71 CHAPTER 71: CHOOSE WHERE YOU STAND (2)

I shuffled through my memories and tried to replay the whole conversation inside my head. Where exactly was the key point hidden?

"Do you understand now? I want that kid dead so badly, I would be grateful if you kill her as a hostage!" He yelled at the top of his lungs, "even seeing your face disgusts me, you monster! Why must you have eyes that look exactly like that human trash, yet a face that looked exactly like my dear sister!?"

...Human trash? Wait, didn't she say her dad was...

"Firiell!" I called out to her.

She flinched when she saw me, and tried to open her mouth, but was unable to due to general Emilio's dagger. He seemed to have immediately caught on, and distanced his dagger a bit, although still not letting her go.

"Firiell, you said your dad wasn't from here, right?"

She nodded.

"Did your mom ever tell you where your dad comes from? Or do you know where those tuna dudes come from?" I inquired.

She took a gasp of fresh air, "I-I think they came from somewhere called 'Lysandra'."

Ah, I see. Now the puzzle pieces were finally coming together.

"Have you ever heard of a place called 'Alistair'?" I asked one last question to confirm my theory.

"No..." She answered, looking like she was on the verge of tears.

Now I had finally understood.

Firiell's parents. The pillaging of the elves' village. Those weird signs general Zhang purposely showed me, and even the increasingly barren landscape I saw since I first came here, even though Jeanne said that it wasn't this barren before.

Those all lead to one conclusion.

"There are other human civilizations here aside from us."

Audible gasps were heard from both Jeanne and general Emilio, which meant that they genuinely had no idea. I mean, even the stoic general Emilio was shocked enough to gasp.

"So what?" The elf prince scoffed. As expected, he was smart enough to understand that we really weren't involved in that pillaging, "that doesn't change the fact that you humans started this."

"No, please!" Firiell suddenly shouted, making us all look at her, "please! There's more to the story than what he said!"

"Silence!" The elf prince shouted in rage, frightening Firiell so much that she immediately got quiet again.

"You said you were going to chop her head off, right?" He continued, "well, do it!"

General Emilio bit his lip, and threw Firiell's thin body to the side. Without missing a second, he plucked out three needles from his arm and threw them towards the elf prince. I immediately caught Firiell and did a follow-up fire blast attack, aiming for his head to not accidentally hurt Jeanne, who was still pinned under him.

"Ah! Hostage plan always sucks!" I cursed as I dashed towards Jeanne in an attempt to free her.

'Swish!'

"Gah!" I shouted when an arrow grazed my cheek ever so slightly.

"You think that'll work on me? Foolish, arrogant humans..." The prince scorned, and held Jeanne's body up by her neck. They were both standing now, but Jeanne's feet were barely touching the ground.

"Halt!" General Emilio ordered, and I stopped on my track.

As we paused and waited for anyone to say something or do something, I started to feel my cheek burn ever so painfully. Man, how did general Emilio endure this for so long!? And he was pierced, for frick's sake!

"What's wrong? Not so arrogant now that you can't do anything, huh?" The elf prince frowned and tightened his grip on Jeanne's neck.

"Ahck--!" Jeanne tried to pry open his fingers, but to no avail. She was thrashing around and retaliating, but the elf prince wasn't letting off, either.

"Stop this! Why do you hate me so much, uncle? Aren't we a family!?" Firiell exclaimed as she started to burst into tears. To be honest, if what that douche was saying was true, it was amazing how she managed to hold back her tears up until now. The little me would've probably cried long ago.

"...Uncle? Family?" The elf prince's voice trembled again, and his ominous mana grew worse to the point where I unconsciously held my breath for a moment, "if I hear those words come out of your mouth once again, I'll make sure you won't be able to say anything anymore."

"But why!?" She yelled as tears streamed down her little pale face. She was already sobbing at this point.

"Why!? You still dare ask that when you're the reason my sister died!?" The elf prince yelled back, "you killed her! You killed my innocent sister!"

"No! Mother killed herself! She didn't want me anymore, but she chose to die herself!" Firiell responded.

"You and those humans drove her to suicide! You don't deserve to have a family, much less a family of royal elves!" His voice thundered throughout the afternoon air.

"Argh, shut up!" I yelled, shifting the attention towards myself, "all you've been doing is just blabbering on and on and on, like yeah, we get it. Tragedy struck you and now you're salty at us, who you know weren't involved!" I started to yap without giving him a chance to cut me off.

"You don't--"

"No! Listen! You've had your chance to speak, okay? Now it's your turn to fricking listen to what we have to say!" I yelled louder than him, and kept yapping without stopping. Man, maybe I had a hidden talent as a rapper?

'FWOOP!'

When he was still appalled by my sudden outrage, I took that opportunity to throw a dagger at him. It was general Emilio's dagger that he tossed aside with Firiell.

"Ha! You think this petty misdirection trick will work on me?" He caught the dagger with his other free hand, while still gripping Jeanne's neck with his other hand.

I smirked and closed my eyes, "actually, yeah. It worked."

"What?"

'BANG!'

I leapt forward to tackle his body as soon as the flashbang detonated. When they were busy having a spat with each other, I took out a flashbang and wrapped it in my water chameleon's cloak that I got from the last raid. The item didn't specify that the 'wearer' must be a living being, and so I thought, why not try?

Once wrapped, I kicked the flashbang, making it roll slowly towards that prince's feet. After that, it was a matter of counting seconds and diverting his attention to me.

'THUD!'

We both rolled on the ground, and Jeanne was finally freed from his grip, although her hand seemed to have grazed his dagger slightly, seeing as it was dripping blood.

"Run! Proceed with the plan!" I shouted at the two generals as I started choking the elf prince and igniting my flame.

"Ugh!" Jeanne's expression didn't seem to agree with my decision, but she still turned around to run, presumably because she also knew that it was our best bet for now.

However, just when I thought things were starting to shift to our side, another shit happened.

'THUMP!'

"...General Emilio?" Jeanne's voice sounded off.

I peeked through my shoulder, and horror immediately struck my face.

General Emilio had fallen on the ground.

"Pfft--ha!" Ugh. And now this prince's annoying voice was back, too? Give me a break!

"General Emilio? Pull yourself together!" Jeanne shook his body frantically, as the other elves started to close in on us.

"I applaud your effort, humans. That wasn't bad. It gave me another idea." The elf prince chuckled.

I immediately jumped backwards seeing that he wasn't injured in the slightest. My instinct was screaming to get away from this mad lad as far as I possibly could.

"Uwah--!?" I yelped when I suddenly stumbled when jumping backwards. What? Why did my balance felt off so suddenly?

"Oh? Are you starting to feel it now, too?" The elf prince grinned, "the poison, I mean."

"Yeah, but I don't care." I mean, I had 'that' skill. I just need to endure this a little longer until my poison resistance took effect.

"Hmm? But I don't think your companions could say the same." He giggled creepily.

I glanced at both general Emilio and Jeanne. Although only one had fainted, but Jeanne was looking visibly bothered and her face was starting to flush. Even a cat would notice her ragged breathing, too. Damn.

"Listen, human," the elf prince called out to me with a smirk on his face, "you gave me an interesting idea just now."

"Yeah, same here." I smirked back. Of course, I already had a plan to get us out of here... Probably.

"I am willing to give all of you the antidote and keep you alive. Sounds good, doesn't it?" He asked.

"Not really, you conman." My reply was short and simple. If it was too good to be true, it probably was.

"Haha! Of course, not for free," he chuckled, "all I ask is that you join us in our slaughter. Simple, isn't it?"

"What the hell is wrong with your definition of simple!?"

"Pick your side carefully, human," he glared at me, "do you want to side with those cruel humans just because you are of the same species, or do you want to side with us, and punish those who did wrong, no matter what species they are?"

"Ha. You're being a hypocrite right now, you know that?" I scoffed.

"Aren't we all?" He tilted his head to the side.

I gulped. He wasn't wrong. We were all hypocrites to some extent.

"I'm giving you a chance here to join our side and pay for what you did wrong. All you have to do is follow our lead and execute those cruel humans," he extended his arm, "not a bad deal, right?"

"Very bad, actually. Isn't that just mental torture with extra steps?" I replied, "you expect us to slaughter fellow humans and be all dandy about it?"

"No, wait!" Firiell's sudden cry alerted us, "don't decide yet!"

"Did I ask you, you filth?" The elf prince raised his hand as if he was about to blast the kid, but I immediately grabbed his arm and stopped him... Argh, he was strong as heck, though! It took all of my strength to keep him from moving, and he was barely even trying!

"My mother had always told me to never make a rash decision before knowing the whole story!" She yelled.

"Don't you ever say--"

"Whoa dude, chill. We're in the middle of a business talk." I cut him off and stood between him and her.

"Tch." He clicked his tongue and lowered his arm.

"Good. Let's be professionals here, shall we?"

"Don't be mistaken and think that you're equal with me," he scoffed, "I can't even understand how you can still defend those heartless humans."

"Then are you claiming you guys have more compassion?" I frowned, "should everything be looked at in black and white?"

"Black and white exist for a reason. If there's no black, there won't be white. And in this case, the humans willingly chose to be the bad guy." He spat at me. True though, from his story alone, I couldn't see the humans being the righteous ones here.

"Fine, Mr. Monochromatic vision. What do you propose us do?"

"Choose where you stand, human."