Chapter 7: Chapter7-The Strongest Elf

“Lord Fabian, please wait a moment—”

Lilith could not help but speak, her heart a tangled mess.

Just then, the dining room door creaked open.

“Oh? We have a guest?”

Leo Grey stepped inside, walking with an air of calm, as though he had just returned from a leisurely stroll rather than something extraordinary.

Behind him followed a figure cloaked in white, a hood drawn low to conceal their features.

“Father!”

Lilith hurried forward, instinctively hiding behind her father’s side.

Fabian’s eyes narrowed as he recognized Leo. Contempt and disdain boiled over, almost tangible in the air. He could not even bother with courtesy—he merely snorted through his nose with undisguised arrogance.

“Hey!”

“So you’re the father of Miss Lilith—the so-called Mayor Leo?”

“I was just about to leave!”

Fabian’s expression brimmed with scornful pride.

“When it comes to your daughter’s future, I believe you will regret today’s shortsighted decision for the rest of your life!”

His words were sharp, dripping with venom.

But Leo acted as though he had not heard a single syllable. His gaze did not even rest on Fabian for a heartbeat.

Instead, he walked straight to Lilith, his expression gentle, his eyes warm as he looked at her.

“So, Lilith, how do you feel after drinking that potion? Any discomfort? Anything strange?”

His tone was full of paternal concern, his manner utterly ignoring Fabian, as if the magus were nothing more than a buzzing fly.

Fabian’s face flushed scarlet.

He—a magus of the royal capital—was being ignored?

Humiliated so utterly, by a country bumpkin of a mayor?

“You!”

He slammed his palm down on the expensive pearwood table. The wood groaned under the force.

“Good! Good! What a frog at the bottom of a well!” Fabian spat, his voice trembling with rage.

“No wonder your line has clung like moss to this muddy wasteland for generations!”

Then his gaze snapped toward the cloaked figure behind Leo. His lips twisted into a mocking sneer.

“So this is the so-called ’great tutor’ you found for your precious daughter?”

“What’s the matter—too ashamed to show their true face? Afraid people might recognize them as a criminal on the wanted lists? Or is it because they’re just a fraud, afraid their lies will be exposed?”

The moment his words fell, the silent figure behind Leo stirred at last.

A hand, pale and luminous as if sculpted from moonlight, rose with elegant grace, fingers resting lightly upon the edge of the hood.

It was a simple gesture.

Yet it drew every gaze in the room like a magnet.

The hood slipped back slowly.

First appeared a cascade of golden hair, shining as though woven from sunlight. Then emerged the long, slender ears—the unmistakable mark of an ancient and noble elven lineage.

At last, her face was revealed.

It was a visage as if carved from flawless jade, exquisite beyond the bounds of human language. Emerald-green eyes, serene and deep as a spring forest, shimmered beneath her lashes, tinged with a faint aloofness.

The hood fell away entirely.

What was revealed was a beauty no mortal tongue could truly describe.

Every line of her face was perfection, as though the goddess of beauty herself had sculpted her by hand. It was beauty that stole breath, beauty that silenced thought.

Ordinary elves were already renowned for their grace, surpassing humankind in elegance and charm. Yet their allure still belonged within mortal comprehension.

But the elf standing here was entirely different.

A golden radiance surrounded her, soft and rhythmic as though breathing. It cloaked her in an aura of divinity, making her seem like a goddess who had descended into the mortal realm.

The light pulsed with life and order, calling to mind sunlight streaming through the stained glass of a holy temple—majestic, sacred, and yet brimming with vitality.

This was the sign of the most exalted of elves—those who had long basked in the light of the sacred Twin Trees of Sun and Moon, whose bloodlines had been refined and elevated to their pinnacle.

Only kings of the elves, or the highest of their priesthood, could carry such an eternal blessing!

Lilith’s breath caught in her throat. Her blue eyes widened, her lips parted slightly, and she forgot to breathe.

Never in her life had she seen such beauty.

That golden radiance, warm and holy, that flawless aura—her heart was overwhelmed by an instinctive closeness, reverence, and yearning.

It was the opposite of the oppressive force Fabian exuded.

“So… so beautiful…” she whispered, her voice trembling.

Fabian’s mocking grin froze upon his face. His expression twisted, stiffening as though struck by petrification magic.

All his schemes, all his calculations, crumbled into dust in the face of what he now beheld.

“An… an elf?!”

His thoughts fell into chaos.

“How—how could this be possible?!”

“This aura, this radiance… even the elven envoys I saw in the capital had nothing like this!”

“Golden light… isn’t this the mark of an ancient elf?”

Legends spoke of high elves, bathed in a spectrum of elemental blessings—auras of varied colors gifted by the natural world.

But among them, those graced with gold or silver radiance were the rarest and most exalted. They were the royal bloodlines raised under the sacred light of the Elves’ twin holy trees!

Yet the elves had long since withdrawn from the world, vanishing into seclusion.

How could such a one appear here, in the backwater of Dalton Town?

And more, how could one of such exalted heritage—someone before whom even kings must bow—be following a provincial mayor like Leo?

His shock was absolute. But soon, another emotion surged up from the depths of his heart.

Greed.

Blazing, hungry greed—yet tainted with fear, a trembling born of the vast gulf between his own life’s essence and hers. His body shook despite himself.

Forcing his pounding heart down, Fabian stretched his lips into what he thought a charming smile. His tone turned sickly sweet, full of obsequiousness.

“Ah—ah, so it is the most noble Lady Elf! Please forgive my earlier offense—I meant no disrespect!”

“I am Fabian Weir, heir of the Weir marquisate, special-appointed Intermediate Magus of Crossbridge Academy in the capital…”

“Might I know your esteemed name? No, no—that would be rude of me. Surely this shabby place is unworthy of one such as yourself! Please, allow me to host you in the capital, where the Academy and the Tower of Mages will receive you with the greatest of honors! Only that would be fitting for your station—”

His words tumbled over one another, desperate, rambling. He flaunted his background, his family, his status, his rank, even allowing his Intermediate Magus power to leak, sending out waves of magical pressure.

Elarielle, for that was her name, regarded him only with a brief glance.

That glance carried the cold detachment of a deity gazing upon an insect.

She turned to Leo, bowing slightly, and spoke in the lilting ancient tongue of the elves, her voice as clear and melodious as heaven’s song.

“Lord Leo, this noise—shall I silence it for you?”

Fabian did not understand the words. But he understood the gesture.

The elf—this noble, pureblooded high elf—had bowed to that man. To Leo!

As if lightning had struck him, Fabian’s mind reeled. His worldview collapsed piece by piece.

This was an elf.

A pure, noble high elf. And she was showing deference to a man he considered no more than a mud-legged villager!

Leo’s voice remained calm, almost bored.

“If you would, Elarielle.”

“As you wish.”

She inclined her head, turning her gaze upon Fabian. Her eyes held the icy vastness of the infinite sea.

“No—wait! You can’t!” Fabian stammered, finally clawing his way back from fear into frantic desperation.

“I am a registered magus of the capital! My teacher is the vice-chairman of the Mage’s Council!”

“If you dare touch me, Crossbridge Academy, the Mage Tower, the entire capital will not spare you!”

“And the Weir family—you’ll be declaring war against the whole kingdom itself!”

His shrill cries rang with false bravado, even as his body betrayed him, stumbling backward with every step.

Leo never spared him a single glance. His eyes were cold, indifferent, as if Fabian were less than nothing.

“Noisy,” he murmured with faint disgust.

Without further interest, he turned away.

Taking Lilith’s hand, he led his still-stunned daughter out the door.

The dining hall fell into a silence as heavy as death.

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