Chapter 1: Living As An Elf

An elf. 

The past me, who admired and longed for that beautiful race, is dead.

To be precise, it should be said that my fellow elves killed that version of me.

“How is our child’s talent for magic?”

“They say the sensitivity and cohesion to mana are lower than expected. What should we do?”

“Haha! Don’t worry. There’s still spirit magic.”

“But her affinity with spirits is also low.”

“This brat, Tyrell! What have you been doing all this time? Neglecting both mana handling and bonding with spirits!”

One thing I learned after becoming an elf is that this race is absurdly immature.

I thought being the representative of a long-living species meant they would be full of sages, but it was the opposite.

The issue was precisely their lifespan.

Living long meant they saw each other for a long time.

Seeing each other so much made relationships unusually delicate.

Naturally, everyone compared themselves to one another.

“The son of Royen next door is already mastering magic!”

“Hamara’s daughter, who was born ten years later, can handle a lower-tier spirit!”

“This won’t do! I teased Roien about how slow he was at learning magic when he was young and said he’d never be better than my child!

For 60 years, I ridiculed him, but if it turns out like this—ugh!”

See?

This is how it is.

Moreover, elves almost never move houses, making it worse.

Neighbors for at least a hundred years—it’s dizzying to even imagine.

Even if they get along, one heated moment can lead to serious trouble.

“Devote yourself to magic training, Tyreal!”

“Spirit magic is important too, Tyreal, do you understand?”

If you noticed something odd here, you’re an expert on elves.

Why are they discussing magic and spirit arts but not mentioning archery?

Elves are synonymous with bows, and bows with elves, aren’t they?

“If you don’t work hard, you’ll end up like those warriors struggling outside!”

“Listen to your father, Tyreal, or you’ll end up learning archery.”

Where I came from, the line was, “If you won’t study, learn a trade!”

In the elvian world, it’s “If you can’t do magic or spirit arts, learn archery!”

That’s right.

So far, when it came to elves, it was always about archery, but that’s not the case here.

Countless ordinary elves who failed to excel in magic or spirit arts simply learned archery, became warriors, and lived that way.

“Tyreal, Tyreal! Did you hear me?”

“Yes, yes.”

For the first ten years, I endured out of love and concern for my parents.

But everyone has their limits.

After 20, 30 years, I felt like I was losing my mind.

Hearing “magic!” and “spirit arts!” every single day for such a long time—it’s impossible to stay sane.

I decided to leave home for a while before I completely lost it.

Of course, I’d get nagged about this later, but I didn’t care—I was about to go crazy.

But leaving home didn’t change the situation.

Instead, I just encountered and heard even worse things.

“They say only five people in the next village’s coming-of-age ceremony know how to properly use magic.”

“I knew it. Back when I had my coming-of-age ceremony, they mocked our village like that. Serves them right!”

“Are those warriors actually scouting or slacking off? Let’s have spirit magicians monitor them with spirits!”

“Why should my spirits do such trivial tasks? Explain yourself!”

“See those elves with bows over there? If you don’t study magic or train diligently in spirit arts, you’ll end up like them, doing physical labor every day. Understand?”

“Yes, Mom!”

Let me clarify something to avoid misunderstanding: Elves have superior physical abilities compared to humans.

Their agility is unmatched, and though their strength is slightly lower, they still hold the advantage.

If they actively encouraged and trained in physical activities, the elves might have established an empire.

But as they say, the world is fair, and perhaps it was divine intention when creating it.

Despite being born with excellent abilities, elves had no desire to develop them.

It was all about magic, spirit arts, or at most, archery—and that was it.

Among warriors, the lower-tier ones relied solely on bows.

Mid-tier warriors combined some spirit arts or magic with archery.

And top-tier warriors used only magic and spirit arts, nothing else.

Of course, there are a handful of elves influenced by humans who use swords or spears.

But such elves are disregarded, not only by other elves but by elven society as a whole.

I don’t know about other worlds, but in this one, that’s how it is.

Whether I like it or not, I have to live as an elf.

At first, I tried to adapt. I tried to conform, to accept, and to blend in.

But one day, a piece of news reached my ears, making it impossible for me to remain silent any longer.

“Did you hear? Another empire has risen in the human world.”

“Ah, yes. Was it another king becoming emperor this time?”

“No, I heard they just declared themselves emperor from the start.”

“Humans never stick to anything, do they? Nations rise and fall in just a few decades—what a mess.”

“Who knows how long this one will last? Maybe it’ll still be around before I return to the trees.”

“About a hundred years seems right.”

Ten years ago, beyond the Great Forest, another empire emerged in the human world.

Unlike the unchanging elves, humans continue to evolve over time.

My kind have ignored them ever since, but I saw things differently.

Because I was once human, I understood their greatest weapon—change.

It won’t be long before the winds of their change reach the Great Forest.

The question is whether it’ll be a gentle breeze or a storm filled with flames.

Recently, my fears began to materialize.

“How many times must I say I got lost? You can leave the forest whenever you like, but why can’t we enter it? What kind of law is that?”

It was a human, captured by our warriors at the forest’s edge.

He claimed he was exploring nearby and lost his way, but no one believed him.

Assuming the worst, my kind decided to punish him.

And then, in his desperate cries, a word slipped from his lips:

“Damn it! You damned Kaanf bastards! Why would we pillage you? For centuries, you’ve been holed up in this forest, drunk on your self-righteousness. Why do you always assume and decide everything for yourselves? Argh!”

Kaanf.

The term wasn’t the issue—I shouldn’t even exist as an elf in the first place.

The real problem was the growing hostility from the outside world toward elves.

It might’ve just started, or it might’ve been brewing for some time.

Either way, it wasn’t good, and I began to worry about the future.

My affection for my people was fading, and my admiration had long since disappeared.

Yet, I was still an elf, and they were my kind.

Hearing others insult and attack them wasn’t pleasant.

A place that doesn’t change is doomed to collapse. Isolation destroys everything.

Even if a human kingdom doesn’t outlast a single elf, it’s their constant change that makes them strong.

They evolve while we stay the same.

“Elves must change.”

That was the conclusion I reached.

But how?

How could I change my stubborn kind?

I lacked magic and spirit abilities—barely average, if that.

How could someone like me persuade them?

“Isn’t our village holding a coming-of-age ceremony soon?”

“Yes, I hear there are quite a few this time—twelve, in fact.”

“My goodness! Could one of them finally draw ‘that’?”

“Hmph, who knows? No one has properly drawn the ‘Mother Forest’s Bow’ yet, right?”

“Well, you’d need mastery of both magic and spirit abilities for that.”

The Mother Forest’s Bow—one of the three sacred treasures of the elves.

Every elf living in the Great Forest has at least seen or touched it once during their coming-of-age ceremony, held in the forest’s heart.

Legend says the one destined to lead our people will draw this bow.

…Wait.

If, by chance, I could handle that bow in front of everyone…

At least they wouldn’t fiercely oppose what I intended to do.

Yes, that’s it.

The elves love their long history too much to ignore the bow’s prophecy.

If I succeeded, they’d at least pretend to listen to me.

But rumors say the bow requires high mana sensitivity and closeness to spirits.

You need magic to string it and spirits’ help to draw it.

That’s why elves are obsessed with magic and spirits.

As for me, I was below average in both.

“No matter how impossible it seems… I won’t give up. I can’t give up.”

Some might devote themselves to mastering magic and spirit abilities for the bow.

But I decided to think differently.

Honestly, why would you need magic or spirits to handle a bow?

Even among archers—why focus on agility?

The key stat for archery is strength!

The prophecy only says someone will draw the bow, not anything about magic or spirits.

Just draw it—that’s all.

With that settled, I knew my next step.

Find those like me—elves disillusioned with our society who left the forest.

I heard some learned physical enhancement beyond the forest and returned, only to be ostracized and live on the fringes.

“Alright. Let’s do this.”

The die was cast.

*

The next day, Tyreal’s parents found a letter their son left on the table:

“I’ll return in ten years for the coming-of-age ceremony.”

In short, it was a declaration of runaway.