Northern Eversong Woods, Fairbreeze Village.
As an important transit point linking the north, south, east, and west of Eversong Woods, this village had become a bustling settlement after years of focused development by Quel'Thalas's leadership.
Although the High Elves' population situation meant they had no town-level administrative divisions, Fairbreeze Village, with several thousand permanent residents and over ten thousand transient inhabitants, undoubtedly already had the foot traffic of a small town.
Fairbreeze Village stood at the center of a network of roads leading in every direction. To its south lay the southern forest villages centered around Tranquillien, to its west was Sunsail Anchorage, the High Elves' largest port, and to its east stretched a vast region encompassing the East Sanctum and the Farstriders' headquarters.
As for the north, naturally, that was where the bustling, magnificent High Elf capital-Silvermoon City-stood.
At that moment, the ranger force led by Lireesa had just arrived in Fairbreeze Village for a brief rest, and the passing merchants all watched these spirited rangers with curiosity.
Accustomed to traveling in and out of Silvermoon City throughout the year, they had grown used to their kin there living in a drunken stupor and seldom saw such energetic elves. Even the roadside residents brought their children out to watch their country's most active regular military force.
Temporarily camped outside the village, Charlemagne and the others felt rather uncomfortable with their compatriots staring at them like monkeys on display. Having spent years living in sparsely populated southern Eversong Woods, many of them were encountering such large crowds for the first time.
The old hands Skarren and Yawen shook their heads in amusement at the rookies' curious expressions.
"This is nothing. Save your surprise for when you reach Silvermoon City, with its population of over fifty thousand. That's the most dazzling jewel of our Quel'dorei."
While the rangers crowded around the two veterans asking all sorts of questions, Charlemagne did not join them. Having lived in a city of over ten million people in his previous life, he scoffed at the High Elves' pitiful population.
What's there to be proud of with a total population barely over a hundred thousand... Even a small town in our great China had more people than that.
Of course, elves' fertility was nowhere near that of the short-lived human race. The longer-lived a race was and the stronger its vitality, the more difficult it was for them to produce offspring, with dragons being the most typical example.
These great lizards were guaranteed to enter the epic rank as soon as they reached adulthood, and those with a little more talent had almost no difficulty breaking through to demigod level.
In exchange, however, their birth rate was also tragically low. These great lizards might be good at laying eggs, but unfortunately, most were dead eggs that could not hatch at all, and even the offspring that were born needed a long time to gradually mature.
With the dragons' free-range approach to raising their young, the chances of dying before adulthood were simply too high.
The High Elves' cousins, the Night Elves, were much the same. Although their population was far larger than that of the exiled High Elves thanks to the former Night Empire, the extremely low birth rate brought about by immortality had also troubled Tyrande for years.
Their current population had barely grown since the great war ended ten thousand years ago. In fact, because some of their people had tired of eternal life and chosen to end their own lives, their population was even showing a downward trend.
So there was a reason humans were gradually becoming the world's dominant race. After all, they could breed!
Of course, Quilboar bred even faster than humans. Unfortunately, this savage race fell far too short of humans in intelligence to be competitive.
Besides, there were no Quilboar in the Eastern Kingdoms. Charlemagne even suspected that few High Elves still remembered species native to Kalimdor such as Furbolgs and Quilboar.
The first generation of Highborne who had followed Dath'Remar east across the sea had all died of old age. Apart from a few historians, who among the younger generations of High Elves would care about that humiliating chapter of history?
After all, being exiled by the Night Elf commoners they looked down upon was hardly something to boast about. With the Sunstrider royal family and the Silvermoon Council deliberately downplaying it, ordinary people had no idea they originally came from Kalimdor.
During their half-day rest in Fairbreeze Village, Charlemagne, at Yawen and Skarren's urging, took a group of rangers on a special trip to visit the High Elves' busiest port.
Sunsail Anchorage was not only the High Elves' naval port but also their largest trading port. Here, one could see merchants of other races who were rarely encountered elsewhere.
Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, and even... Goblins. Although the High Elves had not fully opened themselves to the outside world, some caravan traffic was still necessary to keep the goods they produced from going unsold.
Quel'Thalas's fine wines were very popular among humans. After all, smooth elven wines without much of a kick suited the needs of certain nobles perfectly.
Naturally, the Dwarves had always scoffed at this. These short fellows who could never do without a drink had always believed liquor was only worthwhile if it was strong, a view that inevitably reminded Charlemagne of a certain warrior nation from his previous life...
The various races also eagerly sought the High Elves' enchanted equipment and jewelry, which were their best-selling exports.
Unfortunately, the Sun King treasured his own possessions too much, and most high-end enchanted goods circulated only within Quel'Thalas. What they sold abroad were all products of middling to low quality.
Of course, there was one exception among nations-Dalaran.
Because of their long-standing exchanges and cooperation, and because Prince Kael'thas also lived in Dalaran, the Sun King had specifically relaxed the quality restrictions on goods bound for Dalaran. He also turned a blind eye to certain merchants selling high-end enchanted goods there.
As long as the Silvermoon Council did not catch you, your smuggling was a success. This semiofficial smuggling had always infuriated the councilors of the Silvermoon Council.
However, the king was showing some favor to Dalaran out of concern for his son. As the instigators of the prince's exile, the council could hardly take things too far, so they simply let matters take their course.
This also meant that anyone in the human kingdoms who wanted to buy high-quality elven enchanted goods could only head to Dalaran to snap them up, indirectly furthering Dalaran's development.
Antonidas, the shrewd old chief Archmage, was naturally well aware of this. In return, he granted Prince Kael'thas a seat on the Council of Six and permitted the prince to build his own mage tower in Dalaran.
"So these are Goblins and Gnomes? They really do look... unusual."
It was also Sylvanas's first time seeing these two races. With a touch of curiosity, she watched a Goblin and a Gnome of roughly equal height arguing about something, their faces flushed and necks bulging.
Since small caravans occasionally passed through the checkpoint connecting southern Eversong Woods to the Stratholme region, the second Windrunner daughter had seen humans and Dwarves who came to work as blacksmiths. There was even a Dwarven blacksmith in Tranquillien right now.
But as Charlemagne listened to what the little green fellow and the Gnome were arguing about in Common, his expression turned rather peculiar.
These two damned shorties... actually intended to test whose bombs were more powerful at the High Elves' most important port!
(End of chapter)