“Can’t you open it right now? I’m a princess! An Elf princess! The 2nd Princess!! How dare you treat the royal bloodline like this!?”
Asir shouted, gripping and shaking the wooden bars with both hands.
The bars were made of wood, which seemed much weaker than metal, but even with her full strength, they didn’t budge.
“Haa… Princess. Please calm down. You’ve done something terrible, you know.”
“What did I do!”
Last night.
Estel, who had come to her asking to talk, had been hiding a Magic tool on her body to record their conversation.
Unaware of this, Asir excitedly revealed why she had come to the Great Forest, her relationship with the Imperial Prince, and why she had forbidden the collection of World Tree Leaf.
Thanks to Asir, who had completely fallen for Estel’s leading questions, the Evergarden family, who had initially planned to cut out unnecessary parts except for the crucial evidence, distributed the recording to the Council of Elders and all the Elves almost without any editing.
The fact that a princess of one nation had colluded with the heir of another empire and obstructed a plan vital to the Elves’ survival with flimsy excuses meant that she couldn’t get away with it quietly, no matter how much of a princess she was.
“Just the crimes that come to mind right now are the severe leaking of Elf secrets, collusion with the human realm… specifically, the heir of the empire, which is practically an act of national treason, you know? The sentence alone would be at least thousands of years rotting in the underground prison, and the more you act like this, the more your punishment will be aggravated.”
“Th, thousands of years?!”
Asir repeated the Elf soldier’s words, her face turning pale.
Elves already had long lifespans, and no one among them had ever committed such a grave crime, so the expected sentence was enormous.
Even though Elves lived long lives, their bones would crumble if they lived that long.
It would be better to be a human and die in less than a hundred years; an Elf would have to live those thousands of years locked in an underground prison, and just imagining it made death seem preferable.
“You were already acting up without knowing your situation, but it’s refreshing to see.”
“You! What’s your name! How dare you speak to me like that?”
“Yes, I’m Rui Ville Ervillehum, the great-grandson of the Rui Ville family who lives in the lower village, and if you keep acting like that, you’ll be put in restraints.”
“Erv… what?”
“Anyway, please stay calm until the official trial. I’m going to go change shifts.”
“What? Hey! Don’t stop there? Hey! Erv… Hey!! Hey, pointy-eared bastard!!”
Asir, who had been the noble 2nd Princess of the Elves until just yesterday, had suddenly fallen from grace and was now imprisoned in the underground prison of the Great Forest.
Few Elves had a favorable view of the 2nd Princess, and with her facing such a severe punishment, the soldiers were completely ignoring her. “…This fucking… that damn brat or old hag, whoever the hell she is, tricked me!?”
After the soldier left, Asir, alone in the empty underground prison, replayed her anger.
If she had been even a little cautious when the opposing force suddenly asked to talk, if she had been searched before entering, or if she had simply kept her mouth shut and hidden the information, this wouldn’t have happened.
From the start, the Evergarden family, who had planned this operation, intended to seize even the slightest clue of a connection with the empire during the conversation, giving the Council of Elders a reason to put more pressure on her.
If Asir had just kept her mouth shut, the Evergarden family, who needed to proceed with the Elixir production, would have been the ones getting anxious.
But she was knocked down by a light jab, leaving them dumbfounded.
The Council of Elders, listening to the recording on the Magic tool, were so dumbfounded that they couldn’t bear to listen to it all and slapped their foreheads.
“How dare they…! How dare those NPC bastards…!”
Even in this situation, Asir didn’t blame herself at all and was furious at the Elves for making a fool of her.
“…Ah, fuck, but what do I really do?”
However, even Asir, after calming down to some extent, began to think rationally and understand the situation.
“Really, thousands of years, stuck here? Really?”
Asir, who had all her tools and weapons supported by Ganix taken away and was practically wearing only a single cloth, desperately struck the prison bars, but they didn’t budge.
Escape was literally impossible.
Moreover, even if she tried to escape by digging through the wall with a tool like in The Shawshank Redemption, her prison was wide open, so she would be immediately caught by the guards, and there wasn’t even a piece of furniture to hide her body.
“Fuck… fuck, wait a minute…! No way…! It’s a lie…?”
“I, I’m an Elf princess…..! An isekai’d person! No fucking way!!!”
An inescapable prison, an eternity so long that she would be breathless just counting from 1.
Thinking about spending that time locked in prison, her pupils began to shake violently.
“No, no… First, with the spoon they give me when they give me food, or at least a fork—that fucking Fromt!! That damn fruit!!!”
Asir, squeezing her brain for a last resort, tried to secretly hide the utensil given during meals and dig a hole while covering it with her back, but she realized what the Elves’ staple food was and let out a desperate scream.
The Elves’ staple food, Fromt.
Because it was a fruit, there was no need for a spoon.
“Fuck! Open it! Open it now! Before I kill you all!!”
Completely losing her mind, Asir shook the bars that confined her, punched them, and even drop-kicked them, but only the areas she hit hurt, and the bars remained intact.
The situation was completely over.
“…Should I just die now? If I die again after being isekai’d, can I be isekai’d into another character? Yeah, like a sub-character. If the growth is fucked, I’ll just make a new character. Right?”
Losing all hope, Asir eventually covered the painful areas with her hands and collapsed to the floor, muttering something.
She had reached the final stage of the five stages of grief, acceptance.
Just as Asir was floundering in deep despair.
Tap-tap-
“…!? Hey! Open the door! No, please open it! I’ll do anything! I’m still pretty good-looking, you know! Huh? So please!” Hearing footsteps in the distance, Asir immediately raised her head and ran to the bars, sticking her face through the gaps and shouting.
It seemed to be the relief soldier the previous soldier had mentioned.
Now, she was showing a pathetic and undignified appearance, begging those she had ignored and belittled, those she had regarded as NPCs.
“Hey, brother! No, god! What should I call you? Anyway, please, just have mercy once—”
“…A message from the Prince.”
Thud-roll roll roll…
“…Huh?”
The soldier, who had approached right in front of her prison, took out something hidden in his sleeve and rolled it inside the bars.
“This is… a communication Crystal ball?”
It was a Magic tool that she was very familiar with, having used it several times to contact Ganix, used to communicate with those far away.
Chijik-chijijik—
[…Ah, ah, can you hear me?]
“…!? Ganix! Is that Ganix?”
[Asir, is that Asir?]
“Ye, yes! It’s me!”
Carefully picking up the Crystal ball, the communication was immediately connected, and a familiar voice reached her ears.
It was Ganix Obina.
“I, I believed in you! That you would save me—”
[…You fucking idiot!!!!!!!]
“Ugh!?”
Asir, who had regained hope at Ganix’s voice, was about to start with teary eyes when a tremendous shout that echoed through the underground prison erupted from the Crystal ball.
[Are you fucking kidding me? Are you just a decoration for your head? How could you just spill confidential information like that? You dumb bitch, even a Christmas tree ornament would be smarter than you! ]
“Th, that’s because th… those bastards tricked me…”
[I listened to the recording, and it’s just you spilling everything, and if that’s tricking you, then my butler who manages my schedule must be the world’s greatest con artist? If you just poke around and get the right answer every time, what the fuck is the point!]
Ganix’s anger was very justified.
What Ganix had asked Asir to do was nothing much.
To go back to the Great Forest and prohibit the collection of World Tree Leaf until the Elixir reservation delivery time was over.
Literally, to go and sternly shout a couple of words not to do it, and stay locked in a room for a few weeks, it was a very simple task.
It was true that Tenebrix Nox’s visit was a variable, but in the end, nothing had changed.
However, if Tenebrix Nox had blown off a couple of her legs and threatened to tear apart the remaining limbs before she canceled it, Ganix would have had no choice.
What could he do when the Black Flame Dragon himself stepped in?
If it went that far, he would just retreat and make a new plan.
But Asir just fell for the leading questions and spilled all the facts, causing Ganix’s lid to completely blow off.
When Ganix heard the whole story from the contact he had planted in the Great Forest who urgently contacted him from the morning, he wondered if he was dreaming.
“I, I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! I was really wrong!”
[I have to throw away all the contacts I planted to save you! Do you understand?]
[Anyway, you fucking come back, and we’ll talk about this. You’re dead.]
“I know! I know! Just get me out of here!”
Still, Asir was a very valuable person to throw away right now, so Ganix wanted to just abandon her to rot in prison for thousands of years, but he reluctantly decided to save her.
Of course, he had to use the contacts he had barely planted in the Great Forest over a long period to break her out of prison, and once he did, he wouldn’t be able to use them anymore, making Ganix’s stomach churn.
Clang-
“Hoo… I thought I was really fucked. I’m never coming to this shitty forest again!”
Asir, who had escaped from prison, retrieved her equipment and smiled with relief as if she had forgotten her mistakes.
[Wait, you have to finish the job before you leave.]
“Job? How can I do it now? It’s all exposed and ruined.”
Just as she was about to leave the underground prison, Ganix stopped her.
“Here, these are the items the Prince told me to give you.”
“Uh… what’s this?”
[You know, right? Before you come back, you have to accomplish this much.]
Following Ganix’s information, the contact once again rummaged through his pockets and took out a bundle of scrolls, handing them to Asir.
They were all scrolls imbued with powerful fire magic.
[If we can’t have it, we have to destroy it completely.]
The mild plan to prevent the acquisition of Elixir ingredients had failed, but there were many ways to prevent the Evergarden family from getting the World Tree Leaf.
And one of those methods was now in Asir’s hands.