Chapter 42 : Darkmoon Clan

Darkmoon Clan

In a world shrouded in blood-red mist, Serea found herself alone. In the distance, she saw three young girls running.

Serea instinctively wanted to catch up, but the girls' backs grew farther and farther away, until finally, she opened her eyes.

"What a strange dream."

Serea murmured to herself. At this moment, she was lying on a large bed woven from vines, and the elf-exclusive elven cloth was fairly soft, allowing her to get a good night's sleep.

To shake off her fatigue, Serea sat up, stretched lazily, and leaned back against the vine bed.

The chill in the air slightly dispelled her drowsiness. Once her mind cleared, Serea's thoughts returned to yesterday.

She had been captured by elves and brought to their village, then encountered human slave traders capturing elves.

She saved the elves, only to discover by accident that their leader was actually a descendant of the blood elves!

Just like that, with the help of the blood elf descendant 'Lola', she ascended the throne as queen of the Darkmoon Clan.

And since she had become queen, she had to consider the livelihood of her people—or rather, the villagers.

So from yesterday afternoon until night, Serea had been commanding the Skeleton Warriors to help the elves restore their ruined homes.

Fortunately, the Skeleton Warriors were extremely efficient. Under Serea's control, the elves' wooden dwellings were quickly repaired, and the outer vine walls were rebuilt by Lola with her nature magic.

Meanwhile, Aruka, who had rushed to support, also brought people to participate in the reconstruction.

During the collective busy work, Serea learned a great deal about the Darkmoon Clan and the Aruka werewolves, which resolved many of her doubts.

First of all, the Darkmoon Clan was only a small jungle elf tribe numbering fewer than seventy. After some were captured by humans, only thirty-nine remained. By rights, such a clan shouldn't have produced an elf queen.

Yet, the surname 'Darkmoon' had been recognized by nature, and they had been granted the Queen's Mark. With this mark, the Darkmoon Clan could absorb natural energy and wield nature magic.

All of this dated back to the great migration of the Darkmoon Clan...

A hundred years ago, the Darkmoon Clan was a powerful clan, led by several blood elf descendants.

But for some unknown reason, the Darkmoon Clan had to undertake a great migration across half a continent. As for the reason, Lola was unwilling to divulge. In her words—

"It's not that I wish to hide anything from Her Majesty. If you truly want to know, I'll tell you. But given our clan's present situation, it's better not to know about such things."

Since Lola was unwilling to speak, Serea didn't press the issue either. She didn't want to know about such things; she was only concerned with whether her Blood Well could be constructed.

Thus, Lola kept the reason to herself, but she spoke bitterly of the deadly consequences caused by the great migration.

The leader of the migration was Roen Darkmoon, the supreme ruler of the Darkmoon Clan—Lola's biological father, the Elf King!

Traversing half a continent, migrating from the southern continent to the eastern continent, they never calculated the total distance. The then-powerful Darkmoon Clan took as long as half a year to complete the migration.

Along the way, there were many places suitable for the Darkmoon Clan to settle down, yet Roen never stopped. He led more than 1,200 elite elves and faced countless hardships during their journey.

As for what those hardships were, Lola did not elaborate, brushing over them with a few simple words.

But for a clan of 1,200 elves to have only eighty survivors, those hardships must have been far from ordinary.

So, after a migration lasting half a year, the Darkmoon Clan left the Elven Empire and came to the human-ruled eastern continent.

Not long after their arrival, elf King Roen and Lola's mother both perished in a war with the humans. As invaders, the Darkmoon Clan paid for their foothold in the Corrupted Jungle with blood.

After that, the Darkmoon Clan no longer had an elf king, and they could only rely on the succeeding queen—Lola—to support the whole clan.

To this day, Lola's people had lived here for several decades. Their long lifespans had nearly made them forget the original purpose of the migration.

During this time, they befriended the also-migrated Bloodfang Clan—Aruka's tribe.

Because Lola once saved the dying Aruka, the two clans formed an alliance and helped each other survive in the Corrupted Jungle.

Yet, even though both clans concealed themselves deeply, human harassment continued day after day. Elf slaves, werewolf pelts and teeth—these were treasures coveted by humans.

Because of this greed, the Darkmoon Clan had not flourished during these decades of recuperation, but instead had grown ever weaker.

Now, there were only thirty-nine clanspeople left. Among them, only seven male elves remained, as they fought on the front lines, while there were thirty-two females, of which twenty were still minors and unable to fight.

Such a tribe, on the verge of extinction, would have been completely doomed had Serea not acted in time yesterday.

Having witnessed Serea's power and received her help, the only remaining members of the Darkmoon Clan no longer harbored any wariness towards her—in fact, they were somewhat dependent on her.

That kind of change occurred in just one day. If anyone wondered why the proud elves would submit to an outsider 'elf queen'—

It was because they were simply too weak, so weak that a minor human merchant group could wipe them out. They desperately needed a stronger queen to lead them—and Serea was that person.

Additionally, with Lola's 'abdication', Serea had justifiably become the elf queen—which she herself was quite pleased about.

After sorting through all this information, Serea patted her head, remembering that she had spent a long time yesterday focusing on commanding the Skeleton Warriors in order to help the elves rebuild.

Such high-intensity mental activity had left Serea exhausted, so she had gone to bed early out of sheer fatigue. Now, having just woken up, the sun was already fairly high in the sky.

Yawning again, Serea suddenly recalled something important.

"That's right, I should check how the Blood Well's construction is coming along. That shouldn't be too difficult for the elves to build."

While talking to herself, Serea began to change and get out of bed, but just as she sat up, two voices reached her ears.

"Serea, Your Majesty, good morning." ×2

The sudden voices startled Serea greatly.

"Lola? Vina? Why are you two here?"

(To be continued...)

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=