I Became a 10,000-year-old Elf

It’s true, please believe us.

With only their heads sticking out of the ground, they repeated those words, begging and pleading. But no matter how much I listened, I couldn’t understand their words at all.

Their clothes were strange, and all the talk about free cities and forbidden areas were things I’d never heard before. It was maddening enough that they suddenly tried to attack me, but their words were strange too.

Looking at their faces, it didn’t seem like they were lying, which made it even more confusing.

“Do you really not know about the Tower?”

“Tower, tower… Could you possibly be talking about the Primordial Tower?”

The one clue I grasped was when I mentioned the Tower. I’d never heard of the Primordial Tower, though I might have heard of the Tower of Calamity, but having found the common point of ‘tower’, I asked about it.

“If it’s like the old story I heard from Grandma Yuba when I was young…”

Then one of them started to speak, watching my reaction. As befitting a story heard from a grandmother, it was like a vague fairy tale or myth.

“As the huge tower in the world collapsed, the brilliant myth disappeared and the true history of this land began. Th-That’s roughly how the story went.”

“I still don’t understand what you’re saying, but you’re saying the tower collapsed. So I guess it’s true that this is outside the tower?”

But unable to ignore their words, I turned slightly. The vast clearing behind me was clearly ruins where something must have existed long ago.

Additionally, there was the message I saw when I was about to go up to the second floor, saying the tower had ended.

‘No way.’

Even to myself, it sounded ridiculous and I couldn’t help but laugh. It didn’t make sense that while I was in the tutorial for a bit longer, the tower could have fallen and the world could have ended in that time.

I’d never even heard that time passes more slowly inside the tutorial.

…Well, who would stay in that easy tutorial for more than a day in the first place.

It can’t be. For what purpose did I become like this, spending time stuck in the tutorial? This absolutely cannot be.

It felt like everything I wanted to protect, everything I wanted to do, had disappeared and been denied in an instant.

“…!”

At that moment, a strong sense of weakness overwhelmed my body.

I didn’t collapse grabbing the back of my neck like the chaebol chairmen in dramas, but in an instant, my body lost strength, my knees buckled, and I collapsed on the ground with a thud.

‘The power of the spirits is backflowing…!’

It wasn’t just because of the mental shock. I don’t know why it’s happening only now, but as if waiting for me to realize where this place is, the communion connected with the spirits expanded, hammering the increased information into my body.

Come to think of it, this place was where spirits different from those in the tutorial lived. Much bigger and much more numerous. Of course, they would be, being spirits of the ‘real world’ far vaster than the tower.

“Guhurk…”

While I was happy to commune with them, my body lost control due to the overload of information rushing in all at once.

“Eek! No! Let us go and die!”

“Save us! Help!!”

The noise screeching at my head grated on my ears. It was infuriating that they thought I might die after burying them in the ground.

However, it was true that I was now in a state where I couldn’t move a finger.

‘Release them.’

I instructed the earth spirit that had been with me since the tutorial to release them. I couldn’t remain unconscious in a place where I didn’t know what might come out.

“W-We’re alive.”

“Cough, bleaargh!”

However, I didn’t release them without any insurance.

The moment they were freed from their restraints and popped out of the ground, the earth spirit put a pebble the size of a grape into each of their mouths and forcibly pushed it down their throats.

With this, even the weakened earth spirit could control them if I lost consciousness.

“The earth spirit is watching you. The moment you try to harm my body, the pebble you swallowed will tear your body apart, scramble your brain, and pop out through your eye sockets, so be prepared.”

“N-No way!”

“You seem to know nothing, so for now, take me out of here to someone who might know something…”

My strength was gradually fading. I’d probably be fine after a good sleep, but the problem was time.

Even though they were strangers who tried to attack me, I had taken out life-threatening insurance, so they were worth using.

Feeling the need to talk to someone a bit more proper than these blockheads who knew nothing, I told them to take me to their superior before my consciousness faded.

‘What should I do now…’

Even at that moment, my mind was unsettled and couldn’t find its bearings.

From the moment I was dragged into the tower, to the moment I received the gift and left my human body to become an elf, even when I was enduring in the tutorial with only sunlight, I only thought about climbing the tower, becoming stronger, and saving the world.

I wanted to become a great hero and someday, when I came out of the tower, stand proudly before my family and acquaintances, even in this form.

But now those family and acquaintances are gone. The enemies I had to fight and the people I had to protect have all disappeared.

Now that all those resolutions and determinations have been discarded like worthless trash, I found it hard to escape the intense emptiness and futility that overwhelmed me.

“—!”

My last memory was of the earth spirit grabbing and shaking my face, and those guys approaching my body.

Even if I were to open my eyes in another place, I couldn’t shake off the pessimistic thought that it wouldn’t be much different from now, so I closed my eyes.

* * *

“Wh-What should we do?”

“What do you mean what should we do! Do you want to die horribly with stones spitting out of your eyes!?”

In an atmosphere as if a storm had just passed. Hachi angrily shouted at his stupid friend’s words and carefully lifted the body of the girl collapsed on the ground.

He even covered her body with his outer garment. Though it was suspicious, Hachi firmly believed her words and trembled with fear.

It felt like a stone might pop out and pierce his stomach at any moment. Even though she was now unconscious and collapsed, judging by the power with which she had subdued them in an instant, it didn’t seem impossible.

“Let’s take her to the boss. W-We don’t know anything. Let’s just say we picked her up and get a few coins.”

They couldn’t refuse her order, but they still wanted to get some money. Hachi’s solution was to just pass her off to his superior.

His friend also nodded, saying it was a good idea.

“Hurry!”

Right after that, the two hurriedly left the place. They escaped the forest through a side path and disappeared along the way they had come.

It was when the soldiers who should have been guarding the area like a fortress were still unconscious and collapsed. And when they entered the city through the back alley they used.

The investigation team that had departed from the castle was rushing towards the Forbidden Area, crossing the city. Having missed each other like this, the investigation team didn’t find anyone at the scene.

“Is there no way to track the traces? A monster disguised as a human might go into the city and cause a big accident.”

“W-We’ll try, but I’m not sure how it will turn out.”

Rakum scratched his head at Renia’s words, who could only find traces. With all the spells lifted and the guards unconscious, it was unclear how to track them even if they tried.

‘The smell of rough men is masking other scents. But it’s clear they went to the city.’

Renia bit her lip as she twitched her ears and sniffed. She felt a stubborn determination stirring in her chest to find whatever it was, though she didn’t know what.

“Are these guys crazy? Why would the leader meet you!”

“I’m telling you, we’ve got our hands on something amazing!?”

While Renia was grinding her teeth, Hachi, who had already returned to the city, showed what he was holding in his arms to a rough-looking organization member.

“Wh-What is this?!”

The organization member’s eyes widened as he peeked inside after lifting the clothes. They hadn’t covered it up so thoroughly for nothing.

“Wait a moment.”

Soon, he quickly went inside to report this situation. After that, everything moved swiftly. Hachi and his friend, who had been the lowest of the low, were able to enter the organization’s interior for the first time.

“You say you picked her up from the Forbidden Area? Come to think of it, the city was in an uproar just now. You managed to return before the soldiers went.”

The man they met inside was someone they normally wouldn’t dare to make eye contact with. Such a man looked at the girl Hachi was holding with great interest.

“Take this and get out.”

“Th-Thank you!”

As they expected, he threw them a money pouch and finished the business. They ran out with big grins, holding the money pouch, and because of that, they didn’t see him gesture to a subordinate beside him with emotionless eyes.

There was no need for the earth spirit to take revenge. They would become cold corpses buried in the ground before the night was over, for the sake of silencing them.

“But isn’t this too much for just one elf…”

“It’s an elf discovered in the Forbidden Area. And does this look like an ordinary elf to your eyes? Fool.”

When the subordinate made a comment as he was leaving, the man smirked and approached her, who was laid on the table.

“—?!”

The surprised earth spirit tried to protect her, but he hadn’t approached to harm her in the first place.

“This is a monster.”

Rather, his eyes were trembling severely as he looked at her with her eyes closed calmly.