Chương 71: Elf Bath & Collision Course

POV: Evelisse Ardentia The elf told us it would take three days to reach the elven kingdom, and that she'd take us there tomorrow.

"Hmm, how about the day after, instead?" Milo said.

"We've got to drop... some things off first." He probably meant the two hostages in the house, and that made sense. Once Arkhay sent its representative to Astrea, today or tomorrow, and assuming all went smoothly, we would get word back, hand the two party members over near Astrea, and be done with this. With their people returned and Arkhay's destruction hanging over them, the chances of Astrea not upholding their end of the deal would be close to none.

The elf rose to her feet and stretched, arms overhead, bending to one side and then the other.

"Well, suit yourselves, but I'll expect proper lodging. You're the Dark Lord. Surely this is just one of your storehouses. Where's the mansion?" I opened my mouth, unsure whether to be offended on the house's behalf.

"Uh…" Milo scratched his cheek.

"This is... the place. Where all of us are staying." The elf's face fell.

"What?! I'm expected to sleep in this rundown shack?"

"Hey, this is a huge step up from what we had a few days ago! And it's perfectly appropriate," Milo protested.

"We've got proper bathrooms and everything!"

"Miss Elf," I said, using the same address as the one Milo had used, since she'd refused to give us her name until now.

"You'll have a room of your own. It may not be what you're used to in the elven kingdom, but it's respectable." That seemed to catch her off guard, just slightly; a flicker of surprise at being offered actual hospitality. I suspected the complaining was mostly reflex, that haughty attitude of hers talking; she already knew, as Milo had spelled out, that she hadn't much choice in any of it.

"F-fine." She lifted her chin and pushed the door open.

"Consider your home blessed by an elf's presence." Which was rude, but we followed her regardless. We were met by the dining table, lunch already laid out and waiting; crusty bread rolls, still faintly warm; skewers of seasoned meat, their smell rich and savory enough to fill the whole room; and a scatter of bright fruit alongside. Nyx, Mel, and Lunessa had been talking about something in low voices, and stopped the moment we came in.

"Oh?" The elf's eyes widened.

"You've prepared a meal for me? All of this?"

"No!" Mel jabbed a finger toward a single place setting; two bread rolls, two skewers, an apple, a banana, and a waterskin.

"Yours is right there." The elf dropped into the seat at once and started eating without a word. I wasn't sure whether all elves carried themselves with such entitlement. If they did, I would think the treatment towards us at the elven kingdom would not be pleasant. The rest of us settled in and began to eat. The meal was far quieter than usual, likely due to the presence of a new face, an elf at that, and everyone was unsure on how to act around her without offending her again.

At one point, having finished a bread roll, the elf offered her verdict.

"This bread is subpar. Tastes like it was left to go stale and then baked anyway."

"The meat is..." She finished a skewer in seconds.

"... passable." She bit into the banana next.

"Mm. Sweet. This one's actually good. Though nowhere near as fragrant as the ones from our forest." She savored the rest of it, then picked up the apple, turning it over in her hand and inspecting it critically.

"This one's shaped rather lopsided. Practically a reject." She took a bite anyway.

"... Aggressively mediocre," she declared.

"For all your complaining," Nyx said, still working through a skewer, "you certainly finished them fast enough."

"One shouldn't waste food." The elf crunched into the apple again.

"Did your parents not teach you manners?" Nyx's eye twitched, but she visibly chose not to pursue it, and the meal carried on in an awkward kind of quiet.

"This would be your room," I told the elf. Milo, the elf, and I stood inside what had been Mel's room. After the meal, I had asked Mel whether she'd mind lending it out for a day or two; in the meantime, she'd sleep upstairs with sis and me. The bed up there was large enough for three. It would only be a problem if one of us thrashed about in our sleep, and, fortunately, none of us had that habit.

The elf scanned the room, then wandered in and took stock of the furnishings, from the drawer, the wardrobe, the window, even to the little lamp beside the bed. She said nothing about any of it. Then she pressed a hand flat to the bedsheet, and her fingers sank into the white linen, and I heard a small breath escape her, soft and involuntary, like she'd never felt anything quite like it. She sat down on the edge of the bed. It creaked, and she went rigid for a split second, as though she'd broken something.

Then, cautiously, she smoothed her hand across the sheet again, and lay back, her feet still dangling off the side.

"This is... acceptable," she said. That surprised me. I'd braced for another complaint, something along the lines of cheap linen, or a mattress like a plank of wood. I glanced at Milo. His eyebrows had climbed halfway up his forehead; he'd clearly expected the same and been caught off guard too.

"O... kay? Glad you like it," Milo said.

"Hope this is enough to show we didn't mean you any harm." The elf lifted her head off the bed to look at us.

"You said you have bathrooms as well?" So we led her to the first-floor bathroom, where Milo demonstrated the shower, how it ran, how to switch between warm and cold. It still amazed me, even now; the temperature change was near-instant, and there wasn't a mana crystal in sight anywhere. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Wow!" The elf reached out and touched the warm stream, then drew her hand back and stared at it, her mouth falling open. Then, catching herself, she snatched her hand behind her back and drew herself up straight.

"I-I mean, this is only to be expected, obviously!" I had no idea what sort of dwellings the elven kingdom offered, but I'd never seen a shower quite like this one anywhere. For the elf to claim she'd expected it meant elven homes must boast something even more remarkable, which I had my doubts.

"Do you have a change of clothes?" Sis' voice, behind us. I turned to find her holding out a folded white shirt and pair of shorts. How she'd produced them so quickly, I couldn't know, but there she was. Even Milo blinked.

"Huh? You've got her size, too?"

"I brought clothes in several sizes, though the look the same." Sis stepped forward and pressed the fresh set into the elf's hands.

"Here, take your time." We stepped out and the elf shut the door behind us. A moment later the shower hissed to life, and her voice reached us through the wall again, that same helpless little "Ooh!"

"Is that what I think it is?" Milo asked, as we settled into the chairs in the living room.

"Oh? You caught that?" Sis smiled.

"I watched what you two were doing and figured I'd lean into it. Make the whole thing more convincing." So that was it. Sis had picked up on our efforts to get on the elf's good side, to smooth the way toward her cooperation, and, noticing how taken the girl was with the room and the shower, she'd simply pushed it further.

"Rather clever of you, Milo," she added, a teasing lilt creeping in, "using a method like that. Especially considering you were the one who proposed the other, far more perverted one." Milo rarely struck me as the remarkable sort... well, aside from the first day when he had saved me from Luke, and perhaps when he disregarded his injuries and still fought Ywain a while back... but these past few days, something about him had shifted, somehow. He'd gone with sis to recover the rare materials.

He'd saved Nyx and me by bringing down the wyvern. He'd talked the elf into helping us, and then won her over through decency rather than force, when brute-forcing it would have been easier. He'd become... dependable. The thought settled into me, and a quiet warmth spread out from somewhere in my chest, gentle and pleasant, the kind that made me want to keep looking at him.

"Um, is there something on my face?" Milo asked, and that snapped me clean out of whatever I'd fallen into. Goodness, what is wrong with me? That was mortifying; sitting there, openly staring at him.

"N-nothing!" Nothing came to mind by way of excuse, so I dropped my gaze to the dining table instead.

"I just... nothing." I could practically feel sis' delighted little smirk aimed at me.

"Well, I'll head up now." She rose, far too pleased with herself.

"You two have fun." She was leaving me alone with Milo, which was thoughtful of her, in its way. But I couldn't possibly manage that now, not when I would embarrass myself even further. So I shot up out of my seat.

"I-I'll go take a bath!" And I hurried up the stairs after sis, leaving a thoroughly confused Milo behind in the living room. POV: The Hero, Ywain Valebryn I was walking up a pretty smooth trail, with greenery on both sides; there were huge trees with trunks as broad as watchtowers. Naturally, I would not venture inside the forest. I would just walk straight, like what Lulu had told me. Somewhere ahead lay the hidden passage, the one that was supposed to lead into Silvanis, the elven kingdom.

I had spent a full day with Lulu doing... what was it again? I couldn't really remember. My memory was hazy, but oddly, I couldn't care less about what we had done. The day after, which was today, she had told me to show up to Silvanis and slay the monster that had been slowly corrupting the place. When I'd pressed her for details about this monster, she'd only waved it off, saying it wouldn't be a problem. The last of that conversation surfaced as I climbed.

"Defeat the monster, and the elves will recognize you as their Hero," she'd said, lying sideways across her bed, her head propped on one hand, posing like she was sitting for a portrait while she was eating the grapes.

"For centuries, no human has set foot in Silvanis. Walk in, prove you're their prophesied savior, and they'll be only too glad to lend you their aid."

"What sort of aid? Do they have a legendary weapon, like the Mooncleaver? Could they spare some elite mage, someone with real power?"

"That, I couldn't tell you, but it hardly matters. They'll be able to help." I stayed quiet.

"Are you doubting me, Ywain?" She'd sat up then, unfolded herself off the bed, and crossed the room to me.

"You know I'd never send you toward anything that might harm you or waste your time." And she'd laid one soft hand against my cheek, her face a breath from mine, those golden eyes lit from somewhere behind them and fixed on my eyes.

"This is only to secure our victory. As I told you, we may not even need the elves, but it would cost you so little to do this anyway. So why not?" Her thumb had moved once along my jaw.

"It'll be worth it. I promise." And the doubt had gone quiet, the way it always did. So here I was, an hour into the climb. The whole way up, my mind kept circling back to Milo, to end him once and for all. I didn't have as many blessings as I'd carried into the last fight, but I still had the Mooncleaver and the Eye of Love. Though, the Eye was its own problem. To use it, I'd have to arrange a meeting with Evelisse, or with the sister and get one of them to look into it directly.

Using it mid-fight might not work well; Lulu had been clear that it wasn't mind control. The target could still doubt, still hesitate, still resist, which meant I'd need time. Time to plant the seed and let it grow before I struck. Working out how to engineer that was occupying most of my thoughts, which was why I didn't notice the person until she walked straight into me; w e went down together, her weight coming down on top of me as we hit the trail.

"I-I'm sorry!" The first thing I registered was the scent of her; clean and green, like crushed leaves and cool water. Then the rest of her, blonde hair in twin tails that fell to her shoulders, wide bright-green eyes, and, unmistakably, a pair of long tapered ears. An elf. She seemed to grasp the awkwardness of our position at the same moment I did, and scrambled off me. I got to my feet.

"Are you... a human?" Her face went pale with shock, like she was looking at something she hadn't seen in a very long time.

"Y-you can't be here…you're not supposed to be anywhere near here!"

"What are you—""N-never mind that! We have to run. One of Ladon's heads is up ahead, we need to—" A sound cut her off; a low, wet, dragging hiss, closing fast. Then it came into view: a serpentine dragon, long-bodied and glistening, a single great head weaving at the front of it. Just the one head, though its neck trailed back into a body far too large for it.

"Oh no, come with me!" The elf seized my wrist, braced to run, but I stopped her.

"I've got this." I drew the Mooncleaver, and its runes flared radiant blue along the blade. The serpent-dragon lunged. I cast instant-freeze; frost bloomed outward and caught it mid-strike, locking it rigid in the air. Then I stepped in and swept the Mooncleaver clean through its neck, and the severed head dropped away in a shower of shattered, frozen fragments that scattered across the ground. I glanced back. The elf was staring, wide-eyed, her mouth open, as though she couldn't fathom anyone doing that so easily.

"Is that... the Mooncleaver?" Her voice dropped to something close to awe.

"Then that means you're—" I smiled.

"Yes, I'm the Hero."