Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 12 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

An Expedient Species

Whenever there is smoke rising above a forest, it usually means one of two things. The first is that there’s a fire. The second is that a group of travelers are probably just preparing a meal.

On that particular day, I stumbled across the latter.

There were lots of wagons and people when I arrived.

They seemed to be setting up camp. Beside the wagons, there were a number of people putting up tents, others were carrying and preparing cooking ingredients, and several were patrolling the area, carrying firearms—it must have been quite a large household. In my immediate vicinity, I could already see that there were more than ten tents, and it looked like the number of people was nearly double that.

“……”

The longer I watched them, the more I realized how strange and imposing the people seemed.

Every one of them, without exception, had cloth covering their mouth, and they were all wearing thick spectacles over their eyes. They wore matching outfits with long sleeves, exposing almost no skin. The men and the women were dressed the same, and it was almost like I was looking at several copies of the same person.

They seemed like a very peculiar bunch, which was why I ended up standing near their campsite for a while, my head tilted in confusion.

That was when one of the people patrolling the campsite noticed me.

“A traveler?” It was a man’s voice. “This area is dangerous. You’d better not come too close.”

My, my…

“Is there danger nearby or something?”

“We are the danger.”

I see… Apparently, it’s not just their appearance that’s imposing.

“Well, there’s no real reason why I need to approach a bunch of strangers I just met on the road in the middle of the forest, so I don’t mind leaving, but…” I looked at the many wagons I could see lined up behind the man. “What is it that you and your group are transporting?”

He turned around, following my gaze.

They were right in the middle of unloading their cargo from the caravan.

From one of the wagons, one after another, the cargo stepped out using their own legs. They took faltering steps, their hands tied together with rope. They disembarked with hollow, lifeless looks on their faces.

Others were carried off another wagon on stretchers.

Their blank faces were staring up at the sky.

Every last one of them was wearing an identical expression.

After watching the proceedings for a short while, the man turned back to me.

“Ever see anything like ’em before? They’re dark elves.”

Then he revealed himself to be a dark elf hunter.

I’m not that knowledgeable about the elven race.

I know they typically have blond hair and blue eyes, that their ears are a little long, that members of either sex are often beautiful, and that they have perpetual youth and longevity, or something close to it, living several hundred years or more. They truly are a fortunate bunch to be blessed with such attractive qualities, and it is said that they primarily live in forests far away from human settlements.

Dark elves, on the other hand, are not a subspecies of elves but rather a separate, closely related species.

Their hair is silver, and their eyes are gold. Their ears are also long, and their skin is dark. But aside from a swap in color palette, the differences between elves and dark elves pretty much end there. Dark elves are also known to live in forests and have long life spans.

If there was one glaring difference between the lives of elves and dark elves, it’s that dark elves are much more likely to suffer from persecution. For some reason, it’s a common belief among humans that all dark elves are evil.

I’ve met many dark elves over the years, but even before my very first encounter with one, I was aware of their unfortunate stigma.

It’s a funny thing, isn’t it?

Back then, I was barely five years old, and yet…

“Come here, Elaina. Hold Mama’s hand.”

…The day I first encountered a dark elf was the same day a little exhibition was being held in my hometown.

Walking down the street, there were people, people, and more people, all holding books. All down the street and into the town square, there were many tents set up side by side. Fluttering everywhere were signs proclaiming the wonderful plot twist of some popular book, or that a certain book had astonished its readers, or that everyone who read a particular book had been deeply moved, or imploring customers to purchase a certain book because it was funny.

It was a festival held by book lovers for book lovers.

I was taking part in the festivities, being led by the hand by my mother.

“Mama?” I asked. “Where is Niche’s book? I don’t see it.”

“Hmm? Niche’s book?” My mother gave a noncommittal answer: “…You already have a copy of Niche’s book, don’t you?”

“I want more than one.”

“Oh, why?”

“One for preservation, one for propagation, and one for appreciation.”

“Now, where did you learn words like that?”

My mother shrugged and smiled. Then she laughed in exasperation at her daughter, who only ever read that one book. She assertively grabbed books from the tents that lined the street, purchased them one after another, and tossed them into the bag on my back for me. “Read a wider variety of books!” she demanded.

Even as I protested that I wanted another copy of Niche’s book, I was filled with euphoria each time I felt the weight of a new book on my shoulders. I was easy to please back then.

“Is there anything else you want, Elaina?”

“The Adventures of Niche.”

“Right, anything other than that?”

“Oh. Well…”

I held my mother’s hand, chattering away incessantly, wrapped in feelings of slight exhaustion and excessive joy. Together, we walked through the festival that they hold once a year, even to this day.

That’s when it happened.

“—Ah!”

My eyes landed on one spot in particular.

I let out a small gasp.

Across the crowds of people coming and going down the street, I could see that leaning against the wall of a house was a lone woman engrossed in reading a book. Even though she was wearing her hood low over her head, maybe because I was so short at the time, I could see her beautiful face clearly.

The fact that I remember her well even now is surely because she was an enchantingly beautiful person. Either that, or maybe because underneath her hood, she was hiding features that differed from those of normal humans.

“…?”

The woman noticed my eyes on her and looked up from her book.

Her golden eyes looked down at me. The long ears under her hood twitched.

The person standing there was a dark elf.

“……”

I remember being surprised that the first dark elf I had ever seen in my life was blending in unexpectedly well in town. I had read in a book that dark elves lived in the forest, far from human settlements.

But they must not have liked to attract too much attention—the moment our eyes met, the elf snapped the book she had been reading shut and placed an index finger against her lips.

She gestured for me to keep quiet.

She made me promise not to reveal her existence to anyone else. She must have really hated attracting attention.

Either that, or perhaps there were people in my hometown who would take issue with a dark elf being there.

So I nodded to her.

“What’s the matter, Elaina?”

My mother was puzzled when I stopped abruptly and stared off into space.

She must have been even more perplexed when she followed my gaze toward the wall of that house. Because there wasn’t anyone there—certainly not a dark elf.

The dark elf had vanished without a trace.

As if she had never existed in the first place, she had disappeared like a momentary vision or something from a dream.

I knew that even if I told my mother what I had just seen, she wouldn’t have believed me.

So I shook my head and adjusted my hold on my mother’s hand.

“Um, nothing.”

Then we started walking again.

Assuming my childhood memory was correct, I was five years old the first time I encountered a dark elf.

The second encounter was about a month ago.

I had arrived at a city, in the center of which I could see a beautiful fountain.

Pillars of water stretching toward the sky opened and bloomed like flower petals at their zenith, before breaking apart. They turned into a sprinkling of drops that scattered and fell into the pool below, causing ripples on the surface.

This fountain plaza was apparently often used as a meeting place, regardless of the weather or the day of the week. It was unfortunately overcast the day I arrived, and it was an afternoon on a weekday, but still there were all sorts of people meeting up in front of the bubbling fountain.

“Hey, honey!”

“I’ve been waiting for you, darling! Well then, shall we go?”

There were, for example, a man and woman who were obviously in very good spirits.

“Ya brought the stuff we talked about, right?”

“Heh-heh-heh, ’course I did, boss…”

Or there were a couple of guys who gave off a slightly suspicious air.

“No way!”

“So cool!”

“Super cute!”

Not to mention the gaggle of chattering girls idling nearby with nowhere else to go, making empty conversation.

Such sights unfolded before me, as they always did.

However, this fountain seemed to have an aspect to it that differentiated it from a simple meeting place.

There were also people there who had come to the plaza for a different purpose.

“…Please, let my husband’s illness be cured.”

A coin hit the water’s surface with a splash, accompanied by words of longing.

“Please, let me find love.”

“Please, let my missing friend turn up.”

“I want to be rich.”

One after another they came. I watched the fountain from a distance for a while before I noticed it, but from time to time, a person would appear and toss coins into the fountain along with wishes such as these.

All sorts of people offered up their prayers. Men, women, the elderly, and children all cast their money and their wishes into the fountain.

“Please, let me…”

Among them were mysterious women wearing hoods pulled down low over their faces, like the dark elf I had encountered in my childhood.

What on earth are they doing? I wondered.

The person who cleared up my confusion was the proprietor of an inn that was situated within view of the fountain.

When I wandered inside, I was welcomed by the proprietor with a somewhat puzzling greeting that made it seem like he had something he wanted to tell me. “This is the luckiest inn in the city,” he said.

“Does something good happen when you throw coins into that fountain?” I asked.

“Oh, don’t you know the legend of the fountain?”

Those were the words I got in response.

A legend.

“What would that be?”

“Oh my, you really don’t know, do you? That’s rare these days…”

“I mean, I am a traveler, so…” Of course I’d be unfamiliar with local rumors.

“I see.” The innkeeper nodded. “The fountain over there is known as a lucky fountain, you see. And it’s said that if you throw coins into it, your wish will come true.”

The innkeeper seemed to be accustomed to such questions, because after that, he told me the legend of the fountain, or whatever, in such vivid detail that it was like he was reading from prepared notes.

It was a tale from several decades ago, when the city was still locked in a war with one of its neighbors.

A certain woman, wishing for the safety of her lover, who had gone to the front as a soldier, tossed a coin into the fountain and offered up her prayer. Day after day, she visited the fountain and tossed a coin in. No matter how badly the city fell into ruin, nor how much strain she was under, the woman traveled to the fountain every single day to toss a coin in and pray for the safety of the man.

Even when she was robbed, even when water ceased to flow from the fountain, she continued tossing in coins.

From an outside perspective, her habit likely seemed incredibly strange, and eventually, one of the city’s residents tapped the woman on the shoulder.

“Hey, you. If you’ve got so much money to spare, give some to me.”

Back then, resources were hard to come by, and it was a time when everyone was struggling to make ends meet. To some, the woman’s actions were simply wasteful.

No one could tell that the woman herself had been pushing her own budget to the limit by making repeated trips to the fountain. In truth, she couldn’t afford to spare a single coin for others.

“Sure, of course. I don’t mind.”

But the woman offered money to the man who had tapped her on the shoulder.

The following day and the day after that, every time she visited the fountain, the man and his friends or members of his family gathered and would pester her for money.

If someone wanted clothes, she would bring them clothes. If someone asked for bread, she gave them bread. If there was anyone wanting medicine, she gave them some of hers. The woman distributed a great many things to the people of the city, free of charge.

“Why do you hand out so many things?”

One day, when the woman went to toss her coin into the fountain as always, a local asked her this.

What reward could she possibly be getting from her actions?

“As long as I am reunited with my love, I don’t need anything else,” she answered with a smile on her face.

“I believe the prayers I have offered up, and any blessings I’ve given to others, will come back around and will certainly bring me good fortune one day.”

After that, the woman continued to pray every day. With her compassionate heart, she continued giving hope to all the people of the city and continued praying.

She kept it up until the day her true love returned home.

“That fountain over there is the same fountain from the story,” concluded the proprietor of the inn, finishing the tale. With a satisfied expression, as if he had accomplished something, the innkeeper asked me one question: “How was that?”

How was it? I’m not sure how to answer.

“That story seemed kind of pointless…”

In the end, the people of the city just pestered the woman for money and stuff, and the woman herself seemed damaged and spent the whole story wasting her coins. It does seem like you found a pretty convenient way to turn it into a heartwarming tale, though.

“How can you say that?! A great number of people were helped thanks to that woman! Thanks to her, the residents of the city found the energy to go on, and they managed to supply logistical support to the army at the front. After all that, one of the men to whom she showed generosity even ended up saving her lover in battle! It was an incredible plot twist!”

“Uh-huh…” At that point, I let out a tired sigh. “By the way, how much of that story is true?”

The more I heard, the more it sounded like a fabrication. It was too tidy and frankly seemed a far cry from a true story; it had all the signs of a work of fiction. That’s why I launched that critical question at the innkeeper.

What sort of coldhearted human would want to sully his neat little story? That’s right, it’s me.

“Ha-ha-ha! What are you talking about?” the innkeeper asked with a cheerful smile. “It’s all fiction!”

So apparently, it’s all fiction…

……

Hmm?

“Fiction, you say?”

“Well, of course! It’s true that our city did go to war, but if there had really been a strange woman tossing coins into the fountain every day, some bad actors definitely would have taken advantage of her. I even looked through the records of that time, and it seems no such woman ever existed.”

“Right…”

“As a matter of fact, the tale I just told you was apparently a story written by some nameless author who had been inspired by the fountain. A woman tosses coins into a fountain, and that brings blessings to many people in the city, and her true love returns to her side. The author seems to have been struck by the idea of all those small connections shifting things in a major way.”

“And ultimately, it allows this inn to be profitable, is that right?”

“Truly, it is the small connections in life.”

I see. So it certainly seems true that this is the luckiest inn in the city.

“By the way, how much is it for a four-night stay?”

As I handed my check-in form to the proprietor, I took a peek in my wallet. Inside was a single gold coin and several silver ones. I had plenty of money to spare.

The innkeeper answered me.

“Four nights will be one gold coin.”

I had nothing to spare.

“……” I stared at the innkeeper, narrowing my eyes in irritation. “If this is such a profitable, lucky inn, then surely you’ll have no problem lowering the price a little bit…?”

But the innkeeper laughed cheerfully.

“Ha-ha-ha! My dear customer, I’ll be in a bind if you don’t pay an amount befitting our good fortune.”

Ultimately, I begrudgingly wasted my gold coin, then headed out to do some sightseeing.

There were a number of other tourist attractions in this city aside from the aforementioned fountain. For example, if I went down to the city’s canals, I could take a pleasure cruise and gaze at the colorful cityscape. There were art galleries, museums, and theaters lined up on the waterway, along with a number of stores associated with famous authors. The city had countless other gorgeous sights to see.

It was obvious that the more I walked around, the more I would fall in love with this city. And I had a feeling that my four-night, five-day stay in this place would go by in a flash.

On my first day in town, I went down to the canals.

Come to think of it, about half the routes through the city were canals.

The sights I could see from the canals made it seem as though the city’s main thoroughfare had been replaced right where it was by water. It was a strange and beautiful thing. I flowed right past multicolored houses of blue, orange, yellow, and green in my little gondola.

“All right now, I’m a professional city guide, so don’t worry. It’s gonna be smooth sailing!” the female gondolier reassured me as she steered her little boat.

With a series of exaggerated gestures, she showed me the city.

“Now, Lady Witch, kindly look to your left! There you will see the most famous site in this city, the wish-granting fountain.”

From the canal, I could see the fountain in question spraying water up into the sky. It was a thrilling sight, and close enough that it seemed like the water might rain down on our boat.

“Ooh.” I played along and clapped my hands.

“……”

While I was clapping, I spotted the hooded woman whom I had seen in front of the fountain earlier, happily holding hands with a man. I didn’t know what she had wished for, but…was it possible that her wish had already come true?

The gondolier paddled her oar again. “Now if you’ll kindly look to your right!”

She informed me, “The building you can see over there is the city art museum! Visiting a place like that will surely make you seem very sophisticated.”

“That’s a pretty rough description…”

“Sorry, I only know the superficial details about a lot of these places…” The gondolier hung her head bashfully. According to her, she was new at the job. “I don’t have much experience as a tour guide yet.”

“I can tell…”

“Plus, I’m not quite myself today…” The gondolier let out a sigh. Her hands stopped paddling the oar, and even the ripples on the water’s surface settled down.

Hmm, I wonder what’s up?

“Kindly look over there.”

She saw my confusion and pointed right at a gondola jetty.

It looked like the place we’d soon be arriving at. But a person wearing a hood low over their head was waiting there. Guessing from the person’s sturdy build, it was likely a man. He was obviously a suspicious individual, and moreover, he was holding a bouquet of flowers in his hand, so it was fair to assume he was a sketchy character.

Well then, who on earth could this hooded figure be?

“And if you direct your attention over there, you’ll see my stalker.”

The gondolier’s eyes were virtually blank.

“Um…you don’t have to pretend he’s another tourist attraction.”

“Miss Witch… Recently, a suspicious man in a hood like that one has been going around proposing to every cute girl in town, so please be careful.”

“The way you’re acting, are you speaking from experience?”

“Well, something like that.” The gondolier sighed again, very deeply. “But I think it’s probably going to happen to you, too, Miss Witch…”

“Uh…”

What a terribly unprincipled man…

And then after that, the gondola very, very slowly pulled up to the jetty, and events unfolded roughly as the gondolier had imagined they would.

“Hey, you! You’re cute! Marry me!”

In what I assumed was a simple miscalculation, the man in the hood did not so much as glance at the gondolier. Instead, he tried to present me with a ring. He did it so smoothly that it was as if he had been waiting to propose to me the whole time.

But the fact that the ring was inscribed with the words FOR MY BELOVED GONDOLIER laid bare his utter lack of follow-through.

“No, thank you.” I disembarked from the gondola without looking at the man. “Please find someone else to marry. I may not look like it, but I am a traveling witch. I’m afraid I don’t have the slightest interest in love affairs.”

“That ruthlessness is just perfect!” he replied. I wondered which part of my rejection I had miscommunicated. “Truly, a cute but strong girl like you would be great!” he continued. “I’m sure all my countrymen will be jealous.” I was sure I had turned him down cold, but the man seemed to grow even more excited.

“Urgh!”

I recoiled, physically and mentally.

But the man in the hood didn’t seem deterred by that. He stood up and held the ring out to me again. “Let’s get married!”

And then…

“Please stop, mister! You’re bothering my customer!” The gondolier shakily stepped in between us to stop him.

How professional…!

“Please don’t interfere!” the man objected.

“Same to you! Don’t interfere with my business! Stop proposing to every woman who arrives on the gondola docks! It’s annoying!” The gondolier was fuming.

“I’ll stop as soon as one of you—either, honestly—accepts my proposal!”

“Absolutely not! I’d rather die!” The gondolier turned away.

“Oh, I would also rather die,” I added from behind the gondolier.

I would have expected a decent man to be a little hurt at that point.

But Mister Hood was apparently far from a decent man.

“Still won’t accept, huh…? Then I have no choice! I’ll take you by force!!!”

After that incredibly creepy declaration, he began to approach us.

But the moment he moved, something mysterious happened.

“Hup!”

Now, how do I describe this? Suddenly, a gust of wind blew down the gondola jetty, somehow buffeting only the hooded man. It swept him up, leaving only the ring behind.

“What in the world…?”

The man fell straight into the water. He sent up a sizable splash, but in another mysterious development, the water sprayed everywhere but neatly avoided me and the gondolier.

That almost seemed like magic…

“I think he’ll settle down a little bit after that.”

Well, I suppose I did wave my wand, after all.

I peered down into the water as I put my wand away.

The man came back up immediately.

“Feisty, aren’t you? I knew it. All my brothers will want one just like you!”

I hadn’t been able to tell because he was wearing the hood, but the man had an unexpectedly handsome face. He was attractive enough that if he didn’t do anything weird and knew how to keep his mouth closed, I could imagine some women actually giving him the time of day.

“It seems that for now, I am defeated!” Still energetic despite being soaked to the bone, the man then added with a nod, “Until we meet again!” and disappeared under the water.

“Um…”

The man, who had suddenly appeared and disappeared just like a tempest, never resurfaced.

“Thank you so much, Miss Witch!” The gondolier sighed in relief. “How can I possibly repay you…?”

“It was no big deal.”

“Take this, with my gratitude.” She picked up the ring that had fallen nearby and pressed it into my hand.

……

“Wasn’t it made especially for you?”

“Oh, but he handed it to you.”

“I don’t want it, though…”

“Honestly, I don’t want it either…”

There was a minor disagreement on the gondola dock, but ultimately, it seemed fate had decided the ring was mine.

I went back to my sightseeing after that, but thoughts of the strange man kept flickering into my mind and wouldn’t disperse.

Truth be told, I had been the tiniest bit curious about him ever since catching a glimpse of his face.

Understand that this was absolutely not because he was an attractive guy and certainly not because water had been dripping alluringly off his gorgeous body. I definitely hadn’t fallen in love with him at first sight. Perish the thought.

His hair had been silver. His eyes had been gold. His skin had been dark.

And the ears of the man who had disappeared into the water had been a little bit longer than those of ordinary humans.

He was a member of the race I’d had the chance to glimpse only once before.

He was a dark elf.

Over the course of my travels, I had never had a chance to interact with a dark elf one-on-one.

This was a unique opportunity, and there were all sorts of things I wanted to talk to him about. But I never saw him again after our first encounter.

On my way back to the inn, I saw townspeople in front of the fountain as always, tossing in coins and making wishes. The legend of the fountain seemed to hold true.

They were there on the first day, and the second day, and the third day, always.

Every day, when I set out from the inn to go sightseeing, or when I came back, I was met with the same sight, over and over again. As if they were trapped in a loop of stopped time, the people kept sincerely offering up their prayers day after day.

“Please, let me—”

Of course, the hooded woman was there as well.

I had no way of knowing just what she was wishing for, and it didn’t seem worth going out of my way to ask her, but since I had looked under the hood of the man who had made advances on me at the gondola dock, somehow or other, I couldn’t help feeling like the praying woman must also be a dark elf.

“Please, let me—”

After making her prayer, the woman dexterously fiddled with a coin on the tip of her fingers. She spun it around and around, then nodded in apparent satisfaction and flicked the coin with her thumb, sending it flying into the fountain.

The thing that made her seem different was probably the fact that she performed this ritualistic action almost every day.

Then the woman joined hands with a different man from the day before and walked away from the fountain—apparently this woman whose appearance I couldn’t see very well had a lot of love affairs, for she joined hands with a different man every day.

If I get the chance, I probably ought to try to talk to her—

With that thought, I set out for another day of sightseeing.

That was the fourth day of my stay.

The next day would be my final day in the city.

“—My husband’s illness is cured! It’s a miracle!”

Another woman arrived at the fountain, staggering unsteadily as she passed me, then kneeled down on the spot and looked up at the pillars of water with tears streaming down her face.

Apparently—

—the act of tossing coins into the fountain might not be entirely futile.

Maybe if I also toss in a coin and make a wish that I may be able to talk to a dark elf, that dark elf might make another convenient appearance?

I briefly considered it, but it wasn’t something worth wishing for, so I gave up on the idea.

That day, I went to the national art gallery, but when I emerged after soaking up the atmosphere of intelligence in the gallery, it had begun to drizzle, so in order to avoid the weather, I ended up holing up in a nearby café.

I sat there all afternoon, in a window seat, listening to the sound of the rain while engrossed in my reading.

Even as afternoon turned to evening, the rain outside the window did not stop.

“……”

And—

At that point, I was convinced I had been right and that there was no point in wishing I might be able to talk to a dark elf.

Feeling relieved that I had not wasted a coin, I clapped my book shut and left the café.

I put up my umbrella and walked through the rainy city. The big drops of pouring rain drowned out the sound of people’s footsteps and obstructed my field of vision.

Even so, I was able to clearly see the woman ahead of me.

Apparently, the people of this city weren’t all that kind—because they were avoiding the woman entirely, just as they were avoiding the puddles that had formed on the street.

Perhaps they didn’t want to get caught up in anything troublesome.

No one offered the woman an umbrella.

No one except for me, the foreigner.

“—Are you all right?”

Directly under my umbrella lay the hooded figure of the woman who had been offering up prayers in front of the fountain for the last several days. She appeared to be breathing. Her gold eyes were looking my way. Her silver hair fell gently across her dark skin.

Her long ears were exposed through a gap in her hood.

There before me was a dark elf.

“My name is Emery. As you can see, I am a dark elf of noble birth.”

As she fluffed her hair gently after getting out of the bath, the woman, flushed with warmth, appeared before me again. The way she proclaimed herself to be of noble birth made me think she might be a little off.

In the end, since I had spoken to her, there was no way I could leave her there on the wet road. So I had ended up taking her back to my room. I’d given her food and water to drink, and let her use my bath.

After I waited several minutes, she’d reappeared, spouting that puzzling line.

It goes without saying that I raised an eyebrow.

“Do noble-born dark elves have a penchant for lying in the road?”

“You thought I was doing that because I liked it?” Emery shook her head in disbelief. Then she took a seat on the bed and placed a hand on her chest. “Nonetheless, you helped me. Thank you very much for lending me clothes as well.” Then she moved the hand that was on her chest up close to her face.

“Not at all. Don’t mention it.”

“By the way, this blouse smells wonderful…”

“Could I ask you not to sniff my clothes?”

“But the chest area is a little ti—”

“Huh?”

“Nothing at all.”

Really, how rude.

While I was sulking, I glanced outside. Raindrops pelted the window. The sky was still overcast, and it looked like the rain wouldn’t stop for a while yet.

By the way—

“Do you have some place to go?” I asked the dark elf.

“I do not.” She shook her head immediately.

“And you don’t have a change of clothes, do you?”

“As you can see, I do not.”

She threw out her chest. My blouse groaned wearily as it strained at the seams.

Stop that.

“By the way, how about money?”

“To my great shame, I am penniless.”

“……”

Which meant, in other words, that if I were to turn her out at that point, saying something like, “I let you use my bath, so you have no further business here, right? Please leave,” there was only one fate she could meet.

She would probably end up lying on the road in the rain again. I was certain Emery would find herself facedown on the ground, reminiscing about her hot shower.

That would be far too cruel. Even I have a heart, after all.

“Well then, just for tonight, I can let you stay here.”

Wasn’t it just the most natural thing in the world that such words rushed out of my mouth?

“It’s fine, you don’t need to worry about the money. But to pay me back, I want you to tell me about yourself.”

So I decided that if I could get her to tell me about her hometown and such, I wouldn’t mind letting her stay the night. After all, she was a dark elf. A dark elf! A member of the race with whom I had never had a proper conversation. Such opportunities rarely came around.

Well now, I wonder just what sort of tales I’m about to hear? I’m sure I’m going to get some very interesting and unusual stories. No doubt about that.

I lent her my ear. I listened carefully, excited to hear what sort of stories she was going to share.

“Tell you everything about myself to pay you back…?”

But what on earth do you think happened next?

From that point on, her behavior abruptly became very strange. Her eyes teared up, but there was an eerie light behind them, and she let out a long, hot sigh. There was something odd about her.

“O-of course, I must have misunderstood… I should have known it was too good to be true, to be offered a shower for nothing…”

I really didn’t understand why, but it seemed like my words had been translated into some sort of other language in her mind. Still sitting on the bed, Emery placed a hand on her chest, blushed, and turned her eyes up at me, fidgeting anxiously and looking as shy as a schoolgirl.

Uh? What’s with this behavior?

Has the heat that warmed her body also gotten to her head?

“Rest assured…I’ll put in the work to pay for my lodgings…”

Emery slid a hand over the blouse, and with strangely sensual gestures, undid the buttons.

“……”

I sank into silence.

At that point, it occurred to me that perhaps this woman was a bit of a fool. But by the time I realized that, it was much too late.

“Go ahead, then… Use me as you will…” With a rustle of fabric, Emery exposed her shoulders.

“…Um, what are you doing?”

“You want to make me say it…?”

“No, it’s just that I simply can’t understand what’s taking place before my eyes…”

This might have seemed like an awfully salacious situation, in which I, a wicked adult, was trying to do something immoral with a young woman who was otherwise ignorant to the ways of the world. But I would have felt terribly guilty taking advantage of her for something as simple as letting her use my shower.

“Um…for now, how about we keep our clothes on?” I said, suggesting that she had misunderstood my intentions. Then I grabbed the clothes she had nearly removed and forcibly re-dressed her.

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those who prefers it with clothes on…!” Her expression was the most astonished one I had seen all day.

“What are you even talking about?”

“Or maybe you don’t like girls like me, girls with filthy bodies…?”

“I’m sure the shower you just took washed away any dirt.”

Why do you think I let you use my shower, lady?

“So you’re saying you want to embrace me, just as I am…?”

“Is it possible that dark elves don’t understand my language?”

Though it’s odd, she seems to be taking everything I say in exactly the wrong light.

“None of that stuff is why I’m giving you shelter, okay?” I insisted.

“……”

Emery answered me with silence, and I placed a blanket around her shoulders.

Then, after wearing a dumbfounded expression for a moment, she began to squirm around under the blanket. “…So you’re saying that I’m allowed to stay here, free of charge?” There was bewilderment in her voice.

“No, not free of charge.” I’m sure I mentioned this earlier, but… “I just want you to tell me about yourself. About your hometown, your family and friends, all sorts of things.”

“……”

“Of course, you don’t have to tell me things you don’t want to talk about. But would you mind telling me about anything you don’t have a problem talking about?”

I’m simply interested in the race known as dark elves, that’s all.

“Oh, I see…” Her slim fingers gripped the blanket, and she exhaled. “But then, isn’t that the same as getting to stay in your room for free?”

“I guess that depends on what you talk about.”

But even so, I don’t really care what you tell me. Stories that may have no value to you, Emery, might not be the same to me. I just don’t know.

She breathed a single sigh.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been given unconditional love like this.”

“You’re really overstating things…”

“And you’re the first person who hasn’t touched me intimately.”

“I think that’s normal, though.”

“Why haven’t you asked me why I was lying on the road in the rain?”

“I’ve decided that you’re a weird person who has weird hobbies, so I don’t really need to ask.”

“But I won’t be satisfied if you don’t ask me.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Then she said, “I guess I do—” and nodded. “Because this is the first time I’ve had a peaceful night like this.”

—So I guess you won’t be able to relax until you tell me your life story, huh?

Then she began to tell me a story, going on and on endlessly at her own steady pace, like the raindrops pattering against the window.

Apparently, Emery had been physically weak from the time she was small. She had hardly ever stepped outside. She’d spent her days sighing as she watched other children her age playing outside. That was her daily life.

There had been a boy, who it was safe to say was her only friend.

He had lived next door, and from the time they were small, he’d come over to visit at every opportunity. One time, he sat on the bed and told her stories. One time, he treated her to some of his cooking. One time, he bought new clothes for her. One time, he brought over beautiful flowers. Once, he came over to kill time and taught her how to play with coins. A game of fiddling with coins, turning them round and round on one’s fingertips. He handed her a coin, and when she turned it over the tip of her finger, she learned that it was surprisingly difficult.

Practicing playing with coins was a good way to waste time. The boy kept on coming every day after that as well. Eventually, years passed, and the two of them grew up. They had gotten incredibly good at coin tricks.

Even after they were grown, the young man never stopped coming to see her.

It was only natural that Emery developed feelings of love for him. She started waiting for him to come while fiddling with a coin on a daily basis. As if in answer to her feelings, he continued to come every day. Just talking together, their daily lives ripened and flourished.

How happy she would have been if such days could have continued on forever. She wished that blessed time could have gone on without end.

However—

There had been a turning point one day several years earlier, when the young man who had been Emery’s childhood friend stopped coming to see her. She wondered what on earth had happened to him. She asked other people in her village, but there was no one who knew the answer.

For many months after that, she spent her days in terrible boredom. Day in and day out, she played with her coins, waiting for her beloved to knock at her door.

But he never returned.

Not only that, the others in her village disappeared, one after another.

And then, six months ago—

Emery, her body burdened by disease, became one of the people who had to leave the village.

“The survival of our species, the dark elves, is in danger,” she continued telling me matter-of-factly, not changing the tone of her voice one bit. “Miss Witch, do you know about dark elf hunting?”

Dark elf hunting.

It was an unfamiliar term.

“What’s that?” I cocked my head.

“The name of an evil occupation—” Emery fixed her eyes on the window, as if checking her surroundings. As before, raindrops struck the windowpane, nothing more. “As most people know, we dark elves possess characteristics that humans find convenient.”

Like perpetual youth and longevity, or the fact that every one of them, without exception, was handsome or beautiful.

At the very least, it was a fact that many humans were uncontrollably envious of the elves.

“But to us dark elves, those very characteristics are extremely unfortunate.”

“……?”

“Dark elf hunters are people who make their livelihoods capturing dark elves like us.”

According to Emery, a number of her compatriots had been captured by dark elf hunters and put in cages. The intention of the hunters surely doesn’t bear repeating—they had any number of uses for a population of beautiful men and women who kept their youthful forms for all eternity.

Furthermore, in many places, the dark elves were reviled. No matter how cruelly the humans treated them, they never felt guilty.

It seemed quite natural that slave traders would discover the commercial value of Emery and other dark elves.

“The activity of elf hunting has picked up over the past several years. We dark elves have lost people, one after another. As far as I know, there are only a few of us left alive who haven’t been captured yet.”

“……”

“That’s why we ended up venturing out into the world from our villages, in order to save the dark elf race.”

She told me—

She and the other dark elves had been wandering from country to country, searching for spouses. The male dark elves were making passes at the women in the places they visited, while the female dark elves were speaking to the men. In that way, she said, they were taking action to save the dark elf species.

“…And you can’t do that with your fellow dark elves?”

Couldn’t a dark elf have romantic relations with another dark elf?

But Emery slowly shook her head.

“We must introduce new blood in order to grow the dark elf species. Relations between two dark elves are forbidden.”

“……”

“That’s why I ended up leaving my village six months ago.”

And during those six months, she told me, she had wandered through all sorts of places.

“You, as a human, will probably laugh at this, but…” She smiled weakly. “We dark elves hold the idea that as long as we are able to increase our ranks, that is enough. So we don’t have the custom of marriage.”

“……”

“So I’ve been to all sorts of places and had all sorts of people as partners. Of course, that goes for this city as well—,” she added, looking out the window. “This very morning, I was planning to partner with someone who spoke to me by the side of the road.”

But that evening, I had come upon Emery lying out in the rain.

“The person who came up to speak to me this morning was one of the dark elf hunters. Once he recognized that I was a dark elf, he brandished a knife right then and there and threatened me. He said I was a goner if I didn’t get in his cage.”

“And then what happened?”

“I escaped. I threw something at him, ducked into the crowd, and kept on running.”

Then apparently, she had realized something while she was running away. It had occurred to her that she hadn’t had a proper meal for the past several days. And that she hadn’t had anything to drink either.

Before long, she had run out of energy and collapsed on the road, where I had discovered her.

That was the whole story, apparently.

“…You should at least eat properly.”

All I could do was offer this mild rebuke.

“I’m penniless. There was nothing I could do.”

She smiled.

As I stared at her, my mind recalled the image of her praying at the fountain.

The woman who had just told me she was broke had been throwing a gold coin into the fountain almost every day and making a wish.

What on earth has she been wishing for?

The following day—

The two of us had fallen asleep without realizing it at the end of her long story, and then we woke up together once the sun came up. By then, Emery’s clothes were already dry, so I recovered my blouse.

It was the last day of my stay, so I collected my things and left the inn with her.

“I came to this city with another elf, just so you know.”

According to Emery, she had made arrangements to depart the city together with her countryman sometime that day.

Their rendezvous spot was the usual one, just beside the inn.

Right in front of the fountain.

Apparently, her counterpart had already arrived at the meeting spot. A male dark elf—a dark elf with a familiar face—was standing there.

“…Is that your companion?”

Specifically, I had the feeling I had seen him near the fountain on the first day of my stay in the city.

“He is, yes. He’s a really good person.” Emery nodded matter-of-factly.

Once he noticed us, the male dark elf walked over, waving in our direction.

“You’re late, Emery… Who’s that?”

“The woman to whom I owe my life.”

She gave the male elf a simple account of what had happened the day before. She told him about encountering the dark elf hunter and about how I happened to pick her up.

It seemed like perhaps she’d had a similar experience several times before. The man said, “Is that so…? Well then, it seems like we ought to hide ourselves in the forest for a little while.”

As he made that suggestion, he stared at the brooch on my chest and then performed an exaggerated bow. “It sounds like you aided my compatriot—thank you, Lady Witch.”

I couldn’t manage to shake my sense of discomfort at his demeanor.

“…You seem different from when we met several days ago.”

At the very least, I was sure this dark elf whose name I didn’t even know had been a little more of a cad when I’d first met him.

He was like a completely different person now.

He looked up and cocked his head. And then—

“Oh? Have we met somewhere before?”

He said it like it was the first time he had ever seen me.

“……?”

He didn’t seem to remember me at all.

My goodness, could his failed proposal already have faded into a distant memory?

As for me—

“You don’t remember meeting me several days ago by the canal?” I ventured.

But under his hood, the man just put on an ambiguous smile.

He must not remember. He must have forgotten.

That was what I thought. But apparently, he and I were really, genuinely meeting here for the first time.

“That was probably a different dark elf, not me,” he casually stated. “Once we dark elves finish growing, everyone turns out looking the same on the outside.”

He told me—

When members of the dark elf race become adults, all of them have more or less the same facial features. The only things that remain slightly different are their voices and their heights. If you lined up a bunch of elves of the same sex, even their fellow elves often couldn’t tell them apart at all.

In other words, the male dark elf before my eyes was sporting a face that was extremely average for members of his species, or so he informed me.

As a test, I handed him the ring with the inscription, which the male dark elf whom I had encountered a few days earlier at the canal had forced on me, but he didn’t remember it at all. In fact—

“You think one of us would give a gift like this…? Tasteless…”

—from the way he held the ring between his fingers and even spoke of it with such scorn, I knew it was certainly no lie that he was a different person.

“He had such poor taste for one of our own. But that ring looks like it would fetch a high price if you sold it…” Emery assessed from the side as she stared at the ring.

“……”

She seems to want it.

“Go ahead and take it if you like. I’ll give it to you.”

“Wow! You’re sure it’s all right?”

“Even if I kept it, I wouldn’t have any use for the thing, so really, it’s fine. Besides, if we ever meet outside this city, it would be helpful for you to have some distinguishing feature so I can tell whether or not it’s you, Emery.”

I figured that if the race of dark elves was composed of people who all had the same face, it might be nice if she had one or two traits to differentiate herself from others.

Well, such reasoning was simply an expedience, though.

To tell the truth, I just thought I could help her with money for traveling, after she had spent all her money obsessively making wishes in a fountain until she was flat broke.

Though of course, I could never say as much. It would embarrass her, you see.

“By the way, Emery, you’ve been offering up prayers at this fountain every day, but—”

At any rate, she was about to leave the city, so I was sure she wouldn’t be making any more prayers, but—

“Just what have you been wishing for this whole time?”

—I’d been a little curious.

I’d been curious about it ever since I first spotted her there. What on earth had she been wishing for, sacrificing all she had like the main character in some fictional story?

“Isn’t it obvious?”

She turned toward the fountain and briefly gazed at the spray of water, which was scattering through the air like flower petals.

Then she faced me again.

She’d only made a single wish.

“I wished that somehow I would live on to tomorrow.”

She said it with a smile.

To this woman, who, for the preservation of her species, was traveling from country to country so that she might leave behind offspring, hounded by the fear of the dark elf hunters, surely survival was more important than money, more important than anything else. Even if the story about the fountain was total fiction, she was compelled to keep wishing.

That very earnest woman then said, “Treasure the life you’re granted.” Then she smiled and left the city. Only a month after that, she was killed by dark elf hunters.

At the campsite of the dark elf hunters—

The moment I answered that I had encountered dark elves before, the man’s attitude suddenly changed.

When and where did I see them? What kind of dark elves were they? Did I have a close relationship with them?

I was escorted through to the center of their camp, told to sit in a chair of simple construction, and asked detailed questions about the circumstances of my meeting the elves.

I answered as I was asked, and the hunter flinched a little bit. I’d always been told that dark elf hunters were dreadful, vicious people, so I was a little confused.

“…Are you feeling all right? You’re not in poor health now? Does anything feel wrong?” The man looked me over as if he was dealing with a sick person. “Since you encountered them a month ago, and you’ve been able to continue your travels, you’re probably fine, but—from now on, I believe it would be best for you to avoid any contact with dark elves, as best you’re able.”

He told me that if I ever spotted a dark elf, I should flee as far away as I could.

“…Why is that?”

You’re making it sound like dark elves are dangerous creatures.

“Because if they remember your face, there’s a chance you may be a target.”

You’re making it sound like the dark elves are a bad bunch.

What exactly is that about?

“—Allow me to tell you about the true nature of the dark elf species. Come this way.”

I remained skeptical as the dark elf hunter handed me a piece of cloth to cover the lower half of my face, then showed me around the campsite.

“The species known as the dark elves is seriously misunderstood.”

According to my guide—

Dark elves are known to be people with silver hair, golden eyes, and elongated ears, who are all attractive and handsome regardless of gender, who have perpetual youth and longevity, or something close to it, and who, in most cases, live in the forest.

In many ways, he said, this description was inconsistent with their actual characteristics.

“First of all, they have a life span of only a single year,” said the dark elf hunter. “As far as we know, we have no record of any of them living longer than that. Once they become dark elves, they are destined to die within a year. The legend about them living forever probably comes from the fact that all dark elves more or less look exactly the same.”

“Once we dark elves finish growing, everyone turns out looking the same on the outside.”

If I wasn’t mistaken, the male dark elf whom I had previously met had told me that.

“……”

And there were quite a number of dark elves there before my eyes, male and female, bound together with ropes. There was nothing behind their eyes. They looked at me with sweet, flirtatious expressions, whispering with no regard for the situation they were in.

“What a lovely woman.”

“She’s so cute.”

“Come see me tonight, if you like.”

“Won’t you marry me?”

“It’s an honor to have met you.”

“I love you.”

With their similar faces, they whispered together.

It sent a chill up my spine.

I winced, and the dark elf hunter said, “Miss Witch, it’s likely that the dark elves you met weren’t showing serious symptoms just yet. The ones here are in the terminal stages. They only have a month left to live.”

“You’re talking as if they’re ill.”

“That is what I’m saying.” Bluntly, the man continued, “Tiny creatures, invisible to the naked eye. An infectious disease. That’s the true form of the dark elves.”

“……”

He told me—

The dark elf hunters had been researching the ecology of the organisms known as dark elves for quite some time. According to their research, whenever someone was infected by the dark elf disease, the changes that happened to their body could be divided into two main stages.

The first thing that happened was recovery from any disorder. Even if the person was disabled or had a chronic disease, even if they didn’t have long left to live, any illnesses would be cured, as if by magic, in the days after they contracted dark-elfism.

The next thing that happened was the transformation.

Over the course of several weeks, their body would gradually change into that of a dark elf, just like the ones I saw before me. Along with the physical changes, their personality would transform as well. Their original personality would break down, and they would cast aside any of their human traits and become convinced they were a dark elf. Even their original memories would be overwritten.

All the dark elves, with their identical faces, every last one of them, was living for one purpose only: to seduce people for the sake of the perpetuation of their species.

And then, after living as dark elves for about one year, they came to the end of their lives. The closer they got to the end, the more the dark elves’ personalities broke down, until finally they couldn’t even speak in words and degenerated into a doll-like state where it was unclear whether they were living or dead.

And then, the man told me, at the very end, their bodies dissolved into a thick, dark liquid, and they disappeared.

“This dark liquid is especially troublesome, you see, for if you touch it, there’s a high probability that you will be infected with dark-elfism. That’s why we take care of them before they become terminal.”

In short, the hunters killed them before they could spread the pathogen to others around them.

“I see.”

I now had a rough understanding of the ecology of the organism known as the dark elf. But—

“How does one contract dark-elfism?”

The elf hunter nodded and answered, “We’re not entirely sure, but you can consider there to be a high likelihood of infection whenever someone comes in contact with the mucous membranes of a dark elf.”

“……”

“It sounds like you didn’t touch any of their mucosa, Miss Witch, so you’re probably fine—but please don’t let your guard down. It’s possible that the dark elves may appear before you again. People who encounter dark elves once become easier for them to target after that. Dark elves are colonies of tiny, invisible organisms that transmit themselves via other people’s bodies and increase their population by proliferation. That is to say, a specimen sharing the same set of memories can continue to increase in near inexhaustible supply.”

In other words, if any of the dark elves who had met me came in contact with someone’s mucous membranes after our meeting, the number of dark elves that possessed memories of me would also increase, apparently.

Which was why the dark elf hunters covered and hid their whole bodies, so that no individual could be remembered.

“…Is that so?”

Then the dark elf hunter told me, “If you encounter any dark elves in the future, I think it would be best for you to immediately leave.”

To sum it all up, the dark elves in the camp had all originally been humans, and as a consequence of having relations with dark elves, they had become members of that species.

“In order to make the terror of the dark elves known throughout the world, we deliberately cage them while they’re still alive and travel with them from place to place. It’s an awareness campaign. We tell everyone who comes near the cages about the reality of the dark elves so that no one else will fall victim to them.”

That must have been why he had explained the situation to me.

However—

“This must be a difficult job.”

“Yes, in its own way.”

Several other dark elf hunters passed in front of us as he was answering me. In teams of two, they carried stretchers bearing elves that had lost the ability to move. They proceeded straight toward the direction of the smoke.

“But it’s unavoidable. This job is a necessary one to protect humanity from a great danger that threatens us, so—even though it’s a job where we have to kill things that were once people, after traveling like this for some time, I believe we take these actions for the sake of humanity.”

While he was talking—

An arm fell limply from one of the stretchers that was passing by. The hand was wearing a brand-new ring. It also seemed to be holding on to something.

It fell with a clatter to the ground.

The man picked it up and said, “Besides, the job pays quite well,” while nimbly fiddling with the coin at the tips of his fingers.

“Especially as someone who needs to save up money no matter what,” he added.

It must have been several months after all that happened.

I was walking through a festival in the middle of a certain city.

Walking down the street, there were people, people, and more people, all holding books. All down the street and into the town square, there were many temporary tents set up side by side. Fluttering everywhere were signs proclaiming the wonderful plot twist of some popular book, or that a certain book had astonished its readers, or that everyone who read a particular book had been deeply moved, or imploring customers to purchase a given book because it was funny.

It was a festival held by book lovers for book lovers.

And it was almost exactly like the book fair held in my hometown.

I recalled my younger days, walking around being pulled by the hand by my mother.

“……”

And I remembered them, too.

Then a group of people came down the road. On the other side of them, I could see a lone woman leaning against the wall of a house, enthusiastically reading a book.

The woman, wearing her hood pulled low over her face, looked in my direction, as if she had been waiting for my gaze to land on her.

She peered at me with gold eyes between strands of silver hair.

Then she motioned for me to be silent.

Just like what had happened when I was younger, she gestured with her finger for me to keep quiet.

“……”

The moment I was about to say something—

—before I realized it, the dark elf had disappeared.

As if she had never existed in the first place, like a momentary vision or something from a dream.

But I was certain there had been a dark elf there.