Ch.574Misconception and Misunderstanding

“Well. I think Elpinel and Astraea are right about the sky and order. No need to think too abstractly about everything. After all, doesn’t Elpinel’s saint wear a golden chain on her head? Breaking the chains of heaven must mean eliminating that woman.”

Eventually, another elderly elder expressed an opposing view, as if restraining the elder who had been speaking passionately.

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

A young elder—though still 820 years old—carefully asked. Even among the same elder rank, one always had to maintain outward respect toward those over a thousand years old.

If one behaved rudely toward an elderly elder, they would be treated as an ignorant fool lacking manners and become the target of gloomy social contempt.

“That must be the Stigmata of Astraea, wouldn’t it? I heard those gods imprint their seal on their representatives. So breaking the wedge of order must mean eliminating Astraea’s saint as well.”

“But, I haven’t heard that the Church of Astraea has produced a saint…”

Of course, contrary to their beliefs, Astraea’s stigmata had long been clearly engraved on the chest of the woman who was sitting on a sofa sipping strawberry juice, but this was a well-guarded secret known only to an extremely small number of people.

“They might be hiding it, or perhaps it hasn’t appeared yet.”

The elderly elder continued, offering a sensible response.

“The devouring wolf… this I’m not sure about. As Jeremilior said, it could be a metaphor for war… or perhaps someone’s alias. Come to think of it… isn’t there a human who is close to Elpinel’s representative while also being deeply entangled with the Church of Astraea? I believe it was the subject of our last meeting?”

“Haschal…!”

The elders who immediately understood who was being referred to exhaled with hissing voices.

The Sword of the Starry Sky, Aishan-Gioro Haschal. Like the descendant of Olivier who supposedly wielded both Hauteclere and the power of the sun, she was a short-lived species with great potential to become Alvheim’s sworn enemy.

“That’s right. Moreover, since the Ka’har often compare themselves to wolves, it’s a fitting metaphor for that woman who is a half-blood with Ka’har.”

“That’s a reasonable interpretation. However, if ‘devouring wolf’ is a metaphor for that short-lived one, what does the oracle mean by releasing the wolf into the world? She doesn’t appear to be bound anywhere…”

“After killing Elpinel’s representative, given her temperament, she would likely leave the empire to hunt down the murderer. Isn’t that what it means?”

This was a much simpler and more plausible interpretation than the war theory the previous elder had presented.

However, the younger elders still weren’t convinced. Their doubts were about the purpose itself, not the meaning of the oracle.

Kill two human saints and make the Empire’s First Sword run wild with rage? How would that benefit the fairies?

It would only turn everyone in the Empire and Holy State against them, bringing more intense warfare to Alvheim.

‘Surely, it can’t mean to assassinate Median when she rushes out alone…’

If that were the meaning, wouldn’t the oracle have been to hunt the wolf rather than release it?

“Um…”

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

A man considered eccentric even within the Elder Council.

Unlike other fairies who had no interest in gods other than the World Tree, he had spent over a hundred years pouring into research, fascinated by the mythologies of other races, and was now on the verge of becoming a target of gloomy social contempt.

In their rigid social structure, being different wasn’t something to be praised but rather a matter to be ostracized.

“What is it? Speak.”

One of the elderly elders permitted him to speak, with an expression suggesting he was expecting more nonsense.

“Ah, yes. About the metaphor of the devouring wolf. Isn’t it referring to Vanirgand, the wolf of rage and predation?”

As expected, this guess was close to nonsense, at least to the elders listening.

Laughter and mockery followed.

“Vanirgand? How ancient a name is that? It’s an evil god that only appears in literature.”

“A god with no worshippers and no influence on the mortal world, whose survival… no, whose very existence is questionable. You still live in the nonsense of short-lived species.”

Vanirgand, Lilith, Fafnir, Invidius.

While grouped as the four evil gods in the mythology of short-lived species, 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 mages and witches and influenced the mortal world, no one granted powers by Fafnir or Vanirgand had appeared in the last two thousand years.

Therefore, the fairies considered Fafnir worship as dragon worship that had evolved into a religion, and they judged that the dragon in question was already dead.

As for Vanirgand, only the name was passed down with no recorded deeds at all, so they considered it 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.

“According to you, are Elpinel and Astraea’s representatives sealing Vanirgand? Mere short-lived ones sealing an evil god? That’s quite remarkable. So remarkable I might want to worship them!”

“That’s…”

The elder whose opinion was denied tried to argue somehow, but realizing that uttering one more word would immediately make him a target of gloomy social contempt, he had no choice but to close his mouth.

He too must have known the enormous gap between being considered eccentric and being considered a fool.

—-

After a long discussion, the Elder Council concluded to assassinate Elpinel’s representative, Lacy Elmaine Stardolf, and find and kill Astraea’s representative.

They couldn’t determine what “devouring wolf” meant, but they reached this conclusion based on the judgment that once the two saints were eliminated, it would reveal itself.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of all discussions.

They hadn’t even begun discussing the timing or method of assassination. Both assassination targets were part of the human core power structure, making it difficult to eliminate them without risk.

To find Astraea’s representative, they would have to search the Holy State, and to eliminate Elpinel’s representative, they would have to infiltrate the empire itself…

Feilandria, who had returned alone, proved that this was impossible with just one or two guardians.

Although the World Tree’s blessing had strengthened with the oracle, it wasn’t dramatically enhanced like last time, so two guardians still seemed woefully inadequate against the master of Hauteclere.

“If she can defeat two guardians alone in the forest, she might be able to handle three or even four when jointly attacked by other humans outside the forest. Even that would be the minimum force needed to cross the border, far from sufficient to succeed in assassination within the empire.”

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

“The problem is still the dwarves… Something seems to have changed on their side as well, but we can’t be optimistic that they won’t do anything.”

War with the dwarves. That was the biggest problem. What had seemed like a rational and natural decision at the start of the war now appeared to be a fatal mistake that tied up most of their forces at the southern border.

After two days of discussion, the elders finally concluded to postpone the assassination and wait for an opportunity.

Unlike Haschal, who had earned the fairies’ vigilance with reports of cutting the sky and her tremendous growth rate, Elpinel’s representative wasn’t particularly threatening as an individual, so they believed there wouldn’t be a major problem if her death was delayed by a few years.

Given the fairy characteristic of living nearly ten times longer than other races, a decade wasn’t such a long wait.

If they left Alvheim and mingled with other races, their sense of time would naturally change to something closer to short-lived species, but this was a meaningless assumption for elders who had no reason to leave Alvheim.

“If only we could use Perneisia, it would be helpful…”

One elder regretfully mentioned the name of the spy they had dispatched to the empire.

With a sense of time closer to humans, Perne had been grinding her teeth for fifteen years, turning her resentment toward the Elder Council into hatred for all fairies…

But from the elders’ perspective, it felt like she had only been dispatched recently, so they were under the illusion that she still hadn’t given up hope for the fairies and had no choice but to be manipulated according to their will.

“I think it’s difficult to expect anything from her. Seeing how the blessing’s energy connected to that woman is constantly disturbed, it seems she’s being tortured by humans. The humane thing would be to withdraw the blessing and let her meet a quick death.”

“Then we shouldn’t withdraw the blessing.”

“Indeed. Although it’s regrettable that we couldn’t properly utilize her, being tortured by mere humans without even being able to attain death is a fitting end for that woman.”

In reality, far from being tortured, she was passed out drunk, but it was hard for the Elder Council to imagine that there could be a crazy fairy who would forcibly twist the World Tree’s blessing just to get drunk.

This was especially true because the Perneisia they remembered had been the very model of a guardian until she turned against the Elder Council.

Next, they discussed the punishment for Feilandria, who had defied the Elder Council’s orders and returned alone, abandoning her fellow guardian.

Ordinarily, she should have had her guardian blessing withdrawn by the Elder Council’s authority and been subjected to identity revocation.

However, five elders actively defended her, arguing that she had brought information about the master of Hauteclere and should be spared the extreme punishment this time, so her punishment was concluded to be just a fine.

The other elders already guessed the true reason why the five elders defended her but didn’t try to expose or question it. Most of them had also had “personal” relationships with Feilandria in the past.

Given the fairy characteristic of living for hundreds of years, it wasn’t uncommon for guardians and elders to form such collusive relationships.