"You need to leave before this place turns into a battlefield," I said, for a second Elina's hand stopped patting my head before she continued patting again.
Damn, what the hell am I doing?
There's no point in talking about it, is there?
"And why would it turn into a battlefield" Elina asked, her soft crystal clear voice entering my ears.
I am still being hugged by her and I am hugging her back too.
Oh lord, I am such a kid!
"Don't you remember what they said about trying to use Edward in the council room?" I asked
"And what about it?"
Just how dumb one needs to be to not be able to connect the dots?
"The council members intend to use Edward to bring that demon here with his beast army, they will probably give false information to the demon about the fighting power we have to make him bring less number of beasts with him, and from there on, it's a full-on frontal assault/ head-on fight, whatever you want to call it."
I have read the novel and I know Edward will betray but council members already know about it, what does that entail? Duh, it was planned, they planned to lure the demon to the base, a stupid plan but a plan nonetheless.
Unlike the protagonist team, I reached the base earlier than them, so we have more time than they did, around 2 weeks and 3 days from now, there will be an assault by the demon.
A plan that's going to fail. Why? 'coz Edward will really, I mean, really betray them, which makes things more chaotic.
And I have unintentionally made things more fucked.
You see, I have left 2 major figures of this upcoming war back in the cage! Not only that, let me remind you all that I have something called soul-bound inventory! But what about the protagonist's team? They had to not only escape from that prison but also get back their items that were taken by the demon, so they racked havoc in that place, causing some destruction, which in the grand scheme of things actually ends up playing a significant part in the upcoming battle.
And I came to this place to stea- I mean, to take a certain item that will help the council members tremendously in the upcoming battle but as I said I am taking it with me.
I came all the way here for it, why would I not take it?
...Hey, don't look at me like that! I was planning on the scraping whole battle by taking Edward out of the equation.
Alas, I couldn't do anything against the universal law of 'if things can go wrong they will go wrong'
But hey! On a positive note, Edward might have some difficulty betraying unlike in the novel, after all, Edward had faced me, a victim of his past actions, and that's why things might change. You can commit most horrifying atrocities without having to feel much guilt by running away from them, by not confronting them but what happens when you end up confronting them? You start breaking unless you are the most scummiest person in the world, that is, me, which is, of course, impossible.
Edward is a normal person, that's why he will break. Questions and more guilt will arise within than they ever did in the last few years of his life.
Feelings, and emotions, are weird, even the smallest of them could cause unexpected changes in unexpected ways.
"T-That's crazy... it would only result in a large amount of casualties and loss on our side" Elina's voice wavered a little but her words showed that she truly trusted in what I had told her.
...An unconditional trust...
I moved a little and looked in her light violet eyes then rested my head back on her shoulders.
"A large amount of casualties, yeah. A certain loss, well they believe they can win"
The keyword being 'believe', after the fuck up I have done and once I take their game-changing item with me, they are doomed to lose.
"Why would they?" Elina's voice contained confusion, so I continued.
"Hm? How should I say... have you ever wondered why those guys in particular take the interview of all the people brought here?"
"Isn't that the same question you asked them in the beginning?"
That's right.
I asked it to throw them off a little, well, in the end, they maintained their composure and gave a bullshit excuse.
"Yeah. The thing is, they do so to find which person's elemental affinity to extract"
"Huh.." Elina's hand stopped patting my head as she looked into my eyes and I looked into hers by tilting my head a little.
Elemental Affinity.
What are they? It's classic, light, fire, water, wind, and the stuff.
Whichever elemental affinity you have the easier it is for you to use it.
Of course, Noah doesn't have it.
He doesn't have any skills, class, or elemental affinity. Yes, he is weak and him being weak means, I am weak too.
Life is unfair, I learned that ages ago.
So, I am not gonna bother with it, I gotta make do with what I have.
Back on topic, so what's elemental affinity extracting from someone supposed to mean? It basically means killing them.
What do they do by extracting elemental affinity from someone? They put it into the weapon.
That's what they did, when the attack from the demon came the council member gave weapons and I mean a lot of weapons to people who looked to be useful.
When the protagonist asked them what the hell they did which was obvious they told the truth about extracting the elemental affinities from the camp survivors who aren't going to be useful in any other way.
As they say, all is fair in love and war.
Now, extracting elemental affinity isn't as easy as it sounds. Out of 1,000 only 1. That's right. Out of 1,000 only 1 person's elemental affinity gets extracted successfully.
Deaths? A whooping 1,000
And the council had lots of weapons, which in itself entails how many people they have ...killed.
"...What's the difference between that demon and them?" Elina asked, her voice shaking.
"You trust my every word? 'coz of what? The color that surrounds me?"
"I trust you because of how you have acted till now with me"
"..."
I wanted to call her naive but I couldn't..if she really believes what I told her then she must be feeling betrayed and yet she didn't make any fuss rather she accepted it calmly, that was the proof, she might be naive, kind type but ..she had seen some shit to not let it bother her too much.
"What do you think, will we win?"
"Why do you think a kid like me has the answers?"
"Because you are a kid who doesn't act like one."
What's that supposed to mean?
"You know everything that's going in this base despite coming here today, your choice of words aren't one that is trying to explain why something is happening but one that's stating a fact where you do not care about whether the other person will believe in it."
...
I sighed.
"You will lose because Edward will betray you all, even if he doesn't, you will still lose. As for why Edward will betray you despite having his family killed, the answer is simple, your brother played him ..or that demon is toying with Edward. If I had to make a decent guess Edward's wife probably said some shit like 'Edward wouldn't kill innocent people no matter what!' and that demon wants to show how despicable her husband has become. Edward will betray when the time to make a choice comes or ..maybe not but as I said even if he doesn't betray the demon army will win, there's no hope"
I said, still getting patted by her and hugged by her.
It's a losing game. We don't have the game changers, not the protagonist's team, not the 2 prisoners from the prison, not the necessary destruction required to be done to their base and it doesn't help when I am going to take one of their most important items with me.
"Noah, can you win?"
"I can mop the floor but I am leaving first thing in the morning"
That's right. Even with all the disadvantages I can win. Losing and I don't go hand in hand.
"You are ...what?"
Despite not looking at her face I could tell how surprised she was.
"I have more pressing matters to take care of"
Like saving the world by becoming a friend of someone.
Yes, becoming a friend will be enough to save the world.
Sometimes, all you need is someone to listen to you and understand you.
"Where will you be going?" Elina's voice was low but enough for me to hear.
"Demonic continent, gotta meet the demon lord."
SSS+ ranker, here I come!
"...Since meeting you I have only seen and heard of ridiculous things one after another. You are more troublesome than I had initially thought" She sighed.
"Don't treat me like a troublesome kid"
"You are one."
Dumb Elf.
Who cares about what you think?
...
After a bit of silence, I slowly opened my mouth.
"Elina, will you leave this place?" I asked in a soft, low voice.
"No, I will remain here, it might sound foolish to you but I will stay here," Elina said, flashing a smile.
Hm.
I see.
'Goodwill needs to be returned with goodwill'
For some reason, those words came back to me.
I need to make preparations for war to happen in about a month or so.
After all, I came to level myself up as much as possible.
The more the battles and fights that broke out, the better.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Third person pov)
As time passed, Elina and Noah both remained in the same position.
"Noah.." Elina called out to him but was met with no response.
"Sheesh, don't just go sleep like this, you didn't even take the bath" Saying so, Elina touched Noah's forehead as she controlled the water (sweat) on Noah's body and removed it.
She directed the glob of sweat in the air towards the bathroom. Elina's affinity with water was great, her class being a magic archer.
Without trying to disturb him, she put Noah to bed and pulled the sheets over him as she gave him a kiss on the forehead.
Elina tenderly looked at Noah's sleeping face.
'Geez, trust me a little'
Elina thought trying to suppress herself from breaking into a smile for she knew Noah was wide awake, he was pretending to sleep.
Since the time she met him, Noah had always been distant. During the time when they had all fallen asleep, Noah never slept and a part of her knew it wasn't because of them that Noah couldn't sleep but because Noah would never fall asleep in front of strangers. Noah went to hunt beasts because he wouldn't eat anything else brought by anyone. Even during the meal right now, Noah tried to avoid taking it and only ate after she had eaten.
And.. of course, when Noah was resting his head on her shoulder, she could feel it. Unlike back when she had those restrictive chains on, currently she is in full S-ranker mode, her perception being S-ranked, she knew Noah was ready to bite off her neck at any given moment.
Though to her it seemed like Noah underestimates the prowess of a S-ranker. It felt to her that Noah didn't know what S-rankers are really capable of, even if Noah's mouth was on point-blank range from biting her neck off, she could still protect herself.
The thing that happened with Edward was a fluke that wouldn't happen again.
Elina stood up from Noah's bed, went to close the lights off, and then climbed up on the upper bunk.
She closed her eyes as she remembered the words of the girl she had once met.
'Does it make you feel good to take care of such a broken person like me? It's laughable, your intentions are so clear. You want to take care of me, you want me to rely on you, become dependent on you. Are you trying to use me to validate your own existence after your own fuck up and what happened to your brother? That's disgusting. Must feel nice there up on your high horse, to see someone more fucked than you are. You know what's even more laughable? You wouldn't have bothered me so much if not for those eyes. I don't need your pity, so get lost.'
Those words that were once said by a girl to her were still stuck with her, the girl who died eaten by the beast, wanted to live, unwilling to die yet she died in a horrifying way.
During that time, she questioned herself, what was it that she did wrong, what could she have done?
If she had been honest with her, if she showed her kindness, a pure one ...instead of trying to reflect her own image of pitifulness on her, if she tried to simply treat her like any other person would it have made a difference?
Heaving out a sigh, she thought about Noah.
The color that surrounds Noah is pitch black, one she had never seen before. She had seen the color for the person who had lived as an orphan, a person who saw her mother being killed, a person who was abused throughout his life, a person who lost his everything, a person who saw his wife and daughter killed in front of him and yet none had the color as worse as Noah did.
It would be a lie if she said she didn't want to know what happened to Noah but ...she would never delve into that topic unless Noah decides to tell about it himself.
'The upcoming attack though..'
She thought about it. One could question why Elina would believe in Noah's words so simply but after what had transpired in the council room, she definitely didn't trust them. Not only that, the people from the facility get taken from time to time for the reason of sending them to some other place.. but from what Noah has said about extracting elemental affinity, it made more sense to Elina.
Thus, her trust.
She wasn't going to run away, that was a given. It wasn't out of a kindness or pureness of her heart if she was like that then she would have never left the 2 people back in the prison while escaping herself, to begin with, if she was that type of person she would died a long time ago.
It was just as Noah has said, she is kind but a kind person who has seen some shit.
Elina completely understands that there are things that one can do and one simply can't.
Elina is kind but not delusional.
Her reason for staying was different and that was her brother.
If that demon is coming that means, her brother will come here too.
Elina remembered the fight between Edward and Noah. Noah had been successful in poisoning Edward and that was because his opponent had severely underestimated him, it might have been a fluke but ..it worked.
'..If I can do something like that to him'
The council members intend to fight against the demon, if she could use them as a distraction to kill the demon then maybe she could save her brother.
For years her goal has been to save her brother. She didn't want to waste this opportunity even with all the disadvantages. Noah told her he could win, so there must be a method...
Elina tried to come up with an idea as she thought of different scenarios that might play out.
After an hour passed, she heard a rustling sound coming from the lower bunk.
'Hm? Is Noah done pretending to sleep?'
Noah stood up from the lower bunk and went towards the table desk, lightening up the table lamp.
Sitting on the chair, he started working.
Elina didn't know what Noah was doing but she watched him.
Without any sleep, she kept watching him with lots of questions floating in her mind about what Noah was doing.
After hours passed Noah finally stopped, stretching his hands in the air, then switching off the table lamp he started walking towards the bed.
Noah threw a potion bottle on her upper bunk. Elina struggled to suppress her desire to see what it was but she kept the same posture of her sleeping and soon after she heard the sound of click~
Noah left the room, and Elina sat straight up.
'Not even a goodbye... not like I expected one from him'
It was now morning, she had been awake the entire night watching Noah.
She reached her hands towards the bottle of potion that Noah had thrown at her and used her system status to look at it.
"What is this!?"
Elina shouted after reading the ridiculous effects of the potion, she rubbed her eyes and read the description again.
"Where did he get this... no, wait, the fact he just tossed it at me ..just how many of these potions does he have?"
After letting out a sigh, she stood up and walked towards the table desk in the room.
There was a tablet and a note, Elina looked towards the note first and read it
'See ya, if you manage to live and use the designs I have left to you however you want'
A smile formed on Elina's face as she looked at the note, putting the note back on the table she looked at the designs made on the tablet.
She opened the tablet and was left baffled.
"...Hahahaahahah! Of course, You could have mopped the floor with him!"
Elina laughed, a glint of hope flickering in her eyes.