“Stop causing troubles for us. If you do this again, we’ll leave you at Squirrel Street. That is not a place suited for you.”
“I’m really sorry.”
Upon their return to Madam Schroder’s mansion, the other members of the Black Swan Theatrical Troupe in the same carriage as Tylene reprimanded her for her rash actions and fantastical imaginations before exiting the carriage.
Faced with the female performers’ unkind criticisms, Tylene did not get angry. Instead, she apologized to them nonstop.
While the elves were known for their arrogance, they could only act haughty should they possess the means to do so.
Having lost her race, home and even surname, Tylene does not possess any means to act haughty. She knew about that very well. She was lucky. Had she not been rescued by the Blackwood Elves, she might even end up in the slave market and be sold as a slave.
After she finished apologizing, Tylene walked through the mansion’s hallway and returned to her room. When she opened the door, her Blackwood Elf friend was already waiting for her.
“Are you alright? Tylene... that demon didn’t do anything to you, right?”
Flay immediately ran over to Tylene and began to inspect her from head to toe. She was afraid that terrifying demon left some sort of malicious curse on Tylene.
“I’m fine. Besides, Flay, I don’t think that demon is as terrifying as you described him to be.”
Tylene tidied up her clothes that were messed up by Flay’s inspection. She was planning to walk over to sit on her bed.
“I told you that’s his disguise! The demons have always been extremely cunning...”
Before Flay could finish, Tylene collapsed toward the ground like a puppet that had its strings cut. Fortunately Flay was nimble and immediately caught her before she fell.
“This is... the third time already. Tylene, you really should stay in the Blackwood Forest... At least, you wouldn’t suffer from any evil influences there.”
Flay sat Tylene on the bed. This Frost Elf’s body was dreadfully weak. This was already Flay’s third time seeing this symptom.
To elves, losing the protection of their World Tree was akin to losing the source of one’s powers. If it wasn’t for the fact that Tylene had the World Tree seed protecting her, her body will likely weaken even more.
At least for now, she was still able to utilize her bow and magic.
But, the World Tree seed was also gradually weakening. Not even the oldest elf among the Blackwood Elves, their Great Elder, knew the reason why the World Tree seed was weakening.
“I only lost my strength momentarily. See, I’m fine now.”
The speed at which Tylene recovered was astonishingly fast. For the sake of proving that she’s fine, she stood up from the bed and made a masculine motion of showing off her biceps. Unfortunately, her fair and slender arm does not possess any flesh at all.
“You’re always trying to act brave.”
Flay has interacted with Tylene for some time now. She more or less knew what Tylene’s personality was like.
This Frost Elf was not as optimistic as she appeared to be. She has been using her will power to push herself the entire time.
Flay has seen her being wronged during the day by others in the Black Swan Theatrical Troupe and act like she was fine after. But, when night falls, she would hide in her room, hug her pillow and cry herself out.
“Compared to worrying about me, you should be worrying about your master. It’s quite late, you should quickly return to her.”
Tylene suddenly pushed her friend’s back. Using this method, she requested for her friend to leave her room.
When she was the only one left in the room, she sat back onto the bed and opened her hand. The World Tree seed was in her hand.
If she doesn’t do anything soon, the Frost Elves might really disappear from this world.
But, if she chose to cooperate with Joshua... and sign his demon’s contract, she will end up paying an enormous price.
Must she gamble?
She pulled up her sleeve. On her wrist was a silvery white bracelet. The bracelet seemed to be constructed of a great amount of tiny branches.
When Tylene activated her bracelet with her magic power, the runes on the bracelet emitted a dim light.
Her bracelet was the main reason why she was able to escape from the calamity that wiped out her entire race. When she encounters danger, Tylene could activate the bracelet to teleport her to a relatively safe location.
Her bracelet gave Tylene some confidence and comfort. She opened the door to her room and, after confirming that there was no one in the hallway, quickly proceeded toward the mansion’s exit.
.........
“I kept feeling like this tavern is missing something.”
Ciri was sitting at the counter with her chin on her hand.
After being in operation for some time, Hearthstone Tavern had gradually stabilized itself. From the original twenty arcade machines, it has expanded to fifty arcade machines. Yet, like before, they were still unable to match the demands.
Due to the limited amount of arcade machines, the tavern was only able to bring Joshua over a thousand gold coins a day. The revenue from the alcohol were all handed to Mrs. Melina to manage. After all, the sale of alcohol was what she was in charge of.
In recent days, Mrs. Melina had officially declared war against the neighboring jewelry shop. She was attempting to defeat and purchase the neighboring jewelry shop using the filthy and lowly method known as capitalism. Currently, the battle was in a deadlock.
As for Ciri, she had begun drawing the original drawings for the latest expansion pack, ‘Goblins vs Gnomes.'[1]
She was currently taking a break and drinking with Joshua.
“What’s lacking? Unconscious drunkards under the tables?”
Joshua gently banged his wooden mug against Ciri’s wooden mug. Joshua was not fond of alcohol. Thus, he was drinking juice extracted from a plant that resembled sugar cane.
But, the lady mage sitting next to him was different from him. She was drinking ale. She had finished half her mug and her face had reddened slightly. Adding that with her slightly intoxicated look, she appeared particularly charming.
“No, it’s just that I feel that dwarves are too noisy, so noisy that I feel a bit of a headache. This is especially when they start singing... like right now.”
Ciri did not continue as a table of dwarves playing Hearthstone started singing in excitement after opening two legendaries in a row.
The singing voices of the dwarves in this world does not resemble ‘Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold’ sung by the dwarves in J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit.’ If one wanted to speak it nicely, the dwarves would be singing. But, if one wanted to speak it bluntly, they were simply shouting aimlessly.
“Calm yourself. Calm yourself. This is the tavern culture of Norland,” Joshua placed his hand on the hand of the female elf next to him. Hearing the singing dwarves, Ciri was about to pick up her staff to fight them.
“No! I must teach these dwarves a lesson today!”
Ciri seemed to have gotten drunk tonight. After saying those words, she burped in a very unladylike manner and laid down unconscious on the counter.
While she was someone who had a lot of capacity for food, Ciri’s capability for alcohol was quite small. Joshua poked at Ciri’s soft cheek. There was no reaction from her at all. At such a time, shouldn’t Joshua begin on his proper business?
But, at this moment, an elf suddenly appeared at the entrance of the tavern. Because of this, Joshua had no choice but to delay his proper business.
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Translator YangWenli:
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[1] [Goblin vs Gnomes was the first expansion pack of Hearthstone.]