Mage? Magic Engineer!-Chapter 95 - 92: Memories, Slaughter

Elves are a long-lived species.

This was true in the Age of Myths. Even in the Age of Heroes, Elves with lifespans of several hundred years were commonplace. But in truth, the race’s average lifespan has been slowly shrinking for reasons unknown. Even more fatally, their characteristic slowness to reproduce—a trait common to long-lived species—has remained unchanged.

Just before the dawn of the Age of Silence, the Elves’ most powerful ancestor, the Divine Spirit Silvanos, vanished.

Their god had abandoned His beautiful, devout children. The Elves, facing the well-armed and armored humans, no longer had the strength to resist. Their settlements across the continent were wiped out one by one. And the Dwarves, whom the Elves had constantly accused of destroying the environment with their mining and forging, now stood firmly with the humans.

From that day forward, the Elven race on the main continent lost their kingdoms, cities, and homes, becoming wandering spirits upon the land.

Meanwhile, the Elves of the island kingdoms, originally exiled criminals, had managed to achieve a tolerant coexistence with the humans of Istani by helping them break free from the Old Empire’s rule.

In the depths of the Black Forest, a small remnant of their people survived. They abandoned the accumulated technology of Elven civilization, instead living for generations by an ancient pact made with nature before Silvanos’s ascension. They embraced nature itself, no longer in service to any Divine Spirit.

But their settlement continued to weaken. Even without outside interference, their lifespans grew ever shorter and their population dwindled. Their oral epics were on the verge of being lost forever. The Elders devised a plan: they would attempt to create new life, modeled after the servants and emissaries of Silvanos, to carry on the stories of their dying race.

Their creation would also guard the Divine Wood of Deryats Forest—or, more accurately, suppress the ominous power beneath its roots. This was their true, most important purpose.

This new life would not need to struggle against humans and Dwarves. It was meant to have a long life, to become one with the forest.

So they would use a part of the forest itself!

They would use plants to create a life form somewhere between flora and fauna. Using Silvanos’s Wood Elf emissaries as a blueprint, they irrigated and cultivated a special species of tree. To grant the plant mobility and the ability to hold and wield magic, the Elves selected a suitable fungus from the mutated organisms beneath the Divine Wood, modifying it to live in symbiosis with the tree.

Only one final piece of the puzzle was missing.

The Elves had long ago discovered two principles. First, that magical energy in nature would ripple after a spell was cast, sometimes even creating an echo. Second, that magical energy and all beings with Vitality could influence one another. Based on these two pieces of knowledge, they experimented tirelessly to amplify this phenomenon and stabilize it with a special Technique, ultimately creating an artificial Essence.

This Essence was fused with the body composed of plant and fungus. Thus, a crude imitation of a Wood Elf—and yet the Elves’ greatest creation—was born in a small village, isolated from the world.

Though they were still dull, childlike creatures, they possessed one crucial difference from human creations like Tower Spirits or Artifact Spirits: they were a race capable of reproducing on their own! Reproduction and long life—the Elves’ tear-soaked, blood-drenched obsession had been fulfilled.

However, this ugly race was not yet perfect. In fact, most Elves in the settlement found them intolerable. The Elders wanted to refine them further, planning to bestow a name upon them only after they achieved a more beautiful form.

The monsters could not understand any of this. They only tried to imitate—mimicking shapes, movements, and sounds. Their massive bodies were comical and clumsy.

Until one day, a single one wandered off. The Elves never imagined it would stray to the edge of the forest and be seen by human eyes.

When it reappeared, it was being driven back by a pursuing party of the Empire’s elite soldiers and human Casters.

The monsters did not understand the catastrophe they had wrought. They only followed the Elves’ commands to fight the humans, only felt the burn of magical flames, and were only annihilated along with the village.

In their desperation and madness, the Elves even led the humans to the Divine Wood, unleashing the suppressed, foul, and ominous power beneath it. But they still could not escape their fate of complete annihilation.

Yet deep within the soil and the surrounding trees, some mycelia remained, harboring the surviving Essences. Year after year, they gestated, and new individuals were born. They grew more numerous, and with each generation, they became taller, uglier, and duller.

The race had lost its creators—their parents and teachers. There was no one left to guide them or give them names. The nameless monsters could only wander blindly amidst the ruins and the depths of the forest.

They had no need for ears, yet they still mimicked the Elves, growing pointed tumors on the sides of their heads. They understood nothing, merely repeating the songs, screams, roars, and cries that had once filled the village.

The monsters could not understand any of this.

They did not understand the worsening corruption of the forest, nor why two groups of similar beings would slaughter one another.

The monsters did not understand why parents would drive their child into the forest, why the small child cried, why he was missing an arm, or why he eventually stopped moving.

The monsters did not understand why the disaster that destroyed the village was happening again, or why new humans had found this place.

Searing Rays pierced their bodies. Fire, explosions, and thunderbolts rained down. Magical energy boiled, battering their Essences, and the fragile mycelia withered.

’Enemies! We remember now!’ The command their creators had once given them: ’Attack! Attack!’

Snarls and rage—though these too were imitated from other living things, in this moment, the emotions and thoughts coalescing within them were their own.

But they still did not understand. Why were the enemies so small, yet impossible to approach? Why were they so few, yet their terrible attacks so relentless?

Some Essences dissipated into nothing, while others drifted away, attaching themselves once more to the mycelia deep in the earth and the surrounding trees.

...

Rorschach likely had the highest kill count. His Rays, aimed primarily at the monsters’ heads or torsos, were brutally efficient.

Cavendish’s Thunder Spells were surprisingly ineffective against the monsters, much to his frustration. "So this was an Elven settlement? Did they leave behind any written records?"

"Where’s the center of the village? Can we dispel this anomaly?" Peterson was more concerned with the current situation. He suspected that the failure of his Natural System perception and the perpetual night were both originating from this strange village ruin.

Kou Bo and Humboldt were the most interested in the monster race. After seeing so many of them, they immediately realized these weren’t simple summoned creatures or Essences spontaneously formed by the forest, but a self-propagating species. They captured four specimens.

Kou Bo rubbed his head. ’We have to find a way to transport them out.’

"Everyone, look!" Ella’s face was ashen. She had found something.

In the center of the village was a stone platform that had been swept clean. A small body lay upon it.

It was the desiccated body of a young boy, preserved by the winter cold. Fallen leaves had been laid over him like a blanket.

"He’s missing his right arm. It’s not an injury, but a congenital deformity," Kou Bo’s avatar assessed, lifting the dead boy’s clothing.

The child’s expression was peaceful, showing no signs of pain. Round objects were placed around him—completely dried, blackened fruit and smooth, round stones. It was winter; none of it was edible.

Perhaps the beings that had placed these items here did not understand the meaning of their own actions. They were merely imitating how the Elves, long ago, had cared for their sick young.

Everyone stared in silence.