Now that he had a fairly precise idea of the current date, Charlemagne naturally needed to speed up his plans.
Under Alleria's worried gaze, Charlemagne spent the entire dinner frowning in thought.
Vereesa, the youngest Windrunner sister, pouted unhappily when she saw her sister showing so much concern for an outsider. Ever since that fool Charlemagne had come to his senses, her eldest sister had been devoting more and more attention to him, and even spent far less time playing with her.
Lirath, the only son of the Windrunner family, also kept darting sly glances between his eldest sister and Charlemagne. The clever youngest sibling had naturally noticed the romantic tension between them.
"Alleria, when are you and Big Brother Charlemagne getting married?"
"Uh..."
"Huh?"
The question Lirath suddenly asked out of mischief drew different reactions from everyone in the room.
Vereesa, the third sister, was the first to show open hostility, fixing Charlemagne with a fierce stare as though she wanted to give the pest who had stolen her eldest sister's affection a humane extermination-by elven standards.
Lor'themar, seated by the wall, wore an expression that said, "Just as I expected." But given his lack of presence and where he was sitting, hardly anyone noticed.
Sylvanas pinched her little brother's cheek reproachfully, then fondly rubbed it when he grimaced.
Of the two people at the center of it all, Alleria immediately lowered her head, her face bright red, while Charlemagne, embarrassment written all over his face, ducked his head and started gnawing on his bread.
"Lirath."
Fortunately, Lireesa, the head of the household, spoke up in an even voice. That utterly ordinary call of his name made Lirath, who had still been joking with his second sister, sit up straight at once.
Although Lireesa had poured all her love into her four children after her husband's death, she was clearly no indulgent mother. In fact, she held her own children to stricter standards than Charlemagne and Lor'themar.
As a result, Lirath had both respected and feared his stern mother since childhood. He never dared disobey her.
Seeing Lirath assume an attentive posture, Lireesa nodded in satisfaction.
"Your eldest sister and Big Brother Charlemagne have been adults for less than five hundred years. It's still too early for them to marry. This is the time for them to work toward their goals, so don't unsettle the two of them."
"Yes..."
With no gossip left to enjoy, Lirath immediately wilted, while Lireesa's words left the two people concerned both delighted and disappointed.
There were two things to take from the Windrunner family head's words.
First, Lireesa did not oppose their relationship and was even optimistic about their marriage.
Second, marrying too early was out of the question. They would at least have to get through the period of striving toward their goals and settle down first.
Five hundred years... Is that what it means to be long-lived elves? She casually talks about five hundred years, while a human's entire lifespan is only around a hundred.
Lireesa's words left Charlemagne somewhat reflective. He and Alleria were both over three hundred years old now, which only counted as young adulthood for elves, who came of age at a hundred.
But Charlemagne had only fully come to his senses ten years ago. To him, the experiences of those preceding three hundred-odd years were like flowers glimpsed through mist, with little sense of reality.
These ten years had already felt like a considerable stretch of time. The thought of having several thousand more years to live left him feeling rather overwhelmed for a moment.
In fact, life over these past ten years had gradually helped him understand why the Kingdom of Quel'Thalas felt so strange to him.
Although he had spent all these years near Windrunner Village, far from Quel'Thalas's capital of Silvermoon City, the attitudes of the people around him had still given him some basis for understanding high elf society.
Fond of pleasure and laid-back about life-that was his general impression of the entire high elf kingdom.
But that was inevitable. Humans had a mere hundred years or so to live, so they fought for every moment, seeking to live the most brilliant lives they could within their limited time.
Elves were different. With lifespans stretching over several thousand years, if they maintained the same fast-paced lives as humans, they would probably drive themselves mad within a few centuries.
Long-lived races had their own ways of living. Slowing down and enjoying life had become commonplace in high elf society. Rather, elves who worked as hard to better themselves as Charlemagne and Alleria were the oddities in Quel'Thalas.
With their long lifespans, elves lacked a sense of urgency and took their time with everything. Even their training proceeded at the same unhurried pace.
This also gave some outsiders the mistaken impression that elves were less talented than other, shorter-lived races.
According to Lireesa, twenty years ago, a visiting delegation from the human magical kingdom of Dalaran had come for a limited course of study. Upon experiencing the Sunwell's tremendous power, they had been utterly amazed.
But one young man, who had supposedly published a paper on time magic at the age of twelve, had raised a question.
"Why, with such an enormous source of arcane energy at their disposal, do the high elves have fewer high-circle mages than expected?"
The question had left both Sun King Anasterian and the Silvermoon Council deeply embarrassed for a time. Fortunately, forgetfulness was another trait of long-lived races.
Not long after the delegation left, the elves had put the matter entirely out of their minds. Had Charlemagne not asked about it, even Lireesa would have forgotten it.
Published a paper at twelve? Twenty years ago? Why does that sound so familiar? He should be someone with a name I'd recognize, shouldn't he?
At the time, Charlemagne had frowned and thought carefully for a while, but even after searching his memories at length, he still could not recall exactly who it was. He only remembered that he seemed to have heard about it before.
Forget it. I'm thinking too far ahead. Azeroth will enter an age of turmoil in ten years. I can worry about my lifespan if I manage to survive.
Ever since Aegwynn, the Guardian of the Council of Tirisfal, had slain the Dark Titan Sargeras, and the dwarves' War of the Three Hammers, which had drawn the attention of the whole world, had ended, all of Azeroth had been unusually peaceful. Nothing major had happened in over two hundred years.
Among the high elves, too, nothing else had disturbed the peace apart from the occasional small-scale war with the Amani Trolls over their ancestral feud.
Yet no one knew that this period of calm was actually nurturing a tremendous storm. When Medivh fell completely under Sargeras's control and awoke from his slumber, that storm would gradually begin to unfold.
That evening, Charlemagne left behind his younger brother A-Qiang and the hostile Vereesa, taking Alleria with him to Windrunner Spire to the south, where they gazed absently at the sacred tree Thas'alah not far away.
Leaning against each other, the two maintained a tacit silence, a warm atmosphere lingering between the young lovers.
Lireesa's words that day amounted to formal recognition of their feelings for each other. Charlemagne felt both delighted and uncertain about Alleria's love for him.
He did not know what effect his alteration of history would have on the future, or whether the bronze dragons, the guardians of time, would come looking for him. But as he looked at his beautiful, lovely girlfriend beside him, his resolve firmed.
Leaving aside whether this tiny change will have major consequences, if I, a transmigrator, am afraid of everything at every turn, then I might as well never have transmigrated. I'm going to find a way to change Azeroth's fate anyway. What would backing down now amount to? Let the changes start here!
(End of chapter)