Southern Pride.
The Eternal Forest.
This was the country of the proudest mortal race in the world.
The Elves.
In the past, the country had almost complete control on the humans and they also had some modicum of control over the beast men and the dwarves.
Despite how they were perceived nowadays, elves were quite warmongers.
This mainly came from the way they saw the world.
For elves, nature was the most unkind mistress. The laws of nature were also the most unforgivable.
The strong preyed on the weak. The weak existed to serve the strong.
Because of this, even to this day, Elves still followed a tribalistic style.
Each race had its own tribes and the queen and high priestess were more seen as symbols of power than true rulers.
As if it wasn’t enough. Southern pride was the second country where the crown princess wasn’t decided at birth but rather after she showed her might.
If she failed to do, the princess would receive no blessing and the birth of a new princess would have to wait for the next generation.
If the next generation failed, then it would be the next after it.
Because of this extreme rule, added to the low fertility rates of the elves and their high life span, in all their history, southern pride only had three queens, with the current one being the fourth.
Aside from this, the elves were a matriarchal community. The queens did not take husbands and only the strongest warrior had the right to lay down with the queen in the hope to give birth to the strongest children possible.
In the past, the first generation queen and the ancestor of all high elves had been the result of a union between one of Tiamat’s grandchildren and another elf.
Because of this, all the high elves had dragon blood in them, albeit a rather thin bloodline.
The structure of the houses in Souther pride was one that fused with nature.
Elves did not cut their forest to create house but simply used their magics to create special trees that were empty on the inside.
The closer you came to one of the five main settlements of the elves, the taller the trees were. To the point that 10 to 20 meters tall trees were a common sight.
In the center of the forest, where the high elves lived, stood the tallest tree in all existence.
One so tall it pierced the cloud.
The elves called it the world tree, a tree born from one of the seeds of Yggdrasil, the divine beast Humilitas.
The world tree also housed the sanctuary where the high priestess and the Queen made their decisions.
Currently, deep in the sanctuary, a gentle and beautiful melody flowed.
In a room with few decorations, two women with an air of authority sat as they looked at each other.
The two of them were wearing long white and slightly transparent clothes that left little to the imagination.
Elves did not hide their bodies because of a sense of shame. In fact, they considered that their own bodies were the most beautiful things in the world and had no calm walking naked all around if wished to.
The only reason they wore clothes was because of the protection they brought. For this reason, most if not all elves ’ clothes were the kind that basically hides as little as possible.
Those two elves in particular were like works of art. Though for drastically opposite reasons.
One was a pale-skinned elf. She had a slim body with small curves, but she did not lack in feminine charms. Though, because of her emotionless face and the long golden hair that reached fell gently on the ground, some could compare her to a beautiful doll more than anything.
She was the current Queen of Southern pride, Satella Superbia.
The one sitting opposite of her was a short-haired brown-skinned elf. Not only was she beautiful, but she also had what could only be described as a sinful body. Her satin-like robe was stretched so much it seemed like it would burst and show the barely hidden spring sight.
Despite her scantily clad attire, she seemed more like a tomboy than anything else, and the grin on her face further strengthened this impression of her.
She was the current High priestess, Jasmine Humilitas.
Humming to herself as she swayed to the tune of the song, Jasmine took an apple and bite into it with a delighted expression.
Elves were not particularly more vegetarian than any other race. They believed that anything edible was a gift of nature and thus should be eaten. The only thing they did not eat was being endowed with intelligence high enough that they could express themselves and function thanks to their reasons rather than their instinct.
“You seem to be in good mood.”
Jasmine gave a nonchalant smile at those words, “It’s just that I received a report from a member of my tribe. It seems like she is quite favored by the little prince of humanity.”
Jasmine made no effort to hide the news. In the first place, that dark elf was sadly not one of her pawns and that girl was also an orphan. So she sadly had no way to get control over her.
Still, having a dark elf become close to the son of the Dragon’s princess was something that made her happy.
Satella frowned at this, clearly displeased, at the notion of elves being slaves or maids.
“Heh, don’t pout. Anyway, the girl from your side, managed to land a job as his advisor, right? That’s much higher than a simple bed warmer.”
“It’s indeed so. Ismelya’s daughter is a bright girl. Even though her martial skills are lacking, I am sure she will not bring shame to her family nor sully the name of the elves.”
“This is the part where you add a but..”
Giving a cold stare at Jasmine who simply giggled back, Satella sighed, “But this is far from enough. You know the oracle. Doomsday might soon fall upon us and the key to salvation is…”
“Sol Dragona. Yeah, yeah. How could I forget? But you know, it’s just kinda pissing me off. In the end, those oracles, those visions, are nothing more than the goddesses messing with us. Altering the future to choose the most fitting one for their games.”
Jasmine took another bite of the apple.
The future could never be set in stone.
Even though by using their blessings they were able to pry into the mysteries of fate, what they saw was what they were allowed to see.
Basically a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That was why mortals could never play at the same level as the gods.
A mortal could only play while looking at the present and imagining a few possible futures.
A goddess? They could literally look into thousands of different possibilities and advance their pawns in order to reach their objectives.
Satella simply shook her head, “Our goddesses may be whimsical, selfish, petty, lazy, and many other things. But…”
“But?” Jasmine raised an eyebrow.
Satella opened her mouth, trying to say something good, before finally closing.
Blushing, she cleared her throat, “Well, there are no but. At least, we can’t really complain, since we are the direct beneficiary of their games. So complaining would simply be hypocritical.”
Be it the rulers under the sins or the Saintess under the virtues, they all had their own personalities and personal belief.
But, If there was one thing that they all had in common, it was that even though they only respected the might of the goddesses they served. Aside from this, most would treat them as selfish brats like Kiku from Wratharis, or outright call them bitches like Camelia of Lustburg.
Jasmine, understood very well that complaining was useless, even then,
“Well, and now we are about to get doomed because of the same game.”
“We do already have a solution or at least a hint of a solution.”
“A solution that seems to have been honed for years by Luxuria. Most likely, he is also a foreign soul.”
“It’s nothing more than a game within a game. The stronger the soul, the higher the chance to reach the rank of demi-god and perhaps, transcend it.”
The two of them fell silent,
“Do you think transcendence is really possible?”
“I do not. Perhaps it’s nothing more than a pipe dream, an illusion. After all, even illustrious figures such as the Necromancer King or the Mother of thousands of monsters failed to reach transcendence. Even so.”
“The possibility of jumping out of the board and joining the rank of players is something too tempting.”
Satella acquiesced,
“Transcendence is too far away. We are still not even demi-gods. We should focus on what is important.”
Jasmine closed her eyes, refusing to show any pity in her expression. She knew very well that such an act would only hurt the pride of her friend and tutor.
Even though the two of them were talking as equals, Jasmine knew that this was just the grace of Satella.
The title of Queen was obtained after prevailing against all. It wasn’t a right obtained from birth, but from blood, sweat and tear.
Out of all the past queens, Satella was known as the most talented and that, by a large margin.
What’s more, Satella was a few hundred years older than her. She was even older than the four directions witches and had been a queen even when Lusturg did not officially exist.
How could such a woman not be able to reach the level of demi-god?
“All of this because of those damned witches.”
“Do not insult them. It was sheer arrogance from me to fight against both the witch of time and that of life at the same time. We fought, and I lost. What’s more, even had it been a one vs one, I might still have lost. Persephone's mastery over life and nature is something I could barely come close to even though I borrowed the might of the World Tree.”
Back then, under the control of Jupiter, humanity fought to break free of the elf’s control.
For some reason, the witches that had always stayed aloof, far from worldly matters, intervened and helped the king.
The Satella of then was very different from the current one.
Her pride knew no bounds, to the point where she was called the incarnation of pride.
But her pride became arrogance and as a result, her faith in herself was broken after she fought against two of the four witches resulting in her inability to reach a higher level.
Waving her hand, Satella stopped Jasmine from continuing
“We have no need to wake up the ghosts of the past. Let’s talk about how we will deal with the vampire. We also need to take our revenge against Dracula. Otherwise, the other country will think elves became soft.”
Satella’s eyes grew colder as she said so.
At the same time, she could not help but think of the current prince of Lustburg.
From what she had heard, it seemed that the witches had once again left their neutral position because of him.
She could not help but wonder what kind of man he was.
She hoped that she would not be disappointed once they met.
