Chapter 114 – Honey-Covered

In the meantime, the three other Kobolds who were advised to stay in the Royal Castle until the search party that went out to look for Archer returned and were enjoying … dinner.

“Wau? Kuruou vaaruu!” (Hmm? Doesn’t this taste slightly like honey?)

“Kurua~n!” (It’s delicious, isn’t it?)

While eating a rare ox steak with his hands, the big blue Kobold created a happy atmosphere in the Royal dining hall while the fox-tailed Dagger also joined in and beamed.

Also dining with them was Aristia, the newly-crowned Elf Queen who had high concentrations of High Elf blood in her body. She was separated from her parents at an early age and she did not have any people whom she could call relatives, so the dining hall was rarely occupied by so many people at a time.

Since the demise of the previous Queen, Claudia, whom she secretly loved like a mother, the only people who had used the dining hall were Eliza, her closest childhood friend whom she met at the Royal Castle when she first arrived, and the other Priestesses of the World Tree who she works with often.

But today, she had invited over her new friends with whom she had shared meals and slept together for almost a month.

“Guruo uwau kuruaooooou, uwau oruan guruaaaou.”(I heard that everybody likes honey, so I had some food made with it.)

Today, Eliza wore a dress and took some effort to beautifully style her curly hair. She explained the dishes with a composed expression.

In addition to the freshly cut steak that had been marinated with honey and grilled, there was also honey toast with nuts sprinkled on top and even honey wine… and other dishes made with honey.

Eliza might be a bookworm, but she has a keen interest in new things. However, because she is someone from a prominent family, she could not freely explore, so the Kobolds that Aristia had brought with her piqued Eliza’s curiosity.

(… I told her this was too much.)

As she bit into her honey toast that was dripping with honey, the mistress of the castle, Aristia, was dumbfounded by the ridiculous amount of honey-based dishes on the table. She also liked sweet food, but… there was nothing on the table except sweet dishes.

(It seems Ax and Dagger are enjoying themselves, but…)

She takes a glance at the black-armed Kobold.

(I’ve only known him for a short while compared to the others so I don’t know what he likes, but… I wonder if he likes sweet food too?)

“Kuaruu guruguouaruu… Wau?” (The smell alone could make me full… Hmm?)

Drinking some of the honey wine and shredding the meat into small pieces before popping them into his mouth, Buster suddenly looked in Aristia’s direction.

“Gaoaruooou?” (Does it suit your taste?)

“Wafi woruaaau… Gao kuaruooaaan.” (It’s good to have something like this every once in a while… Besides, we’ve been in your care, so I ain’t complaining.)

At first, all three of them wanted to go and look for their pack leader, but they were held back by the barrier around the Royal Capital, which was being regulated by Aristia’s magic.

The barrier is spread out over a wide area around the capital, so if they wandered off, they would have suffered a terrible fate. As the Elves are not affected by the effects of the barrier, they also had an option to accompany the search team as they set out, but… in the unlikely event that they were separated by a monster attack or some other trouble, it was going to be a problem.

So to avoid secondary damage, the three Kobolds agreed to Aristia’s proposal and decided to stay in the Royal Castle for several days after some careful explanation.

But the only reason they easily agreed to the arrangement was the belief that the silver Kobold would be fine.

It was the same for Aristia, and the fear that she had stifled when she first saw the silver-furred, golden-eyed dog monster standing against the moonlight had now been replaced by trust.

(If it’s him, then there’s nothing to be worried about… No, I am worried he might do something out there after all. I mean, he did climb the World Tree without permission… And thanks to that, I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. Geez!)

The reason she was writhing from the sensation of crawling all over her body is because she had forgotten to turn off the sensory link between her and the World Tree, but it seems she had not taken that into account.

Aristia was worried about Archer in a lot of ways, but there were more pressing issues she had to attend to at the moment. Well, that’s not something I should think about during a meal, so I’ll just put it off for now, Aristia thought as she happily went back to her dinner.

……………

………

…

The city of Elwind, where the World Tree Affectio (Affection) is located, is a two-day travel southwest from the Royal Capital Elfast. And it was three days ago, around the time when the rebels rioted in the Royal Capital, that a messenger from the Philland Republic arrived in the city.

The Philland Republic is the only nation in the west that came to possess a World Tree after it signed a peace treaty with the Elves at the end of the Battle of the Forest Garden 600 years ago.

However, Queen Claudia, the reigning monarch at that time, cut off diplomatic relations after only a few years, believing that the new values rapidly coming from the Republic would be poisonous to the Elves’ concept of a hierarchical clan society.

Naturally, the messenger should not have been able to make his way through the barrier surrounding the Elven cities, but…

During the assassination attempt on the current queen, a large amount of life force was consumed from the World Tree Aion (Eternity) to keep her alive. And because of this, some energy was also transferred from the World Tree Affectio in Elwind via the leylines, thus creating temporary gaps in its barrier system.

But even with the gaps in the barriers, it was still effective against warding away Humans, so the messengers sent were the Half-Elves, whose ear spans are only half as long as normal Elves’.

Meanwhile, at the encampment of the 2nd Division of the Philland Republican Army which was several kilometers away from the city of Elwind, Leiard, a Half-Elf Republican Councilor who was accompanied by 2,000 members of the expeditionary force, muttered as he recalled the events from the other day.

“Hmm, so they are calling us false Elves… Well, since the city of Elwind is my mother’s former hometown, I’ll make sure to give them my utmost respect.”