The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Novel

[First contractor, your wishes have been granted.]

Gnoass was talking about the purification of the forest. The amount of corruption was so vast that it would have taken a supreme-rank spirit days or even months to get rid of. However, a Spirit King, who was called nature itself, had the power to revert everything back to normal in a shorter period of time.

“Good work, Gnoass. Maybe you should appear in a smaller size next time. My neck’s hurting from how big you are.”

[You have never summoned a spirit before, but you still called upon me.]

In fact, Davey could call upon the Spirit King without the usual sequential summoning method because of one reason. He explained, “It’s because of the Spirit King’s essence that your original contractor, the elementalist, had made for me.”

[Are you telling me she really made the thing she used to just joke about?]

Well, technically, the Spirit King’s essence was made in the Hall after she had died, but it seemed beneficial to not tell Gnoass that Yuriana, the elementalist, was still alive as a soul.

Bypassing the entire process of going through the low-rank, intermediate-rank, and then high-rank spirits was impossible, even for Davey. Due to that reason, he had used the pearl with the Spirit King’s power.

Classified as a transcendental-level object, the existence of the Spirit King’s essence itself had a huge effect although it was consumable. It could ignore any kind of limitations and summon a supreme-rank spirit to make a contract with them.

The spirit Davey had contracted with was Gnoeanenn. It would have taken him a while to merge with it, but he was able to call upon the superior Spirit King if he tricked them. Although, the required power by all of this was up to Davey.

Of course, knowing the truth didn’t change the fact that it was shocking and hard to believe.

“It’s truly the Spirit King… I still cannot believe it. I never thought I was going to see a Spirit King in my life…” Yuria said.

“I told you. It’s that kind of object.”

“The world would go wild if they knew that something like that existed.”

Davey smiled bitterly. He thought it a good idea to hide the fact that he still had twelve more essences of Spirit Kings in his Pocket Plane, since it would allow one to easily summon for the Spirit King if it wasn’t in a corrupt forest.

* * *

This was the summoning of a Spirit King and not a supreme-rank spirit. The conservatives’ short uprising was subdued in an instant. There was no way they still had the will to fight when the Ancient Guard had been lost after being killed by a single shot.

“Gracious Savior.”

The dwarves called Davey ‘Wise Teacher’, and now the elves were calling him ‘Gracious Savior’…

Sitting on the tree stump in the quiet forest where Myuu’s house was, Yuria pulled out a small marble and showed it to Davey. It was the marble that Elder Condae had used to suppress Davey.

“It is a pearl of a nameless ancient spirit that has the power to transform all other kinds of power into spirit mana. I never thought he had something like this…” Unable to hide her bewilderment, Yuria sighed. “He probably had this to weaken you.”

“Probably.”

Most power, including mana and holy power, would be forced to change into spirit mana once the pearl was activated. Of course, it wouldn’t have had much of an effect on Davey even without the Spirit King, but it was something that would’ve had a serious effect on an ordinary Swordmaster.

As Davey quietly released mana into the pearl Yuria just handed to him, it began to lightly vibrate. Although it had been used, it vibrated like it was alive. Then, someone’s voice momentarily pierced straight through his brain.

“…” Quickly throwing the pearl onto the table, Davey clicked his tongue.

“How well do you know about the different spirit types?” Davey asked Yuria.

“Types? Aren’t there just the Six Spirits? The four basic types, and then the spirit of light and darkness. Not to brag, but I am contracted to the Light spirit and Undeen, the high-rank water spirit.”

“Chaos,” Davey mumbled quietly.

“Cha…os?? Yuria asked.

“It’s a pearl containing the high-rank spirit pandemonium, Chaos. I don't know what lunatic sealed him in there, but this object sealed the spirit alive.”

“A spirit of chaos… How could such a spirit…”

The high-rank spirit of pandemonium, Chaos, had a simple ability. This oddball spirit changed all the power surrounding him into his own.

“There are thirteen kinds of spirits. Didn’t know that, right?”

“Oh my… That is also shocking knowledge. I’ve never heard of such a thing, even in the ancient books.” Yuria picked up the pearl with wide eyes. Since she couldn’t hear the crazy voice from inside, it was probably better for her to have it than Davey.

“You keep it. Until we can free that lunatic in there.”

“L…Lunatic?”

“If you gain the ability to summon a supreme-rank spirit, you will be able to hear him. You’ll see why I called him a lunatic.”

Yuria fell into deep thought, then nodded.

“I guess I really declared war on the World Tree.” Yuria chuckled, then said, “You’re going to protect us, right?”

“We’ll see.”

Yuria smiled in satisfaction as Davey joked around. She said firmly, “I will do my best to serve you, so I won’t disappoint you.”

Sometimes, ignorance truly was bliss.

* * *

The forest regained its original beauty after the corruption had disappeared. The spirit beasts wandering the silent fields were surprised by the human activity and disappeared.

A woman wearing a blue uniform appeared out in the field. She slowly put her hands together to cast a hand seal, then quietly muttered a spell in ancient elf language.

[La Prushella.]

Soon, a small hologram slowly appeared in front of her eyes.

“I meet the Mother of the First Tree.”

“Hm. Did your mission go well?”

Upon hearing the woman’s relaxed and benevolent voice, the elves bowed their heads even more. They said solemnly, “I’m sorry. We failed the mission. And…Mira’s dead.”

“Dead?” The holographic woman’s eyebrow twitched.

“We did not expect it at all; the human had set a trap. We blindly trusted the Ancient Spirit Pearl that Elder Condae used, but the human controlled its power and summoned a Spirit King,” the woman in the blue uniform reported.

The faint image of the woman in the hologram chuckled. “Ha… Haha. That’s quite a scene. I didn’t know that what I saw would be true.”

“What did you see?” The woman in blue asked.

“Never mind, I saw a monster whose existence cannot be explained by logic. Well, it is a relief that you came back alive. It seems like he did not notice you.”

“My apologies. I think he already knew, but let me go.”

There was nothing but silence after the woman’s report.

“How dare he test me…” The woman in the hologram shook her head as the woman in blue lowered her head. The holographic woman then added, “Come back into Mother’s arms. We must leave them be for a while.”

“You are not going to form an additional slaughtering squad?”

“A runaway daughter is bound to return to her parents. She will learn someday that she’s in the palm of my hand.”

“I will not forget that, World Tree,” the woman in the blue uniform quietly replied, then slowly rose.

However, the two people did not know that the person who was listening in on their conversation had turned away without hesitation as well.

* * *

The dwarves called Davey ‘Wise Teacher’, but the elves were calling him something different.

“Gracious Savior! This is a call a fruit. It is our forest’s specialty. My mother wanted me to give this to you…”

“Oh, you didn’t have to.”

As Davey laughed exaggeratedly and pretended like he didn’t care, the young elf boy sheepishly scratched the back of his head. He said, “Elves… No, the residents of the Moon Forest do not forget our debts. Even more so if it is someone who rescued Lady Yuria.”

“We heard everything from Lady Yuria. The person who corrupted this forest all this time was…” One of the male elves grit his teeth with reddened eyes.

The way Elder Condae and the conservatives had accelerated the corruption was simple: he had kidnapped elves, disguising it as an accident or that they had gone missing, and had thrown them in the origin of corruption while they had been still alive or barely dead.

“They said my daughter lost her life after running into a monster in the forest. My daughter was close to the age of marriage, and just seeing her brought me joy.”

But that never happened; she had been killed because of the dark greed of Elder Condae and the World Tree.

“I just wanted to apologize for not trusting you just because you are human when I didn’t know you. And…thank you for helping us weak elves to take revenge on our enemies.”

“Ah, I didn’t do anything! You got the wrong person,” Davey said.

“Haha, I didn’t know you would be this humble. The story that humans are all disgusting and selfish beings seems to be completely false.”

“However, we heard that we would have all died if you didn’t help us, Gracious Savior.”

“That’s right. We heard that they were planning on killing all of us after taking Lady Yuria to the Divine Tree. They said that the elves who defied tradition…were worthy of death.”

Davey had gained four things from Elder Condae’s overstep. The elder elf had been very hostile, but had ended up going to jail after giving Davey his everything. Oh, Elder Condae, was just amazing…

The debate about how to punish Elder Condae, who had completely lost his will to fight and was locked up in jail, and the radical conservative elves who had contributed to the corruption raised some commotion for a while. The elves who found out their families had been wrongfully sacrificed begged for their revenge to be taken, and most of the others agreed with them, saying that they shouldn’t let the people who had tried to kill them and had betrayed the forest be alive. However, Yuria could not easily make that decision.

“What are you thinking about? Just kill all of them,” sipping slime tea, Davey said to Yuria indifferently.

Yuria was sitting on the tree stump in the small garden on the outskirts of the village where there was a tree hole big enough for a little child to live in. This was Myuu’s home before she moved to the main village. She muttered, “I’m just a little sad.”

“Geez.” Davey was confident that he would give a firm suggestion. He said, “You are able to show mercy when you’re not in a tight position. Will you simply let yourself be stabbed to death without fighting back if the forest was invaded because you want to be the bigger person?”

Giving illogical lunatics a second chance was just giving them a second chance to do the exact same thing. In fact, Condae, who was tied up and unwilling to fight back, just repeated one thing over and over.

‘I did nothing wrong. It’s all a sacrifice for the greater good!’

“I will follow if you say so, Gracious Savior.”

Yuria was the forest’s leader, but she and the residents of the forest had become residents of the Heins Territory. As such, it seemed like she was trying to consider Davey’s opinions as much as possible.

“I like that you are giving me your everything, but don’t forget what you asked for.”

Yuris stared at Davey in surprise. They had asked for a life that was free and a relationship built on logic.

“You have become residents of the Heins, not slaves.”

“Then, we can exile them…”

“Kill them.”

“Oh my, so straightforward. All right.”

Davey couldn’t help but sigh when Yuria agreed so easily. What was wrong was wrong, end of story. He further explained, “Leading by getting your followers to fear you is dangerous, but your roots will be unstable if you lead while accepting everything without establishing any basic rules.”

“That is…”

“It’s proven by history. Remember that the position of a leader is nasty; sometimes you have to be mean and fierce.”

History showed the reason why the kings of Joseon, Korea’s past era, had been all so short-lived.

Yuria sighed. “You’re right. Maybe I was being a childish fool in front of you, even though you’re probably much younger than me.”

Well, Davey was probably older in terms of soul age.

“Anyway, what should we do about the barrier? The one that you shattered?” Yuria asked as she stroked Myuu’s cheek with a bright smile as the child slept in her arms. “You’re going to take care of it?”

The way that a beautiful elf was asking Davey to take care of matters while cradling a sleeping little girl who was sucking on her thumb…