The ancient empire—Zich’s eyes shone at its mention. He might finally learn about the existence he was curious about. But before that, he had to make sure that the ancient empire he was thinking of and the ancient empire Romanne was talking about was the same one.
“It seems like you have a general idea about the empire.”
“I heard from Leona that it was an empire that belonged to many incredibly strong humans.”
“I see. Although that story has been passed down as a legend among elves, I told Leona about it in more detail since she has a high chance of becoming the next shaman.”
‘Leona as the next shaman?’
Leona went beyond careless to reckless. She didn’t fit the image of a shaman well, but Zich quickly shrugged it off.
‘Even the current shaman swears like a sailor. It wouldn’t be strange to have a reckless shaman.’ Furthermore, even someone like Leona would not remain so reckless their whole life.
Romanne continued, “Legend says that Clowon was an incredible empire. They produced skilled emperors from generation to generation and built an ironclad force around the emperor. But they had nothing much to do with elves. No matter how strong they were, Clowon was still just a human empire. The elves thought there was no need to involve themselves with the people in the empire.”
“They must have gotten the elves involved.”
“Yes.” Romanne nodded, “Do you all know the full name of our tribe?”
“Yes, I heard about it.”
“Excluding the Iron Tribe, all the tribes are named according to the terrain they live in, like how our Lake Tribe lives by the lake. But…”
As if she was going to say something important, Romanne stopped speaking for a moment and muttered, “To tell you the truth, this isn’t the place where our tribe used to live.”
“Sorry?”
“What?” Retree and Sidia were surprised. Dronian and Leona also blinked their eyes as if they weren't aware of it either.
‘Wait. Lake Tribe?’ Zich racked through his head. Elf tribes chose their name according to the place they lived in. Thus, they should’ve lived next to a lake. Yet, Romanne said that the place they were living in right now wasn’t their original home. Did they change their name?
‘But what if they didn’t?’ What came to Zich’s mind was the gigantic lake near this area that he had mistaken as an ocean.
“Is the place that the Lake Tribe used to live in… perhaps, Mentis?” Zich asked.
Romanne’s eyes widened. “Amazing. You thought that far with this much information?”
“Is that true, Mother?” Retree hastily asked. He was surprised by the secret origins of Lake Tribe that even he, the king of the country, didn’t know.
“Yeah, but don’t be so shocked since it was a long time ago. Our home is the Droud Forest.” Romanne comforted her son and continued her story. “When our tribe lived in Mentis, Clowon’s troops stormed in. Although the Great Adrowon Forest existed during that time, it didn’t deter them at all from invading Mentis. Then, they requested our leave.”
“Did a fight break out?”
“No, it couldn’t be described as a fight. During that time, Clowon’s troops were overwhelmingly strong to the point that they were called an army of gods or demons. Thus, the winner was Clowon of course. However, the surprising part was that the Lake Tribe didn’t suffer much damage.”
“…That is surprising.” The Lake Tribe had probably not given up; when their enemy—especially humans, who were of a different species from them—told them to give up their home, they would’ve probably resisted with all they had.
'The fact that the damage done to the Lake Tribe was small means that the Clowon Empire was so powerful that they could even control the damage they inflicted on their enemies.' It was a terrifying thought—not only could Clowon fight the elves on their home ground, which was the forest, but they could even limit the harm inflicted on their opponents.
“Although Clowon overpowered our tribe, they didn’t show much interest in our Lake Tribe. All they wanted was Mentis. They sliced the trees covering most of Mentis and began to build their city on it. Its completed form is the Mentis that we currently know of.”
As Romanne continued on, everyone kept quiet to listen to her voice. “The Lake Tribe didn’t know the reason why Clowon’s troops would need Mentis. But then, a rumor that they hid a power underneath the castle they built in Mentis spread.”
“That power must have been what we saw.” Zich recalled the tree of flames.
“Yes, Clowon placed that power underneath the castle and began to take care of Mentis. Yet, even a great empire must have had difficulty managing Mentis inside the Great Adrowon Forest, and they placed one elf tribe in charge of managing the city.”
“That must have been the Iron Tribe.”
Romanne nodded. “Their name didn’t use to be the Iron Tribe. Their original name wasn’t passed down among the shamans. But after they went under Clowon’s rule and they began to manage Mentis while wearing human armor and weapons, other tribes began to call them by that name. They also changed their names according to it.”
“Renu seemed to have been especially infuriated with the thought of human rule. I suppose it was because of what happened then.”
“That’s likely. Anyways, the Iron Tribe managed Mentis and the area surrounding it as their own land, and we got pushed off into this forest and built a new country. A long time passed after that. After Clowon stole Mentis, they weren’t interested in other elves. The Iron Tribe also didn’t expand their power as they were in charge of managing Mentis. Well, they did seem to have many conflicts with other tribes though.”
The Iron Tribe, which was under human rule, couldn't possibly have had a good relationship with the other tribes.
“Even that didn’t last forever. The powerful empire, Clowon, also met its fall in the end.”
The Iron Tribe had pressured the surrounding tribes by relying solely on Clowon’s power. Therefore, all the nearby tribes were hostile towards the Iron Tribe, and they naturally felt threatened.
“During that time, our ancestors wanted to negotiate. Even though they hated the Iron Tribe, they didn’t want to shed any more blood.”
Negotiations were not easy. The elves became riled up easily, and since tension was high up in the air, the negotiations took a very long time. However, no one wanted to shed any more blood, so they made a compromise in the end.
“The Iron Tribe moved out of Mentis and returned to their homeland. However, we didn’t go back to Mentis. We were already used to living in the Droud Forest, and those Clowon humans changed the city way too much for it to be suitable for elves.”
Zich recalled the various buildings made out of rocks in Mentis.
“Thus, we made Mentis a neutral territory and also sealed the power underneath the castle. In exchange, we took the treasure inside the castle, which was the Lake’s Tear.”
“Was the Lake’s Tear also from the empire?”
“Yes. It’s a treasure that contains an enormous amount of water mana and the power of purification. The shamans also predicted that it probably had the ability to control the power underneath the castle somewhat. This is also the reason why a shaman only exists in the Lake Tribe; it was a position made to manage the Lake’s Tear.”
“…I apologize Mother, but this is the first time I’ve heard of this,” Retree said while pressing his eyes as if he was tired. Even though he was the king of a large tribe, he felt shocked that dark and heavy truths were coming out of his mother’s mouth.
“I know. It’s because this information is only passed down to shamans.”
“Shouldn’t we have been informed of such an important event?”
“About an event that happened thousands, tens of thousands of years ago?”
Retree closed his mouth.
“Even for us, it’s an event that happened in the distant past. If the Iron Tribe hadn’t caused an incident like this, we wouldn’t even have to know about it. Since I’m a shaman that manages the Lake Tribe, this information was passed down to me.” Romanne let out a sigh. “I didn’t know that the Iron Tribe also continued to pass down the same information.”
Zich added, “They were probably looking for an opportunity to take the power underneath the castle for themselves. If not, why would they have worked so hard at passing down the information to their descendants?”
“I also agree.” Romanne agreed to Zich’s words.
“But why did they decide to carry out their plan now? If they planned to steal the empire’s power, they must have had a lot of opportunities in the past.”
“I was also wondering about that. Why did they suddenly decide to act on getting the empire’s power?”
“…P-perhaps.” Leona slowly raised her hand as if she committed a grave sin. “Is it because I-I stole the Lake’s Tear? The Lake’s Tear might have the ability to control that power.”
“Yeah, we can’t completely erase that possibility.”
Leona bowed her head deeply.
Romanne also added in a few words, “But that might not be the case at all. No, there is a high possibility that this isn’t the case at all. There’s too long of a time gap between the timing of when the Lake’s Tear disappeared and the beginning of their plan.”
Then Zich intervened, “Moreover, a group was backing them up, so they are probably the reason why the Iron Tribe decided to execute their plan.”
Before Zich regressed, there was a time when the Iron Tribe controlled all the tribes in the Great Adrowon Forest, but even during this time, there was no news of a great power from an ancient empire.
‘During that time, they probably just got support from the robed figures and controlled all the tribes.’
However, in this timeline, the Iron Tribe betrayed the robed figures and was working by themselves.
“You’re probably right. What type of group was backing the Iron Tribe?”
“I have a group in mind.”
All the elves stared at Zich. In short, Zich explained the robed figures to them and also what he found out from Renu after tricking him.
“I had no idea that a group like that existed,” Retree murmured to himself, and Romanne had on a very serious expression.
Zich replied, “However, their alliance has ended. From now on at least, those robed figures will stop supporting the Iron Tribe.”
“Well, that’s good news, but we can’t let our guard down.”
“Yes.”
Then Romanne said, “I roughly finished everything I needed to tell you all. Then would it be all right if I start asking questions?”
Zich answered, “Yes, of course. Ask as much as you want.”
“Well, the first thing I want to ask you about is that,” Romanne said while pointing at Windur that was next to Zich.
Even though it was inappropriate to bring a weapon while meeting a royal family, Romanne personally requested Zich to bring his weapon.
“What is that? You used that sword to open the room underneath the castle, right?”
“Yes, you are right.”
“Is that sword related to Clowon?”
“I don’t know?”
“You don't know?”
“Yes. I also happened to pick it up by coincidence.” Zich grabbed the sword and raised it up. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the sword shaped like a tree branch.
“I think there is a high possibility that this sword is related to the ancient empire, Clowon. The location where I picked up this sword is in a place that might be a ruin of the Clowon Empire.”
Romanne voiced her thoughts, “You said someone taught you what would happen if you opened the room underneath the castle. Is that perhaps…”
“As expected, you are also very sharp.”
Zich smiled and nodded his head. “Yes, you are right. This sword taught me.”