Distant Memory

The team was small, but the members that composed it were more than skillful and powerful enough to make up for the lack of heads. If anything, this was much more effective than sending tens to hundreds of people to resolve the issue. In the first place, the elves didn't have that many people to send.

Small groups were also what Kies was used to so there were no complaints from him. There were six people altogether including himself. Nyana was in charge of the team as she had seniority over all of them. It was shocking since all of the other elves looked older than her. Aside from her, there were three male elves and only other female elf. Despite all of them being users of nature magic, all of their magics were different from one another.

One of them specialized in poison, another specialized in healing, the third specialized in communication with plants and nature spirits, and the fourth was adept in camouflage and stealth. Then there was Nyana who could summon plants and command them to do her bidding. With a team like this, they had an answer to every possible problem thrown their way. Well, unless that problem was a certain walking mountain. With a few exceptions, their team could handle anything.

As for everyone's names, they were agent one, agent two, agent three, and agent four. Names were confidential among the Sylvs and everyone just went by a code name or a placeholder. As they were all fresh recruits, none of them had a code name yet. It was awkward to call the elves by numbers instead of actual names but there was nothing he could do since they all refused to give their names to outsiders.

And speaking of which, all of the other Sylvs were recruits. This was their first mission. Kies thought that something as big as the poisoning of the forest would be a big deal and warrant a full-scale investigation with the best people that the elves had to offer, but apparently, this was not as big of a deal as Kies believed it to be.

Something like this was considered small enough of a problem to be issued to new Sylvs as an introductory mission. Kies wasn't sure if this was supposed to be concerning or relieving. In any case, even though the elves were quite young, other than Nyana of course, the youngest one was still older than Kies by some years.

They arrived at the village approximately an hour after their departure from the capital. The difference was clear as night and day. The village couldn't hold a candle to the capital, but it had its charms. The trees here were significantly shorter but were large enough to house elves. Other than that one defining feature with the trees, everything else looked the same. If anything, the village felt more lively than the capital despite it being less populated. There was just too much empty space in the space due to its sheer size that it felt less populated than it really was.

While the village was pretty, the effects of the poison were visible. The ground was covered in withered leaves even though it was still too early for the leaves to start falling. Some of the trees had little to no bark. A few of them had even fallen and were rotting on the ground. It was not a welcoming sight to see.

Nyana identified the tree where the head of the village was and went to it. She commanded the other elves in the team to start their investigation while she went to inform the village of their arrival. There was no time to waste. Kies also did the same and left Nyana to talk to the people of the village and joined the rest in their investigations.

As everyone had already chosen an area in all four directions to check out, Kies was left with only one place to check and that was up. As idiotic as that might have sounded, Kies actually found some useful clues up in the branches. Kies found some manmade holes, drilled into the thickest branches. This was surely not something caused by the poison, but one of the causes of the poison. Someone had done this to pour poison into the tree.

It also made sense why the branches at the top of the tree were so fragile and almost broke with Kies' steps despite him using his magic to reduce his weight to practically nothing while the trunk of the tree was still somewhat holding the whole tree up.

This was the case for all of the trees until he moved on to the ones at the edge of the village. There, he noticed that the branches were a little bit stronger but the tree as a whole itself was weak. The source of the poison here came from the soil. Kies hopped down and almost landed on one of the elves from his team.

"Hey, watch it!" he angrily said, putting distance between himself and Kies, like he had some sort of contagious illness. The elf hid his presence so well that Kies mistook him for a small animal.

As Kies could not see the elf's face, he looked at the magic lines in the elf's body and remembered it belonged to the one that was skilled in stealth. That explained why he mistakes the elf for an animal. His skills were the real thing even if he lacked experience.

"Go somewhere else. I have this place cover," the elf shooed Kies away.

Kies didn't argue or even say anything and left as he was told to. He went back to the village and spotted some figures walking out of one of the bigger trees. Kies identified one of the magic lines to belong to Nyana but the other two next to her were unknown. It was annoying to not be able to see anyone's face, but he will have to get used to it from now on or until he finds a way to revert his vision back. Kies dropped down in front of the tree, surprising all three of them.

"You're back. It's only been a few minutes," Nyana noted.

"Who is this?" one of the unknown figures asked. The voice was rough and sounded like it belonged to someone old. This was presumably the elder in charge of this village. The other figure hid behind the elder and didn't speak. When Kies looked at them, they flinched and hid even more behind the elder.

Nyana calmed the two down and explained to them who he was. "He's part of my team. He's an ancient. He has his own reasons for being here but he is helping with the investigation as well," Nyana introduced Kies to them.

"An ancient?" The elder sounded afraid and he quickly expressed his concern. "Didn't you just tell me that the great tree almost got trampled by an ancient!?"

"That's another ancient. The one we had a problem with was an earth ancient. This one is a wind ancient..." Nyana explained, hoping to alleviate the situation. She turned to Kies and asked, "So, what did you find?"

Kies reported what he had found to Nyana. "The trees around here have holes in them. Someone made them and poured poison into the branches. The trees further out were poisoned through their soil," he informed her of his discovery. His voice reverberated and frightened the figure hiding behind the elder, causing them to tremble.

Someone else appeared as Kies in the middle of his report and interrupted them. "Who are you!?" he demanded. He wedged himself between Kies and the elder, fearing that Kies was an enemy. He drew his weapon and pointed it at him. Without glancing back, he asked the others, "Are you okay?"

"Wait, Mytill, he's an ally," the person cowering behind the elder finally spoke for the first time. The voice was female and sounded oddly familiar. Kies narrowed his eyes, trying to get a better look at her but all he could see was her outline and the magic veins that ran throughout her body. This scared her even more and caused the younger elf in front of him to become more protective.

"Are you sure he's an ally?" he asked.

Nyana sighed. She took the elf's hands and pushed the weapon down to the floor. "Stop it." She looked back at Kies and told him. "Thanks for the info. Please leave us for now. They're not comfortable around your presence just yet."

Kies understood what she meant and walked away. He took one glance back at the four, focusing his attention on one hiding behind the elder. Why did she sound so familiar? He couldn't put his finger on it. It could be his head playing tricks on him.

Kies turned his attention back ahead and took off into the air. Whoever she was, there was no use in asking about it. He was only going to be in this village for a short time. Once he finished what he needed to do, he would be gone. It was probably just his head playing tricks with him. Yes, it was just that...

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