Chapter 194 - The Way Back Home (XII)

The camp of the elves who managed to be teleported away by the village elder was staying in a hidden area that the village elder made to make sure that the elves who sided from the demons would not be able to detect them and harm any of them out here.

"Why do I see most of them are just females? I only spotted a few males around here," Hagane asked. It looks like his eyes caught the number ratio difference of the two genders of the elves in the camp.

"I only managed to get a few of the men to come with me and teleported due to how limited the time I had with me to gather them all. Not only that, since most of the men are hunters, they are the very first people that were converted, so if my assumption is correct, almost all of the men are now under the influence of the demon blood."

While we are discussing it, a young elf girl appeared. She seems like she is a hunter at a young age already due to her outfit being the uniform of the hunters in Elf folks. She also has a bow and quiver with 4 arrows inside. I also spotted that she is using wind boots, level 85 boots that have a property to make the wearer capable of using less stamina from jumping and can walk temporarily in the wind for a few seconds though it was like some sort of double jump. She looks like a 9-year-old girl to me but since elves live longer and they age differently compared to humans, she must be around 100 or more years old.

"Gust, I told you to accompany your mother," the elder said.

"But Uncle! My father is still out there! I don't believe my father to join them! He is against the demons and is openly hating on them so how come he would be joining the enemies he despises the most?"

The elder did not say anything and just remained quiet. The girl named Gust looked at us and approached us.

"Are you all adventurers? Please rescue my father from the enemies. I am sure that he was not one of those that have been converted to the enemies. He would never do that and he would rather die than help the enemies. Please rescue him and anyone who is still alive!"

"Gust! Don't ask for the impossible! The new elder of that village will not spare anyone just like that! He is a devil incarnate already and I can be sure he is going to also convert your father to his own henchmen!"

"I refuse to believe that! I am sure he is still alive there! Please adventurers! Whoever from you all are going back to the village to confront them, please, save my father and everyone else who refuses to become one with the demons! Please, I beg you..."

I looked at the main quest and saw that another objective was added, however, there is a timer and it was labeled as optional. 5 hours in-game time. However, the timer is not paused, but it is currently running. The moment the new objective was added, the timer started ticking.

[Rescue unturned Elf folks: 0/20 (Time remaining: 4 hours and 59 minutes left)

The elder can only shake his head. " Come on, let's get inside my tent. You too should also come in, Gust. We will discuss everything as fast as we can since we will be tight on time and there are lots of things to discuss."

Inside his tent, is a big table with a map on top of it with colored rocks which seems to be the markings he used. Based on the map, it was a whole layout map of the elf folk village.

"Let me give you quick pointers. One of the main things you need to watch out for is the Demon Hearts. For some unknown reason, these hearts are usually found in the lairs of demon camps. It is what the demons call the "power battery" since they can store their powers and use them as they see fit. I don't have any idea of what their real purpose is but they are sure nasty enough. Just to be safe, you needed to destroy all of them. I already marked out some of the hearts that are in the open field but I am sure some of them are hidden in plain sight so it is up to you to discover where they were located.

"Now there are also the warning bells. When it was still a normal village, we use that if there is any sort of trouble and use that for alerting everyone in the camp. However, this is now going to be used for alerting intruders. If you are found by one individual but don't want to alert the whole village, then sabotaging the bells will be your best bet to stop them from doing so."

"I think I got the gist of it," I nodded and took a glance at the map to imprint the map layout in my mind.

"Now, since Gust wanted you to rescue anyone who has yet to turn into an enemy, then bring this artifact I use to determine whether someone is under demon influence or not. This artifact is also capable of detecting hidden things hidden in plain sight. In short, any illusion will be unsafe from this artifact. This way, you can see whether they are demons in disguise. They can also detect lies. Whenever someone tries to lie, they will have red smoke coming out from their mouth. Use it to cull anyone who wanted to ruin everything."

-Received Artifact of Absolute Truth.

Note: The artifact of Absolute truth will destroy all illusions of any kind and reveals the real truth. You can also detect lies from others too. Use this mechanic to finish the quest.

"Since you will be the only one who will be going to this quest, I will be giving a new quest to the others who are not with him. Now, go. We are racing against time so please make haste."

"I understand."

Before I went, Gust stopped me and gave me a necklace.

"Give that to my father. His name is Wind. If he saw that necklace, I know that he will know what it was."

"Alright." 

I immediately departed and summoned Leona not too far from the campsite and headed to the village. With Leona, the speed of arrival from the campsite to the village is really big. I managed to reach the place in a few minutes.

"Damn, to think the village has been turned like this... no wonder the village chief is so adamant in killing them all. All of the elves here are no longer elves but are abomination elves that are far from what they were in the past."

"I don't see any difference master. Does that mean the artifact you have is indeed working?" Atlas asked while he was still inside the summons' area.

"Yeah, it seems it is working just fine. I don't see any difference when we were at the campsite so I thought I needed to do something for it to function but even though I didn't do anything just yet but here it is, I can see the things that have changed in the village."

"Do you need help for the cleanup master? I can do an easy clean-up with them."

"Maybe later against the final boss, right now, I have to do this alone."

Recalling Leona, the next step is landing at the nearest tree. While I managed to land on the tree, I also activated [Stealth] and ready everything. Since this is going to be an infiltration mission, the first thing I needed to do is do some sabotage plans and some traps to deal with everyone. With so many elf folks that I needed to kill, I have to be very stealthy in killing them all. It is not going to be an easy thing to do since this will be a very lengthy mission.

The village is very big and just based on the layout, the targets would be either in one place or they might be scattered around.

"Let's get the work going."

There are two patrolling guards coming in and are currently talking nonsense. They no longer resemble normal elf folk but are demons already with the remnant of their elf faces. If I don't have the artifact, I will still be seeing them as real elves.

Quickly making a trap, I used the normal pitfall trap and moving walls trap like how I did with the players from Burning Dragon's guild but this time, it was a quick and simple trap. This will only take a little time.

I waited for the trap to spring up and the moment it did, the two guards fell and tried to scream. However, since this is a quick trap, the trap was also fast too. The moment they fell is also the moment the trap closes. The action will now begin.

Progress:

Acting Leader killed: 0/1

Elf folks killed: 2/80.

Demon Hearts destroyed: 0/10

Warning Bells sabotaged: 0/5

Unturned Elf Folks rescued: 0/20 (Time remaining: 4 hours and 48 minutes left)