Chapter 1924 Demise of the High Elves Expeditionary Force
"You said that you wanted them to be alive so the Night Foxes could follow them back to their kingdom. What happened to that plan?" Jin asked as he sat at his Dungeon Maker instance questioning Kraft. It was pretty obvious that the plan to follow the High Elves back to their kingdom would never happen due to the fact that the Night Foxes had tried out too many variations of poisons into the food.
Some of the High Elves had so much diarrhoea that they lost a lot of water content and had difficulty eating. In fact, eating the rations made them even worse off and they got sicker. And to add on with the fact that those foods had diseases from Jin's world. The flu virus got into their immune system quickly, especially with the lack of …proper food and nutrition in them.
With so many sick, the High Commander had to make an abrupt change to the expeditionary force's return trip and head to the nearest town. However, in order to not let the Goblin World to experience a possible epidemic due to the Night Foxes' and Kraft's mischief, Jin had already gone ahead to get the fellow Orcs and Goblins to create a 'natural' roadblock to stop them from moving forward.
He knew that if they were so beaten up by the number of sick people, there was no way they were going to get their soldiers to remove the heaps of broken trees and rocks from a 'landslide'. Of course, Jin did not discount the fact that there was a possibility the High Commander and some other magic users would merely use their magic to remove the obstacles.
But given how massive the landslide was, it would still take a considerable amount of effort to do that which the System had deduced that the possibility for them to take the 'brute force' method to clear the landslide would be close to a mere 4% chance.
And their gamble paid off as the High Commander had decided to go for a detour instead. Despite some having said that the detour would cause more casualties, many who were not familiar with managing environmental disasters would rather be on the side of caution and not to err when it comes to the responsibility that lies on their shoulders. However, that detour eventually became the end of the expeditionary force.
More of them had gotten sick as they had no idea how to stop the flu from spreading. There were no hygiene practices as that was unheard of in their era. They assumed that if it was a cough, most of them would just tough it out and seek the medics for some soothing herbal drink to get along for the day. Never did they expect that one by one, the soldiers were down with fever, muscle cramps, and extreme fatigue.
It was to the point the healers were fighting a type of battlefield that they had never encountered in their lives before. By the fourth to fifth day, even the healers were infected despite adhering to their medical practices. But even as the System had described to Jin who was not a medical professional, they were clearly not doing enough to prevent the spread of the disease. It was to the point where Jin requested his minions to slowly put up more of those 'natural' obstacles to prevent the expeditionary force from walking away.
As some tried to escape or tried to seek help by running out of the camp, they were eventually met with the Orcs and Goblins who were quietly guarding the place. Most were killed instantly, giving them that temporary sweet relief they were looking for.
However, death was merely a transition phase as those High Elves did not wake up with peace and tranquillity which had always been preached by their fellow High Elvan tradition. Instead, they found themselves in the hands of a Devil and its accomplices which they could clearly recognise it was their Arch enemies. Still, there was nothing that could be done despite receiving a healthy body. Their mouth was sealed and they were unable to chant out the magic to fight against their captors. Even those who were skilled in chantless magic found their access to the universal mana pool to be blocked. It was something they did not expect and they found themselves empty on the inside.
The feeling of touch and feel magic was gone and now bound by metal and leather, they found themselves in such a hopeless situation. Something that the Night Foxes were delighted to spread that experience to every single High Elf that came under their control.
So as much as the capable ones ran to their death early, the remaining few struggled to stay alive. Subsequently, even the High Commander got caught with the illness and even his healing magic was not able to destroy the source of this flu that everyone had.
It was then, that he too had rationalise that even if they were to return to the Kingdom via an expensive mode of travelling, it might risk spreading this flu epidemic to the High Elves who were living peacefully. But the rest did not think this way.
In fact, most if not all of the High Elves felt that the decision the High Commander made was the most irrational decision that he had ever made in this expedition. To them, It was imperative that they returned to the Kingdom as quickly as possible so that they get the best care available to them. They did not state that their current healers were incompetent (or well, maybe some of the higher ranks did.)?but they believed that if they were to inform the Kingdom, more healers would be available to aid the dying expeditionary force.
It did not take long for a coup to emerge and the High Commander while weakened by the virus, was still healthy enough to take on five to six section commanders all by himself. But that was not the end as the misinformation spread like wildfire, stating that the High Commander had decided to kill the severely sick in order to cut losses and also not permit people to use the portal for their own sake.
This angered most of the soldiers who were still relatively healthy compared to the sick ones and they took that misinformation gravely since the ones stricken with illness were their close friends and comrades. Even though he was skilled enough to kill the section commanders all by himself, he was not able to win against the platoons of soldiers coming together so determined to chop his head off.
Of course, the High Commander did not care about those who rebelled and countered them to the best of his abilities. (Kraft was honestly rooting for him.) But because of the flu as well as the lack of rations, his powers were not as strong as it was and he could not continue the series of repeated assaults from his own soldiers.
He died. Brutally.
His head was displaced for everyone to see and as for the rest, they managed to retrieve the portal stone that would allow them to return to the Kingdom. There was just one minor problem. In the midst of their rebellion, the High Commander had already cursed the portal stone with all his might, knowing that such a situation could happen.
Thus, upon activating the portal stone, it not only did not open a portal but the stone also unleashed waves of curse magic that sickened the population even further. This was how much the High Elves could be. To the High Commander who initially believed that the soldiers would be understanding and honourable people as dictated by their teachings, he saw such an ugly side of them.
He had always assumed that the soldiers were only doing it against other races and never their own race but that was because their race had never suffered at all. Always living in luxury and in their own perceived world of understanding, he never expected his troops to act this way. One or two perhaps that's still acceptable but almost every single High Elf under his command thought the same way as his section commanders, it shook him.
If he was going to be thrown under the bus for doing such an honourable thing, then he shall pull all of them down with him too. After all, he was going to die and if the soldiers ever manage to return to the kingdom with such a state of sickness, the Kingdom might go into rapid decline. So, for the betterment of his people and his kingdom, the High Commander decided to do such a selfish thing to curse every single one in his expeditionary force and make them suffer with him.
So that even if he dies, he knows that the rest would not last any longer as well.
And that was true. More tried to run away and they were met with the same fate as those who tried to escape earlier. Eventually, the camp was filled with only Elves who were so sick that they could not move or healers who did not give up on them.
Yet, as time passed, every single one of them dropped to the ground and the Devil Fox picked all of them up. Their time was not exactly up yet since they had to go for the same ritual routine as the rest who had come earlier.
The only people he gave a lighter ritual programme were the healers who did whatever they could to help the severely ill.
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