Chapter 574

“Well, I think the sky and order are indeed Elpinel and Astraea. There’s no need to think too abstractly about everything. After all, doesn’t Elpinel’s saintess also wear a golden chain on her head? Breaking the chains of the sky probably means eliminating her.”

Eventually, another elder, as if stopping the passionate elder, voiced a dissenting opinion.

“…Then, what do you think Astraea’s wedge is?”

A young—though young meant 820 years old—elder cautiously asked. Even among the same elder class, one had to always show respect to those over a thousand years old.

Being rude to an elder would label one as a foolish, disrespectful person, making them a target of dark social contempt.

“That would be the Holy Mark, wouldn’t it? Those gods imprint their seals on their representatives. So, breaking the wedge of order likely means eliminating Astraea’s saintess as well.”

“Um, I haven’t heard of the Astraea Church Order producing a saintess…”

Of course, contrary to their thoughts, Astraea’s Holy Mark had long been clearly engraved on the chest of a woman sipping strawberry juice on a sofa, but this was a well-kept secret known only to a select few.

“They might be hiding it, or it might not have appeared yet.”

The elder continued with a common-sense response.

“The Swallowing Wolf… I’m not sure about this one. It could be a metaphor for war, as Jeremilior said… or perhaps someone’s nickname. Speaking of which… isn’t there a human closely related to Elpinel’s representative and deeply entangled with the Astraea Church Order? Wasn’t that the topic of the last meeting?”

“Ha-shal-leur…!”

The elders, immediately understanding who was being referred to, let out murmurs.

The Sword of the Starry Sky, Ai-shan Gi-or Ha-shal-leur. Like Olivier’s descendant, who wielded both Oathclere and the power of the sun, she was a short-lived race with a high potential to become Alvheim’s future nemesis.

“That’s right. Even Ka`har often compares themselves to wolves, so it’s a fitting metaphor for her, a mixed-blood of Ka`har.”

“That’s a plausible interpretation. But if ‘Swallowing Wolf’ is a metaphor for that short-lived race, what does the oracle to release the wolf into the world mean? It doesn’t seem like she’s bound anywhere…”

“After killing Elpinel’s representative, she would likely storm out of the Imperial Capital seeking revenge. That’s what it means, right?”

This interpretation was much simpler and more plausible than the previous elder’s war theory.

However, the younger elders still weren’t convinced. They questioned the purpose of the oracle itself.

Killing two human saintesses and causing the Empire’s Greatest Sword to go on a rampage? How would that help the fairies? It would only turn the entire Empire and Holy Kingdom against Alvheim, bringing even fiercer conflict.

‘Unless they mean to assassinate Median when he storms out alone…’

If that were the case, the oracle should have been to hunt the wolf, not release it.

“Um…”

As the elders were lost in unresolved questions, a bespectacled elder sitting in the corner cautiously spoke up.

A man considered eccentric even among the elders.

Unlike other fairies who only cared about the World Tree, he was deeply fascinated by the myths of other races, spending over a hundred years researching them, nearly becoming a target of dark social contempt.

In a rigid social structure, being different was not something to be praised but to be ostracized.

“What is it? Speak.”

An old elder, with a look that said he expected nonsense, allowed him to speak.

“Ah, yes. About the metaphor of the Swallowing Wolf… isn’t it referring to the Wolf of Anger and Devouring, Vanargand?”

As expected, the old elder’s guess was close to nonsense, at least to the listening elders.

Laughter and ridicule followed.

“Vanargand? That’s an ancient name. Isn’t that an evil god only found in literature?”

“A god with no followers, no influence on the mortal world, whose very existence is doubtful. You’re still living in the nonsense of the short-lived races.”

Vanargand, Lilith, Fafnir, Invidius.

In the myths of the short-lived races, they were called the Four Evil Gods, but the fairies only recognized Lilith and Invidius as evil gods, considering the other two as false.

Unlike the two evil gods who granted powers to demons and witches and influenced the mortal world, there had been no beings granted powers by Fafnir or Vanargand in the past two thousand years.

Thus, the fairies believed Fafnir worship was a corrupted form of dragon worship and assumed the corresponding dragon was already dead.

Vanargand, with no recorded deeds, was considered either a fictional deity or, like Fafnir, a being that had already died and disappeared.

So, how ridiculous the eccentric elder’s nonsense must have seemed.

“If what you say is true, are Elpinel and Astraea’s representatives sealing Vanargand? Mere short-lived races sealing an evil god? That’s quite the feat. So great that I almost want to worship them!”

“That’s…”

The elder, whose opinion was denied, tried to argue but, certain that one more word would make him a target of dark social contempt, had to keep his mouth shut.

He knew well the vast difference between being considered eccentric and being considered a fool.

—

After a long discussion, the Council of Elders concluded to assassinate Elpinel’s representative, Lacey Elmain Staldorf, and find and kill Astraea’s representative.

Though the meaning of the “Swallowing Wolf” couldn’t be confirmed, they decided that eliminating the two saintesses would reveal its true meaning.

Of course, this didn’t conclude all discussions.

They hadn’t even started discussing the timing or method of the assassinations. Both targets were key figures in human power structures, making their elimination without risk a difficult task.

To find Astraea’s representative, they would have to search the Holy Kingdom, and to eliminate Elpinel’s representative, they would have to infiltrate the Imperial Capital…

This was proven impossible by Pailandria, who returned alone.

Though the World Tree’s blessing had strengthened with the oracle, it wasn’t as dramatically enhanced as before, making it still risky to face Oathclere’s master with just two guardians.

“If one can defeat two guardians alone in the forest, outside, with other humans assisting, they might handle three… maybe even four. And even that is the minimum force to cross the border, far insufficient to succeed in assassinating in the Imperial Capital.”

“Rather than sending four guardians to fight at the border… it would be better to lead an army into full-scale war. It would be obvious it’s our doing.”

“The real problem is the dwarves… They seem to have some trouble too, but we can’t be optimistic that they won’t do anything.”

War with the dwarves. That was the biggest problem. At the start of the war, it seemed a rational and obvious decision, but now it was a fatal mistake that tied up most of their forces at the southern border.

After two days of discussion, the elders decided to postpone the assassinations and wait for an opportunity.

Unlike Ha-shal-leur, who drew the fairies’ vigilance with her report of cutting the sky and her tremendous growth rate, Elpinel’s representative wasn’t particularly threatening on her own, so delaying her death by a few years wasn’t seen as a big issue.

Given the fairies’ lifespan, ten years wasn’t a long wait.

If they mingled with other races outside Alvheim, their sense of time would naturally shift closer to that of the short-lived races, but for the elders who never left Alvheim, this was a meaningless assumption.

“If we could use Ferneythia, it would help…”

One elder regretfully mentioned the name of the spy sent to the Empire.

Ferne, who had adopted a human-like sense of time, had spent fifteen years nurturing hatred towards the entire fairy race, grinding her teeth in anger…

But to the elders, it felt like she had only just been sent, and they mistakenly believed she still held hope for the fairies and would be swayed by their will.

“That might be difficult. Seeing how her blessing’s energy keeps fluctuating, it seems she’s being tortured by humans. It would be more humane to retrieve the blessing and let her die quickly.”

“Then we shouldn’t retrieve the blessing.”

“Indeed. It’s a pity we couldn’t use her properly, but dying without even achieving death, being tortured by humans, is a fitting end for her.”

In reality, she wasn’t being tortured but was drunk and sprawled out asleep, but the elders couldn’t imagine a fairy twisting the World Tree’s blessing just to get drunk.

The Ferneythia they remembered was, until she turned against the Council, a model guardian, making it even harder to believe.

Next, the punishment of Pailandria, who returned alone against the Council’s orders and abandoned her fellow guardians, was discussed.

Originally, she should have had her guardian’s blessing revoked and been stripped of her status.

However, five elders actively defended her, citing her merit in bringing information about Oathclere’s master, so her punishment was reduced to a fine.

The other elders already guessed the true reason for her defense but didn’t press the issue, as most had ‘personal’ relationships with Pailandria.

Given the fairies’ long lifespans, such entanglements between guardians and elders weren’t uncommon.