Path of Light.

Chapter 943 942. Zaires Great Swordsman

Leaning against the trunk of a coniferous maple tree, with his legs resting on its branches, Great Swordsman Zaires drank a mouthful of the clear water from the bitter leaves. From here he could only see the open space by the stream in the distance.

He could see corpses lining the streamside; although they were a little blurry, he was certain that they were not half-elves.

The ranger Hill who was in charge of reconnaissance had already come to report that the orcs from the Aries tribe had killed all the gray dwarves. It was not yet known whether the half-elves would be executed next.

The orcs from the Aries tribe raided the temporary camp of the half-elves in the woods. Only a small number of members of the adventure group, led by the great swordsman Zaires, managed to escape the pursuit of the orc warriors from the Aries tribe.

However, Great Swordsman Zaires did not dare to harm the Aries Tribe orc warriors who chased into the dense forest, for he was afraid that doing so would anger the other Aries warriors.

The Great Swordsman Zaires merely gave a few warnings as they caught up with him, and then took action to teach these foolish orcs why the elves were called Children of the Forest.

However, he left behind nearly four thousand half-elf compatriots, and left hundreds of gray dwarves and more than a hundred imperial soldiers in the forest.

In many books about elves, orcs are synonymous with barbarity and cruelty. They will capture the elves, strip off their clothes, and throw them directly into the soup pot to cook and eat.

Great Swordsman Zaires felt a little regretful. If he had known that he would be captured by the orcs of the Aries Tribe, he would have been better off staying on the imperial merchant ship. Even if he was caught by those gray dwarves, he would only become a slave who lost his freedom, and at least he would not become an ingredient in the soup pot.

Among that group of Aries warriors, there were at least a dozen warriors whose strength was close to that of Great Swordsman Zaires, and Great Swordsman Zaires had no way to rescue these half-elves.

Great Swordsman Zaires and more than 40 half-elf adventurers have been hiding in this canyon. In fact, they are waiting for Roy and his team to come back. He hopes that Boss Roy can find a way to rescue these half-elven adventurers.

Unexpectedly, before he could get in touch with Boss Roy, Boss Roy had already negotiated terms with the aggressive orcs of the Aries tribe and brought those half-elves to the beach.

Not only were the half-elves rescued, but even the group of imperial men were tied together with ropes and followed at the end of the team.

A team of orc warriors from the Aries tribe actually escorted them all the way out of the woods before retreating.

……

After Great Swordsman Zaires became a second-level warrior, he formed an adventure group. In recent years, he has been to various planes to hunt monsters, and has also made a name for himself in the Adventurer's Guild.

He was born into a half-elf family in the city of Minasku. He did not have a good life as a child, but later on, through his diligence and talent, he became a second-level strongman.

This time, when he led the adventure team back from the Emerald Forest Plane, he heard that the Empire merchants were advertising in various port cities of the Elf Kingdom that they could send half-blood elves to live on a beautiful and rich island for free. It was said that Boss Roy lived there with a group of half-blood elves, and they did this for free only at the strong invitation of Boss Roy.

Based on the knowledge that Great Swordsman Zaires has about the merchants in the empire, anything that is free is likely to be the most expensive thing...

What exactly do these half-blood elves possess? The more he investigates, the more worried he becomes...

Great Swordsman Zariis contacted some good friends and like-minded adventurers, and they formed a half-elf rescue team and headed north from Minasku City.

Along the way, the rescue team suffered a lot at sea. After finally saving a shipload of half-elves, they deviated from their course on the way back to the Elf Continent and were later discovered by a patrol ship of the Northern Fleet. They were then forced to run aground on the west coast of the Mensa Strait.

Now he suddenly realized that there was very little he could do when facing the gray dwarves and orcs, and he felt indescribably frustrated.

……

Roy and the half-elf set up a temporary camp at the edge of the Kangamor Forest near the coastline.

This place is close to the coastline and has a forest as its habitat. Although the half-elves can rely on supplies from the imperial merchant ships to fill their stomachs, they don't mind changing their taste if they can catch fish on the seashore.

On the contrary, the imperial people were no longer tied up with ropes.

In this kind of weather, with ropes tied around the body all the time, blood circulation is blocked and the flesh in certain parts of the body can easily become necrotic, so the half-elves built some wooden cages with wood and locked all the imperial merchants in the cages.

Great Swordsman Zaires returned to the camp with more than 40 members of the adventure team. Those members of the adventure team who failed to escape with Great Swordsman Zaires in time surrounded them. Soon Roy also came over with Woods and Sabrina.

Roy shook hands with the Great Swordsman Zaires, and said to the exhausted Zaires:

"I'm glad you're all okay. I was worried that you would have a violent conflict with the Aries orc warriors. Now that we have made peace with the Aries tribe, it would be bad for either side to get hurt."

The great swordsman Zaires' face turned red, and he said to Roy:

"It was my fault that I failed to take good care of these half-elves. They came too suddenly, and our sentries didn't even notice them..."

Roy patted the great swordsman Zaires on the shoulder affectionately and said:
"Now that these problems have been solved, I will just wait for the magic airship to arrive and take these half-blood elves back to Kui Island."

"What are your plans next?"

Seeing that Great Swordsman Zaires did not speak, Roy continued:
"You can drive that three-masted sailing ship to continue chasing the imperial merchant ship in the Mensa Strait, or you can come with us. I can send you back to Saint Margaret Port, but I will not go directly to the Evernight Forest of the Dark Moon Elf Kingdom. I may have to take a long detour."

The great swordsman Zaires lowered his head and thought for a moment before hesitatingly speaking to Roy:

"I found that my own strength was not enough to deal with the gray dwarves in the sea and the orcs in the Mensa Plains, so I wanted to join the mine guards to save more half-elves."

Roy smiled and extended his hand to the great swordsman Zaires.

"Welcome to join the mine guard."

Unexpectedly, this second-level great swordsman would choose to join the mine guard group, which of course Roy was more than happy to do.

The great swordsman Zaires followed Roy into the woods and asked him:

"I don't understand how you convinced these Aries orcs to release these half-blood elves so readily." Roy stopped and said to the great swordsman Zaires:

"The answer is actually very simple. I redeemed them with a batch of supplies."

Roy took out a thick-backed black iron machete and a shiny black iron short flying spear from his waist bag and said to the great swordsman Zaires:
"Not only do the orcs on the Mensa Plains lack these weapons, but the Aries Tribe on the Black Gold Mountains also lack these ordinary black iron weapons. I used these weapons to exchange them back, and I also made a deal with the old chief of the Aries Tribe. I plan to trade with the orcs on the Mensa Plains."

"In fact, the feud between the elves and the orcs can be traced back to 10,000 years ago. At that time, the Emerald Dragon and the Behemoth were fighting each other, causing the orcs and the elves to be in a state of confrontation. So many years have passed, and the Emerald Dragon Clan returned to the Dragon Kingdom thousands of years ago. There is no need for us to hate these orcs."

"In recent years, it is the gray dwarves who have always entered the coastal areas of the Elf Kingdom. They always secretly capture elves and sell them all over the world. So I think our current enemy is those gray dwarves."

"With the support of the orcs of Mensa Plains this time, I want to drive all the gray dwarves of the Northern Army fleet in the Mensa Strait back to the frozen sea."

Great Swordsman Zaires looked at Roy's serious expression and confirmed that he was not joking.

Although he tried his best to stay calm, his heart was still pounding.

Everyone knows that the gray dwarves have always been rampant on the sea. They own countless sailboats and warships. They not only go to the coastal areas of the elven kingdom to plunder, but also extend from the coastline of Durlag's Knee southward to the Mensa Strait, and then all the way south to Garo Island in the Seven Realm Sea. This sea route is completely under the control of the gray dwarves.

Now Roy suddenly said that he would lead the half-elf mine guards to unite with the orc army to drive the gray dwarf northern army fleet back to the frozen sea.

The orc army cannot fight a naval battle, so the only ones who can really face the gray dwarf northern army fleet are the half-elf mine guards...

Boss Roy was so determined to deal with the Northern Army Fleet, which was something that Great Swordsman Zaires had never expected.

……

The half-elves waited at the edge of Kangamor Forest for four days before several magic airships arrived one after another.

The actual carrying capacity of these magic airships is limited. Each magic airship can only carry a thousand half-blood elves at most.

These nearly four thousand half-elves were on board and occupied four magic airships.

In fact, these magic airships were equipped with half-elf guards and griffin cavalry, which meant that it took nine magic airships to reach the edge of the Kangamor Forest before four thousand half-elfs and one hundred imperials could board.

After experiencing so many changes, this group of half-elves were exhausted. When they boarded the magic airship, they all ran into the cabin and fell asleep. No one was in the mood to stand on the deck and look at the vast Mensa Strait.

Roy only now clearly felt that the so-called Mensa Strait was a narrow corridor formed by the west coast of the Mensa Plain and thousands of surrounding islands.

In fact, it was also shown on the sea map in Roy's hand, but it was far less intuitive than standing on the magic airship and looking down from a bird's eye view...

The nine magic airships did not stay over the Mensa Strait. Instead, they lined up in a row and rose directly into the wind layer, sailing towards Kui Island.

After sailing in the wind sphere for nearly half a month, the nine magic airships successfully arrived at the pleasant climate of Kui Island.

These four thousand half-elves became the first group of elves to arrive at Kui Island. The other rescued half-elves are currently on the imperial merchant ships bound for Kui Island and will probably take a few months to arrive.

Instead, all the imperial people were detained in the shipyard on Kui Island, and the number has now grown to nearly three thousand people.

These imperial people were waiting for trial on Kui Island. Roy didn't think it would be troublesome to try these imperial people at first, but now seeing the crowds of imperial people in the shipyard, he immediately felt a headache.

Even if ten imperial people were tried a day, it would probably take more than a year.

He felt that this matter must be started in advance, but there were not many elves on Kui Island who knew the Imperial language. However, the priests of the Knights Templar were proficient in both the Imperial language and the Elvish language.

Roy found Captain Flint who lived on the island and asked him to bring some priests to judge these imperial merchants.

Captain Flint also agreed readily.

After all, those on trial are all imperial citizens. If he were to judge the case, he would be able to relax the sentence on these imperial citizens to the greatest extent possible while maintaining fairness.

The most important thing for Roy to do when he returned to Kui Island this time was to transport a batch of black iron weapons from the Partington plane, including thick-backed machetes, woodcutting axes and short flying spears.

When the Thickback Machete and the Axe were first created, they were actually intended to cut down the Padstow Forest and the jungle on the north shore of Sun Island Bay. The former was to expand the tree houses in Padstow City, and the latter was to build a half-elf town on the north shore of Sun Island Bay.

Later, many more were built one after another. This was because there were too many black iron ingots smelted in the three black iron mines. We couldn't use these black iron ingots to build a wall outside the mines...

As for the black iron short flying spears, they are also usually equipped by the Griffin Cavalry Regiment. However, the short flying spears actually given to the Griffin Cavalry are not black. Those standard short flying spears are coated with a layer of mithril on the outside.

This time, Roy took nine magic airships and sailed to the Pagisto Plateau in the Partington plane overnight. It took him three days to bring back nine ships full of weapons, armor pieces and other military supplies.

These magic airships then made a brief stop on Kui Island before setting sail again for the Luyun Fortress in the north of the Mensa Strait.

Captain Flint, who was in charge of the trial of the imperial merchants on Kui Island, only then realized what kind of crime these daring imperial merchants had committed, and the number of half-blood elves who were deceived might be more than 400,000...

Looking at the crowd of Imperials in the shipyard, Captain Flint closed his eyes helplessly.

According to the laws of the Green Empire, those slave traders would almost certainly be sent to the guillotine, but the Elf World was more lenient, with slavers merely being imprisoned. However, the elves had a lifespan of 800 years, so they would easily spend decades in prison. It seemed that after being sentenced, most of these Empire merchants would likely die in prison...

There were hundreds of imperial merchants, including not only merchants from the Green Empire but also merchants from the Etia Alliance Kingdom. They did not want to live in the prison of the Elf World for the rest of their lives.

Many imperial merchants secretly pleaded with Captain Flint, but none of them received a response from Captain Flint.

(End of this chapter)