Pragmatist

Marco was, at heart, a pragmatist. Everything he did served his ambitions, including getting close to Saya and the others—even becoming friends bound by life and death with them—because he had a purpose.

Take Trug, for example. He might seem dim-witted, but he was indeed the young chieftain of the Puma Tribe. The Puma Tribe was a nomadic tribe that lived on the green wastelands of the North. Their nomadic way of life, combined with their mixed barbarian blood, made the tribe's warriors brave and formidable, while also making them an excellent source of cavalry.

Through Trug, Marco had established ties with the Puma Tribe. He had also used all sorts of methods to win over its people, leaving the Puma Tribe with an excellent impression of him. Over the years, eighty percent of Marco's cavalry had come from this tribe.

Then there was Saya. She was no ordinary elf. Her father was the leader of a wild elf organization in the Snakewood region. Wild elves were elves without a nation, descendants left behind when the elves made their great retreat. Though these elves still worshipped the elven gods, they no longer obeyed the commands of the various elven royal courts. Thus, many orthodox elves derisively called them wild elves, meaning barbaric, backward elves no different from savages.

(In fact, that was indeed the case. Most wild elves had lost much elven knowledge, and even their political systems had regressed into primitive tribal structures.)

Quite a few wild elf tribes lived in Snakewood. Because Snakewood lay very close to human territory and was not particularly large—only one-fifth the size of Amn—it had long suffered harassment from humans. (Snakewood stood beside the Cloud Peaks and served as an important barrier between Amn and the Western Heartlands.)

As a result, the wild