I’ve Reincarnated into an Elf

The distance he sensed was roughly about 300 meters ahead.

Even though it was the forest, the homeland of the elves, detecting the presence of something about 300 meters away was abnormal.

“Mother, please rest for a moment. I’ll go take a look.”

“Alright… Don’t go out alone. You may be an exceptional guard, but you’re still just a child who hasn’t undergone the adulthood ceremony.”

“…Yes. And besides, I’m not alone.”

After saying that, Eldmir reached out and firmly grasped Artir’s nape.

-Squeak! Let go of me! I’ll stay by Elysia’s side!

“You’re noisy.”

Ignoring Artir’s protest, Eldmir leaped onto a tree.

Finding a suitable spot, Eldmir stared at the location he sensed.

-You deserve punishment. What kind of person is there to threaten you here? Why are you giving me such a hard time. I can’t let go right now!

“You’re being loud. Those guys have good hearing. Be quiet.”

-Under this rain, they look like rotten logs that have been lying here for 300 years…

Listening to the cute and rough words of the spirit, Eladmil went into observation mode.

“Those guys… What’s going on? Among the four cats, there don’t seem to be any that look like adults. The dog… Oh, it’s a wolf. It’s almost on the level of a savage warrior, but it’s already half-dead.”

There was a single wolf covered in bandages from head to toe, surrounded by four small and big cats.

The largest one might be fifteen at most, and the smallest one looked like it might be just seven.

One peculiar thing was that there were no visible wounds from the elves’ weapons.

“What’s this? I don’t think they fought with us and ran away? No, rather…”

Oh, fuck.

They fought with orcs and ran away.

“Oh, damn it. If that’s the case, then it’s so annoying.”

-Why? What’s going on? Let’s find out together.

“Ha… Fucking embarrassing…”

There was no legend of the mystery-solving detective Sherlock Elf Eldmir….

“Talking real bullshit and drumming it up to yourself, and playing imaginary nonsensical scenarios all alone… Fuck, why didn’t the elves hit them first, logically. Isn’t it obvious? Of course, the orcs should have come to mind before us. Oh god, am I really an idiot?”1

-…I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but I get that you’re sinking into self-doubt again. Sigh, why is it starting again, half-breed.

“I don’t know. Leave me alone. I really want to find a mouse hole.2“

-While I may not know about mouse holes, I can create a rat-sized hole for you to enter.”

“You’re really annoying.”

After stumbling around in the swamp of frustration for a while, Eldmir finally regained his composure.

“Anyway, now that it’s revealed that they’re not our tribe’s enemies… What should we do now?”

-Ah, darn it. What’s going on exactly?

Ignoring Artir’s complaints, Eldmir let out a sigh and made a sound like a deflating balloon as he sat down on a tree branch.

“Ah, shit… How do I even tell this to Mother?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Yikes! You scared me!”

Startled by Elysia’s sudden appearance like a ghost, Eldmir shouted in panic.

“Mother, show your presence a little!”

“I haven’t hidden my presence, though…”

“…Ah, right?”

He had been wallowing in self-doubt that he didn’t sense Elysia’s presence.

I really did all that show alone.

Feeling self-conscious again, Eldmir made a composed expression.

Clearing his throat, he lowered his voice.

“Mother… those guesses I mentioned earlier.”

Scratching the back of his head and hesitating, Eldmir took a deep breath and spoke in a self-reflective tone.

“It was all just a delusion. I made false assumptions, yes.”

“Delusions, you say?”

“They have scars that seem to be caused by orcs, not elves. Scimitars and glaives are used by orcs… and there isn’t a single wound caused by arrows.”

Naturally, the primary weapon of the elves was the bow.

“So they were fleeing to save their lives from the orcs… and perhaps they were avoiding us as well since we are potential enemies, so they were trying to escape as cautiously as possible.”

While they might be potential enemies, the elves would refrain from attacking unless provoked first. Of course, there were exceptions, but it was a common rule for non-aggressive races.

However, this logic might hold true only when the other party is in a neutral position. If the other party happens to be the wandering beastmen that have been causing trouble in the past, the situation changes.

Even though they might be from a different village, the appearance of that warrior was also etched in Eldmir’s memory. The attire and the pattern of the beastmen warrior, who had engaged in combat with guards from neighboring villages on several occasions, were familiar to him.

Naturally, from the perspective of the elves, they were no different from their enemies.

“Oh my. Then does that mean those children’s village was destroyed by the orcs?”

“Likely.”

So that’s why they are carefully passing through this forest now.

The cat girls were relatively unharmed, as the male wolf had somehow managed to protect them, but the male wolf himself was in critical condition. Particularly, he had a leg that was almost like a rag, barely walking with the support of the cat girls.

Yet, despite their condition, they were able to hide their traces to this extent, thought Eldmir.

“They left almost no traces, and I thought they were highly trained individuals, but… just like cats have their own traits, and wolf… that person seems to be truly skilled even in this state of injury.”

-Hmm. So what will you do now?

“Well…”

He had pursued them, thinking they were enemies of the elves, but when he finally opened the lid, he found the pitiful victims of the orcs.

Four young cat girls and one male wolf warrior risked their lives to protect them.

A tear-jerking journey through the enemy territory after their village was destroyed, seeking refuge in a neighboring wolf village.

If this were a game, there would be no hesitation in deciding whether to kill or save them.

In Eldmir’s previous life, when playing games, whether to kill or save the opponents depended on his mood at the moment or the personality of the character he was playing. He never seriously contemplated those choices.

After all, the opponents were just NPCs, AIs, and nothing more than data fragments. They were not tangible beings right in front of him.

Simply a tool for pure gameplay.

A seasoning to spice up the enjoyment of playing.

That’s what they were.

“….”

In a game, that’s how it would be.

In games, he had killed many lives.

He saved some too, but the essence of this MMORPG genre was to grow stronger by killing.

He killed monsters and NPCs alike.

He even killed the villagers who were just passersby, beyond being enemies or villains.

There was no reason.

He just killed out of boredom while passing by, or intentionally to become a wanted criminal, or sometimes he accidentally clicked on the wrong target and killed someone.

That was possible in the game.

It was just a game world.

But at some point, that game became a reality.

-Hey?

Killing people.

For the past 20 years, that was something he had agonized over countless times, hesitated, and feared.

Twenty years.

It had been twenty years since he accepted that this world was not a game but reality, and also became certain that he was a player.

Naturally, he could easily guess that the things he had done and witnessed in the game would become reality.

Racial wars, monster waves, demon realm battles, dragon raids… all kinds of wars and slaughters.

Ideological wars, conquest wars, slave uprisings…

The constant deaths of NPCs that always continued.

Everything was a large-scale event composed of violence and slaughter.

Now, those events that were part of the game have become the future that Eldmir must face.

“Well, it’s not that difficult.”

-What do you mean?

Killing.

──It had become an act that only remained as a numbing routine.

He no longer agonized over killing people, hesitated, or feared it.

Because it would be necessary for him to survive from now on.

His countless real-life combat experiences and growth as Eldmir attest to that.

Having organized his thoughts, Eldmir shook his head.

“Well, I do kill, but I also spare.”

Eldmir brushed aside his conflicting thoughts and focused on the present situation.

Even if the wolf in front of him was not immediately hostile to their elves, they were destined to fight against them anyway.

No, they were forces that had already fought against the elves in the first place.

Considering the potential impact of the wolves on the elves in the racial war or any other large-scale event, it was only right to eliminate the immediate threats.

“If you think that way, it’s only natural to eliminate them….”

Was it because of their appearance that his conscience was stimulated?

Or was it because the cat girls were young and made him uneasy?

Somehow, he felt uncomfortable about exterminating those beastmen.

“Eldmir. But haven’t those girls caused harm to our race?”

“That’s true for now. But think about the past and the future. Will those beastmen not cause harm to our race?”

He knows the logic.

Let’s imagine a future racial war. The beasts were not just enemies, but something beyond or below that for the elves.

In “Omega World”, regardless of the player’s choices in each round, the early story always had random branching points, and the story continued based on those points.

The story always flowed randomly in each round, regardless of the player’s intentions.

However, even in “Omega World”, there were some events or stories that were almost fixed and unchanged, and one of them was that the first race to be eliminated in the racial war was the elves.

And the beasts were one of the races that directly or indirectly contributed to this.

Based on those memories, Elysia calmly responded to Eldmir’s words.

“Just five of them. Four of them are young children who haven’t even undergone their adulthood ceremony, and the most threatening presence is the lone wolf warrior. However, that warrior won’t fulfill the role of a warrior in the future. Even so, would keeping them alive be harmful to our race?”

Elysia’s words seemed reasonable at first glance.

Certainly, she must have had her own beliefs and conclusions reached after centuries of living and experience.

In fact, Eldmir didn’t strongly oppose her words either.

His concern was about the perspective of the entire beastmen race, not just worrying about the significance of facing five individuals in front of him.

At that moment, the wolf warrior mumbled something to the cat girls as they watched tearfully while shaking their heads vigorously.

Eldmir wasn’t sure what was said, but it seemed to be something like asking them to leave him behind.

It was a very touching scene.

A warrior sacrificing himself for his master, and young girls shedding tears of sorrow for the warrior.

“Well, I don’t know much about the beast language, but I can at least understand some words. Princess, homeland, orcs, escape, revenge…. Maybe those young girls are princesses.”

Princess.

Upon hearing that word, Eldmir didn’t feel much impressed.

He roughly anticipated it.

Beastmen usually undergo their adulthood ceremony together as a male and female pair, becoming eternal companions for life.

In that sense, the wolf warrior would naturally have a mate, and the probability of not having offspring was virtually nonexistent for the prolific wolves, especially the formidable ones.

Yet, despite this, the wolf was with these four cat girls, who were not his own offspring.

That meant that even if he had to forsake his own offspring, the well-being of those girls was important to him.

More than that, his brief thought was wondering why the beastmen of such status had come to this rural village.

‘And only four princesses? What’s with the gender ratio?‘

Are there separate princes?

If that was the case, then it seemed to be a matter of the beasts’ breeding instincts.

I wonder how many children they’ve had.