Chapter 71 : Chapter 71

Chapter 71. Fate’s Gift and Price

“Eli Pendragon pays his respects to Your Highness.”

His respectful words echoed through the empty space.

Then a gentle yet irresistible force steadily raised his bowed body upright.

From atop the throne, Princess Irene looked at him calmly. “There is no need for such formality.”

Her gaze shifted to Gulu, who was standing nearby and trying her best to puff out her chest and suck in her belly, and a trace of helplessness entered her tone.

“Gulu has a mischievous and restless nature. On the way here, I imagine she caused you no small amount of trouble.”

“Hey! Your Highness! When did I ever?!” Gulu immediately leapt up, planting her little paws on her hips as she shrieked her protest.

“I completed the mission with utmost diligence!

I nearly got chopped apart by this violent human! He was the one causing me trouble!”

Eli’s calm gaze swept over the indignant Gulu, and his voice remained steady and sincere.

“Your Highness overstates it.

Lady Gulu is pure and innocent by nature, lively and adorable, and…”

He paused, his tone utterly smooth and natural. “Powerful and mighty as well. She escorted me the entire way and fulfilled her duty with complete devotion. It is Pendragon’s honor.”

“Pfft—hahahaha!!!” The moment Eli finished speaking, the sulking Gulu instantly broke down.

“Hahaha! Powerful and mighty! Hahaha! Well said! Exactly right!

Human brat! You finally have some sense! Hahaha! I am powerful and mighty! Hahaha!”

She laughed so hard that she rocked back and forth, all four paws flailing as her tiny body rolled about like an out-of-control ball of yarn.

Upon the throne, even the cold, sculpted perfection of Irene’s face softened slightly, and the corners of her lips curved upward despite herself.

She gently shook her head and let out an indulgent sigh.

Clearly, even she found it somewhat amusing that Eli could tell such a blatant lie with such a perfectly straight face.

The atmosphere quietly eased by quite a bit.

Eli keenly caught that shift.

He no longer hesitated and went straight to the heart of the matter.

“Your Highness, may I ask why you summoned Pendragon? What are your orders?”

The calm returned to Irene’s face.

She did not answer Eli’s question directly. Instead, those star-filled eyes fell upon his snow-white hair as she spoke in an even tone.

“You… are an elf?”

It was here—the crucial question.

Eli’s heart tightened, though fortunately he had already prepared an answer.

He slightly parted his lips, just about to follow what he assumed was her mistaken conclusion and admit it.

“No.”

A clear, firm word abruptly burst from his mouth.

Eli’s pupils constricted sharply.

What was happening?! His body! It felt as though it had been seized by some invisible force.

In shock, he stared at those calm, unmoving starry eyes upon the throne, and a sensation of being seen through completely swept over him.

He could only stand there and listen helplessly as his own mouth spoke beyond his control.

“I am not an elf. I merely happened to discover and absorb a Moonlight Spring within… an elven ruin.”

“What?!” Beside him, Gulu suddenly bounced upright from the floor, her black-bead eyes wide and round.

“The Moonlight Spring?! You actually used our elven Moonlight Sacred Spring?!

That is a supreme holy relic that only those of the royal bloodline may bathe in and receive cleansing from!

No wonder! No wonder even Valerian looked at you twice!

You, you, you…”

She became completely incoherent, her little paws trembling as though Eli had committed some monstrous crime.

Eli’s heart sank to the bottom.

He stood stiffly where he was, enduring both Gulu’s shrill cries and the pressure brought by Irene’s calm gaze.

He knew that before this unfathomable elf princess, he had been completely exposed.

From the very beginning, he had possessed no bargaining chips in this negotiation. Now he had fallen into an absolutely inferior position.

Without any hesitation, Eli dropped to one knee.

He lowered his head. “Your Highness, in the matter of the Moonlight Sacred Spring, I truly had no intention of committing offense.

But what is done is done. I am willing to bear all consequences.”

He lowered his posture to the utmost, placing the choice entirely in her hands.

Silence filled the jade space.

Upon the throne, Irene quietly looked at the white-haired human below.

A moment later, her ethereal voice finally rang out again, without joy or anger in it.

“The Moonlight Sacred Spring is indeed one of the supreme holy relics of our elf race.

As the long years have passed, the remaining springheads left in the mortal world have long become exceedingly few.

That you were able to find one, and successfully absorb its essence, is your fate.”

Her tone was very calm.

That calmness loosened the taut string in Eli’s heart by just a fraction.

So she was not about to unleash thunderous wrath at once?

“However,” Irene said, turning the point of her words, “fate is fate, but an explanation is still required.”

There it was.

Eli’s heart lifted again, and he held his breath.

A trace of slyness seemed to curve at the corner of Irene’s lips.

“More than five hundred years ago, a daring human infiltrated our sacred land

and stole a… particularly important treasure.”

More than five hundred years ago? Eli raised his head, his blue eyes filled with inquiry.

There seemed to be a hint of amusement in Irene’s gaze. “That human’s name is one you have surely heard before.

His name was Caesar Aurora.”

Boom!

The name exploded through Eli’s mind like a thunderclap.

The founding emperor of the Kingdom of Orlando?! The ancestor of the royal House Aurora?!

“Your Highness…” Eli’s voice was dry with overwhelming shock.

“Your meaning is… that you want me to… oppose the royal family of the kingdom? To recover the… stolen… treasure?”

It was utterly absurd.

To make him contend against the very foundation of a kingdom? That was even more preposterous than asking him to slay a dragon.

“Then please, Your Highness, kill me instead.” Eli’s voice carried an almost despairing calm.

“Pfft…” Irene finally failed to hold back her laughter. The sound was like clear springwater striking a jade plate, instantly shattering the heaviness of the space.

“Of course not now.” There was a trace of teasing in her tone.

“I have only just awakened. Why should I be in such haste? As for you now…”

Her gaze swept over Eli. “You are far too weak.”

Eli: “…”

Though he had just been looked down upon, the massive stone weighing on his heart crashed to the ground at last.

As long as she was not sending him to his death immediately, that was enough.

“For now, you need only do one thing,” Irene said, her voice returning to calmness.

“Strive to stay alive. Strive to become stronger. Strive to… develop your territory.”

“When your strength is sufficient to attract my attention, I will naturally tell you what it is I require you to do.”

Bitterness spread through Eli’s heart.

The price of the Moonlight Spring was even heavier than he had imagined.

A shackle that might descend at any unknown moment had, just like that, been placed around his neck.

It bound him tightly to this mysterious elf princess.

But did he have a choice?

Before an absolute gap in power, and before the unavoidable fact of the Moonlight Spring, the answer was no.

He took a deep breath, lowered his head once more, and his voice recovered its usual steadiness.

“I understand. I shall obey Your Highness’s command.”

“Very good.” Irene seemed reasonably satisfied with his attitude.

She rose gracefully to her feet.

“Remember my name, Irene. If the need arises in the future, I will contact you.”

“Yes, Lady Irene,” Eli replied respectfully.

“Oh, right.” It was as though Irene had suddenly remembered something. Her long, jade-like fingers flicked lightly at her side.

Bzz—

The space twisted faintly.

To the astonishment of Eli and Gulu, an ancient longsword radiating the weight of ages suddenly appeared in the empty ground before Irene.

Yet the sword had not been placed there normally. Its tip pointed downward, buried deep within a half-man-tall gray-white boulder.

The blade and the stone fit together so perfectly that they seemed as though they had always been one.

“As this is our first meeting,” Irene said, with a trace of mischief in her voice,

“I shall give you a gift. It is said…”

She pointed toward the sword embedded in the stone.

“This is the Sword of Kings passed down through the elf race since ancient times.

An old prophecy says that only a true king may draw it from the stone. You… would dare to try, would you not?”

Gulu’s black-bead eyes instantly lit up. She scurried close to the sword in the stone and tentatively poked the cold hilt with a little paw.

Eli’s gaze fell upon that legendary sword in the stone, and his expression remained calm and unreadable.

The old steward’s words surfaced in his mind. Yes—every gift bestowed by fate already had its price marked upon it.

He remained silent for several seconds, then raised his head and looked at Irene.

His voice was steady. “Your Highness, I think… perhaps you have it backward.”

“Oh?” Irene raised a brow slightly, seemingly surprised by that answer.

“It is not the one who draws this sword who becomes a king.”

Eli spoke each word with deliberate clarity.

“Rather… only the sword in a king’s hand can truly be called the Sword of Kings.

This sword…” His gaze swept once more across that ancient longsword embedded in an ordinary stone.

“In itself, it cannot decide who is a king.”

When his words fell, the jade space lapsed into brief silence.

Gulu’s little paw, which had been poking the sword, froze in midair.

Then a pulse suddenly burst from the sword and knocked her sprawling onto the ground.

This sword… seemed to have become angry.

Before the throne, the composure and teasing on Irene’s face were replaced for the first time by astonishment.

She quietly looked at Eli, and looked at him for a long time.

No longer did her gaze carry the lofty scrutiny from above. Instead, it now held a kind of probing complexity that was difficult to decipher.

“…You are right, Eli.”

Only after a long while did Irene’s ethereal voice ring out again, and it seemed to contain a hint of something indescribable that had not been there before.

With a light wave of her hand, the ancient longsword embedded in the stone, together with the boulder itself, vanished soundlessly into the air just as it had appeared.

“You may go.”

Without another word, a gentle light enveloped Eli, and the space twisted faintly.

In the next instant, Eli’s figure vanished from where he stood.

The jade space returned to its original silence.

“Tch!” Gulu curled her lip at the place where Eli had disappeared and let out a disdainful huff.

“What was with that act? He would not even give Your Highness face! He does not know what is good for him! He was obviously just afraid he would not be able to pull it out!”

She hopped back to Irene’s feet. “Your Highness, what do you think of him? His temper may be foul, and he may be vicious.

But… he does seem pretty clever? And he has managed his territory rather well too…”

She scratched at her belly with a little paw, then added in a “serious” tone,

“And besides, now that he has absorbed the Moonlight Spring, he should count as the only male elf left in the world.

So the continuation of our elf race…”

Before she could finish—

Bang!

An invisible enormous force slammed into her round little body.

“Ahhh—!!!”

Accompanied by a short, shrill scream, the great Lord Gulu shot away like a fuzzball struck by a mighty blow.

She smashed solidly into the smooth, hard jade wall in the distance.

Her entire body was embedded in it, leaving behind only a silhouette with all four limbs spread wide and her tail drooping down.

Irene’s gaze remained fixed on the spot where Eli had disappeared. Within those starry eyes surged complicated emotions that were impossible to read.

In the end, they became nothing more than a whisper too soft to hear clearly.

“An interesting human.”