8 Truth and Departure

It had been one month since the raid on my village from the soldiers of the Super Magic Empire. For me, the whole world had changed. My village of several hundred was massacred in the night and only myself, Nolla, Evelyn, and a dozen other villagers had survived the attack. Most were killed quietly in their sleep, while those who remained were left to mourn.

When I woke up on the first day and saw Evelyn and Nolla taking care of me, I was relieved that they had survived but I was skeptical of how. As it turns out, Nolla was able to resist the tactical sleeping magic and had created a barrier around the house to protect Evelyn and herself.

She was under siege by Dagon and a group of his elites during the first half of the operation and was only able to awaken Evelyn after he had left to personally take care of me. Evelyn woke up around that time and she and Nolla fought off those other soldiers while I defeated him.

All in all, Evelyn and Nolla defeated 20 elites by themselves while I struggled with just 14, however, I had the jump on them as they underestimated me, and I was good in close combat unlike them, so I had the easier fight until Dagon showed up. They found me after the battle and realized that I was alright but not ok.

Unfortunately, there was no rest for the weary. The next morning, instead of being given time to grieve, I had to help the remaining villagers to clean up the dead bodies of the people who were once my neighbors and friends. We spent all day searching for survivors or digging graves. I continued to help the others rebuild as the days went by.

I went hunting in the forest in place of Paul, our local huntsman, and butcher, to feed the villagers. I then helped to harvest the town orchard in place of William, the kind uncle who'd sell fruits to passing merchants and occasionally gave me one for free. I tended the field in place of Tim, the farmer, and collected the fresh eggs for the villagers in place of his wife Ann from his chicken coop.

As soon as I noticed, it had already been a month and, despite my best efforts, the village wasn't getting any better. There was simply too much to do and not enough people to do it. Additionally, Nolla had become reclusive and rarely left her home. Evelyn probably felt guilty for not being there to help me or my parents, as she kept avoiding me whenever we'd get close to each other by coincidence or whenever I purposefully sought her out.

I was lonely for a long time and I often cried myself to sleep at night, not that I got or needed much sleep anymore. I seemed to have awakened or evolved in some way after the fight. I was far stronger than before, but it wasn't just physical or magical might that had improved either.

My perception was sharper. I could clearly make out a fly resting on a tree 100 meters away with no issues. I could hear conversations from the other sides of stone walls as clearly as though they were said to my face. That wasn't the end of it either.

I was now hyper-dexterous, able to balance a sword on my finger without any effort or sew an entire set of clothing in only two hours. All of my movements seemed to flow naturally, even the most sudden action, such as catching something that fell, felt, and looked cinematically gracious.

My reaction time decreased as it seemed that when I focused, the world would enter a sort of bullet-time as I'd never experienced before. My mind was clearer, I became genuinely capable of multi-tasking for the first time, not just swapping back and forth between two different subjects quickly. I also found that remembering things was much easier and I could remember small details better than I could before.

Unfortunately, the limitation to my new memory enhancement was that I was still foggy when it came to information from my past life.

I don't have a useful skill like [Great Sage] as Rimuru does to tell me all the information I could ever want to know, however, I was positive that I had evolved into an Enlightened.

...

It was the third week after the attack and the remaining villagers were all gathered together to discuss whether or not to abandon the village and work in the main city of the Ultra-Sorcery Kingdom, Soma. Due to the town being a small rest stop for merchants on the road between two kingdoms, many of the people had relatives that had either been hired by or married to merchants in the city.

As this was an important matter, Evelyn was unable to run away from me during the meeting and I slowly made my way over to her while the others were discussing the matter.

"H-Hey Evelyn..." I started, a bit hesitant.

"Alaster... good afternoon..." Evelyn replied courteously but also a bit uneasy.

We stood, looking at each other with an air of awkwardness between us. After a few moments, I finally decided to man up and opened my mouth to speak but I was interrupted by the arrival of Nolla, who shouted to attract everyone's attention.

"Everyone!" Nolla yelled loudly and with an unusual air of seriousness about her. "I come bringing news!"

I looked at her confused. 'How was she going to bring news? She's been locked up since the attack?' I thought.

"We have been ordered to abandon the village by King Oberon!" She called out.

"What!?!" One of the women yelled.

"How does Nolla know the King?" Another man asked.

"I don't believe it... but if it's coming from Nolla..." Another expressed their doubt but immediately repressed it.

"Nolla-Sensei, what do you mean!?!" I called out.

Nolla looked at me with a pained expression before shaking her head. "Alaster, come talk to me later. We have a lot to discuss." She replied to my question.

Strangely Evelyn looked nervous too but Nolla ignored her and looked to the others. "Start preparing. A squadron of knights will be here in an hour to escort us to the capital. They will be burning this village once we leave, so make sure you bring everything you need with you!" Nolla said before turning and walking back to her house.

Nolla turned to look back at me and gave me a knowing look before gesturing for me to follow. As the rest of the crowd dispersed, talking among themselves, I ran after my former teacher. I also noticed that Evelyn was hurrying along too but at a slower pace to not be too close to me.

We arrived at the house a moment later. Nolla was already sitting on her favorite chair in the living room and waved us in when I opened the door.

"Come. Sit. We need to have a talk..." She said somberly.

I sat in the chair opposite her while Evelyn sat at Nolla's side. It felt a bit awkward, like an intervention or something.

"Sensei, what did you want to talk about?" I asked.

"I wanted you to know the truth. About me and about Evelyn." Nolla responded seriously. Evelyn looked down with a look of shame while she said this.

I immediately knew something was off about this whole scenario from the start. People as strong as Dagon don't just attack villages at random. Furthermore, he didn't seem too worried about losing his men and even killed one himself. All of the attackers wore well-maintained and expensive plate armor which means it was unlikely he was a bandit, and he was even using a powerful magic tool that I'd never even heard of. It was too versatile to be anything other than an incredibly hard-to-obtain weapon.

I looked at Nolla was a serious expression and nodded my head, signaling her to continue with her explanation, however, I was slightly caught off guard by the words that came out of Evelyn's mouth next.

"I am the third princess of the Royal Family for the Ultra-Sorcery Kingdom." She said quickly, as though wanting to say so for a long time.

My brain seemed to have crashed at that information. I was thinking at a million miles a second trying to process the information I had just heard. The only thing I was able to squeak out was a surprised "What?"

Nolla closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. It seems like she wasn't going to say anything for a while and let me process the information, however, Evelyn continued to speak.

"Elves live for a much longer time than humans and I am a High Elf who will live even longer than that. Even though I am still growing up, my lifespan is at least 1,000 years, if not much more if I extend it with magic." She began to explain in a fast-paced way.

Evelyn opened her mouth to continue but Nolla put her hand up to stop her. She opened her eyes and looked into mine with a seriousness I wasn't used to coming from the lewd loli.

"Two or three decades is nothing for an elf. It would be like a few days compared to your human's perception of time. King Oberon wanted Evelyn to experience what life was like to humans, who make up the majority of the kingdom's population, so he sent her to live in a small but safe village to grow up and learn the customs of humans before returning home." She explained.

"I am her guard. Originally, I wasn't planning on being her magic instructor, as while I am good with magic, I am only in the top 10% of the mages within the kingdom and not the top 1% like she should have had for an instructor, however, that was before she met you." Nolla said, pointing to me.

"Me?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes. It was becoming childhood friends with you and watching as you became stronger, wanting to grow up to become an adventurer that inspired Evelyn to want to learn magic from me. When you came around, asking to be my student, I thought it would be a good idea to teach Evelyn at the same time." She answered my question.

"I'm speechless," I responded, trying to process all the information I had received.

"I'm not surprised. It's a lot to take in... even for you, who has evolved." Nolla said, muttering the last part to herself. "This was also supposed to serve as a safe hiding place for the princess as the Super Magic Empire is hostile to all its neighbors and likes kidnapping or assassinating the royals of other countries to use for whatever ends they please."

"My older brother was poisoned by spies from there and two of my cousins were kidnapped and experimented on," Evelyn said solomly as she looked down and tightened her grip on her dress.

Nolla put her hand on Evelyn's shoulder for a moment before continuing. "Your father was in on the whole thing. He was a powerful warrior in the military and a friend of mine but he wanted to retire to the countryside and start a family with his wife. I asked a favor of him as his old friend and he agreed to be one of her guards while we stayed here." Nolla said sadly but chuckled a bit after a moment of silence. "He was even training you to replace him when he got older, which is why he'd beat up his seven-year-old child with a wooden sword so relentlessly. We planned to inform you of everything when you were 15 but..."

"Dad was?" I asked in shock. After a moment I came to a horrifying conclusion. "Then are you saying-" I started before I was interrupted by Evelyn.

"I'm sorry!" She said as she bowed to me. "It's all my fault! If it wasn't for me being here, then your parents would still be ali-" But she herself was interrupted by Nolla.

"Evelyn!!!" Nolla shouted. Evelyn looked at Nolla with tears in her eyes. Nolla looked at her back with a face of pained seriousness as she tried to firmly scold her.

"You are a princess. I was okay with you not behaving like one in front of Alaster when we were pretending that we were normal elves, but now that he knows you must act to your station!" Nolla said with a stern voice. "It is disrespectful to the ones who've sacrificed themselves for your sake and died in the line of duty to apologize!"

"But-"

"No buts!" Nolla scolded. Evelyn simply lowered her head and nodded, trying to keep herself from weeping and more.

Nolla then looked at me with a serious face. "I apologize for her behavior." Before bowing her head at me. I had never seen Nolla so serious and she had NEVER bowed or apologized for anything before and this was the first time I'd seen it.

This shocked me greatly. Between all of the information I had just received, my entire worldview shattering, and the sudden change in my mentor's and best friend's behaviors suddenly adjusting, it seemed like everything was too much for even my evolved mind to process clearly and I began to feel dizzy and sick.

Nolla gave me time to process all the information while Evelyn sniffled in the background and tried to hold in her tears.

After what was probably a few minutes of this, I calmed down enough for Nolla to feel confident to ask me a question that she probably desperately wanted to know.

"Now that you know the truth, what will you do?" Nolla asked.

"Hu?" I responded, looking back at her.

Nolla didn't respond to my question. She simply looked at me with eyes of pity and guilt. "You can come with us. Become a member of the military like a guard in the royal palace, or you could leave. Walk out that door and become whoever you want to be. You've earned that much."

I thought for a long time about what she said and in the end, I came to a conclusion. I was weathering a storm of emotions currently and I knew it wasn't good to continue to be with Evelyn and Nolla anymore.

There were some mixed in there that wanted revenge against the two of them for taking my parents and there were some that wanted me to forgive them and go with them. Hoping, vainly, that maybe we could continue our days in peace and happiness as we did before the attack, however, I knew it was simply my mind being unable to cope with my loss.

I stood up from my chair and walked to the door, opening it. Nolla closed her eyes in shame and disappointment as I did so and Evelyn began to silently weep. Tears began to well up in my eyes and my mouth went dry as I tried to say something to them.

"I- I..." I couldn't find the right words to say, to justify the emotions going through me. I felt like I had to say something but I just couldn't.

"I understand... my door will always be open to you," Nolla said, voice cracking with her eyes closed tight to keep herself from weeping too.

I said nothing else but nodded. "Mmm." and walked away, tears streaming down my face as I did so.

(3rd POV)

After Alaster walked out of the house and the door swung shut Nolla lost control. She placed her head in her hands and began to cry. Evelyn also stopped trying to stop herself and rushed over to hug Nolla as the two wept together.

"I'm so sorry Alaster!" Nolla cried.

"I'm so so sorry!!!" She wept as Evelyn held her tightly.