A dark elf's savior and a sleeping beauty

"You awake?"

The dark skinned man looks up at the young boy standing over him. He naturally retreats back due to the previous events.

"Argh!"

His head pulses and the wounds on his abdomen aches.

"You shouldn't move around so much. Even though I healed you, you were hurt pretty badly."

The boy stares at him intently with eyes filled with curiosity.

"Thank you."

The dark skinned man lowers his head as he thanks the boy. However, his guard was still up. At this point in time, he still needed to be cautious. He would never be know if this young boy in front of him was a friend or foe.

"Relax."

"If I wanted to hurt you I wouldn't done so earlier."

The young boy smiles.

"I see. I'm sorry for being on guard against my savior."

He lowers his head once more and apologizes.

"But...you're a dark elf right?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I see so the bandits found out the location of your village and since you were going to rush back to set-up defenses, they wanted to cut you off?"

"Yes."

"So thank you for helping. You really are our savior."

The dark elf bows his head once more towards me.

Well I don't really care about that. In fact I didn't even know he was a dark elf nor did I know of what the hell was going on.

Truthfully, the only reason why I attacked the bandits was because I sensed a stroke of demonic energy. Although very little, it's still present there in his body.

I only found out after expanding my senses to find traces of "training targets".

I would've never expected it to be a dark elf. Do they have some sort of physique that is producing demonic energy? Or is it that the mana they use is fundamentally different? Or do they have mana that changes into demonic energy?

Thoughts like that plagued my mind as I continued to think of the possibilities. After all, dark elves didn't exist in my previous lives, only elves did. And since I'm meeting one for the first time I couldn't help but be curious.

"Umm...Thank you. Really, I mean it."

"I was under the assumption all humans were greedy and bad. And if what transpired today didn't happen, I would forever have the same stagnant thoughts."

I get it already, so it's no big deal. Why does he keep lowering his head. Is he praying or something? And I'm not really human.

The dark skinned man stands up.

"My name is Aire. Aire Para."

"You can call me Rolan."

"Rolan? That's a good name."

"I once again thank you sir Rolan. But pardon me as I have to leave now."

Sir? It feels so weird that he's calling me that since I'm still a kid. But it doesn't feel bad at all.

"No problem."

"I don't have anything to give you right now..."

"But if you ever come to the East side of the Etelia forest just tell the dark elves my name. I'll be sure to treat you as a special guest."

The man smiles and turns away.

Special guest huh? He must be quite the big shot.

The Etelia forest is the one west of the Corsair kingdom and right next to the Pelunia forest right?

But it's too bad, since Etelia is quite far away I won't be able to go there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey are you awake?"

I say to the dark elf young lady chained towards the back of the small secret room.

It seems like she's breathing well and her mana is flowing fine. There was only one problem, her mana heart has been forcefully opened up.

"Mana blade."

[CLANG!]

I swung and broke all the mana restricting chains binding her.

"Rarr!"

The young lady pounces onto me like a tiger attacking it's prey.

"ARGH!"

She clenches her teeth just short of my neck.

That was definitely demonic energy. And it's stronger now too because she woke up.

She's fast. If I was any slower and without the overflowing demonic body, my carotid artery might've gotten hurt.

"ARGHHH!"

Again. She leaps forwards towards me. She looks like a rabid wild animal right now.

Alright let's stop this farce.

"Ice chains."

Surrounding mana turned ice emerged from the ground and bound the young lady.

"Arghh!! ARGHHH!"

She struggles but it's useless. As ice creeps up all sides of her body the only thing she could move was her head.

"Doze."

It took a while, but the young lady finally fell asleep. She seems to have quite the vitality given doze didn't instantly make her sleep.

I clench my left fist and the ice breaks apart dropping the young lady to the ground.

Now I'm sure.

After the meeting with that dark elf that day, I wondered day and night as to why the dark elves of this world contained demonic energy. And then I finally came up with a theory.

When a mage's mana heart opens up further it is a sign they have advanced. For beings like elves and dark elves that are born with high affinity for mana they have an advantage that allows them to use stronger magic of an element when their mana heart opens up.

For instance Shim has the capability of using high ranked wind magic.

This is because they can naturally convert the mana in their surroundings to cast magic they are most proficient in.

Which means dark elves naturally convert their mana into demonic energy. The more they open up their mana heart the more mana they convert into demonic energy

Now it finally makes sense.

Unlike elves who focus on both magic and physical abilites, people thought that dark elves weigh the physical part higher as they have lesser magic power.

But that's not the case. It's not that they have lesser mana or magic power, it's that they are unconsciously converting it to demonic mana.

It was made clear to me when I fought that girl just now. She's probably around second rate given her demonic energy.

Dark elves are the same as the four-eyed demon group from my first life. As they advance they naturally produce demonic energy. It's a great ability.

There's only one downside to it, and that's the fact that they won't be able to practice other types of magic once they reach a higher level.

The reason why she was in such a rabid state was probably because of her forced opened mana heart that converted too much demonic energy for her to handle. It seems like even Wanfi didn't know how to dispel that, hence the chains.

Hmm? I notice the table to the right of where the dark elf once was and walk up towards it.

"What's this?"

Paper scraps that look like and a map were present on it.

After reading through the paper scraps, they seem to be denoting a creation of some sort, but it's incomplete, almost as if someone purposely left it that way so as to not get it stolen.

Useless once again.

But what is this? A map?

I hold up the parchment paper to get a better look at the drawing and words. It appears to be a map of the continent.

Corsair kingdom to the East. Fware kingdom to the North. Aria Empire that contains one third of the continent's land, to the South.

How about the other nations? This seems to only show the Eastern part of the continent.

To the South West of the Corsair kingdom is the Pelunia forest and beside it is the Etelia forest at the center of the continent.

But what is this? A red circle?

I lower my eyes to look at the characters written on the map. They resemble ancient characters from long ago.

I've read about this once in the Raiser family library. But even so, I couldn't decipher them fully as the library didn't contain all the materials needed to do so.

"Eastward of the great forest lies a hidden sovereign of the high skies below the ground. Its equal stand no chance against it, its power mightier than all others."

Sovereign of the sky...where have I heard that before?

After thinking for a few seconds I finally reached an answer.

"Ah! A wyvern!"

Wyverns are hailed as the sovereign of the skies. Based on a book I read, they are the cousins of the legendary dragons and are the rulers of the sky. According to the previous records, a fully grown wyvern is said to be 6 star mana beast. A group of first rate mages would be needed to match it, let alone take it down.

To a regular person they must seem like an unstoppable creature.

But what does it have to do with this young lady over here?

I turn back to stare at the dark elf lady snoring soundly on the floor.

Just then I hear rumbling coming from above.

[BOOM!]

Seems like the professors are here.

Well, it's time for me to take my leave. I grab the map, leaving only the scraps of notes behind. I should at least leave the professors with some sort of clue.

Hopefully this place doesn't come down when I'm leaving.

I grab the young lady and put her on my shoulder and climb out of the trap door.

"Demonic art 32: Shade of cover."

As I mutter those words, my aura seals itself and I start to walk. My footsteps produce no sound and my presence is nearly untraceable.

I walk past the professors who are hastily rushing in the base. Some are hovering over the deceased students, others are inspecting the damage and picking up black magician tools.

It won't crumble will it? The professors are rampantly using their spells without a care in the world.

I pick up my pace and dash while bouncing from wall to wall to exit the base.

[Crack]

Following that noise was a series of "crashes" and "booms". The entire base had went down.

I jump towards a nearby tree and reach its top before staring down to discern the situation.

"Wow. It really came all the way down."

So, I say while still having the young lady over my shoulder.

I focus on the man with short green hair and glasses standing on the outskirts of the destruction. He was giving out instructions and pointing at different parts of the ruined base.

Professor Keit, a second rate mage and the alchemy professor. Although he teaches alchemy, his power is among the top in the academy. Apparently, he used to be quite the high ranking inquisitor.

"What should I do with this?"

I stare at the young lady napping on my shoulder.

"Well, let's just head to the demon realm first."

So I say, before leaping out into the darkness.