Chapter 142: One Word of "Father" and the World Takes Notice
Elves are remarkable creatures.
Born of nature itself, they are nature's most cherished children.
From the mont of their birth, they are blessed by nature's grace.
Nature's disasters cannot claim their lives, and their extraordinarily long lifespans afford them a stable and tranquil existence.
This leads them to regard the entire world with a spirit of leisure and enjoynt.
And under nature's blessing, even if an Elf does nothing at all—relying solely on their imnse longevity and nature's gifts—they can reach heights that ordinary humans could never hope to attain.
Take Cocotte, for instance.
As an Elf who had carried laziness to its absolute extre, every single spell Cocotte had ever learned was learned for the sole purpose of securing a better sleeping environnt.
With nature's blessing behind her, she barely needed to practice at all.
And yet she had already reached the 4th Tier—a level the vast majority of Mages could spend their entire lives chasing without ever grasping.
What's more, as a forr Council mber, she stood among the very elite of 4th-Tier Mages.
As for practicing Magic?
Where was the need? Once a spell had been comprehended, did it really require constant drilling?
But even Elves as free-spirited as this feared 1 thing.
And that was nature itself.
When Viktor appeared before Resi, it was as though she found herself staring directly into the face of nature.
Resi was plunged into a prolonged, stunned stupor.
The instant she laid eyes on Viktor, she felt an impulse that nearly drove her to her knees.
She wanted to venerate him, to bow before him in reverence.
In Viktor, she seed to glimpse……
'Nature'
But Resi knew clearly that the man before her was, without question, a human.
So how on earth could she be feeling this?
"You……I……"
Apparently rattled to her core by the presence before her, Resi's words began to tumble out in an incoherent ss.
A feeling kept pressing in on her, kept reminding her, kept telling her sothing.
A flash of clarity struck her mind—and a single word suddenly surfaced.
A word she had never once spoken aloud in her life.
Yet the feeling would not let her go, driving her beyond her own control, pushing her to say it.
All at once, Resi shot to her feet, faced Viktor, and bowed deeply.
"Father!"
Leah: "?"
Leon: "?"
Weija: "?"
Viktor: "……"
…….
Resi sat with her head lowered, hands tucked between her knees, fidgeting back and forth.
Her face had long since flushed a vivid crimson.
She wanted to sink into the floor and disappear entirely.
What on earth had gotten into her brain, that she could let sothing like that slip out?
Even Resi understood what that word ant to humans, and just how significant it was.
The man before her was visibly far younger than she was.
And she had called him "Father."
This was truly……
Unforgivably rude!
But by now, everyone else's expressions had already returned to normal.
As if none of them minded in the slightest.
Viktor had long since settled into the main seat on the sofa, with Leah standing at his side.
She smiled warmly as she made the introduction.
"Allow —this is the head of the Clavena Family."
"The current Chief Professor of the Empire's Royal Magic Academy."
"1 of the 12 Council mbers of the Mage Council."
"The youngest 4th-Tier Mage in recorded history—Count Viktor Clavena."
By the ti that string of titles had finished, Resi had fallen even more silent than before.
"……"
She didn't dare lift her head, and didn't even dare steal a sidelong glance at Viktor.
Weija stood perched on Viktor's shoulder, speaking in a voice only it and Viktor could hear:
"I was starting to wonder if you'd secretly had a child without telling ."
"This one doesn't seem particularly bright."
Viktor gave no response to Weija, as though he found that assessnt entirely accurate.
He sat on the sofa, leaning slightly forward, both hands crossed and resting on the table.
"You're looking for Cocotte Yadh. That's correct, isn't it."
Hearing Cocotte's na, Resi's head snapped up, and she stared at Viktor with a look of pure disbelief.
The surna Yadh was one that only the Elven royal lineage could carry.
Elven nas were not bestowed by parents.
Every Elf ca into the world without a na or surna.
Because Elves had no parents.
'Yadh'
That was the na of the place where every Elf was born.
It was an enormous divine tree, from which all Elves were conceived and brought forth.
Within the Elven race, 2 sacred treasures had been guarded across the generations—treasures upon which the survival and continuation of Elvenkind depended.
One was the divine tree 'Yadh,' and the other was the 'Moon Sacred Spring.'
The birth of each new generation of Elves required the Spring's water to be poured upon the Elf Tree.
The Spring's water would seep into the divine tree, nurturing and growing the natural energy within.
After receiving the Spring's blessing, the tree would give form to an Elf's body and consciousness.
And the power of nature would then bestow upon each Elf their na and surna.
The surna 'Yadh' would, over the course of many centuries, be granted to 1 single Elf.
She would bear the surna 'Yadh,' and beco the Queen who led all Elves.
Cocotte Yadh was the Elf upon whom nature had bestowed the royal surna within the past hundred years.
It was simply impossible for an ordinary person to know her na.
Yet the man before her had not only spoken the Elven Queen's na aloud—he had even uttered the surna 'Yadh.'
From Resi's perspective, this was an earth-shattering revelation.
What she didn't know, however, was that during the years Cocotte had served as a Council mber, her na had long since spread throughout every corner of the Mage Council.
The Elves lived deep within the ancient Elven Forest, and their ability to gather information from the outside world was, to put it generously, limited.
Most likely, even now, they had no idea that Cocotte had once served as a Council mber of the Mage Council.
Still, the fact that Viktor had spoken Cocotte's na only deepened Resi's certainty.
Viktor definitely knew sothing.
Resi gave a sharp, vigorous nod—but Viktor continued to watch her in silence, his tone unhurried:
"Then. What do you offer in return?"
Resi blinked at Viktor's words, as if she hadn't quite understood what he ant.
But soon enough, Leah provided the answer.
"Well……you should understand, so favors aren't done for free."
Leah draped both arms over the back of the sofa, leaned her body forward, pressed her chin against her forearm, and rested lazily to one side.
She was positioned beside Viktor's head, smiling as she spoke.
"If you're asking us for help, you'll need to offer sothing in return."
Hearing this, Resi looked between the 2 of them, a faint mist gathering in her eyes.
But she held it back. She understood that she absolutely could not cry.
After all, asking for soone's help always ca with a price.
Those humans who had taken her had said the sa thing.
They would help her find the Queen.
So Resi had already steeled herself for this. She knew full well why she had left the forest.
She lowered her head, biting her lip lightly as though bracing for so indignity.
"I……I understand."
"I'll do whatever it takes—as long as you help find Her Majesty the Queen……"
Leah suddenly broke into a laugh. She had been waiting for exactly that answer.
"Really?"
"R……really."
Before the words had even fully left her mouth, a sheet of white paper covered in black text appeared in front of Resi, with a pen placed alongside it.
Resi lowered her gaze, staring at the paper filled with black writing, puzzled:
"What is this?"
"Sign it."
Leah smiled softly:
"Once you sign, we're family."
"Family helps family—isn't that perfectly reasonable?"
A bad premonition crept up from the small of her back and straight up her spine.
An Elf's intuition had always been sharp, and Resi couldn't shake the feeling that she had walked straight into so kind of trap.
But for the sake of finding the Queen, she gritted her teeth, picked up the pen, and wrote her na on the Contract.
The instant the pen lifted from the page, the Contract slowly glowed with a blue light.
The paper slipped from Resi's hand and drifted back into Leah's.
Taking the Contract, Leah smiled faintly.
"Good. From today onward, you're an official employee of the Clavena Family."
"Don't worry—our head of household will arrange for you to et another employee in person."
"Huh?"
Resi stared blankly, still unable to make sense of what had just happened.
How had she beco an employee?
And what did eting another employee have to do with anything?
She had co here to find the Queen!
Then, in an instant, a flash of azure-blue swept through Viktor's eyes.
In that sa mont, a fierce wind tore through the room.
The enormous drapes swayed violently. The windows trembled under the force of the wind pressure, rattling with loud bang-bang-bang sounds.
That terrifying Magical aura gradually gathered around Viktor, and an azure-blue Formation appeared beneath his feet.
Enormously dense Magic Power spread through the entire room.
"Is there an earthquake?!"
Resi panicked at once, scrambling to her feet—only to find that beneath her, without her realizing it, an expanding Magic Formation had already surrounded her.
"A……Teleportation Formation?"
"How can it be this large?!"
The Teleportation Formation completed in an instant. A towering pillar of blue Magic Power erupted violently upward through the skylight above.
Enormous energy surged outward through the opened windows all around.
"Go on."
Viktor's voice rang out, calm and unhurried.
Resi was frightened—but Viktor's words continued.
"You'll et who you want to et there."
Perhaps it was Viktor's words that ignited a fierce determination within Resi. She drew a deep breath, summoned her courage, and closed her eyes.
She stepped 1 foot into the pillar of light.
In barely half a second, her entire form dissolved into a surge of blue energy and vanished from everyone's sight.
After she disappeared, the Formation did not dissipate.
Leah watched Viktor, who still hadn't moved, and looked at him curiously.
"Hmm? Aren't we going back together?"
Viktor rose to his feet. Beneath the howling wind, his Coat billowed and snapped noisily.
Whoosh-whoosh.
"Bring Cindy. And call Helnersen as well."
Leah paused—bringing Cindy she could understand, but calling Helnersen……
Viktor slipped both hands into his pockets, and within those cold eyes, he seed to be gazing in the direction of the Royal Capital.
"There are so scores I need to settle with Jess."
"Properly."
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