How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

In the blink of an eye, Vinny had already spent several days in elf lands.

People always said elves were vegetarian creatures. It was only after experiencing it for himself that Vinny truly understood just how vegetarian their diet really was.

Breakfast was wheat bread with milk. Lunch was wild-vegetable salad. Dinner was wild vegetables mixed with fruit and other vegetables.

It was so bland there was not the slightest trace of meat in it.

Though elf lands really were a peaceful, tranquil, isolated paradise well suited for retirement, Vinny simply could not stay here. The food was far too monotonous, with not even the slightest bit of grease or richness to it. A few plates of wild greens tossed with fruit and vegetables, plus a little salad dressing, and that counted as a proper dish in the elves’ eyes.

Vinny was starting to understand why Shicodale had found it so difficult to learn human cooking. In elven eyes, cooking was not about making food taste good. It was about making the dish look beautiful, making it visually striking. As for how it tasted... if it looked pretty, what was there to fuss over?

All of their effort went into figuring out how to make the appearance look good. Vinny did not know whether elven taste buds were simply too different from human ones, or whether they just did not like oily food.

Probably the former. Shicodale hardly ever used oil when he cooked, and now it seemed the reason was not just thrift. He really could not handle greasy flavors.

“Good morning, Mr. Vinny. It’s time to eat.”

While Vinny was still thinking, someone knocked on his door, and Noni’s voice came from outside.

“Oh, I already ate. You don’t need to wait for me,” Vinny called back to her.

This was the first time in his life that he did not even want to take free food.

After finishing that plate of dandelion with salad dressing this morning, Vinny had reached the absolute limit of what he could endure from elven food. He would rather gnaw on the dried rations he had brought with him than keep grazing on grass like a cow.

And apparently, even salad dressing had only been introduced to the elves from human lands during the rule of the Tyrelis Ancient Empire. Just imagining what elves had eaten before that was horrifying.

To think it a little rudely, it had probably not been much different from chewing on hedges.

During the past few days in elf lands, eating had already become a painful ritual necessary only to maintain his vital signs.

It was honestly hard to imagine what kind of determination these elves lived with. They passed day after day in peace, but also in utter monotony, and even their food was this bad. In that case, having a long lifespan almost seemed like a form of torture.

Vinny opened the window and looked out at the Wood Elf villagers coming and going inside and outside the village.

Just like usual.

“All right, I understand.” Hearing his answer, Noni did not say anything more and simply turned and left.

After spending these past few days with the elf nun, Vinny had come to feel that this Noni was an extremely easygoing person. She did everything in a very go-with-the-flow way.

Her choice of ingredients when cooking was go-with-the-flow. Her daily prayers were go-with-the-flow. Her housekeeping was go-with-the-flow. Even the way she organized the faithful was go-with-the-flow. She gave off a distinct take-it-or-leave-it feeling.

Honestly, that kind of personality was pretty interesting among elves. She counted as something of an oddball. Over the past few days, Vinny had gotten the sense that the elven race as a whole lived with an almost puritanical way of life. Their lives held practically no amusement at all. Compared with things of simple enjoyment, they were far more inclined to pursue things like knowledge and skill.

But that knowledge did not refer only to magical knowledge. The elves were interested in a wide range of subjects, including some things that looked useless and were, in fact, completely useless.

Vinny left his room and stepped onto the balcony, looking at the elves passing below.

Elves gave Vinny a very strange impression. Broadly speaking, their base qualities were actually very high. They lived long lives, had strong magical talent, and possessed great natural comprehension. Aside from their terrifyingly low birth rate, which kept their population small and made rapid replenishment impossible, they were almost without shortcomings.

If they had any desire to fight for dominance on the continent, then even if they could not rule the entire Tyrelis Continent, they should still have been able to carve out a domain of their own.

And yet they had no appetite for conflict whatsoever. Their race as a whole had such high magical aptitude, but a considerable number of them did not study magic at all. And even among the ones who did, what they learned was often magic completely unrelated to combat.

“A breeze after a meal really is a nice choice.” Just as Vinny was about to turn and leave, he discovered that at some point, Noni had taken a seat on the long bench on the balcony and was speaking in a relaxed tone.

“Miss Noni? When did you get here?” Vinny asked in surprise.

“I was here the whole time. You were just too focused on the scenery to notice me,” Noni said carelessly.

“Really?”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?”

“Hm? What’s strange?” Vinny did not understand what she meant.

“From the perspective of an outsider, a lot of elven behavior seems very strange, doesn’t it?” Noni said bluntly, gazing at the distant sky.

“Not really. I just think every race has its own way of life. It’s normal for there to be differences. If people want to get along peacefully, they ought to respect what is different about one another.” Naturally, Vinny could not just bluntly say yes, elves were strange. But he also could not sound too fake, so he took the scenic route with his answer.

“Oh, so what you mean is that it’s very strange,” Noni said with a laugh.

“I never said that.”

“That’s normal. Elven behavior is strange when seen by outsiders. There’s no point pretending otherwise.”

“I’m just curious why the elves have such high magical talent, yet still always... well, don’t seem all that forceful.” Since Noni had said as much, Vinny also voiced part of his own opinion, though in a polite tone. Saying not very forceful was already putting it kindly. Weak, always getting pushed around—that would have been more accurate.

“You’re asking for the reason? As a descendant of the Goddess, Mr. Vinny, you should be able to guess it,” Noni said with an unreadable smile.

“Because elves hate war. No—more accurately, because elves are afraid of war.” Without waiting for Vinny to answer, Noni spoke for herself. “Elves fear war deeply, and so we yearn for peace. Because we detest war so intensely, we reject everything related to it—such as magic with strong killing power.”

“That sounds like running away, doesn’t it? But that is what elves are.” Noni spoke in an unhurried voice. “Years ago, I visited human cities.”

“?” Vinny looked startled.

How many years ago was ‘years ago’?

This elf big sister—no, elf grandmother—how old was she, exactly? She could not possibly be older than his great-grandmother, right??

“The endless high walls of the human empires and their well-trained armies truly are not something elven defenses can compare to. In my eyes, humans possess an extremely strong sense of crisis. It is as though every single moment is, for you, a life-or-death crisis that allows no slackening.”

“Sometimes I used to wonder why humans once had a unified empire that ruled the entire continent, while elves never did. Objectively speaking, elven lifespan and magical talent are both beyond what humans can compare to. Yet after all these years, although that great human empire has perished, its culture still flows on endlessly. Even now, humans still occupy the broadest and most central lands of the continent. As for elves, we have instead become more fragmented than we once were. Strange, isn’t it?”

“Later, I gradually came to understand. Perhaps elves lost precisely because our lives are so long,” Noni said deeply.

“Why do you say that?” Vinny did not understand.

“The Creator is fair. A long lifespan means a low birth rate. It also means elves cannot afford to lose lives. So elves fear war more than anyone,” Noni explained slowly.

“The more one rejects something, the less one understands it. In a sense, elves are very extreme. Reject war, and you reject everything connected to war. That has led to very few elves being willing to learn combat magic. Most of the elves’ lower- and mid-level fighting strength is basically made up of elf rangers who do not use magic.”

“I should state this first, Mr. Vinny. What I’m about to say is not meant to belittle your race.” Noni paused.

“Perhaps it is precisely because human lives are short that humans became so strong. After all, what humans can see is only these few decades, at most a little over a hundred years. So humans think about many things and carry a very strong sense of urgency, because humans know they will never see the world that far in the future. The more limited the time, the stronger the urgency becomes, and the more you want to accomplish while you are still alive.”

“But elves are different. Elves live so long that time is as plentiful as sand in a desert. We would rather spend it on things that look utterly meaningless from your point of view.”

“Perhaps it is exactly this leisurely attitude, along with a fear of war as great as a fear of tigers, that allowed humans to overtake us.” As she spoke, Noni took a sip from the jar of honey water in her hand.

“It feels like, Miss Noni, you don’t reject humans the way the other elves do.”

“Reject them? Why would I reject them?” Noni seemed amused. “You and your people are standing right there in front of us, so real. Even if we use barriers to shut you out, that does not change the fact that you and we exist in the same world. Is there any use in rejecting that?”

“Mr. Vinny, as the final descendant of the Saintess, how do you view peace?”

“Peace? Peace is naturally a good thing. The tragedy is that this world itself is built on strife.” Vinny suddenly thought of everything he had seen in the underground research institute beneath Gaflei Fort, and the words came out on their own.

“So, your meaning is that all of this is a helpless choice?”

“Yes and no,” Vinny said.

“I understand.” Noni nodded lightly, then moved on to other trivial topics and casual conversation.

Before long, the two of them ended their conversation. After night fell, Vinny returned to his room, and just like usual, the day passed in waiting.

That night, Noni slowly walked out of the cathedral, looking as though she were merely taking a casual stroll through the village. Yet after circling the village several times, she entered the priestess hall from the side of the village.

“You came?”

“Mm.” Seeing that the person inside the priestess hall had already been waiting for a long time, Noni started to bow, only to be stopped by a raised hand.

“How did it go?”

Hearing that, Noni fell silent for a moment, then gave a rough retelling of everything she and Vinny had discussed that day.

“That is what he said?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I understand. Thank you for doing something like this, Noni.”

“It was nothing.” Noni rose. “If there is nothing else, then please allow me to take my leave first.”

“Wait a moment.”

“Is there something else you need to say?” Noni paused at those words. “Was my retelling not clear enough?”

“No. It was very clear. I’m simply curious whether you really think that way, Noni,” the voice asked.

“Does that have anything to do with the task you gave me?” Noni went quiet for a moment.

“It has nothing to do with it. Just an off-topic question. If you do not wish to answer, then forget it.”

Not answering was, at times, an answer in itself.

“In that case, it is getting late. I’ll take my leave first.” With that, Noni left the priestess hall and returned to the cathedral, leaving the person in the room alone with their thoughts.

Early the next morning, Vinny’s door was knocked on.

“Mr. Vinny, are you still asleep? If you are, I’ll come back again in ten minutes, all right?”

“...” Lying facedown on the bed, Vinny looked speechlessly toward the door. She was already knocking and calling him like that, practically trying to wake him up on purpose, so what was the point of asking whether he was awake??

“I’m already awake, Miss Noni. If there’s something you need, just say it.” Vinny climbed out of bed and started getting dressed.

“Well, what a coincidence, Mr. Vinny. The carriage to pick you up has arrived. I came to let you know so you can get dressed quickly. After breakfast, you’ll be able to take the carriage to Sacred Tree City.”

“All right, I understand.” Vinny said he got it. Not long afterward, he had sorted out his things and gone downstairs to the dining room, where he symbolically ate a few bites to indicate that he was full.

“Mr. Vinny, did you bring all your luggage? You didn’t leave anything behind, did you?” Noni asked.

“No. I checked everything.”

“Good. Then this is where we part.” Noni pointed outside the door. “The carriage is just outside the village entrance. Once you leave the cathedral, turn left. It’s only a few steps away.”

“Mm.” Carrying his luggage, Vinny stepped out through the cathedral doors, turned left, and saw the carriage parked outside the village.

Its style gave the impression of a carriage that would only appear in fairy tales.

And it was being pulled by a unicorn carriage.

Only then did Vinny remember that unicorns were native creatures unique to elf lands. They had shared a deep bond with elves since ancient times and guarded elf lands together with them.

Unicorns were the queens of beasts, the most beautiful of all animals. Their temperaments were as exacting and appearance-conscious as the elves who had lived beside them for thousands of years, and they refused to let males touch them.

Vinny walked out of the village entrance and glanced at the unicorn carriage. The little unicorn pulling it had quite distinctive fur—a snow-white body and a violet mane that looked especially beautiful in the sunlight.

Because it was both unusual and eye-catching, Vinny looked at it a few more times.

Why was there no one beside it?

Logically, there should have been some elf coachman or something, right? Where had that person gone?

Vinny looked around in every direction and still did not find anyone else nearby, so he moved to step onto the carriage and take a look inside.

But the moment he got up onto it, a hoof kicked straight at his face.