Chapter 17 – Elves that are gone and renown (3/3)
All I need now is soap. They are supposed to have consumables like that topped up in a treasure room for us, but….oh there they are.
“Aren’t there more things here than there used to be?”
I asked the elf managing the storeroom. I remember taking the stuff from here to our mansion.
“Occasionally, some presents are added in.”
Apparently, they put the especially nice things they manage to make here.
I had a sudden thought that we could get a lot of money for these if we sold them, but that would be simply too rude for us to do.
However, on the remote chance that we run out of money, I better bring these back with me and discuss it with Lilia.
“It feels like such a waste for us to receive all these excellently made items. Please convey our thanks to those that brought them.”
When I asked Lilia about it later, she just said: ‘They gave us those to thank you for saving their lives. If they were used to save yet another life, then no elf would fault you for it.’ Well then, if we run out of money, then we’ll sell those. If one of the people that sent those gets upset about it, then I’ll just have to apologize.
After storing all the soap and other handicraft in my Item Box, I ran into Lilia who just finished up too.
The result of her talk with the Elf King was that they knew nothing about the aforementioned elves, but sent a group of six to investigate their current status. They will search by splitting up into three groups of two, and they will act as the Elf King’s representatives and carry a letter from him.
“I’ve spoken with my father, but the elves will not proactively intervene in Hiragis matters.”
Lilia is of the opinion that they need to march into Hiragis to mourn the passing of the elves there, but the king, who while might feel the same as Lilia, can’t just decide on something like that so quickly. People die everyday, but that doesn’t mean that the death of the elves in Hiragis serve as a good enough reason to risk sacrificing the lives of their own people to try and conquer it back, nor were they officially asked to help to do so.
“While Father said that, he also said that it would be different if you requested it, Masaru. In that case, he would support you with as much money and soldiers as needed.”
With my request the number of volunteers would most likely rise greatly, since fighting beside us would be much safer. We can evacuate people with Gate in an emergency as well. Not to mention, we have a Casus Belli in the form of the Oracle we received.
Everything hinges on what I decide. I need to properly think about this one.
“We’ve finished what we came for, so let’s go back for now.”
It’s not something just Lilia and I can decide on.
The six investigators were still in the middle of their preparations, so we decided to leave getting them to Ellie later. Even if we brought them with us right now, a number of elves appearing in the middle of the beastkin settlement out of nowhere would be very suspicious.
After teleporting back to the fortress, we told the others about the support we can expect from the elves and what I arranged so far.
“The elves will of course stay away from the public. All aid they’ll give will be considered as coming from Masaru. Without him the topic of support wouldn’t have come up anyway. There is still the option of doing everything by ourselves of course.”
“We can decide on that later, but there is no need to call everything my doing anymore. I think we should keep the Blessing stuff to the beastkin. I think trying to go for the whole refugee camp with it would backfire instead.”
Certainly not because it would be too troublesome of course. I have my hands full just by interacting with the beastkin.
“That is also true. Even if more people get the Blessing, we can only take a few of them,” Ellie agreed with me.
“For the time being, we should help as much as we can without the elves. We don’t need to provide for them completely and the Empire and the Church should still be sending aid, right? We should be able to cover the missing parts by ourselves.”
Even if we lean on the elves, it will be only after we did everything we could. Everyone agreed with that and we also decided that aside from helping the beastkin, all other support from us to the rest of the camp will go through the Church with Ann’s help.
“I will contribute all my personal money. As long as the party money remains we’ll still be fine.”
“I will do the same with what remains of mine,” Ann joined in.
Ann pays half her share directly to the Church and donates some of it to orphanages, but other than that she doesn’t use it too much, so she has quite a bit saved up.
Ellie is still sending all her money back to her family.
Tilika and Sati offered up theirs as well. All Sati did with her share was buy a few picture books and material for her needlework, same for Tilika with her raiding of food stands, so both of their nest eggs were mostly untouched.
“Then let’s use Sati’s share on helping the beastkin, and the others on the rest of the refugee camp. The stored meat can be divided 50-50.”
“Adding in what Masaru already gave away, it should come to about five and a half million gold?”
Two million for the beastkin and three and a half million for the rest of the camp. That means the beastkin get much more per capita, but with the Blessing there is kinda no avoiding that.
“With this we will be out of money, but our main assets are our own selves, so we will be fine going without for a while.”
After hearing the specific number of five and a half million gold, some of us felt shaken by it, so Ellie tried to reassure.
Coming from the perpetually destitute Ellie, it was quite convincing.
“What’s important is the renown we will be able to obtain with it. If we go through with this, then getting promoted to S rank will be in the cards for us and our fame would be everlasting. You can’t put a price on something like that!”
We won’t be able to hide such a large scale support from us entirely and the fight for Hiragis will most likely be quite flashy as well.
“Just, in moderation, okay…..?”
“Of course. I won’t do anything that would make me stand out.”
The one who will stand out will be me I guess. Perhaps I shouldn’t have even brought up that Blessing stuff, but we couldn’t just ignore the starving beastkin and expanding our fighting force is always needed. We can’t avoid the fight for Hiragis in the end.
We were able to remain mostly unknown until now, but that is something that will have to change sooner or later.
I wonder how Will is doing right now? His new armor looked pretty cool too, so I might need him to act as the Hero if it comes to that….
Thanks for the treat.