Astraea led Luo En to cut off the ears of the fallen goblins.
The string of green objects, so similar in shape to her own ears, made her feel a bit queasy.
Astraea recalled the elf ears she had seen hung on the temple walls in that terrifying dream.
‘Well, thinking about those things brings back that giant tin-can version of Luo En hugging me.’
Then a mysterious force directly blocked the little elf’s brain—an outrageous fantasy over three hundred characters long—and even manipulated the author’s pen to forcibly censor it.
“Uu…”
The little elf let out a cute sound as she fantasized.
She felt her head growing stranger and stranger, yet even a High Priest of the church could do nothing about it.
‘What’s going on?’
Astraea couldn’t figure it out.
Ahead, Luo En was using his longsword like a machete, each swing cutting a path through the bushes.
The little elf gently patted Lily’s neck, and the intelligent pony immediately stepped forward to follow him.
Noticing Lily, Luo En increased the range of his swings, opening a wider path.
Lily, who had been annoyed by the branches, became much more comfortable.
The pony snorted, as if expressing satisfaction.
As for the little elf, Lily naturally felt close to elves—the darlings of nature—so she wouldn’t dislike her just because the journey was a bit rough.
“We’re almost there. The tracks end here.”
Luo En wiped off some sweat.
Continuous sword-swinging had left him a bit breathless, but they quickly found the nearby lair of this goblin group.
Call it a lair, but it wasn’t the stereotypical cave.
The eastern kingdom was mostly plains—where would there be so many caves for these monsters to live in?
This goblin lair was just a primitive settlement.
Crooked rotten sticks stuck into the ground formed a rough circle—that was probably the extent of their village.
In this crude village, there were many low huts made of branches.
With her keen eyesight, the little elf could see that inside these huts—so low that only human children could enter stooping—a pit had been dug.
The huts were built over these pits.
Partially cave-dwelling goblins.
Not that they were smart; it’s just that goblins that didn’t do this and had no cave lairs froze to death.
Among the many small huts, there was one relatively huge hut—probably the dwelling of the goblin king here.
The little elf dismounted from Lily and signaled Luo En to wait there.
Before Luo En could say anything, Astraea walked out from their hiding spot.
“Gah!”
The little elf didn’t hide her presence.
She openly walked into the view of the two goblin sentries.
The goblins let out strange cries, then stared at her with dazed eyes.
Astraea felt disgusted by their gaze.
She knew that these lecherous-looking goblins had somehow sensed through some primitive instinct that she was an elf.
The moment she appeared before them, it instantly aroused their breeding desire.
“Disgusting…” Astraea furrowed her beautiful brows.
She extended her hand and released her magic, “Oblivion.”
Countless particles gathered in her hand, and as the Magic Circuit she drew completed its charge, a brilliant beam as thick as an arm shot out.
The targeted goblin instinctively tried to block, but the ordinary wooden club in its hand couldn’t stop the beam of magical energy.
In an instant, the beam pierced through its chest.
The beam didn’t lose momentum and continued, punching holes through several huts in the goblin village before stopping.
It was a beautiful light-element magic attack.
Actually, the little elf wasn’t very good at light-element magic, but aside from light, fire-element magic was the most suitable for attack.
But using fire-element magic in this forest—if she accidentally started a forest fire, the Elven Goddess would surely rain down divine punishment on her.
The village was struck, and soon a continuous stream of goblin cries rang out.
A surprising number of goblins poured from the huts.
But most of them were extremely scrawny; even the goblin group that had ambushed the little elf earlier were much stronger.
Facing such a numerical disadvantage, Astraea was not flustered at all.
She continued to mobilize her magical power: “Rebirth.”
Under the influence of the new Magic Circuit she constructed, the dense wood-element magic power in the forest quickly gathered.
Then the little elf triggered a switch on the circuit.
Luo En, hiding in the bushes, stared dumbfounded as the two trees beside the little elf stood up.
“Tr…Treant?!”
He was stunned.
Though just a squire, he knew that such things only appeared on the battlefields between humans and elves.
He had seen them in his father’s Memory Stone—War Treants reborn from hundred-meter-tall ancient trees could dominate the battlefield, each one giving human armies a huge headache.
And the two things he saw now, though reborn from ordinary trees, he was sure they were Treants.
‘Can humans use Elven Magic too?’
Luo En thought this.
He knew that the Church of All-Father burned heretics every year, and among them were mages who studied Elven Magic.
That is to say, as a knight of the All-Father, he should now jump out and cut down the little elf as a heretic?
‘Foolish.’
This thought flashed through his mind.
It sounded like a scold, but more like a sigh.
He didn’t move.
He remembered his father’s teaching to stay calm—only calmness could make one a great knight.
Thinking of this, Luo En felt somehow melancholy.
Even though he had always been at odds with his father, now his father’s teachings came to mind.
He had never told the little elf that when he was a squire, he hadn’t followed any knight—he had followed his father, who, as a baron, donned his armor and went to battle himself.
Back to Astraea—actually, the little elf was also a bit nervous.
She had deliberately used Elven Magic to test Luo En.
Or rather, to get him used to her being less human—from heretical human to Heteromorph, step by step.
Maybe by then he would have come to terms with it.
She kept an eye on her back.
If Luo En jumped out like those rigid knights to cut her down, she would immediately kneel and promise never to use Heteromorph magic again.
Hmm… even a full dogeza wouldn’t be out of the question.
But in the end, the little elf didn’t see the squire jump out to cut her down.
Feeling a bit disappointed for some reason, she turned her attention back to the battlefield.
Astraea pointed her little hand, and the two Treants began to stride toward the goblin group.
“Gah! Gah!”
Many goblins roared.
A few goblin slingers hurled stones, hitting the Treants, but they didn’t slow down at all.
Throwing stones was enough to subdue most beasts, but for the naturally thick-skinned Treants, the force of these stones was less than a tickle.
The front-line goblins charged at the Treants, swinging wooden clubs.
The little elf saw them desperately hit the Treants, only to be swatted away by the Treants’ arms.
This was a Treant.
Though they couldn’t use magic and had little intelligence, their powerful bodies allowed them to advance steadily like an unshakable colossus.
Admittedly, the Treants the little elf had revived were the weakest kind, but these goblins were not the powerful human troops of the Great Crusade.
They couldn’t stop the Treants’ advance.
As the two Treants slowly advanced, the goblins that had barely organized to defend their lair were on the verge of rout.
They were scared out of their wits by these miniature war colossi.
“Roar!”
At the critical moment, a roar came from the largest hut in the goblin village.
All the goblins that heard it were shaken, and the little elf could clearly see the goblins, whose morale was on the verge of collapse, regain their spirit.
Every goblin village had a strong goblin chieftain.
Only these chieftains could organize the weak and timid goblins to raid human villages.
And as long as the chieftain was killed, the remaining ordinary goblins posed little threat.
Astraea perked up.
Using two spells in a row had made her even more tired, and she hadn’t rested well to begin with.
If she hadn’t known there was a slightly stronger existence like the goblin chieftain, she would have wanted to snuggle into Luo En’s arms and sleep soundly.
“Gah! Gah! Gah!”
The goblins, now desperate, danced and cheered excitedly, welcoming the arrival of the goblin chieftain.
Soon, the little elf saw the giant figure emerge from the huge hut.
“Roar!”
A green-skinned giant about two and a half meters tall, holding a thick wooden club, roared at the Treants summoned by the little elf.
The little elf, however, pouted in disappointment.
This goblin chieftain wasn’t even as big as the tin-can version of Luo En in her dream.
After making its routine entrance and breathing, the goblin chieftain noticed the little elf behind the two Treants.
“Elf… female…”
It stammered out some Elvish.
It didn’t, like the ordinary goblins, become lust-drunk and unable to look away at the sight of the little elf.
“Why… destroy?”
The goblin chieftain’s Elvish was truly poor, but it was enough to astonish Astraea.
‘How did I remember the elven sages saying that goblins were a bunch of brainless things? Why can this goblin chieftain speak?’
Moreover, this goblin chieftain seemed to want to put down its weapon and negotiate.
How should the little elf handle this?
Instinctively, Astraea turned her gaze toward Luo En, who was hiding in the bushes.