Seeing the other party's obvious attitude of refusal, Ansu glanced at Grey Rat, who was slumped on the ground.
"Since you don't intend to cooperate, are you planning to take him from me by force?"
As the words fell, the atmosphere gradually grew cold.
Vera stared intently at Altina, tightening her grip on the wooden sword in her hand and letting out an almost inaudible hmph from her nose.
From the beginning, she hadn't had a good impression of this demihuman of unknown origin who acted all mysterious.
Besides, this was a demihuman girl, and her older brother's favorite thing was demihuman girls...
Even though the other party hadn't taken off her hood and kept her appearance hidden, Vera could still feel that the other party's true looks must be very beautiful...
Therefore, she had to be on guard!
Battle was on the verge of breaking out.
Altina's fingers silently tightened around the bow, and she likewise assumed a combat stance, ready to strike.
Her emerald eyes were full of wariness and coldness as she rapidly weighed her options: the other party's attitude was so forceful that it seemed the only path left was forced cooperation...
But once they cooperated, the other party would inevitably deepen their understanding of her...
Her race, her origins, and even the heavy mission she carried... that heavy mission that could not be told to outsiders, might all be exposed.
...
Ansu could see many concerns beneath her cold expression.
The elven race had long stayed away from the continent's conflicts, and every elven investigator like her who went out on missions tried their best to avoid the elven race re-entering the human field of vision, and even more so, they could not expose any of the current status of their homeland, Elune.
But Ansu didn't want to waste time here, so he spoke frankly: "The reason you're refusing should be because you're worried about exposing your identity, right?"
He looked directly into the shadows under her hood, the corners of his mouth curling slightly. "However, I think it's completely unnecessary for you to waste your energy pretending in front of me, because I've known your identity for a long time, Elf lady."
"......" Altina's body froze for a moment.
"Elf lady, I imagine you wouldn't want... the secrets of your elven race exposed to the human world, would you?" Ansu threatened with a smile. "But if you consider cooperating with us, I'm willing to help you keep this secret!"
Under the hood, those emerald eyes suddenly constricted, and a look of shock surfaced on her face. "You, how could you know..."
"I know even more than that." Ansu looked her up and down; although the other party had a mysterious and aloof appearance, she was almost completely transparent to him.
So he continued to peel away her secrets at a leisurely pace: "I also know that you have an extremely high affinity for nature magic, that you are a dual practitioner of magic and martial arts, and that you are skilled in archery."
"The longbow in your hand is made of moon-silver wood, which is unique to the Sacred Tree of Elune."
"And that un-sheathed sword at your waist is forged entirely from precious mithril... and is engraved with ancient elven runes."
"Also..."
With every sentence Ansu spoke, Altina's eyes widened a bit more.
Her original coldness and wariness were quickly replaced by a layer of terror, and she couldn't help but take a step back.
"You... how do you know so clearly? Could it be... you've been to Elune?"
Altina stared intently at Ansu. "Or, are you actually... one of my kin?"
But no matter how she observed, the other party didn't have any elven characteristics... so her heart became even more suspicious.
Could it be that he used some special forbidden black magic to disguise his true appearance?
"I am certainly not an elf."
Ansu didn't continue to dig into her identity, but instead crouched down and observed Grey Rat for a moment at close range.
After a moment, he suddenly reached out, grabbed the other party's hair, and violently pulled off a wig used for disguise.
Two pointed ears were exposed in the dim light—they were noticeably pointier than a human's, yet not as long and elegant as a pure-blood elf's.
"He's also... an elf?" Vera blinked in surprise.
"He's a half-elf." Ansu looked at the face distorted by pain; even if he was only a mixed-blood, the contours of this face were still more refined than an ordinary human's.
He stared at this half-elf, lost in thought; to be able to get things like crimson marrowstone, there was indeed a traitor within the elven race involved behind the scenes.
Ansu looked down at him, his foot grinding neither lightly nor heavily against the wound on the thigh that had been pierced by the Shadow Bolt.
Grey Rat immediately let out a muffled groan of uncontrollable pain.
"Tell me, who else is behind you? Where is the rest of the crimson marrowstone hidden?"
Grey Rat endured the intense pain, twitched the corners of his mouth, and squeezed out a hideous, mocking smile.
He was quite the tough nut to crack.
"If you ask me, just send him to Elder Matthew!" Vera snorted coldly. "I remember he loves torturing people, and he's always muttering that he has hundreds of ways to make someone talk... send this guy over and see if he talks!"
"I think that works." Ansu nodded.
When it came to the Great Memory Recovery Technique, the cult was indeed professional, and if all else failed, the Witch of a Thousand Faces could always back them up.
Calling for David to escort Grey Rat to the carriage, the group was about to leave.
"Wait!"
Altina finally spoke up urgently: "You... you're taking him away just like that?"
"What else?" Ansu looked back at her and said with a faint smile, "You chose not to cooperate, so naturally, there's no reason to share the subsequent information with you."
Altina bit her lip, and finally, after two seconds of silence, she spoke in a low voice:
"Fine, I'll cooperate..."
...
By the time they returned to the manor, it was already the early hours of the morning.
Most of the cult elders were still performing their assassination missions and had not yet returned, so Ansu ordered his subordinates to take Grey Rat to the prison deep in the basement.
Altina instinctively wanted to follow him in, but she was stopped by Ansu.
"Don't worry, locked up here, he won't get away," Ansu said.
"As for the interrogation process... it's not very convenient to show, but you can rest assured that as long as we dig up information involving crimson marrowstone and Elune from his mouth, I will tell you everything truthfully."
Altina remained silent for a moment, and finally nodded, no longer persisting.
In the reception hall, the fire in the fireplace flickered, making the room warm and bright.
Altina looked around this magnificent reception hall, the wariness in her eyes not yet dissipated; she sat on the very edge of the sofa, her back straight like a taut bowstring.
The atmosphere was a bit quiet for a while.
Freya quietly leaned in toward Ansu and asked in a low, curious voice: "Lord Ansu, you seem... particularly patient with this Elf lady? Is she... very important?"
"Mhm..." Ansu looked at Freya, thinking that Altina was your good teammate in the original plot.
These hero party members were basically all God-Awakened, their backgrounds were very solid, and they came with their own protagonist's halo, so every one of them was worth Ansu building a good relationship with in advance.
Vera sat at the other end of the sofa, her large blue eyes staring unblinkingly at the tense Altina, her small face also full of curiosity.
This was an elf, a living elf......
She had only seen illustrations in those storybooks that were almost falling apart, but today was the first time she had seen a real one.
Altina felt uncomfortable with this atmosphere of being the focus of everyone's attention, as if she were some rare animal, and she felt like she was sitting on pins and needles.
After a long time, after much deliberation, she seemed to have made up her mind.
Altina raised her head, her emerald eyes looking straight at Ansu. "Since you and I have decided to cooperate and jointly investigate the conspiracy behind the crimson marrowstone, then as an exchange of information... as long as it doesn't touch my bottom line, I can answer your questions."
The man in front of her understood the elven race far better than she had expected, so this wasn't something she could hide even if she wanted to; she only hoped he would be like he promised and wouldn't reveal the secrets of the elven race to the outside world.
"Mhm... then let's introduce ourselves to each other." Ansu said with a smile, "I am Ansu Morris."
"I am Altina Tidebreeze Ilutaviel." She clearly stated her full name, her voice carrying the elegant rhythmic sense unique to the elven language.
"Such a long name..." Vera muttered softly on the side, trying hard to remember it but feeling like her tongue was tied.
"You can call me Altina." Altina continued, "As you thought, I come from the legendary Eternal Forest - Elune, and I have traveled across the sea to this place, carrying an important mission of 'investigation'."
"Does 'investigation' refer to the smuggling case of crimson marrowstone?" Freya asked softly.
"More than that, but as for the specifics, I'm afraid I cannot elaborate." Altina shook her head, her blonde hair moving slightly with the motion.
"I can only tell you that I originally came for that, but in the process of carrying out my mission... I accidentally discovered that many smuggled goods from Elune had appeared in the underground black market, including crimson marrowstone, Sacred Tree branches, and even... our elven compatriots."
Her voice lowered, and a flash of deep pain and cold anger appeared in her emerald eyes. "My kin were actually being sold as goods... an unforgivable sin!"
Ansu nodded, understanding in his heart.
Altina had essentially started a side quest.
As for this elven investigator's main quest, it was naturally to investigate the mystery of the Fall of the God of Nature and find hope for her gradually withering and decaying homeland.
Altina's gaze became sharp again. "So, as I said before, I must find that traitor who colluded with the outside world, that scum among the elves!"
Then, because they talked about many details of the crimson marrowstone, Altina suddenly warned:
"By the way, I must warn you humans..."
Her tone became serious and urgent: "According to my investigation, the main buyers of crimson marrowstone are the demons, and behind all this, there must be a huge conspiracy of the demons. I suspect... they want to use the powerful destructive power of crimson marrowstone to create large-scale chaos in the North!"
"You've guessed correctly, it is indeed a demon conspiracy." Ansu nodded with appreciation.
"So, you must act as soon as possible to stop this crisis from spreading!" Altina urged again.
"Don't worry, I've already stopped it." Ansu interrupted her, his tone as flat as if he were talking about a minor matter.
"......What?" Altina was stunned for a moment, her first reaction being that the other party was joking.
Those were demons... that powerful race that made many races wary and swept across the entire world with the Demon Calamity War, and the elven race had almost gone extinct because of it.
And she heard that the new leader of the demons was a dangerous person named Barcas...
"Your investigation and mine were almost simultaneous, and we only just caught this Grey Rat not long ago, yet you say you've already solved the conspiracy..." Altina looked at Ansu in confusion, finding that his expression was still serious, as if he weren't joking.
"It has indeed been dealt with." Ansu's gaze turned toward the window, seeing several elders hurrying back.
After the door to the reception hall was pushed open, Elder Matthew walked over with the scent of blood not yet dissipated, and he briefly reported today's "cleanup results."
All the targets on the assassination list had been eliminated.
Ansu nodded, a look of satisfaction appearing on his face.
This operation of mass unmasking and mass assassination finally came to an end in the early morning night.
At this point, the Squirrel Party, a demihuman underground terrorist organization that had once made people turn pale at the mention of its name, had completely become history.
No one would stir up trouble in Norvigel anymore.
Rate on N.U.
