"Big sister Fae!"
A loud shout could be heard from one of the younger elven slaves.
"Felix! Thank goodness you're alright." Fae, the dignified elven leader replied sweetly.
The two elves hugged each other, overjoyed at their reunion.
"Felix, where are the others?"
"They… they are… sob…"
Unable to continue his words, the elf slave named Felix began to cry after he felt safe in his sister's arms.
"There there, a man shouldn't cry in front of girls, you know? Calm down and tell me what happened."
After Felix stopped crying, he recounted the events leading up to this point.
When Fae heard that some of the crazy humans caught and ate their fellow elves, her demeanor instantly grew cold.
Although Fae was shocked by the actions of those madmen, she glared at the group behind her.
"You guys! How dare you enslave my friends and family! Everyone! Ready your arrows!"
Seeing the situation not going the way they had expected, Kio, Ren, and the others all grouped up closely while drawing their weapons.
"Ren, you got any ideas to get us out of this mess?"
Although Kio was reluctant to talk to Ren, he didn't have a choice.
"Hah, I wish I did. If they shoot us from every direction, we're fucked."
"Shit…"
When Felix finally stopped crying, he was confused about why his sister was hostile towards his benefactor.
"Big sister Fae! Stop!!! Why are you trying to harm our saviors!?"
"What are you talking about? These guys took advantage of the situation and enslaved all of you."
"No! They didn't have a choice. Otherwise we would've been stuck in the cage back there and eaten by all those madmen."
"Hoh? But didn't they let some of you die back there?"
"That… that was our decision. They gave us a choice between returning home or following them. Most of us wanted to go home by ourselves, so we ran away."
"I see..."
Finally understanding the situation, Fae calmed down and yelled, "Hold your fire!"
Realizing the hostility dispersed, Kio's group all breathed a sigh of relief.
Kio then walked up to Fae, observing her flawless appearance. Dressed in a dark green tunic with flowers woven around the edges, she appeared to be in tune with nature. The other elves nearby all wore similar outfits, with the males wearing a green tunic with leaves woven into it instead.
Lustrous blonde hair flowed down Fae's back, which perfectly matched her tall, slender body. Although her chest was a let-down, her beautiful face and graceful aura had more than made up for it.
"Thanks for not firing at us."
"Hmph. If you guys have any evil intention towards any of us, I won't hesitate to shoot you personally."
Glancing over her back, she showed him her bow and quiver filled with arrows.
"Ah…"
Through her eyes, Kio could still see the hatred she had towards them.
When Felix told her that more than half of the other elves had been killed and eaten, her hatred towards the human race intensified.
Humans had already been kidnapping elves from their forest for many years, and now that they even started to eat them, Fae couldn't wait to advise her people to either launch a counterattack or completely abandon this land.
In the continent of Krichez, humans populated most of the land. With the exception of slaves, the only other race here were the elves living in the Endless Forest, at the northern parts of the continent.
Fae wanted to gather all of the elves from her home to kill every last one of the humans in this city.
If they don't agree, she wanted her family to at least cross the waters and migrate over to the Loaz continent, far east of where they are currently.
"Well? Aren't you guys going to release them from their slavery?"
Fae crossed her arms over her non-existent chest, with a hint of intimidation in her voice.
"Huh? We would have already done so if we knew how."
"Tsk."
"Well… the ones who took your people as slaves are me and this girl over here called Riko. I can promise you that we won't command any of them to do anything, so you can all just go home and ignore the slave crest."
"Hah? Are you making a fool out of us? You want them to live their lives as slaves?
"Um, yeah? As long as we don't give them any orders, won't they be able to return to their normal lives?"
"How dare you!"
"Before you spout more of your meaningless words, shouldn't you thank us for freeing them?"
"We had planned to save them right now, since we noticed that the slave building didn't have as many people guarding it today!"
"Heh, if it wasn't for us, they would have all become zombie food long before you guys could even reach them."
"You! If it wasn't for the elite bodyguards beside the slave owner, we would've saved them all much earli-"
Before she could finish her words, she heard someone yelling something to her.
"Leader! The vines won't hold for much longer. We need to leave now!"
"Tch. Fine, let's retreat for now!"
As the elves retreated further north, Kio and their group, along with the remaining slaves and slum dwellers, all followed along.
"Where are you guys running to? If my assumptions are correct, there should be more of these zombies all around this city."
"We can escape through the nearby gate ahead of us. Although we did use a hidden passage to come here, it's a bit far away to the north of the city."
"Eh? Couldn't you guys have come in normally through the gates or something?"
"No, this town doesn't permit any non-human races to enter unless they have been enslaved by a human."
"No wonder you guys seem so hostile towards us. Do other humans frequently go to your homes to kidnap your people?"
"..."
"Well uh, I apologize if we offended you in any way. But, the few of us aren't originally from this land, so we don't have any ill-intention towards your race."
"??"
Kio didn't want to explain more, since they had just been summoned into this world not long ago. Giving out too much information about yourself to others is never a good idea, especially since Fae was already prejudiced towards humans.
When Fae looked at Kio, she noticed that Riko was still bleeding from her left arm.
Not wanting to owe any favors to them, Fae took out some herbs and passed it over to Kio.
"What is this?"
"This is just a temporary measure for your friend. Although it doesn't have any healing properties, it can ease her pain.
"Ah, thanks."
"Hmph, I'm just repaying a favor for saving my younger brother. However, she isn't going to make it if you don't find her a healer."
"You can repay us back if you have any way to save her life. Anyways, how do you use this herb?"
"With such a large wound, she should consume it with some water instead of applying it directly since agitating the wound might kill her. Unfortunately, we used up our healing items already on the way here…"
After feeding Riko the herb with painkiller effects, he felt heartache looking at the blood soaked bandages.
As the group continued running north, they reached a wide path.
A large gate could be seen on their left, which must be one of the exits to this city, while the other side was the plaza which Kio and the rest were initially summoned onto.
On both sides of the stone path were zombies who were busy munching on dead corpses.
Although the zombies haven't noticed them yet, but if they enter the streets, they will definitely get discovered.
At the gate, they could hear a commotion, unknown whether it's caused by fighting or something else. However, it's proof that there are people over there.
Fae gave a signal to the few elven archers with her and they commenced their attack.
Shooting a round of arrows at the zombies blocking their way, they slightly lifted their heads with a proud expression on their face.
However, the ones that aimed at the limbs or chest of the zombies soon paled when they saw the zombies continued their feast on the corpses, with no regards about the arrow sticking out of their body.
"You guys need to aim for the head, otherwise they won't die."
Kio quietly advised Fae, who was standing close to him.
Although they haven't done any detailed experiments on the zombies, this was a common weak point in all of the zombie stories he knew about. Besides, when he watched Jay and Ren kill some of the zombies earlier, the zombies died after being decapitated.
"I knew that already! Guys, aim for the head!"
With a second volley of arrows, they killed the few zombies within their immediate proximity.
The next closest zombies were at least a dozen meters away from them, so they decided to just leave it alone for now, lest they run out of arrows during an emergency.
"Let's go," Fae motioned for her comrades to lead the way.
Running down the stone path towards the western gate, Fae and other elves were firing at the zombies whenever they come across some of them.
The elven slaves followed closely, with Kio's group right behind them.
As the rest of the slaves and slum inhabitants were near the back of the group, they had moved a little too late as the zombies behind them had already caught up.
They began pulling and tripping each other, trying to buy time for themselves.
With all of them fighting among themselves, they caused their own demise as the zombies caught up to them and started another round of all you can eat.
Everyone else had witnessed the tragedy that happened behind them, but they didn't have the power to save the ones who had fallen in the back.
"Let's go, while they're distracted," Fae ordered while leading her group.
After they reached the western gate, they noticed that it was shut, with no guards nearby.
Zombie corpses were scattered all over the place, while wounded adventurers and townspeople yelled at each other.
"How could you kill my wife?!"
"Go fuck yourself! Your wife tried to bite me!"
"I'll kill you myself!"
Feeling suspicious of their wounds, Kio whispered to Fae, "Let's get out of here. I'm not sure if they will turn into another one of those zombies."
"Oh? You seem to know a lot about those crazy humans."
Fae glared at Kio, suspicious of all of his knowledge.
'If these guys somehow caused all of this, we better kill them before they do the same towards my fellow elves.'