Chapter 42: The Elves Go to War!
“Report! Report! Report!……”
A series of hurried footsteps echoed, and soon a young boy rushed into the room in a panic, startling Chouhou, who was studying the common language. He looked up at the boy, glaring at him unhappily. Since the boy’s father had once helped him, Chouhou didn’t want to scold too harshly and could only reprimand, “What are you all flustered about!”
“What about your usual training?”
“Are you going to behave like this in a real fight? You lack the professional quality of a Wanderer!”
Among the various professions, Wanderers are the ones that test psychological quality the most, as excellent Wanderers are always active on the front lines—scouting, assassinating, exploring. Naturally suited for close combat with short weapons, the profession’s characteristics mean they face danger more often than others. Time had flown, and after graduating from the temple’s training camp, Chouhou had begun teaching the skills of a Wanderer to several disciples. Though not even twenty yet, Chouhou spoke and acted with a maturity beyond his years and had a high reputation among Modo’s young generation.
He was a Wanderer with great hopes of entering the Legendary Domain.
Even Lord Soren, the absolute ruler of Modo, knew his name.
After a few scoldings, the young boy’s face turned red, as he was only about sixteen or seventeen, his psychological qualities were still lacking. Chouhou sighed and closed the book in his hand, slowly asking, “What happened?”
“You’re acting all flustered!”
With that, his face didn’t look very good, but it wasn’t entirely because of the disciple before him. If his disciples performed poorly, it only meant a few snickers from peers, and he could attribute it to the disciples’ lack of talent. However, recently, the higher-ups of Modo seemed to have gone crazy, ordering all leader-level individuals to start learning to read and write.
This was practically life-threatening!
Many of the older management members in Modo were complaining, especially those illiterate pirate leaders, who were nearly going insane and wanted to pull out their swords.
But this was an order personally given by Lady Gloria.
They had no choice but to memorize everything, as soon there would be officials from the City Hall responsible for assessing them. Although Chouhou was exceptionally talented as a Wanderer, reading and writing was truly taxing for him, as he had little aptitude in that area, and the prospect of failing the upcoming tests understandably soured his mood.
Modo was preparing to select a better management layer.
And the most basic prerequisite for this was that those who might be promoted further must at least be able to read and write the common language fluently.
Modo’s reforms were all-encompassing.
Now, many management members were under heavy pressure, and many felt they were falling behind in Modo’s development pace. The current situation was such that even the giants, who hated reading and writing, were forced to hire teachers to learn characters, as Lady Gloria required them to at least learn to write their names and understand commonly used sentences.
And, of course, this was all under Lord Soren’s command.
Since Lord Soren himself was the most powerful Wanderer in the Material Plane, the requirements for Wanderers within Modo were even higher. Besides learning language, Chouhou also had to learn arithmetic.
“Speak up.”
Chouhou tossed the book aside irritably and said slowly, “What happened?”
The boy was still a bit nervous, but much better now. He quickly rummaged through his clothes and handed over a small piece of paper that had been sent from the front, stuttering, “A… a fight broke out!…”
“The surface elves and Drow elves have gone to war!…”
Hearing this, Chouhou’s gaze sharpened. Although he was not very old, he had shed a lot of bl**d. Recently, he had also taken charge of the intelligence organization in the Spearwind Hills, exuding a certain authority that instantly silenced the boy in front of him. Chouhou swiftly took the paper, glanced at it, then said in a deep voice, “Immediately send someone to the temple.”
“Send my orders! Deploy a team to the Spider Forest to gather more detailed intelligence!”
“Forget it!”
“This is serious! I will personally go to the temple to meet the Bishop!”
“And…”
“You go notify Lady Adele Isabella! The Drow and surface elves going to war will definitely impact many places; let her prepare in advance!…”
The movements of the elves were personally instructed to be monitored by Lord Soren.
Chouhou didn’t dare be careless about this matter; he headed directly to the temple area, preparing to relay the news back to Modo.
The recent movements of the elves had been quite strange.
Although the outside world wasn’t very clear on the reasons, many had already noticed this. The news arrived overnight, reporting that a great battle had occurred near the Spider Forest the previous afternoon. For thousands of years, the struggle between surface elves and Drow had never ceased, but most of the time, it was just small-scale skirmishes. Perhaps the surface elves intended to clear out some Drow, or maybe the Drow were planning to capture some surface elves as sacrifices to please the Spider Queen.
Such incidents were quite common.
However!
This time, the scale was somewhat alarming, as reported by external sources, the Drow armies had surprisingly mobilized over three thousand troops.
Three thousand!
That was a force from the Underdark, not a rabble from the surface world; it was almost equivalent to the main battle group of an underground city in the Underdark. Even a major Drow family couldn’t muster such a force; at least several Drow matriarchs would need to join hands to form an army of this scale. Moreover, according to the intelligence returned by the scouts, this time even the petrified lizard knights of the Drow were deployed, leaving behind many shattered humanoid stone fragments in the areas they fought.
Only the petrified lizards of the Underdark could leave such traces.
A war had started.
Not just a small conflict, but a real war had broken out.
The Modo spies could not enter the elves’ territory, and the dangers of the Underdark were too great. After the Drow retreated to their underground world after the skirmish, neither side emerged victorious.
It seemed the Drow hadn’t suffered any losses; based on the traces, they appeared to have the upper hand.
The news had to be sent back to Modo immediately.
The direct conflict between the surface elves and the Drow elves was already a large-scale war affecting two races. Even an idiot could realize that this event would have far-reaching implications for the entire world.
The armies of the Underdark were known for their well-equipped nature; if not for the fact that the metals from the Underdark couldn’t be exposed to sunlight.
The Drow would almost have an absolute equipment advantage!
………………(To be continued ~^~)
