Ball of Nothing

"Mind letting me know why I\'m suddenly asked to talk to Elf King Sharo on behalf of Smargdas now? My memory might be failing but I have absolutely no recollection agreeing to do such a thing. The deal was to retrieve Misana from U.N.U. and that was it."

The smile on Zero\'s face felt terrifying despite the innocent appearance and King Brice shivered. Misana inched away from the table and gave her king an apologetic look. There was nobody around to help them. The Dragon Heroes were busy reorganising the adventurer guild after they were given the guild master\'s position. Truen was busy helping the Humanitarian Guild with the girls from Qin Yun\'s village.

Bob returned to Half Moon Village before the attack on Zero\'s orders to escort the Chieftess and Shcaf once the internal strife was over. They were making their way over with some of the Half Moon Trading goods. The position for the Merchant Guild leader was still vacant and Zero intended to ask the King to officially appoint Schaf. The little goat has been working very hard to secure all the deals they wanted. He might still be a little disagreeable in personability but Zero had to recognise his efforts. Other than Coux, who was busy managing Baal\'s territory, and Qin Yun, who was busy managing the demon visa application for Mammon, there was nobody more suited for the position.

Smargdas was going to be the trade centre and he needed someone capable of foresight to do planning on a country level. With Jynx placing bulk pre-orders and the village had a bottleneck when it came to mass production and delivery. Night Terror Penelope might be able to produce spider silk by the ton but there were not enough hands in Half Moon or New Moon village to process it for apparels or armour. They were falling behind the delivery schedule and thankfully, the Humanitarian Guild had many capable volunteers. The job of processing spider silk for manufacturing isn\'t difficult but it was labour intensive.

The king sighed. He should have checked with Zero before making such a bold claim. Sometimes he forgot that Zero wasn\'t his friend and was just a very powerful business partner who could easily level Smargdas in a day if he wanted to.

"Sorry, I overstepped my boundaries. If you do not wish to negotiate with Elf King Sharo on my country\'s behalf, I can rescind my statements."

Zero thought about it. Negotiating with royalty was more often than not, a pain in the neck. Every single time he was involved with the royal family of whichever country, there was always a huge mess to clean up. Sometimes, he wondered why they couldn\'t do it themselves. What if he never passed by and offered his assistance? Was the country simply going to let the matter fester until it died?

Thinking back, Zero thought that it was highly possible. The giants had no way to resolve the strange illness taking over their country, the dwarves couldn\'t stop their foolish king apart from a riot and more bloodshed. Now that Zero thought about it, King Vivian\'s issue could only be settled by him. Moreover, Sylvia was too powerful to be stopped by anyone. Even if there was a dragon, the Great Sylph wasn\'t going to lose to it with all her inventions and the magician\'s school at her command.

With a heavy sigh, Zero decided to lend this young King a hand for one last time. He thought that King Brice would be satisfied if he completed his mission to bring Misana back and resolve the slave trafficking issue with U.N.U. as part of the bonus for his mission. Who knew that the young king would still be so helpless?

"One last time," he told King Brice with an edge of warning in his voice. "One last time, I will help you. You owe me."

King Brice swallowed and nodded. "I will do it if it is within my capabilities. My people will also be very grateful if war with Altear can be avoided. The country needs a lot of improvements before it can be called the country of trade. Half Moon Trading will get sixty percent of shares. The royal family won\'t impose business taxes for the first five years. Subsequently, the taxes will not exceed thirty percent. I had my new prime minister to help me draft them. I hope this compensation is good enough in return for helping me to rescue Misana and resolving the slavery situation."

The doctor wasn\'t expecting any form of compensation. Honestly, having Smargdas as their base of operations was already good enough for Zero. He didn\'t think it was right to ask the king for more benefits despite the troublesome things he had to do. Then again, most of those troublesome things like creating a new World Tree and the very first World Flower were all things that Zero did on his own volition. King Brice didn\'t need to give Zero more benefits but as a good businessman, Zero wasn\'t going to turn down the generosity.

"I\'m not in charge of these decisions. Please talk to Schaf about it. I might be the village head but I do not make these decisions on my own. Different people have different strengths and business is not really one of my own. You should talk to the village expert. However, I\'m not going to refuse your request. It would be too embarrassing for the king to make a public apology after such a bold announcement."

King Brice turned red when Zero said that and the doctor finally understood why teasing people was fun. Normally, Zero was the one getting teased. Now, it was finally time for him to tease someone else.

"Before I can help you negotiate with the elves for a non-aggression pact, could you tell me more about them? Why are they on bad terms with Smargdas? Your brother got along with them perfectly well. What did you do to offend them?"

At this, the king told everyone else to leave so that they had some privacy to discuss the sticky subject. Misana left as well and Zero was surprised. He thought that King Brice wouldn\'t mind her around of all people but when he looked at King Brice\'s eyes, he finally understood why even his childhood sweetheart had to leave. This wasn\'t the look of the wimpy teenager in an awkward phase, this was the look of someone wisened beyond his years. King Brice was finally getting serious and Zero decided to treat the youth with the same level of maturity.

"It\'s not something that can be summarised with just a few words. My father and grandfather had been at loggerheads with the elves. It was a lot worse in the past. The elves had a bone to pick with everyone but that was during the reign of their previous king - Elf King Charo. He was a great elven warrior, archer and magician. His son Elf King Sharo is different from him but it started from Elf King Charo without a doubt."

Zero found it difficult to imagine a perfect elven warrior by the silly name of Charo but he tried. King Brice explained that long before he was born, the elves of Altear liked to compete. They were a very aggressive race who strived to be better than anyone else. They had the beauty, the brains, the power and even the knowledge but they didn\'t have something all the other nations had. They did not have individuality.

"I don\'t know when this started but it started with the fighting among high elves, wood elves and dark elves. Back then, each type of elf was ruled by a different Queen. The high elves were the first to appoint a male ruler - Elf King Charo. He forcefully took control of the position by defeating the high elf queen in the three rites of art, combat and wisdom. Then, he started setting a standard for what every elf should strive for. Basically, he was telling every elf to be like him as he was the role model."

Zero sensed a basket case of narcissism and wondered why nobody said anything about the seemingly mad king.

According to the rest of the story, the wood elves and dark elves became so fed up with King Charo\'s crazy talks about what defined a perfect elf and decided to leave Altear. The dark elves decided to set up their new homes in the wastelands underground near U.N.U. where dark magic was stronger. The wood elves roamed around like nomads and settled down somewhere in Mystic Meadows. Others claimed that they could be lurking in Endow Hill but nobody really knew much about them after many years. Like the gnomes, they simply vanished and only a few of their descendants could be seen roaming around as adventurers.

"Half-elven children became more common but each time an elf fathered or mothered a half-blooded elf, they would be kicked out of Altear. This was not the same for dark and wood elves but high elves were a different breed. So many years have passed since King Charo\'s reign and I\'m not sure if the high elves are alright. Inbreeding could be a thing and the birth rate for high elves are lower than before with King Sharo following his father\'s teachings religiously. Then again, this is simply a rumour of mine. I don\'t know the details of the deal my brother made with the high elves but I know trading food, potions and weapons were part of their regular transactions."

Strangely enough, the one who waged war on Rocket Mountains that Dorgon participated in was led by King Sharo in his youth. That was his first defeat and after that, the high elves secluded themselves within Altear. King Brice didn\'t know too many details but he said that Sharo was always confident and none of his war movements made conventional sense. He was called a war saint for his continuous streak of victory. He always seemed to know what the enemies were going to do and never failed until that one war when Dorgon stepped in to pummel the elves with his strange war creation - the Droy.

"What\'s that?"

King Brice grinned. His eyes lit up with boyish excitement when he talked about Dwarven Hero Dorgon\'s greatest creation.

"The Droy was a huge rock statue imbued with the blessings of the God of Art. Some said that Dwarven Hero Dorgon already had this blessing before he built the Droy and some said that the God of Art only granted him the gift after seeing his dedication to building those three stone statues as huge as the castle tower. It wasn\'t even a magic golem, it was simply a rock statue."

King Brice tried to recall the details. "The first Droy was made after Queen Demora. It possessed the powers to cut down enemies at a fixed interval with a powerful wind slice spell. The elven arrows were defeated and reflected in the first wave that many elves perished. The second Droy was modelled after Dorgon and it acted as a shield that the dwarves hid inside until they got close enough to shoot the elves with their modified coal-powered metal crossbows. The third Droy was modelled after their chancellor - Motley who was the youngest war commander. Motley was a genius in warfare and the Droy modelled after him stood in the middle of the warzone, confusing the elves with its tricks. Lightning fell from the sky, windswept away the horses, poisonous smokescreen separated the ground and thinned the elven numbers until King Sharo was forced to call a retreat. It wasn\'t until many years later that the Silver Witch discovered why King Sharo was so confident. He had help from the Tree of the Future."

Zero blinked. Now, they were talking!

"Tell me more about the Weeping Willow."