009. A Day in the Elf Village
Bababam-!
I got ‘The Dawn’s Bow, Artea’!
So was there anything good about it?
I can assure you there was not.
My current deck was a mess, I never had a case where I could summon four creatures in one turn like a forest keeper.
The maximum number of monsters I can summon is three, and one of them is a token summoned by the effect of Anubis’s Priestess.
Artea’s summoning condition has the clause ‘except tokens’, so I can’t use the token at all.
Therefore, there is no chance of summoning Artea if I put her in my deck right now.
I need to refine my deck a bit more before I can use her.
So, getting Artea right now is…
“Kanf, what are you dawdling for? Hurry up and guide us.”
“Kuh! Y-yes…”
Rather a disaster (惡災).
We wasted time on a duel with Artea and decided to rest for a night in the elf village.
But when we arrived at the village, we were met with countless scornful glares.
I knew well why we were despised. It was because of the dog collar around Artea’s neck.
Without me asking, Artea took out a leather necklace from somewhere and put it on with my own hands.
And then she handed the leash over to Phineas, and because of that, we earned the villagers’ resentment.
It was strange that they liked us treating their chief like a dog.
But did the villagers know?
That Artea herself was blushing and enjoying being treated like a dog.
“Ouch!”
“You bad guy! Let go of our chief!!”
A young elf boy jumped out of the crowd and threw a card at me.
I barely raised my arm to block it, but my arm felt numb.
I can understand using cards instead of arrows, but isn’t it too much that cards are harder than rocks?
And the one who treats Arteia like a slave is Phineas, so why does he only throw them at me?
I wish they would all gang up on me and challenge me to a duel. I could at least earn some DP that way.
But in the field of truth, there was no one who dared to challenge me to a duel, not even their idol, the chief.
And I couldn’t ask the kid who threw the first card at me for a duel, either. I would be criticized as a heartless bastard.
“Everyone, stop it!”
“Arteia?”
“The agent of Anubis here has rightfully won the duel against me and claimed his rights as the winner. If you insult him any further, I will take it as an insult to me as well.”
“Wha, that’s impossible! Arteia lost?”
“I thought the forest keeper was the strongest…”
“Was Anubis hiding his power all this time?”
Arteia, who couldn’t stand seeing me suffer, stepped forward and dispelled the villagers’ doubts.
Then various reactions started to emerge from everywhere.
Reactions that couldn’t accept Arteia’s defeat, reactions that were wary of Anubis, and other reactions about me and Phineas.
But it hurt my heart that the evaluations of me and Phineas were polar opposites, damn it.
“Master! Is your right arm okay?”
“Yeah. It didn’t break any bones. Well, it would be absurd if a card broke a bone!”
“In this world, the only weapon is a card, and you also use cards to chop wood or cut food, you know?”
“……Crazy.”
What are these cards made of, titanium?
Even if this world was made with dual logic, where cards could replace all tools…
“Did you forget that when you were ambushed by the elves, they also attacked you with cards?”
That was possible, huh.
I remembered the scene where the cards shot by the elf guards pierced through the trees and flew past.
Then, when I meet robbers later, they would all threaten me with cards instead of knives?
Blacksmiths would hammer cards instead of iron. It was truly an amazing world view.
“Agent, I apologize on behalf of the villagers’ aggressive attitude. If you want to punish me, I will accept it all. Please calm your anger…!”
“It’s okay. I’m not badly hurt, so I don’t care much.”
“Ah, how can you be so merciful…!!”
But somehow, your expression seems very disappointed.
Is it because you said you won’t punish me?
Artea was a masochist to the point where I wondered if she could live a normal life.
It was surprising that she hadn’t exposed the wall to the villagers yet.
“So, Phineas, stop trying to prank the kid who threw the card.”
“……I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw you make a small flame and stick it to the kid. Stop it before it causes trouble.”
“Okay…”
Phineas made a pouty face and waved his hand lightly.
Then, a small spark flew out from behind the kid’s back and went into Phineas’s palm.
There were many things I should have questioned, but I decided to let it go since he did it out of loyalty.
I don’t know why Phineas is so loyal to me.
But at least I don’t have to worry about my back when she’s behind me.
“By the way, where are we going to stay tonight?”
“Just follow me. I’ll guide you.”
We walked all the way from the temple of Anubis and had a busy day with consecutive duels.
Before we knew it, the sun was setting.
So I wanted to rest a bit.
***
Inside the giant tree erected in the center of the elf village.
Around the round wooden table, the elf elders, the elf warriors in armor, and the chief Artea were in their positions.
They were having a meeting to decide the major issue of the village.
One of the elf warriors was grumbling.
“Chief Artea! Are you really going to let those foreigners stay here?”
“Watch your mouth. They are not foreigners, but guests who were formally invited.”
“They are intruders who violated our land without any apology! And they also humiliated our elves with duels! How can you call them guests!”
“Hmm…! Then let me ask you one thing. Since when did the elf guards become the ones who spit out mocking words instead of warnings to the intruders?”
“What, what nonsense are you talking about?”
“I heard everything from the agent of Anubis, and also from the guard captain. They said that one of your guards mocked Anubis as a relic.”
“That, that can’t be true. Our kids are…!”
“Enough.”
The elf warrior flinched and looked confused by Artea’s sharp remark.
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He didn’t know what he was saying and tried to make excuses, but it was hard to find any trust in his stuttering words.
In the end, Arteia cut him off in the middle of his speech and stood up from her seat.
“I’ll say it clearly in this place since you all seem to have forgotten in your peace! A truly proud elf would not do such a rude and reckless thing to others regardless of the situation! How shameful is it to mock someone who deserves respect even if you look up to them? The agent of Anubis was a kind person and let it go, but if he was a merciless person, I assure you that the elves would have been on the path to destruction! So if there is anyone who is rude to the agent…!”
Arteia quickly took out an arrow from behind her back.
Then she pulled the stiff bowstring lightly and shot the arrow up.
The arrow that flew straight collided with the light that was on the round table.
The light that brightened the room shattered and the fragments fell on the round table.
“Our elf’s future will be like this light.”
Every word that Arteia, who was called the dawn’s archer, said was very intense.
The hero who had saved the elves from crisis hundreds of times.
If such a hero was talking about destruction, it meant that this matter was very serious, even a child could tell.
The elders, of course, and even the elf warriors bowed their heads in shame, and silence fell on the round table meeting.
“You all seem to have realized it now. Thanks to that, I can feel relieved.”
“Arteia-nim. If you don’t mind, how should we act towards the agent from now on?”
“Just refrain from doing anything that would offend him. You may not know the agent, but his loyal servants will not let go of even the slightest thing.”
Everyone nodded and showed their agreement with Arteia’s words.
The round table meeting seemed to end smoothly, but…
“Big, big trouble!!”
The meeting room was once again in chaos by a single soldier who suddenly entered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Un, the undead have invaded!”
And the new news was a great disaster that struck not only the conference room but the whole village.
*
Meanwhile, in the center of the village, a meeting was in progress.
Han Se-yoon, who had received an empty house on the outskirts of the village, was sweating coldly.
‘Do they really hate me?’
He was the first to be attacked by the intruders because his house was on the edge.
He was surrounded by zombies that moved grotesquely.
He had experienced a zombie apocalypse on his first night and he didn’t know what to do.
‘Was there anything in the house that could be used as a weapon…?’
But since it was an empty house, there was no useful weapon except for the wooden furniture.
A dilemma. Should he change his name from Anubis’s agent to Anubis’s zombie?
As he sighed deeply with realistic worries, Se-yoon suddenly heard the voice of a zombie scratching his throat.
“Duu…eeer…eerr…!!”
“……Aha!”
This was a world where even zombies had to duel and win before they could bite.