23 – Vegetable Picking
“Damn bastards….”
Shiz, who spotted the humans on the raft, gritted his teeth with an unprecedentedly fierce expression.
He was not the only one.
All the elves who were hiding for the raid spat out curses and were greatly enraged.
It was a tense atmosphere, as if they were about to rush out at any moment.
Since they didn’t seem to listen to me if I told them to calm down, I quickly checked the humans’ strength.
‘Eight humans.’
The humans were on two giant rafts, four on each.
It was more people than I had expected, but it didn’t look like we would be overpowered.
On our side, there were only six high elves and dozens of elves.
Besides, the hunting leader himself had stepped in, so the battle was likely to end quickly once it started.
The problem was in another element.
‘Two hostages.’
Two young elves were split and loaded on two rafts.
They had their hands and feet tied and their eyes covered, so it looked almost impossible to escape on their own.
The hostages were separated and we couldn’t tell them our plan.
When the battle started, the humans would surely use the hostages, so we couldn’t just shoot arrows and attack.
I had expected this, but the situation was getting headache-inducing.
I put Pii down on the ground and asked everyone.
“Do those kids know how to swim?”
The elves shook their heads at my question.
Shizu explained to me with a lamentable expression.
“Most elves don’t know how to swim.”
“What? Why?”
“Because monsters and demons gather in deep waters. There’s no leisure or reason to learn swimming leisurely.”
From Noble mtl dot com
hahahaha. Elves don’t know how to swim.
The situation was getting worse than difficult.
How are we supposed to save those kids if there’s no one who knows how to swim?
I looked around at the elves nearby and asked quietly.
“Is there really no one who can swim?”
There were two hostages, so there should be two rescuers, right?
Just one. I knew how to swim, so just one person would have been enough.
As I glanced around at the elves and met their eyes, Shiz, who had been quietly lost in thought, opened his mouth and looked at me.
“Swimming, you know, isn’t it just not dying when you fall into the water?”
What is he talking about?
I nodded my head as if to say, let me hear it.
Then Shiz tapped his chest and confidently said.
“I can hold my breath for more than five minutes.”
“……So?”
“I’ll walk on the riverbed and try swimming.”
“……”
Shiz’s face was full of confidence.
He was going to walk on the riverbed and rescue the hostages.
Logically, I shouldn’t trust him and leave it to him, but somehow I felt like Shiz could really do it.
Hey, there’s no other way, so let it be.
I nodded my head and said to everyone.
“Then the kids will be rescued by me and Shiz. The rest of you deal with the humans.”
The elves around me nodded with determined expressions.
I was unknowingly commanding the operation and giving orders, but fortunately, no one opposed or showed any displeasure.
Then, Shiz, who was assigned to the rescue team with me, asked me about the plan.
“So, what are you going to do?”
I pointed to the raft that was slowly drifting down the sluggish river and answered.
“Flip it over and kill them all. We can save the hostages ourselves.”
Shiz smirked when he heard the plan I had devised.
The other elves also nodded their heads as if they were satisfied.
“Then let’s move.”
The raft was getting closer.
At my command, dozens of green shadows quietly melted into the forest.
Operation name: Vegetable Picking.
My first battle against humans began.
* * *
‘He didn’t sign up for this, did he?’
After putting down the whistle and the chainsaw, Shiz and I moved to a suitable place to swim.
Since there were eyes watching, I couldn’t take off all my clothes, so I only left my leather pants and took off my upper body.
I was worried that Shiz, who always stole glances at my body, would show interest in this situation.
Sure enough, I felt a hot gaze from Shiz, who was taking off his clothes next to me.
“You’ll poke a hole in me. Stop looking.”
“Hmm! Well, I can’t help it. Why don’t you look at me too?”
It was definitely a hopeless situation.
As I sighed and nodded at him, Shiz took the opportunity to scan my body with a confident and shameless attitude.
But ‘then you can look too’?
Shiz must have wanted to take the flesh and leave the bones, but her bare skin and my muscles were of different value.
Fine. If you say so, I’ll let you see as much as you want.
I showed off my muscles and took in Shiz’s bare skin with my eyes.
‘She’s slender
“But to be honest, it was a bit surprising. I didn’t expect you guys to want to kill humans.”
Come to think of it, this was the first time I had a conversation with Shiz alone.
The topic of murder was a bit unsettling, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to build some intimacy through dialogue.
I sat next to her and listened to what she had to say.
“Why? Did you think I would want to hunt down humans?”
“Yeah.”
To tell the truth, I still didn’t feel like antagonizing humans.
But this time, the situation was a bit different.
That’s because, in this operation, all I had to worry about was rescuing the hostages.
It might seem inhuman and selfish, but it wasn’t my problem whether other humans lived or died.
What I hated was ‘the situation where I had to kill humans with my own hands’.
Besides, humans had done things that deserved death, such as logging the spirit trees or kidnapping children.
“This time, the goal is to rescue the hostages. If I had to fight directly, I might have hesitated.”
“Don’t tell me you planned the operation with that in mind.”
“Well, I didn’t not think about that, but it turned out this way because I prioritized the kidnapped children.”
I confessed my true feelings without hiding them and faced Shiz’s reaction.
An awkward lie would be easy to spot, so I decided to show my honest self from the start.
Shiz glanced at me and said with a snort.
“I don’t know if you’re closer to an elf or a human.”
I looked at the drifting raft and answered honestly again.
“I don’t know either.”
As we were talking, the raft came close to us.
Soon, we would reach the planned location and the operation would begin.
Shizu and I stopped talking and breathed mana to prepare for the battle.
At that moment, a loud cry of warriors echoed from the forest.
Urlă, pădure!
“Roar, forest!”
It was the cry of the battlefield that signaled the start of the operation.
It was the propaganda that the elves sent to the enemies, and the message of rescue that they sent to the kidnapped children.
Elf, dă-ți viața!
“Elf, give your life!”
Following the cry of the battlefield, panic and fear descended on the raft.
The humans who cut down the spirit trees without knowing the consequences shouted in confusion, and the humans who kidnapped the elf children without thinking regretted in terror.
The only future left for them was death.
They said that no one had ever survived after hearing the cry of the battlefield.
Strigă la inamic!
“Shout at the enemy!”
After the last phrase, Shizu and I got up from our seats.
Now, it was time to flip the raft as planned.
We didn’t know how the elves would do it.
The elves nodded at the plan to flip the raft, and no one showed any sign of impossibility, so I just left it to them.
” ―――――――――!!! “
The forest roared and trembled with the elves’ howl.
A prayer rose to the goddess of nature, and I felt the dense mana coalesce.
At that moment,
– Kwagwagwa――――――!!!
Like a dragon’s spine rising, a huge tree trunk pierced through the river and sprang up.
– Swoosh―――!!!
The water bounced off the tree trunk and fell like a waterfall.
It was a natural result that the raft flipped over.
But it was too much.
The crazy bastards flipped the raft and the river fell down.
I ran out hastily, shouting at Shiz.
“Shiz! Save the kid on the right!”
I could only hope that the kids would hold on safely.
I swallowed mana and plunged into the raging waves.