I Picked Up the Abandoned Hero

82. I hoped not

The elder of the stem has returned.

“What do you mean all of a sudden?”

Zion couldn’t understand what he said when he returned.

“It is exactly as the other elders heard. It doesn’t matter if you’re human or demon. “Bring and offer creatures with a certain amount of magical power from each tribe.”

It was really a random thing.

It was a ridiculous story that he had not come out of the underground for over 100 years, but finally came out and offered a living sacrifice to himself.

Of course, the other elders protested, but the stem elder ignored all of their opinions and only gave a one-sided notice, even to Zion, who attended late.

But I couldn’t refuse.

In fact, the stem elder is the most senior in elf society now that there is no highest elder, and no one dares to follow him in terms of ability.

No one could resist, either in terms of power or position.

“What on earth is going on? “He suddenly appeared and left those words before passing away…”

The elder of the leaves was pounding on the desk and holding an emergency meeting with the other elders.

“That’s right! “You didn’t even show your face when we were going through a hard time, so why are you doing that now?!”

“Furthermore, speaking of living sacrifices, why are you suddenly asking us to do such a barbaric act?”

An elder suddenly appears and orders a living sacrifice to be made.

I hoped he would at least explain the reason, but he went back underground without any answer.

“…A ritual to call on God.”

So, while everyone was expressing doubts and getting angry, something suddenly crossed Shion’s mind.

“What do you mean by that? Elder of the roots.”

“Decades ago, when he visited the elder of the stem, he was underground preparing offerings to be used in a ritual to summon the gods.”

If it is a living sacrifice, then that is it.

Forcibly injecting young humans with magical power and turning them into sacrifices to be used to summon gods. Originally, this would have required a huge number of victims, but this was an attempt to reduce the number of sacrifices to a minimum.

“Perhaps offering a living sacrifice means preparing the magical power needed to make the sacrifice.”

But that is not without its use.

In the end, there was no change in the fact that ‘magic power’, which was the material for sacrifice, had to be provided separately from an outside source.

Originally, the magic power required for magic is mostly the magic power of the individual using magic, but the magic power required for the ritual of calling on a god far exceeds the level that an individual can handle.

No matter how much the elder of the stem is the best elf wizard and high elf in existence, it is something that cannot be helped.

“Ha, are you dragging us into something so absurd?”

Of course, the elders expressed great dissatisfaction when they heard that.

If there is any special reason, it’s not that I can’t listen to what the elder of the stem said when he appeared in person, but it’s just that I’m trying to use it to call an uncertain being called God.

“Currently, we elves are stabilizing society through little by little exchanges with humans. But if you do something like that, no matter how secretly you do it, it will eventually be heard by humans. “They’re not idiots either.”

The elder of the leaves frowned and said.

Then, in the end, we had to prepare a sacrifice bought from the demons, but if we did that incorrectly, there was a risk that even the elves would be caught up in the external war.

Especially because the Demon King seems to have a power so strong that even the Elves cannot easily ignore it.

“There’s a level of ridiculousness to the idea that an old man in the back room who hasn’t done anything is suddenly pretending to be the owner.”

However, even if they express their dissatisfaction, there is not much the elders can do in the end.

“But that doesn’t mean we can drive out the stem elder by force.”

“Is it impossible for us to file a formal protest? “If all the tribe members work together…”

Shion narrowed his eyes and asked.

“The stem elder also has stem tribes.”

The reason why the stem elders were scary was not simply the power of the individual, but the power of the stem tribes.

As the trunk is also the largest pillar of the tree, the Trunk Tribe is more numerous than all other tribes combined, and the Trunk Tribe is also filled with elves with exceptional strength.

No matter how long they have not been seen, their elder is ultimately the elder of the stem, and of course they will follow his orders.

“If what the root elder said is true, there is no way to appease the stem tribes, but we do not have any evidence in our hands right now, and we need a justification that they can clearly understand.”

If you make a mistake, a civil war could break out among the elves.

From Noble mtl dot com

No one knows exactly what the ritual of calling God is in the first place.

Even if a simple stem elder said that he was preparing a ritual to call the gods by demanding a living sacrifice, the majority of stem tribes would react indifferently, asking what was the problem.

Especially because the victims in this incident are not elves, but creatures that elves usually consider insignificant, such as human demons.

General elves who did not know the detailed circumstances had the possibility of reprimanding the elders.

“…In the end, what is needed is justification?”

For this reason, clear evidence was needed to resolve this matter as peacefully and without problems as possible.

‘The elder of the stem did not touch the elves, so it is meaningless to talk about the children of the underground.’

In particular, this is the content that elves will be most sensitive to.

For example, harming one’s own people or using an elf as a living sacrifice.

‘Now that I think about it, where on earth did the magical energy contained in those children come from?’

Then something suddenly occurred to me.

Children with vast quantities of food that were underground.

The magic power in the bodies of those children was so enormous that each one of them reached the level of an elder, and there was no way that the elder of the stem could prepare it alone.

“Elder of the Leaf, is there by any chance a record of the elves who have gone missing within the past century?”

“Yes? Why is that suddenly… Here it is for now.”

Shion carefully looked at the information handed over.

There were quite a number of elves who had gone missing.

A large number of ordinary elves, including the elders of the branch, numbering almost 100, suddenly disappeared.

They are all elderly, and some of them are also high elves.

‘Probably not, but if the stem elder is related to these missing people…’

And all high elves have a large amount of magical power.

This has never happened before, but recently, among the missing elves, the proportion of high elves has been particularly high.

‘It’s not an issue that can just be overlooked.’

Shion tightens his fist holding the documents and bites his lip.

“First, each elder goes back and pretends to prepare the offering. Because in some cases, it may really have to be that way. But I will take care of this myself.”

“I understand. Elder of the roots.”

To do that, you must first sneak into this basement.

This basement is where all the secrets and all the stories are contained.

†††

“With this, preparations are complete. All that remains is if each elder provides sufficient magical resources.”

The elder of the stem was sitting alone in the basement without a single ray of sunlight.

Still, he mumbles as if he is having a conversation with someone.

He talked alone even though he was the only elf alive here anymore.

“With that, we can call on extraterrestrial gods. “Originally, the gods don’t care about us, but we may meet the only god who watches everything from the starlight.”

As expected, there was no answer.

The elder of the stem talked with the roots extending underground.

This root is the root of the world tree.

It is the center of the elf land, the oldest and largest tree planted by the great ancestors, and at the same time, it is also the largest living magical energy.

It would be great if the world tree’s magic power could be used in this ritual, but unfortunately, if a living creature received the world tree’s magic power, its body could not withstand it and it died.

It is also the final storage, but it cannot actually be used.

For this reason, we have no choice but to replace it with a living sacrifice.

“Then that’s it. “By calling on God, we elves will be able to move forward.”

With those words, the stem elder left the place.

No matter how long an elf lives, he needs to rest.

This was a necessary action for living creatures, and at the same time it also meant that nothing lasts forever.

Passion-!!

“…You must have gone, right?”

Shion took advantage of that opportunity and sneaked underground.

The entrance to the basement boasted a hybrid security combination of magic and structural design, but the outer wall surrounding the basement itself consisted of only a simple barrier and a thick wall.

Zion was entered through a passage through the weakest ceiling.

‘How on earth can one live underground for over 100 years without even sunlight?’

If you’re surprised, it’s a truly surprising obsession.

I don’t know what a god is, but even an elf would go crazy if he was trapped in a place like this for 100 years.

It is said that it would have been difficult to even meet people of the same race, and they did not receive food and only drank small amounts of water flowing from the roots of the world tree.

‘It’s the same as when I came before.’

Furthermore, the underground scenery remained virtually unchanged.

Children were trapped in a hallway with long bars.

However, the lifespan of humans is not as long as that of elves, so children who were different from those at the time were locked behind bars.

They probably kidnapped or rescued humans and imprisoned them through some kind of method.

If the sacrifice had been successfully made, the gods would have been summoned and the work would have been completed a long time ago, but it seems that the children at that time did not yet have enough value as a sacrifice.

‘The appearance is hidden by making the body transparent, so children will not be able to see it.’

It’s not that I don’t feel sympathy, but that doesn’t mean I could have been caught by the stem elders if I touched those kids here.

If he did that, in the worst case, he might go missing or something bad might happen to him.

Honestly, being the stem elder still feels like a burden.

He’s a genius just like you, but has more experience and skills? If so, it is obvious that there is no chance of winning.

“…?”

At that time, Shion felt a strange gaze.

The elder of the stem had already left the place.

He changed his appearance to transparency using magic so that the children here would not be able to find him.

But strangely, someone was looking at Zion.

‘What about that child?’

This is a girl with pink hair who is trapped inside the bars.

She definitely looks like a girl I saw before, but that can’t be true.

Human lifespan is extremely short, and with the magical power in our bodies that is beyond our means, our lives will be even shorter than before.

So, that girl just resembled the girl he saw before, and the feeling that he was being watched was probably just a feeling.

‘No, that’s not what’s important right now.’

Shion struggled to look away and searched the underground.

This basement is a place that our ancestors used to study magic in the distant past.

Thanks to this, various important magical materials are stored here, and books that are no longer available on earth can also be found here.

‘Magic that condemns sinners… Magic that revives the dead as undead… Is there anything else besides these?’

If possible, I wish there were books related to God, but unfortunately, I don’t think there are any.

Without any choice, Zion decided to explore the underground further.

I hoped to find something that the elves could not allow in books related to rituals to summon gods, but if I did this, I had no choice but to find real evidence.

But that was not what Sion wanted.

In the end, the stem elder was once respected by the elves and loved by his grandfather.

In particular, his grandfather often discussed issues that he could not even tell Zion with the stem elders.

When I see things like that, I feel respect, and sometimes I feel jealous.

‘I hope it’s not as bad as I thought.’

Fortunately, even though Shion searched the basement diligently, he found nothing.

There was no trace of the missing elves, and he even thought that his previous suspicions might have been wrong.

‘A large amount of magic stones… Could it be that the magic power within the magic stones replaced the necessary sacrifices?’

Although it was an inefficient method, it may have been that magic stones were used as fuel instead of living beings.

In one corner of the basement, there was a warehouse filled with magic stones that had almost completely consumed their magic power.

‘Ah, if this is the case, should I go immediately to prepare the sacrifice I bought tomorrow? However, if you make a mistake and get caught, you will incur the hostility of humans.’

Sion had no choice but to return empty-handed.

“…Please…Help me…”

“What are you talking about?”

Although it was small, the voice was clearly heard.

Someone’s voice seemed to be heard from the roots of the World Tree, the place where Zion created the passage to descend underground, and where the elder of the trunk had been watching just a moment ago.

But the voice was somehow familiar.

‘Oh, I guess not.’

Zion calmed his breathing, which was getting faster and faster, and carefully headed behind the roots of the World Tree with trembling legs.

Come to think of it, I didn’t check what was behind this.

“…Oh my God, my ancestor.”

And I regretted it in my heart, saying, “I shouldn’t have checked.”

What she had hoped for became reality.

Zion sat down on the spot and lost his mind for a moment.