Right After Peace

Three days had passed since the day those Sins guys left Oslo in the forest. City Xean was functioning as it usually did but with some changes. Now the city was home to elves as well as humans now that they had decided to coexist. In the night of full moon glowing in the sky, a man was talking to another figure in an alleyway.

"What do you think about that?"

"But... doesn't this harm me? I do no such things." The figure hesitated while talking to the man.

"What? You don't believe me? Are you saying that you don't trust h-"

"N-No, I didn't mean to say it like that...but I haven't done such thing in my entire life, so I'm not too confident about it." The figure interrupted.

"Don't worry about it. I'll handle everything. Just take this money and focus on doing the work I told you about, and leave the rest to me." The man said as he handed the pouch to the figure.

"Will you really handle everything?" The figure asked again as if to confirm it.

"Yes, I promise I'll handle everything. Just leave that matter to me!" The man said as he left, "You just do what I asked of you and everything will be fine."

"O-Ok!"

***

On the next day, about the time of daybreak, there was a commotion inside the city. From what people had heard, it was caused by the elf that had gone mad. In front of his house, there was a mad with his knees laying on the ground as he cried tears.

"What happened here?" One man who had just gotten to the place and didn't know what was happening, asked as he tried to peek through the crowd that blocked the scene.

"It was the elf...an elf burned down the house of a noble." A bystander replied.

What? A Noble? The man frowned. Didn't the elves want to coexist with us humans? Why is the elf causing such mess right after the news and what's more, causing problem to a human noble?

"What? Why did the elf do that?" The man asked but another man just shook his head and said,

"I'm same as you and I don't know what had really happened but from what I heard, the noble was just sleeping in his house when an mad elf just barged in his house, started wantonly destroying everything and at last burned the Noble's house, forcing everyone inside to run out."

Along with the noble, his family were also crying tears as the elf was there, looking at them with a satisfied expression on it's face with a torch in its hand.

"I-I knew it...I knew it." The noble said as he was also the one who didn't like living alongside those non-human races but he couldn't say anything that time. But now that his property was damaged and his life was threatened, Why wouldn't he dare to speak now.

"I knew it! The elves were up to no good and the elf torching my house just proves it. The elves were trying to kill all of us humans all along."

The noble stood up with a grim face as the elf laughed heartily. The noble then with those face filled with anger and resentment turned to the crowd and said, "My fellow human friends, we knew that this day would eventually come but what we didn't know was when it was going to happen."

"But not the elves have started becoming bold and started doing as they please, I won't sit around just idly. If I sit idly then they would just burn another house for mere entertainment and eventually everyone will loose their footing in City Xean."

"So, what I want to say is...Let's chase these elves out of the city."

Hearing that, the crowd raged as they also had the feeling that this day was going to come and same thing was going to happen to them, but they didn't dare say anything. Because from what they knew, this single elf that burned the noble's house didn't represent every elf there was. They understood the fact that one elf didn't represent it's whole race and stayed neutral.

As they were confused about what to do, the elf was still laughing as if mad.

Swooooosh~

An arrow flew piercing through the air and grazed the right cheek of the elf. Similarly, more arrows followed cause, the elf was pierced in many places but not in it's vitals.

"Soldiers, kill this bad blood!" The noble bellowed in anger.

Upon hearing the command, many soldiers armored red with a sword in their hands dashed towards the elf immediately.

The elf which was laughing just a moment ago stopped it's mouth seeing the soldiers dashing towards it, and his face turned pale as if it was robbed of its color. It then helplessly looked at noble who ignored his gaze and ordered the soldiers to cut his head.

"Sir, this isn't what we had agreed on." The elf said.

"What? Have we met?" The noble replied as if he hadn't seen the elf before in his entire life.

"Sir, don't do this to me. We had an agreement, didn't we?" Then elf with tears streaming down it's eyes took out a pouch filled with golds from its cloth and said,

"Didn't you say that you were going to handle it?"

"What are you saying horrible creature? Are you saying that it was me who asked of you to burn my own house? Do you think I'm stupid or something?" The noble snorted, "Are you trying to frame me for your deeds? Soldiers, kill these creature immediately."

"But," Seeing the soldiers nearing him and his plead not working anymore, it turned it's leg as if to run. "This isn't what we had agreed o-"

Slice-

Stab- Stab- Stab-

Before the elf could say anything else, his head was cut off by the sword of one of the red soldiers and many swords stabbed it's body making it a bloody mess. when soldiers pulled out their sword, the body of the elf fell lifelessly in the ground as the blood dyed street in red.

The head was next to meet the ground as the gold scattered from the pouch and bathed in his red blood.

Seeing the elf dead, the noble then ordered the soldiers, "Search this bastards whole family and kill them all."

Searching throughout the city, the soldiers found the family of the elf and like ordered, they killed them all. Children... elders...no one was spared and the head of their corpses were displayed in the whole city as soldiers marched across the city raising their spears up and down which had the heads skewered atop it.

It was a warning to the elves by the humans for not to cross their limits or they will also suffer the same fate.

Soon the news of the event reached the Moon city where elf Kings and ninetynine Divine Lords resided. Hearing the news, everyone was shocked and couldn't believe it.

Not even a week had passed and this had happened. What a fools humans were to do this for a small matter of burning their house, Ekiji thought as he greeted his teeth. Was he asking too much from human race by asking them to coexist? He didn't have time for thinking that as he knew that, because of this incident, it would be him of whom an explanation be demanded.

What had actually happened? According to some source, they had heard that the elf had gone mad and created havoc for no reason which deemed elf as the one guilty. But even elf was, why did they have to kill all their family members?

Just because of this reason, many cities had started suppressing the elves and if nothing was done then it was going to sour the relationship between humans and elves.

And according to some source, the elf was innocent and was framed by the human noble just to kill and eradicate elves from the city. It deemed human noble as guilty but no one knew what had actually happened.

As he had guessed, then elven Kings indeed demanded an explanation of him and he had no choice in the matter. Ekiji was forced to summon that noble which was in the center of the incident in the judgement room of Magic Council as the incident was no simple matter that could be ignored.

It could also be a spark that ignited a new war between the humans and the elves. A huge was right after making peace, what an idiom.

Noble when he first entered the judgement room was all arrogant and smug. But in front of the ninetynine Divine Lords and so many elven Kings, he felt tremendous amount of force weighing him down. The noble couldn't even look them in their eyes and could only answer with his eyes looking down if he was asked a question.

"Why did you kill one of our kind?" One of the elf king asked looking at the human noble.

"B-Because that elf burned down my...house..."The noble spoke with a shuddering voice as the pressure had increased even more.

The elf king only blinked its eyes before he asked another question applying even more pressure. Ekiji couldn't hold it in anymore seeing the elf king treating a human like that.

"Don't exert more pressure!"

With the corner of his eyes, the elf king glanced at Ekiji and stopped exerting any pressure. As if satisfied, Ekiji kept quiet and the elf king went on asking the question,

"Why did he burned your house?"

Ekiji could only watch the elf king question the human noble because human noble was in the matter was also at fault...he had to try his hardest no to say anything, even when the elf king was asking and treating the noble as if am ant.

"I-I don't know." The noble said.

"Lie!" The elf king spoke softly as he looked at Ekiji who kept quiet.

"That wasn't a lie." The noble said.

"Shut up!" The elf shouted as noble shuddered and kept quiet. The king then asked another question,

"Were you the one who asked the elf to do it?"

"N-No, b... before the incident, I hadn't even seen the elf." The noble said as his words shuttered.

The elf king only blinked at the answer and looked at Ekiji, "Another lie...you can see it too, can't you?"

Ekiji couldn't refute as he could also tell that the man was telling a lie and it was also humans fault. He could have saved the noble if it had been elf's fault but...it turned out that it was all humans fault and the elf was framed.

Ekiji then looked at one of the guard standing before the door and asked, "Did this guy have any family members involve in the matter?"

"Y-Yes, but except one member who wasn't present in the scene while it had occurred..." The guard replied.

Ekiji then helplessly looked at elf king who snorted, "Unlike you humans, we don't kill indiscriminately."

Although it pained his heart to listen these words coming from an elf's mouth, Ekiji couldn't argue on the matter. He then passed the judgement.

"Except for the member who wasn't involved in the matter..." Ekiji paused for a moment and said,

"HANG THEM ALL!"