Chapter 123: Uninvited Guests

From a distance, five people were approaching. Three of them wore the same black clothes as the elves who had attacked Daniel and the others.

But the two walking in front were different. One was a middle-aged Dark Elf, with black eyes but brown hair and clothes that were clearly considered royal by elven standards.

The other was a female Dark Elf, with gray hair and eyes. Her face was hidden by a veil that covered from her nose to her neck.

Even so, her beauty could still be seen

"So, you’re the uninvited guests," the middle-aged Dark Elf stood in front of the bars and asked after glancing at Daniel and the others.

"Uninvited? Understandable. But we really didn’t mean to intrude. Unfortunately, we were brought here by force," Daniel replied with a smile.

Andreas, Kaisen, and Liara stood behind him, not daring to say a word. They decided to leave it to Daniel to handle the situation.

"But I heard a different story. Apparently, you humans entered our forbidden zone," the middle-aged Dark Elf chuckled and said.

"As we told your friends, it wasn’t on purpose. Besides, don’t you think we should introduce ourselves first?"

"There’s no need. I’m not interested in knowing the identities of humans. But you, human, if you really want to, you can know my name. I am Ernas, advisor to the Dark Elf king," the middle-aged Dark Elf, Ernas, said.

"Great, now that the misunderstanding is cleared up, can we go?" Daniel asked calmly.

"No. You still haven’t explained why you came here. Normally, we kill intruders, but since you’re an Otherworldly, we’re being a little more flexible."

In truth, they had no issue killing Andreas and the other two. After all, covering up their deaths would be easy.

But when Ernas examined the body of this white-haired human, he realized the man wasn’t from this world—he was one of the outsiders.

He didn’t know if this outsider was affiliated with the external forces, but he didn’t want to risk provoking them.

Especially since it could ruin all their plans.

"As we told you, we were just trying to cross the mountains. We were just passing through," Daniel shrugged and said.

"We have an item that can tell truth from lies. If you’re telling the truth, naturally we’ll let you go," Ernas said with a smile.

Daniel, Andreas, and the other two frowned. Would their lies be exposed? The three looked at Daniel, hoping he had a plan.

Daniel sighed. He knew that in this world, such items were common, but he didn’t expect to run into one now.

More importantly, why was he wasting time like this? It was time to take a different approach.

"Sorry, I just remembered. We actually came to retrieve the World Tree branch."

"..."

"You’re insane! Why would you tell him that?!" Liara suddenly shouted and scolded Daniel.

Daniel ignored them and just stared at Ernas.

"Oh?" Ernas, who had just turned to leave, frowned and turned back after hearing Daniel’s words.

"What are you talking about, human? Are you insane?"

"Oh? You don’t know? We were sent here by the elves to get the branch back," Daniel said playfully, then looked at the female Dark Elf and the three behind them.

When he mentioned the World Tree branch, he noticed confusion in their eyes... but in Ernas’s eyes? Nothing—just a frown.

It seemed not all Dark Elves knew the truth. In fact, Daniel himself had wondered why they would steal the World Tree branch and, more importantly, why the elven leaders hadn’t tried to get it back for so long.

Things were clearly more complicated than he thought.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about. We don’t have anything called the World Tree branch here. You should keep your lies to yourself," Ernas suddenly said with a harsh, angry tone. He was clearly worried.

"Well, that’s what the elves say. If you have a problem with it, you can go tell them yourselves."

"Ridiculous! If what you said was true, the elves themselves would’ve come to retrieve the branch," Ernas growled, trying to argue.

"Who knows? Did you forget this is the Central Plains? While the natives of this world might not get involved in retrieving the branch, the people from my world? If they find out a branch of the World Tree is here, they won’t let it fall into the elves’ hands—they’ll take it for themselves," Daniel replied casually.

A flash of killing intent appeared in Andreas’s eyes. Daniel didn’t just notice it—he also saw the more confused looks on the four other Dark Elves’ faces.

"Uncle... is what he’s saying true? Do we really have a branch of the World Tree?" Before Andreas could speak, the female Dark Elf suddenly spoke.

"Ilarys, this human is just spouting nonsense. You don’t need to believe him," Ernas said—the very thing he feared most was happening.

"Really? Because the moment he said that, you suddenly got aggressive. It clearly looked like you were scared. Is the branch really in our tribe? Is that why all the elves exiled us? Is that why we’ve been stuck here for decades and haven’t dared to leave the mountains?" the girl, named Ilarys, asked in a trembling voice.

Since she was a child, she’d wanted to see the world outside, but her father always said the outside world was bad. That people were racist toward Dark Elves, and if they saw one, they’d capture and tear them apart.

She always thought those stories were baseless, but since her father had said it, maybe it was true?

But if what this human said was true, everything would make more sense. Then she’d understand why her father didn’t want her—or any Dark Elf—leaving the forest.

"Ilarys, I was just angry because of the blasphemous things this human said," Ernas tried to convince her, but it was no use.

"I need to talk to Father," Ilarys turned and walked away.

"Damn it! You bastard human, don’t even think about leaving. You’ll rot here for the rest of your life," Ernas said, eyes filled with killing intent as he looked at Daniel.

"You wanted the truth, didn’t you?" Daniel shrugged and smirked.

Ernas growled and left too. He had to fix this mess before it got any worse. If not, the king would definitely kill him.