"What...?"
Jaden's eyes were filled with confusion upon hearing Blaise's words. He was claiming they had met the 'queen' when they weren't even aware of it.
Just when did they meet the said person? Claire was just as perplexed as Jaden. They both saw each other face-to-face with their mouths open.
"Just when?"
Aliana's eyebrows showed no movement, glaring at the Tower Master. She was certain that he wasn't lying, but that wasn't her business.
He smiled lightly when he understood that Aliana had never seen the face of the queen before. No, that was just him jumping to conclusions while noticing her reaction.
For a while, he thought about what would be better to do. But did he even have a choice there? There was no other option than to fulfil Aliana's unreasonable demands.
"Wasn't she sitting with us just earlier?"
The blue-haired girl sitting with them a while ago was the queen of the elves. Only Blaise was aware of it, since he had been acquainted with her for almost two years already.
It was surprising that she still didn't show any surprised reaction to those words of Blaise. At this point, Blaise understood something very well: he shouldn't be messing around with her.
"I'm not talking about the queen of elves..."
The smile on her lips made Blaise feel uneasy in his heart. If she wasn't talking about that queen, it meant she was talking about someone else.
There were two queens existing within the elven forest. The first one was the Elven Queen, whom they had just met a while ago. The second was an existence to whom meeting was even more tough.
"No way... You can't be serious right now..."
Blaise facepalmed himself with nervousness. Aliana was making an absurd request. It wasn't the queen of elves she wanted to meet, but the queen of the whole forest.
Unlike normal forests, the elven forest itself was alive. The being known as the world tree, Yggdrasil, was the very one ruling over it. This made people call her by the name 'queen of the forest'.
Jaden remembered the details of his novel in that absurd situation. The request was too unreasonable. Even if it were the Tower Master, meeting the world tree wouldn't actually be possible.
-The tree never intervened in matters of the mortal realm. The only reason it existed was to protect the elves.
It wasn't because she didn't want to, but because she couldn't do so. All thanks to the restrictions that were placed on her during the age of dragons.
If a strong and mighty being such as her had tried meddling with the developing world, there was a chance that it would shake the balance of nature. A certain dragon had placed his magic on the world tree, restricting her.
"I don't know how, but we need to meet her. Before it's too late..."
The smile that she had on her lips faded away as she said that. Jaden and Claire were so nervous that they couldn't open their mouths.
Then again, there was a person who had stayed quiet since earlier. Melanie's words broke the silence that had just begun to spread across the room.
"Uhh, why do you need to meet her?"
She didn't understand whatever was happening, and it wasn't as if she could've deduced everything on her own. Even while feeling nervous, her gaze never wavered.
Aliana smiled gently at the little girl's question. She rarely replied to any question Jaden or Claire asked her.
But this time was different from what Jaden was expecting. Aliana begins speaking, moving close to the door. The bracelet in her hand vanished into the thin air.
"We will be needing her help with something in the near future."
Saying that, her hand turned the door knob. She moved backwards along with the opening door to pave the way for two people to fall to the floor.
Thud
The woman with blonde hair stood without falling, but the girl with blue hair had landed flat on her face. Aliana smiled at the woman and pulled her into the room.
"Haven't you heard enough?"
The two had been eavesdropping on their conversation for a while. Aliana shut the door while saying that.
Diona was about to reach out for her daggers when the girl lying on the floor stood up. She was putting her arm in front of Diona, asking her to stop.
"Stop it. She doesn't mean any harm."
She glanced at her once before walking closer to Aliana. The spirit magic of two was telling them the same thing: the person in front of them had no bad intentions.
At first, Diona doubted it, but the queen's actions made her believe somewhat. Jaden had already finished analysing the situation.
'So that's what she was trying to do...'
The thing Aliana was after wasn't the audience with the world tree, but her favour. Had she been caught by some other elves, it would've ended in failure.
She never intended not to get caught. What she wanted was to get caught by the queen herself.
She knew the queen's personality very well. It was Blaise who still couldn't realise it after being manipulated by Aliana's words.
"Let me formally introduce myself. Eleanor Starcrest, that's my name."
Eleanor's sky-blue eyes had a piercing gaze at the woman who had stolen their national treasure. Her voice was a bit cold as she continued speaking.
"What is the motive behind these actions?"
Snap
Aliana smiled, gently pulling out the bracelet from her storage magic again. She tossed it at Eleanor the very next moment. With an astonished face, she struggled a bit to catch it.
Diona couldn't understand the meaning behind her actions. This case was the same for almost everyone present there. Aliana spoke while their eyes were fixed on her.
Eleanor could feel chills run down her spine as she witnessed the look in her eyes. Aliana's smile did look gentle, but her words made her look even more suspicious.
"I know her current situation... What if I said I could help her?"
-----------------------
"This has turned into something troublesome, eh..."
She sighed as the water in the pond reflected what was going on within the room. The woman caressed the head of the deer beside her gently.
Wherever one tried to look, it was all green, with trees and grass. Different species of animals and birds were living within this domain in coexistence. The blue sky had white clouds floating in it.
Her long green hair's tip almost touched the water. Her sky-blue eyes were fixed on two scenes playing in front of her. One was where a person was saying that she was aware of the situation the world tree was in.
She couldn't bring herself to believe what she was witnessing. The person possessed a huge amount of mana within her body. It was beyond the limits of what a human could handle.
On the other hand, the second scene was something she wished she didn't have to witness. The darkness visible was just too much for those pure sky blue eyes of hers.
Slash
"I thought I killed all of you... But some rats are still here, I see."
His cold, dry voice made the listeners shiver with terror. The blood splattered right near their feet as he swung his sword in the air.
Seeing the person beside them get beheaded, they tried to escape by running the fastest they could. But it was all futile. The quantity of blood on the ground kept increasing with time.
The blade never stopped cutting down until only one person was breathing in the foggy atmosphere. He was the very person whose pitch-black flames devoured the bodies on the ground without leaving any ashes behind.
"IS THERE ANYONE ELSE LEFT? I, ADRIENNE AGUSTUS, WILL LET YOU HAVE THE HONOUR OF DYING AT MY HANDS!"
The cold laughter of the blood-crazed devilish man spread throughout the forest. There was no one else left alive beside him.
Observing all this, the woman smiled, feeling hopeless. Adrienne was just a few minutes away from Elven Village at the moment.
She slowly moved her thumb in her mouth. Bitting onto her nail, she delved into the pond, immersed in her deep thoughts.
'First, I need to talk with her...'
On the other side, Diona was pointing daggers at Aliana's neck. She gritted her teeth, which made the veins near her jawline slightly visible.
Aliana, still unfazed by her actions, smiled carefree. Eleanor fiddled around, not knowing what to do to stop the two from starting a fight.
Blaise and Jaden silently observed the situation without doing anything. They were sure that Aliana had some plan to make it out of it.
Melanie hugged Claire tightly with fear. They could hear Diona speak in a cold tone.
"And why should we trust your words?"
Aliana giggled at those words and pushed aside the dagger in front of her neck. She was about to walk a bit further from Diona, but that seemed like a bad idea in that situation.
Her smile faded for a while as she took a deep breath. Her eyes were piercing at Diona's with a tint of seriousness.
"Should I prove it with my actions then?"
Saying that, she put her index finger and middle finger's tips together. Diona knew that she was about to use one of her magic spells from the moment of mana in the air around her.
Within a moment, the daggers in her hand closed the distance between her and Aliana's neck. Instead of the sound passing through the flesh, some other sound was heard.
Thunk
Aliana's snap was stopped too because she got distracted by the sound. The daggers went flying and landed on the floor behind Diona.
The green vines were holding both Aliana and Diona's arms tightly. A voice they hadn't heard before caught their attention.
"Halt your foolish actions this instant!"
The woman emerged from thin air, leaving everyone in surprise. Blaise couldn't feel any traces of the magic being used, but it was an unnatural phenomenon.
As she saw her, Eleanor's face went pale before a moment passed by. She softly landed on the wooden floor, right in front of Aliana.
The sky-blue eyes reflected a pinkish violet colour as she looked deeply into Aliana's eyes. Aliana smiled at her, lightly moving a bit backward.
She bowed her head while lifting the sides of her robe to pay her respects. Jaden flinched as he recognised who the person was upon hearing Aliana's words.
"Aliana Rosenstein pays respect to the great world tree."
She looked down at Aliana closely, trying to evaluate her objective . When she was about to raise her head, Aliana smiled, feeling the woman's gaze on her.
Noticing the smile, she gulped the bitter feelings down her throat. No bad intentions were being sensed from Aliana, whom they had been treating rashly for a while.
"Enough with such trifling things. Just get to the point."
The woman had no time to waste for a certain reason. She could sense a particular person approaching their spot.
And that issue aside, her current condition was between life and death. Over the years, her powers have weakened tremendously because of the restrictions placed on her.
But soon she almost forgot about all those worrisome things. Aliana spoke with a cheerful, bright smile on her face.
"I can cure you."