Miss Demon King, Please Endure a Little Longer - Volume 3 Chapter 45

Chapter 45: The Final Moment

***

Aira’s mouth twitched, feeling inexplicably envious.

The elven race was indeed so rich in resources that they overflowed, even managing to establish communal child-rearing.

But then again, with only 5 people left, whether they found them or not didn’t really matter. At Sissa’s killing speed, 5 people would be done within 3 seconds.

She tugged at Celeste’s arm, signaling to go outside and chat.

It was now deep night, nearly dawn. The surrounding luminescent plants were still glowing, but their light had already dimmed.

The darkest time in the Central Great Forest wasn’t deep night, but rather this twilight transition of dawn.

Coming outside, Celeste proactively asked: “Should we split up and act separately? There are exactly 5 people, we could delay time like Isadora did.”

“No.” Aira decisively shook her head. “That relies too much on luck. If Sissa’s first target happens to be correct, splitting up would just be giving ourselves away for free.”

They didn’t have Isadora’s capabilities, nor were they familiar with the forest. There was no way to make Sissa follow the sequence they wanted.

“Then should we all protect them and escape together?” Celeste said. “There’s still nearly a full day left…”

Although the map range was limited, the forest was still quite large, so there was some chance of stalling for time.

And while they said a day, in reality Isadora might not even be dead yet. After completing the sacrifice, Sissa would also need some time to react.

Aira nodded: “That’s indeed the best approach.”

At this time, light knocking sounds came from behind them. It was Lambert tapping on the door, saying to them: “I made some late-night snacks. Would you like to come eat?”

“We’ll be right there.”

After Lambert returned to the house, Celeste sighed and lowered her voice: “The situation he described matches perfectly. Is there a possibility that it’s…”

“Yes.” Aira’s gaze was calm. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

A secret pregnancy that probably only Elder Laiteni knew about in the entire tribe, and Elder Laiteni chose death precisely to keep the secret. Add to that an 800-900 year old elf calling the other party “big sister,” and the answer was obvious.

Over 100 years ago, Isadora secretly laid out a contingency plan. After trying dozens of times and failing, she finally succeeded in getting pregnant with Lambert, then returned alone to the sealed area — the original village, to give birth.

“Let’s not tell him. After dawn, we’ll take everyone and leave.”

The main issue was that the big sister he’d been thinking about for over 100 years had just been captured and sacrificed, and his daughter had become Sissa’s final target, about to be hunted to the ends of the earth for the next day with slim chances of survival.

He was already depressed enough. Adding this would probably make him want to commit suicide.

After returning to the house, everyone sat down, though the 5 young ones had various expressions on their faces. The boys were fine, but the girls’ eyes were a bit red.

They were all prodigies. While there were gaps in talent, their minds worked well. What Celeste could think of, they as locals naturally thought of too.

Aira announced the plan for what came next: taking everyone on a day-long wandering through the forest. Where they went didn’t matter, as long as they didn’t get caught.

Everyone had no objections.

Dawn came quickly. The luminescent grass outside the tree house dimmed to darkness, making it actually harder to see.

After a brief rest, the group of 10 gathered outside, preparing to begin their final escape.

“Head count… why are there only 9? Who hasn’t come yet?”

“Sylithea will come out in a moment.” Trika stepped forward and said quietly to Aira: “Among us 3 girls, 2 are over 200 years old, only she is around 100.”

So among the 5 elves, last night they already knew who the final target was.

At this time, in the tree house where 10 people had lived for 2 days, including eating and drinking and such, even though everyone was very clean, they inevitably created a lot of household waste.

Sylithea held a broom bigger than herself, struggling to sweep the garbage out the door.

“Don’t bother with that, leave it to me.” Lambert, who was cleaning up bowls and dishes, said. “Go out quickly, don’t delay the important matter.”

After finishing with the dishes, he simply came over and took the broom from the elf loli’s hands.

“Let me, let me.”

Sylithea didn’t take it back, just stood there, staring at him blankly for a while.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just… don’t be like this anymore in the future. Live well, you still have many years ahead.”

Lambert smiled, not expecting that even at this point, she hadn’t forgotten to advise him, just like over a week ago when they first came with flyers.

“I heard you all say that there’s a demon who’s emerged now. Once she succeeds, the entire elven race will be destroyed. I might not see tomorrow’s sunlight, so why talk about such things.”

“But what if there isn’t?” Sylithea bit her lip. “She hasn’t… succeeded yet.”

Lambert originally wanted to give some casual response, but when he turned and saw her pitiful pleading expression, his heart inexplicably ached.

“Alright, I promise you. If there’s still a tomorrow after today, I’ll try to start living well again.”

“It’s a deal!”

A few minutes later, Sylithea came out of the tree house, wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes, and said to that commanding pink-haired big-breasted girl: “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

……

Isadora had been hung on the tree branches of the sealed area, killed in an artistic manner, and had been dead for quite a while.

But the good news of the sacrifice’s completion had yet to arrive.

After dawn, Sissa, who had been sitting with the haystack, stood up and came to the corpse, stretching her neck and spinning it around several times:

“Sally, you cunning little fox, secretly having a child behind everyone’s back. How could you not tell everyone? But it doesn’t matter, I’ll soon reunite you mother and daughter. Thank you? No need to thank me, we’re good friends after all~”

Retracting her twisted neck, Sissa skipped and hopped toward the outside.

“Stars, stars, tell me, where is the final prey?”

……

The Central Great Forest was extremely vast. With 5 local elves as guides, there was no risk of getting lost or going in circles.

This day of escape went quite smoothly. Without a specific destination, there was no need to rush. When tired, they sat down to rest and casually found things to eat along the way.

During this process, Aira truly felt the weight of the phrase “the forest nurtured every elf.” There really was food to be found everywhere.

“We’re almost at the edge area, the eastern side leaning slightly north.” Trika said. “After walking a bit more, we might need to change direction.”

They couldn’t leave the forest’s boundaries, that was the game rule.

“Maybe we won’t need to.” Celeste came up from behind and said, “Look at the lighting situation around us. Dawn is coming.”

The luminescence was dim, sunlight wasn’t visible, this was the darkest time of day in the Central Great Forest, which was dawn.

3 days ago in the morning, Sissa had emerged from the ground. From that time limit, only half an hour remained.

“Maybe we’ve just managed to get through this.” An elf boy sat down on the ground to rest. “Time’s almost up. We’ve saved the elven race.”

At this mention, the faces of several young ones looked much better. Their sense of responsibility to their race overcame their fear.

Yesterday morning when they set out, they made promises to each other that for the elven race to have a tomorrow, the prodigies of the young generation would give everything.

But Aira’s face showed no smile at all. After glancing at the sky, she became even more worried: “Celeste, I’ve played games like this before. Do you know that to dynamically balance the win rates of both sides, when time is nearly up, the hunting side gets directional information about their prey.”

The Evil God’s game, the Evil God would intervene.

Celeste fell silent for a moment, then gripped her sword tighter: “In that case, we continue walking.”

Calling up the others, the escape continued. According to plan, they would reach the eastern border leaning north, stopping at the last row of large trees at the forest’s edge, which would be about when time was up.

However, 20 minutes later, the group suddenly stopped in their tracks.

In the dim dawn light, a little girl’s figure appeared at the end of the path ahead.

“Where are you all going?”