I’ve Reincarnated into an Elf

Chapter 10

When I first heard about princesses being chased by goblins, I probably should have expected this, but I had my excuses for not accepting the fact.

I’ve only gone down the “beastfolk extinction” route twice.

Once with dwarves and once with goblins. When it was dwarves, the beastfolk’s destruction didn’t really affect the ending, so I didn’t care much.

When it was goblins, I tried to play without the beastfolk, but the difficulty reached high level, and I eventually got wiped out.

Basically, both times I went down that path, actually tried to stop the beastfolk from being wiped out.

Honestly, I didn’t even bother gathering info about it.

It’s not like the beastfolk extinction route is some easily accessible story path, and it wasn’t like I was playing as the beastfolk anyway, so why should I care?

Besides, I’m not the type to follow walkthroughs or guides. My style is more like: charge in headfirst, and if things go south, then so be it.

But who could’ve guessed things would come to this?

Yeah, this is on me. Damn it.

As I was sitting there, racking my brain, Atir suddenly spoke up.

“By the way, didn’t they call themselves princesses? Is the Kelra family royalty?”

“They’re beastfolk, remember? For them, the strongest is king. That family’s got the most high-ranking bloodlines among the beastfolk, so they’ve been royalty for quite a while now.”

Atir, despite being a spirit, knows surprisingly little.

Maybe it’s because he’s spent his life hanging out with elves in the forest, completely clueless about the outside world.

While Atir and I were chatting, my mom was in the back, talking to the beastfolk girls about why they were on the run in the first place.

“So, you were all fleeing from goblins on your own?”

“Yes… We’re the only ones left. Everyone else… they’re all dead…”

“Oh dear…”

Mom gave them a sympathetic look and hugged them close. The atmosphere got heavy again as they started crying up, and I let out a sigh before joining in.

“Hey, kid. Let me ask you something.”

“…What is it?”

The one who answered was the little girl, probably around ten years old, the same one who’d tried to charge at Mom earlier before I stopped her.

She puffed out her cheeks, clearly annoyed at being called a “kid,” but facts are facts. She’s a kid.

Ignoring her pout, I kept going.

“So, what happened to the rest of the royal family? Are you guys the last of them?”

“…Unfortunately, all my brothers are dead. It’s just us now.”

Figures.

From what they told us, here’s the gist:
One day, the absolute power of the royal family, centered around the “War Beast,” crumbled.

Beastfolk value strength above all else, and their rulers are always the strongest. So, it was only natural that the Kella family rose to royalty.

But it also meant that if they lost their strength, they’d be overthrown.

The girl glossed over the details, just calling it a “sudden rebellion,” probably because she still doesn’t trust us fully.

Anyway, this “sudden rebellion,” as she put it, caught the royals off guard. Most of them were wiped out in no time.

With the royal family mostly gone, the high-ranking families started fighting among themselves for power.

The beastfolk as a whole became weak and divided, tearing each other apart for months.

That’s when the goblins, another warrior race, took notice and attacked. Already hollowed out by internal strife, the beastfolk crumbled under the goblins’ assault.

The royal family barely managed to survive and flee, which is how these girls ended up here.

It’s a pretty pathetic ending for Kelvan, a city with 300 years of history and the capital of an entire race. Pure chaos, to say the least.

“Now that I think about it, Kelvan… That’s pretty far from here.”

At first, I thought they’d come from some nearby village, but it turns out they fled all the way from Kelvan to get here.

“If they were just trying to escape, wouldn’t that southern village have been good enough? Why come all the way up here?”

I couldn’t figure it out. I mean, I’ve been playing this game for two years, but I haven’t explored every map or spent much time with the beastfolk.

I mulled it over for a bit before realizing it didn’t really matter.

“Whatever. That village probably got wiped out by the goblins too, and they had no choice but to keep running. That kind of thing happens all the time and isn’t exactly the main point here. What matters is figuring out what these kids are after.”

I decided to cut to the chase and just ask.

“So, you ended up like this because the War Beast lost its power?”

“How do you know about that?!”