of the tree behind him.
Unconsciously Libel's gaze followed the possible trajectory of that arrow to its source, finding a beautiful woman with black hair up to her shoulders and violet eyes.
Libel's face lost all color, and once the pain of that wound and the wound on his face finally reached his mind, he emitted a powerful scream full of horror and then ran deep into the forest.
The image of their brave leader running and screaming in horror was devastating to the few elves still fighting. The fear shook the deepest part of their souls and several were those who imitated Libel.
"Freya-sama, that was really reckless."
"You worry too much, Captain Teress, these elves are really weak" -Freya was really disappointed. "Although they may be useful as decoration for the palace of Nii-sama" -a faint smile was drawn on Freya's lips as he looked at the ice columns.
At first, she approached the elves out of curiosity, but once they were hostile, she cheerfully agreed to play with them. Raven had already fought the goblins and was now fighting the orcs alongside Nike; how could she be calm being the only one who had not gone into battle?
Unfortunately, the elves were too weak, Freya's first and only attack incapacitated half of them. Therefore, feeling frustrated, Freya chose to leave the rest of the elves to the soldiers.
Libel could never imagine that he had chosen a battle he had no chance of winning. Today's forest guard had no combat experience at all, and depended on him at a level at which they came to think; 'I can never be strong like Libel-sama, but with Libel-sama will be enough to protect our people", and they did not try too hard to become stronger.
Libel's small army had ventured north with the thought that their leader would make a big difference. To their misfortune, the enemy consisted of soldiers who considered themselves living swords and whose way of living and thinking consisted of only one thing, the battle.
While human's strength was at level 50, elves barely averaged level 17, with Libel possessing the highest level of all his people, level 27.
Besides, the difference in the quality of weapons had been fatal. The arrows of the Elves, most of which did not have an iron tip due to the scarcity of this mineral, would never have made it through the steel armor of humans.
With all this, the insurmountable disadvantage of the Elves had been Freya herself.
In Conquest Online, Generals were an extremely valuable resource for players. A single well-equipped, well-leveled general was capable of overwhelming even an army of a thousand elite-level soldiers.
As for Freya, her main function being to complement Raven with her magic, so she was Raven's best-equipped General.
'Dark Queen Attire', a beautiful black lolita goth dress that denies all non-magical damage. This was why the arrows had refused to touch Freya, and even if Libel had reached her, his sword would have stopped before touching her because it was not a magic weapon and Libel had not used magic to improve his attack.
'Persephone's Dark Slippers', that allow instant teleportation at a maximum distance comparable to the limit of the user's visual range. In Conquest Online the visual range limit (maximum distance to which a target can be set) was determined by the Dexterity and Intelligence points. This the skill used by Freya to appear instantaneously in the middle of Libel's group.
'Ring of Knowledge and Life', that reduces the cast of any spell to zero. This was the reason why Freya was able to cast the 'Ice Prison' spell almost instantaneously on the elves.
'Hera's Dark Ring' replaces the magician's staff and provides a 50% bonus to the MP recovery rate.
Freya's entire equipment consisted of PREMIUM items of the highest cost. With this kind of equipment, it was no exaggeration to say that between Nike, Freya and Raven, at their current levels, Freya was currently the strongest of the three.
"Some of them have disgraced their species by fleeing, should we pursue them, Freya-sama?"
"If we had some riders it would be simple, but as it is not that way, it is not worth the effort, they know the forest better than we do.
Both Freya and Royner, who had asked that question, were quite disgusted with the cowardice of the elves. Those who had managed to escape were no more than ten individuals, who took advantage of the trees to protect themselves from the accurate arrows of human archers.
"The impetus of the young always causes trouble to the old..." -Jaal, who had finally arrived at Freya's side, exclaimed those words with great sorrow as he watched his elven brothers dead or trapped within those columns of ice.
Along with Jaal, a greater number of soldiers soon arrived. The sound of battle had attracted them, although pitifully for them, the enemy had already been defeated.
"Old man, it seems dangerous to allow you to return to your village without protection. Captain Teress, escort him. Having come here to dialogue, it would be dishonorable for us if he were to die without first returning to his village."
"As you command, Freya-sama."
"No... do you not intend to take this as an aggression, Freya-sama?" -Jaal was truly dismayed.
Even if he regretted the loss of life, what caused Jaal most pain was the damage this unsuccessful attack could cause to the relationship between the elves and these humans. In the worst-case scenario, he would die right here and not long after, the rest of his people would follow.
"Respond to aggression with the edge of the sword and to dialogue with words, those were Nii-sama's orders. The future of your people has never been in my hands, it will be Nii-sama who determines how to respond to this" -after saying that, Freya disappeared. She teleported a couple of times back to the beach.
Freya's response did not totally reassure Jaal, in his mind the damage caused by Libel and his was irreparable, after all, they had assaulted the human leader's younger sister.
"Jaal-san, please."
For a second Jaal thought that escorting him was a pretext for locating the village of the Elves, and therefore perhaps it was best to die right here. However, he soon remembered the Kobolds, no doubt these humans already knew the location of their village from the mouths of the Kobolds.
In response to Teress' invitation, Jaal nodded.
The next thing that came to Jaal's mind in connection with this was simply intimidation, something like; 'you launched an attack on us, but you have utterly failed. We can destroy you at any time, but unlike you who attack with betrayal, we will give you time to prepare'.
Jaal shook his head slightly to get out that from his mind, his interpretation seemed absurd to him. These humans were extremely strong, he himself had seen it with his eyes, they did not need to play with the elves in that way.
(If he really is as wise as his sister and his actions say, then there is still a small possibility...) -the old elf took a last look to the north remembering everything he had seen.
"I'll be under your care, Captain."
"I will see to it that you arrive safely at your home, Jaal-san."
Thus, the old elf ended up being escorted by fifty soldiers.