TERNLF Vol. 2 Chapter 3 Part 1

◆ Chapter 3 ◆

I was lying on a cold floor.

I pushed myself up and checked what state I was in.

My hands were bound in front of me by manacles, and a short chain ran from them up to the collar around my neck. It was an awkward restraint that made it hard to move, but at least my legs were free. That was something.

But where was this?

The small stone room had a tiny window and a solid, sturdy-looking door. There was a small viewing slot set into the door, fitted with iron bars.

No matter how I looked at it, this was a cell… or maybe I should say a prison?

When I thought of a jail cell, I usually pictured the corridor side being nothing but iron bars instead of a door.

This place, though, felt more like one of those solitary confinement cells I had seen in TV dramas.

I was the only one in the room. The others were probably locked away in separate cells.

First things first: get out of here.

I hauled myself to my feet with a little grunt and walked over to the door to check outside.

The door was thick, but thanks to that little window, it was easy enough to see out. There did not seem to be anyone around.

All right, I would just pop the lock with a bit of magic and… huh?

It was only then that I noticed.

I could not utter any 【Powerful Words】. No, I could not form any words at all.

Could it be because of this collar?

I had taken it for an ordinary iron restraint, but apparently it was a magic tool that sealed 【Powerful Words】—in other words, a cursed tool.

Naturally, they had not been careless enough to just throw someone who could use magic into a cell without doing anything.

Still, if this collar only sealed my ability to speak, it was no problem for me at all.

【Unlock】.

Without speaking any 【Powerful Words】, I tried to activate the spell with 【Silent Casting】.

However, at the same time I felt some kind of resistance, and the mana I had set in motion wavered.

So it also sealed magic… no, it seemed to have the same mechanism as that pendant from before, a cursed tool with the added function of dispersing mana.

But if they thought something on this level could scatter my mana, they were underestimating me.

I poured more strength into the wavering mana.

—Crack.

“Thought so.”

I heard the sound of the collar breaking around my neck, and at the same moment my voice came back.

“I have to hand it to them. They even built countermeasures against 【Silent Casting】. If it had been anyone but me, they would not have gotten it off.”

Muttering to myself, I followed up by using 【Unlock】 to remove the shackles from my wrists as well.

“I have no idea why they decided we were in league with the Elves, but for now getting out of here takes priority.”

The fact that they had not killed us on the spot, but had instead gone to the trouble of capturing us and throwing us into cells, meant they did not intend to do anything to us immediately.

That did not mean they would leave us alone forever, though.

“【Unlock】.”

I opened the door’s lock with magic, then carefully checked the surroundings as I stepped out into the dim corridor.

On both sides of the passage, doors identical to the one I had just come through were lined up, about twenty of them in all. It was exactly the kind of prison layout I had imagined.

“Breaking out of a place like this is such a classic anime-and-manga scenario.”

I muttered to myself as I slid open the little window on each door in turn, checking the cells one by one.

I quickly found Nikka and Grassa in the cell directly opposite mine.

“Toa! You are all right!”

Maybe she had been worried about me, because Nikka grabbed my hand with tears in her eyes.

Back then, I had hurriedly deployed 【Shield Magic】 centered on Nikka and Grassa. Thanks to that, they had apparently taken very little damage from the stun grenade and had woken up quickly.

Vezzo and I, on the other hand, had entered the spell’s range a bit too late and taken the blast much more directly, which was why we had lost consciousness.

By the time they were being dragged away, the girls had already woken up. Seeing us lying there motionless, they had spent their time in their cells worrying that maybe we were dead.

“You took your time coming to rescue us.”

Grassa turned away with a pout, voicing her complaint, but her voice trembled just a little. She must have been scared too.

Not that I was boorish enough to point that out.

“Anyway, that just leaves Vezzo… We might need to ask you to heal him again, Nikka.”

Vezzo’s senses were far sharper than mine, and he had taken that attack head-on.

It would not have been surprising if his eardrums had at least been ruptured, like last time.

“Yes. Leave it to me.”

“What about you? You sure you are not hurt?”

Nikka answered brightly, and Grassa, who had clearly been worried about me as well, asked her question.

“I am fine. Not a scratch on me.”

I answered like that and then said, “All right, let us split up and look for Vezzo,” before leaving their cell.

We divided the corridor between us, peeking into each room through its little window.

Eventually, we found him in the room one back from the far end.

Except—

“Trussed up…”

Seeing him in an impressive state of being bound, I could not help letting the words slip out.

The room itself was no different from the one we had been held in. But in the middle of it, Vezzo lay on the floor, rolled over with chains wrapped around him over and over, leaving only his face exposed.

Unlike us, who had only been given handcuffs and a collar, they were clearly wary of the Beastkin’s physical strength.

“What is ‘sumaki’ supposed to mean?”

“‘Sumaki’ is when—”

“Both of you, never mind that! We need to free Vezzo first!”

Seeing Grassa and me chatting idly, Nikka raised her voice in mild anger.

Admitting that she had a point, I opened the door and stepped inside.

Vezzo stared wide-eyed as we came in, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

But thanks to that same collar as before, all that came out of his mouth was a breathy rasp.

“I will take it off now—Toa!”

Spurred on by Nikka, I crouched down beside Vezzo where he lay on the floor.

“【Unlock】.”

“Nn… It seems I can speak again. Thank you. You saved me.”

Vezzo voiced his thanks. I did not see any obvious injuries on his body.

“How are your ears and eyes?”

“They are fine. Compared to what I took from you, Toa, this was nothing.”

He gave Nikka a wry smile as he answered her worried question.

It really did seem there was no problem.

“Still, what on earth was that all about?”

“What was?”

“Those beardy guys who grabbed us.”

“Beardy guys…”

It was true that the Dwarves I had seen right before I blacked out had all been sporting very impressive beards.

“All we really know is that they somehow got it into their heads that we were agents of the Elves.”

“It sounds like the group that kidnapped the traveler named Cheki was involved with smuggling Elves into the country.”

“And since we just happened to be in their hideout, they assumed we were part of that group too and hauled us in with them.”

Talk about getting dragged into something.

All we had done was chase after Cheki, who had been kidnapped by the Dwarves. We were completely uninvolved. If anything, we were the victims here.

“Why don’t we try talking to the Dwarves about it? If we explain everything, they might clear up the misunderstanding and even help us look for Cheki.”

At Nikka’s suggestion, Grassa gave a small shake of her head.

“No way, not happening. They did not listen to a single thing we said last time.”

“They looked like they were really in trouble back then. They might be willing to listen now.”

“Hm? Back then?”

I tilted my head at Nikka’s wording, and Grassa filled me in.

Thanks to 【Shield Magic】, Grassa and Nikka had regained consciousness quickly. While they were being taken away, they tried to explain the situation to the Dwarves.

However, the Dwarves had refused to listen to a word they said. Instead, they had forcibly clapped those collars onto them to shut them up, then tossed the two of them into a cell together.

“That is why those beardos are never going to listen to us.”

Grassa spat the words out, her expression tinged with barely contained anger.

From what she said, it really did sound like negotiations would be nearly impossible.

So Vezzo and I started putting together an escape plan.

Right then, Nikka suddenly spoke up.

“Still, I wonder… Why do the Dwarves hate the Elves that much?”

Now that she mentioned it, back in my previous life there had been plenty of stories where Dwarves and Elves did not get along, so I had just filed it away as “that is how it is” and never looked into it deeply.

Besides, even at the frontier fortress, there had been Elves and Dwarves, but I had never sensed any real hostility between them.

So why were Elves treated as outright enemies in this country?

Vezzo provided the answer without much hesitation.

“That is simple. This country is still at war with the Elven nation.”

“I have never heard anything about that.”

“Of course. The actual fighting happened a very long time ago, but from what I have heard, the two sides have still never signed a formal ceasefire agreement. Toa, how much do you know about the northern part of the continent?”

The southern region, where the Kingdom of Preasole and the Beast Forest, homeland of the Beastkin territories, were located, and the north, separated from it by the Teenic Mountains.

I had never been to the north, but I had at least seen a rough map.

“If I remember right, once you cross the mountains, the Volga Empire is to the west, and the Elven country is in that huge forest region to the east, right?”

Thinking back on that, something did strike me as odd.

We were currently in the Dwarven nation, located in the western reaches of the Teenic Mountains. That meant the only country sharing a border with the Dwarves was the Volga Empire. They did not share a border with the forest where the Elven nation lay. On top of that, I had heard that a desolate land called the Casadora Wasteland stretched along the empire’s eastern side.

“A war between two countries that do not even share a border?”

“That is why I said it was a story from long ago.”

According to Vezzo, the territories of the Elves and the Dwarves had once been much larger than they were now, and their borders had directly touched.

Back then, the relationship between Elves and Dwarves had resembled the current one between Beastkin and Dwarves.

In other words, the Elves collected mana-rich forest resources and the dungeons born within them, along with all sorts of materials produced by those dungeons, and provided them to the Dwarves.

In exchange, the Dwarves processed those resources into goods the Elves desired and sold them back, forming a robust trade relationship.

“But that relationship collapsed overnight.”

“Why?”

“I thought you said they got along?”

“…No, it seems they had never truly gotten along in the first place. Maybe not to the extent they do now, but even back then they constantly looked down on each other, and small disputes were apparently a daily occurrence.”

From the Elves’ point of view, the Dwarves were nothing more than barbarians who holed up in dark tunnels inside mountains, covered in mud and ore all year round.

From the Dwarves’ perspective, the Elves were stuck-up freeloaders who produced nothing of their own and just basked in the blessings of the forests and dungeons.

“With that kind of mutual contempt, it was only a matter of time before something major happened. The Elven and Dwarven kings of the time thought the same and decided to pursue a certain plan to deepen mutual understanding. That was the beginning of the end.”

“What kind of plan?”

“Those schemes are always the same no matter the era. They arranged a political marriage between the Elven and Dwarven royal families—a prince from one side and a princess from the other—to strengthen the bond between their peoples.”

A blatantly political marriage between an Elven prince and a Dwarven princess… It did not exactly sound like a recipe for success.

That was what I thought, but apparently, the people of both nations had ended up blessing the union.

Everyone knew that the two of them had already been acquainted, and that they harbored genuine feelings for one another even before the arrangement.

Well, there were rumors that the leaders on both sides had orchestrated things so it would look that way, but…

In any case, things seemed to proceed smoothly.

“And then both countries prepared a domain where the couple would live. That place is where the wasteland lies today.”

Elves and Dwarves joined forces to transform the empty buffer zone of barren land into a thriving green region, and built a new city there.

The territory governed by the married Dwarven prince and Elven princess soon became a vital trading hub. It flourished to the point that small villages and towns sprang up all around it.

They even had a daughter, and everyone believed the relationship between the two races would continue to improve.

But that peaceful time did not last.

“Right when their child had been born and their domain was developing smoothly, an incident occurred—their assassination.”

“Did they catch the culprit?”

At my question, Vezzo gave a small shake of his head.

“No one knows.”

“No one knows?”

“Right. Even now, the culprit behind that incident has never been identified. No one knows whether it was a Dwarf, an Elf, or someone from an entirely different race.”

Though they suspected one another, the Elves and Dwarves had initially still cooperated in the investigation.

“But then an Elf investigator was killed.”

Their final message, transmitted via their specialty, wind magic 【Blessing Wind】, had been: “I am in pursuit of a suspicious Dwarf who appears to be the culprit. Request immediate backup.” After that, they vanished without a trace.

The investigator had been found the next morning, their body horribly mutilated at the base of the statue that stood in the town square—a statue depicting the prince and princess in a loving pose, erected as a symbol of friendship.

“Based on the last words left by the investigator and where the body was found, the Elven side insisted that the culprits were Dwarven extremists opposed to Elf–Dwarf friendship.”

“Hearing it laid out like that, I can see why they would think so, but it still sounds way too convenient.”

“I agree. But once distrust takes root, it only grows.”

The two races had not exactly been on friendly terms to begin with. The fact that the incident occurred before their newfound friendship could fully take root was a devastating blow.

The spark thrown into the lingering tensions between them ignited in no time at all—

And war broke out.

“So they ended up in a situation where neither side could back down.”

At my murmur, Vezzo nodded.

“Even if some people wanted to respond calmly, the populace would not have allowed it.”

The whole thing had started with the assassination of a prince and princess from each race.

It was only natural that it had not taken long for things to escalate into full-blown war.

“I heard that the war between the Dwarves and Elves claimed enormous casualties on both sides. The buffer zone that had been their main battlefield was ravaged and reverted to the barren wasteland it once was.”

“So that is the Casadora Wasteland.”

“That is right. Ever since, the Elves have withdrawn into their forest and the Dwarves into these mountains, and they have completely severed all contact.”

When Vezzo finished recounting the tragic history between the Dwarves and Elves, I let out a long breath.

Back at the frontier fortress and in the kingdom, I had heard bits and pieces about the far north of the continent.

But unlike my previous world, detailed history about foreign nations did not circulate widely here.

On top of that, the Elves and Dwarves I knew at the frontier fortress had not seemed particularly hostile toward one another, so I had assumed it was just a bit of minor friction in some regions.

“If they went through a war like that, not just some petty rivalry, then I guess it is not hard to understand why they would still hate each other even now.”

That still did not excuse them throwing us in jail without hearing us out, though.

“…Hey, there was something that bothered me.”

Grassa, who had been listening to Vezzo’s story along with us, raised her hand slightly and spoke up.

“Yeah? I will answer if it is something I know.”

“What happened to that daughter born between the Elves and Dwarves you mentioned?”

Right.

The couple had a child between them.

That child, bearing both Elven and Dwarven blood, should have been a bridge between the two races.

If she had lived, perhaps the two sides would never have descended into such a brutal war.

But Vezzo’s answer was not what I expected.