At Ambella’s forthright acceptance, Vierno—who had been watching the situation with nervous unease—let out a sigh of relief.
“In that case, when shall we...”
“Ah. Before we waste time on such trifles, let’s clear up some other curiosities first.”
To call a matter that might amount to rebellion against the kingdom “trifles”... It was in moments like this that Ambella’s greatness was revealed.
Her single uncovered eye did not leave Ludger.
“You’re a man with a spirit higher than I thought. Most people are cowed before me long before now.”
“I’ve lived with someone far worse for over ten years.”
“Oh. Now that stings my pride a little. I never thought there was anyone I’d have to bow my head to, and yet you say there’s someone even greater than I? How curious. I feel I must meet them someday.”
At those words, Ludger imagined Ambella and Grander sitting across from one another.
The thought alone left him dizzy.
He could not even begin to imagine what would happen.
For him, even the existence of just one teacher was already more than he could handle.
“I find it stranger that the head of House Burke uses human things.”
It was in reference to Ambella’s cigar.
Elves did not smoke. Such things were for humans—and perhaps a few chain-smoking dwarves who had assimilated into their society.
But Ambella smoked it as naturally as breathing.
It suited her outwardly, yet her essence was still that of a head of house sworn to guard the forest of the elves.
From this, Ludger could form a rough idea of what kind of house Burke was.
“You never had attachment to the inner forest from the beginning. Like Dentis, you were interested in the outside.”
“You only now caught on to that?”
“I sensed it faintly from how you weren’t especially hostile to a human being here. You look accustomed—meaning you’ve lived closely with humans.”
At that, Viela, the deputy of the head, swallowed hard.
Her eyes turned to Ambella as if asking how such a thing could be, but Ambella did not even glance at her.
“That’s what they all say. Since House Burke bore the greatest sacrifice in the war a hundred years ago, they assume we must hate humans more than anyone else.”
Indeed, that was what everyone thought.
Because it seemed the natural conclusion.
“And it is true. Do you know why I wear this eye patch? Because shrapnel from a mortar fired by a human on the battlefield struck me. The scars all over my body are the same.”
The scars etched across Ambella’s exposed skin—
Most of them were from gunfire.
“My life was never smooth, but the race war a hundred years ago was on another level. Among all my scars, those left from that war are the greatest.”
“And yet you still turned your gaze toward the human world?”
“Let me ask back. What do we gain from blindly hating them?”
Her words struck to the core, leaving no one able to refute.
Of course, Ambella had been furious and grief-stricken because of the war.
She had lost precious retainers, and her body still bore indelible wounds.
And yet, the punishment of her house was to forever stand at the frontier, forced again and again to the front lines.
If blame was to be placed, it was first on the Plante family, who had caused it, and second on the humans who had invaded the forest.
“But there’s no meaning in it. Getting angry, snapping at everything, sharpening one’s blade—none of that brings anything. The seat I occupy cannot afford to be bound by such petty shackles.”
Instead, Ambella had seen possibility.
The humans she had known were certainly cohesive, but not particularly threatening.
But the race war a hundred years ago had been different.
Humans had invented gunpowder. They made guns and cannons.
The heavy armor once worn by knights was now replaced by reinforced exoskeleton suits.
Even without fire spirits or magic, they wielded flamethrowers and Tesla guns that sprayed fire and lightning.
Ambella had been deeply shaken.
While the elves remained inside the forest, the humans outside had advanced ceaselessly.
They could not simply be ignored.
If eradication was impossible, then they themselves must learn the same.
For Ambella, the sense of responsibility as the leader of a house outweighed anger or hatred born of war.
The war had ended, and the elves had defended their territory.
But could they do so again in the future?
What if the humans came wielding even stronger guns? What if this time they brought firepower capable of truly burning the forest?
Would the elves be able to withstand it with spirits, arrows, and the power of life?
Ambella, who had always watched the world outside, turned her gaze inward to the forest for the first time.
What she saw were the other houses, squabbling over scraps, clawing at each other, forgetting even the scars of war.
It was nauseating.
The enemy outside could grow stronger at any moment, and yet the so-called leaders spent their time fighting over rice bowls.
But even if she cried out with all sincerity, those arrogant ones would not heed the voice of the punished.
In that case—
“We can only learn for ourselves.”
“......”
“When I changed my perspective, I saw much. The world isn’t only this forest. There are mountain ranges, deserts, vast cities built by humans, wide oceans. Eternal glaciers. Endless mountains that monsters are said to have crossed. And beyond them, an unknown continent. Compared to that, this forest of the elves is pitifully small.”
Ambella’s words denied the very foundation of the elves.
But she did not believe herself wrong.
The more she interacted with the outside, the stronger her conviction grew.
“Dentis. Was that not why you too turned your eyes outward?”
At her question, Vierno silently nodded.
He too was an elf who had lived long and endured the war.
And yet he now taught spirit arts at an academy in the human empire—Seorn.
Because he had seen the possibility.
The possibility of a future that could reach out into a wider world.
They had lived through the war, but rather than be buried in its wounds and scars, they had looked beyond.
Ambella chuckled faintly and lit another cigar.
“Once you try to see widely, things become clear. It’s not that they weren’t there—it’s that we blatantly ignored them, pretending they didn’t exist.”
The reason House Burke had no interest in the inner forest was simple.
Because there was no need.
Let the others play with their tiny rice bowls as they pleased.
We will look to the wider world.
“That is also why I saved the brave young girl over there.”
Ambella exhaled white smoke, gesturing at Bellaruna.
“I heard she hacked into the World Tree. Can you believe it? Not some noble family’s scion, but an ordinary elf did that. And then she even escaped the capital unharmed and fled all the way to our territory. That’s no small feat.”
“So that’s why you helped her?”
“Yes. The moment I saw her, I knew she was no ordinary one. To dare tamper with the World Tree that everyone treats as sacred! The so-called noble houses of the forest had the authority and yet floundered helplessly, but this girl with no lineage did it? Exceptional talent. And she gave those pompous nobles a proper slap in the face. So I helped her leave the forest. Handing her a way to contact me out of personal curiosity—that was separate.”
Remembering that day, Ambella’s shoulders shook with amusement.
“Truly, the longer you live, the more you see. Who would have thought the favor I gave that day would circle back like this? That I would hear news of the last bloodline of Plante still alive.”
“You don’t seem very surprised. As though you always believed at least someone survived.”
“Yes. I believed at least one would. Though I never imagined she would fall in love with a human in the outside world and even bear a child.”
“C–could it be...”
Vierno asked in a trembling voice.
“That day. Was it you who helped her escape from the forest?”
There was no need to ask who he meant.
The last head of House Plante.
The traitor whose name was forbidden even to be spoken among elves.
And—
Sedina Roschen’s mother.
“I heard she was missing.”
It had seemed impossible for her to break through that encirclement and flee. That Ambella had helped her—it was shocking.
“It was the last gift I could give.”
Ambella exhaled smoke with a bitter face.
What she regretted was not helping more.
It had been five hundred years ago, yet for Ambella, the memory of that day was still vivid.
Meeting her, who had become the head of Plante at such a young age, was something she would never forget for the rest of her life.
—Ambella. Why is it that the elves insist on staying only within this forest?
Whenever she was asked that absurd question, one that sounded as if it came from someone who knew nothing of the ways of the world, Ambella would scold her.
Elves are born in the forest, so they must live and die in the forest.
They have a sacred tree to serve, and this place is everything to the elves.
But whenever she heard those words, the girl in her memory would shake her head.
—The world is wide. And yet we insist on living only in this small well. Is that truly the right thing to do?
She wanted to see the wider world.
She said it until her lips grew dry.
Perhaps it was because of those conversations with her that, after experiencing the war, Ambella was finally able to look upon the outside world with the proper gaze.
‘What I only realized after four hundred years... you already knew.’
And so Ambella let her go.
But fate, as always, proved cruel.
There was no word of her, and now her ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) daughter had been caught by Lifray’s hand and dragged here.
“One question. What kind of child is the one from Plante?”
“Sedina Roshen. The daughter of the Roshen family, a half-elf. And one of my students.”
“If she is your student, then she must be very young.”
“In human years, she has not yet reached twenty.”
“What? By elven reckoning she’s nothing but a baby.”
The tip of the cigar burned down and ash fell.
A spirit of wind caught it immediately and carried it out the window.
“Lord of Dentis. Your presence here means you know everything. Tell me, what of the head of the Plante family?”
“...The head of Plante... has passed away.”
Ambella received that shocking truth with composure.
“Passed away? How?”
“That is...”
“No. Never mind. From your reaction I can already guess how and by whose hand she died. No doubt those petty schemers who never stopped pursuing her.”
At least when she saw her off for the last time, she had hoped, as she let her go, that she might live as a free individual, forgetting family and all else.
She consoled herself with the thought that she had done her part.
She blessed her path only with words and with her heart.
“In the end, even after I sent her away, she was still hounded.”
By the forest’s hunters.
By assassins thirsting for her life.
By masked kin who approached with smiling faces.
For four hundred and eighty years.
She had walked that painful path alone.
Ambella’s heart grew heavy.
But there was no way to ease it.
The one at the center of it all had already departed this world.
That old grudge would remain forever in Ambella’s heart.
At that moment, Ludger's voice cut through her thoughts.
“There is no need for you to trouble yourself over it.”
“What?”
“I said there is no need to dwell on it.”
Ambella twisted her lips into a vicious smile.
No longer the gentle smile of an elf—this one carried the threat of tearing her opponent apart if even slightly offended.
“Ludger Cherish, was it? Who are you to say that to me? Do you know the years I spent with her? You who have not even lived a hundred years?”
“I do not know.”
“Then how can you speak so brazenly? Now?”
A hint of wrath entered Ambella’s voice.
No matter what was said, she usually laughed it off, but when it came to the head of Plante, that was a reverse scale that could not be touched.
Even a small slip of the tongue would shatter the good atmosphere built so far.
Yet in that moment, Ludger remained calm, speaking evenly.
“Because Sedina was born into this world.”
“......”
At those words, Ambella could only fall silent.
“I saw her daughter. She loved her mother dearly. And recently, she met her father. The man everyone thought cold and ruthless tended a garden of plants in memory of his dead wife, giving what little time he had.”
Ludger remembered Walter, bowing his head and begging him to save his daughter.
He remembered Sedina, her eyes filled with sorrow and longing whenever she spoke of her family.
“Such were the two who existed.”
Even though their story ended in tragedy.
That did not erase the path they had walked.
They had loved someone.
And had been loved in return.
The memories of those happy days remained.
“So it could not have been nothing but suffering.”
Suddenly, Ambella overlaid Ludger's words with memories from the past.
—Are you sure about this? The trackers will never stop chasing you.
—It’s fine. I’m grateful you helped me this far. And I’m sorry. If only I hadn’t failed, it wouldn’t have come to this.
—Ella.
Ella Plante.
Even as she lost everything and left her beloved homeland, she had not lost her smile.
—Don’t worry. The outside world may be harsh and cruel, but it will not be only suffering.
—Yes. I hope it will be so.
—Who knows? Out there in that vast unknown world, I might meet someone I love.
—You, who turned down every marriage proposal from noblemen?
—They were all hollow and flashy. I want someone who seems indifferent, but deep down cherishes me.
—Truly a difficult temperament.
—And if I were to meet such a man, I would like to have a child. If I had one, I would want a cute daughter. As for her name, hmm...
After a moment of thought, Ella Plante turned to Ambella with a bright smile.
—Would you name her for me, Ambella?
—Me?
—Yes. Humans call it a godmother, don’t they? Then I would like you to be that. You are like both a sister and a mother to me.
Ambella did not tell her not to joke.
She was letting her go for the last time.
For such a small wish, she could at least play along.
—So, a daughter who resembles you. I cannot quite picture it, but if I had to give her a name...
In her memory, Ambella clearly recalled saying this.
—Sedina would be nice.