Chapter 6
Crash─!
ㅇㅇ(154.55), or Elfride, roared as she slammed her desk down hard.
“Who the hell does this fucking black bastard think he is, calling me a chicken coop?!”
Of course, there was no proof that ㅇㅇ(74.812) was a demon.
But that didn't matter.
Seeing that insolent way of speaking, Elfride was convinced that ㅇㅇ(74.812) had to be a demon.
“That damn troll keeps changing his IP every time I block him!! Ah! Seriously! How am I a chicken coop?!”
Elves, and high elves in particular, are a race that ages very slowly, but even they start to show their age around 240.
Yet the figure in the mirror was an utterly adorable, cute green-haired high elf without a single fine wrinkle.
“Look! I'm so fresh! You could believe I was fifteen!! But a chicken coop?? A chicken coop??!! Haa... damn it... I should've covered it up properly back then...”
Recalling the past, Elfride dropped to the floor and tore at her hair.
Three years ago, the problem had been that she had posted birthday verification without properly erasing her birth year.
[Poster : ㅇㅇ(154.55)]
[Hawawa~ Cute high-school-girl-chan is having her birthday today~][11]
(ID card with the birth year roughly scribbled out.jpg)
Everyone, please celebrate high-school-girl-chan's birthday~
BabyNepmi■ : Happy birthday! Wah! Wah! Grow up quickly too, so you won't be a baby anymore! Wah!!
FlameSandwich■ : Happy birthday ㅊㅊㅊㅊㅊ
ㅇㅇ(113.111) : Congratulations. Give me your address and I'll send you a present.
Perhaps because she'd been active under the high-school-girl persona for quite a long time, she received a surprisingly large number of comments for an anonymous user who generally got less attention than users with fixed nicknames.
ㄴ Thanks for wishing big sis a happy birthday~
ㄴ Thank you too, big sis FlameSandwich, for the birthday wishes~
ㄴ Hawawa~ High-school-girl-chan's address is a secret~
She was in the middle of farming attention by replying to the comments when...
ㅇㅇ(74.801) : Huh? Is it just me, or is something weird about that?
ㄴㅇㅇ(113.111) : What? Today's your birthday, isn't it?
ㄴㅇㅇ(74.801) : No, not the birthday. Look at the birth year. If you look closely behind the part she erased, you can just barely see it. She was born in '86.
ㄴ VirginExaminer■ : Huh? Wait a second... This year is 1023 in the Goddess Calendar, so... if you calculate it...
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(113.111) : ???
“...!!!”
She deleted the post in less than a second after seeing the comments, but a callout post immediately went up.
[Poster : ㅇㅇ(74.801)]
[Breaking) The anonymous user who pretended to be a high school girl is confirmed to be at least 137 years old LOL][24]
(ID card with the birth year roughly scribbled out.JPG)
(ID card with the birth year restored and reposted.JPG)
The one above is the original, and the one below is what I restored, so look at the birth year LOL. No wonder there was always an unmistakable old-fart vibe in her posts, no matter how hard she committed to the high-school-girl persona, LOL.
ㅇㅇ(113.111) : Hmm... Isn't 137 a little much? Couldn't she just be 37? If she's 37, she's still doable, though...
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(74.812) : Nope. She did a pretty good job hiding the first digit, but it's definitely not a 9. It's either an 8 or a 7, but there's no way she's 237 and still browsing the gallery, right?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(113.111) : Hmm... Pretending to be a high school girl at 137 is a bit much... Too bad, but she's disqualified as my bride.
ㅇㅇ(53.71) : Still, if she's 137, isn't she an elf? If she's an elf, she doesn't age anyway, so what's the problem?
ㄴVirginExaminer■ : But it's a chicken coop, though...
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(53.71) : What does chicken coop mean?
ㄴVirginExaminer■ : (Link) Check this out.
ㄴㅇㅇ(53.71) : LOL—holy crap, that's fucking hilarious, seriously! LOL
ㄴVirginExaminer■ : Knowing this, would you still choose an elf?
ㄴㅇㅇ(53.71) : Ah! Get rid of the chicken coop!!!
“Aaaaaaagh!!”
Remembering that moment, Elfride screamed again.
“So what if I browse the gallery at 237?! I'm 23 in human years!!”
The average high elf lived for 500 years, so if we took the average human lifespan—the world's most numerous race—to be 50 years, that meant she was only 23 in human terms.
“And why does everyone believe that bullshit about elves smelling like a chicken coop?!”
Elfride raised her arm and brought her nose to her armpit, sniffing.
Naturally, all she could smell was a fresh scent like lemongrass.
“Ah! Seriously! This is all because of that garbage meme!!”
Just a few years ago, the accepted wisdom had been that elves were beautiful regardless of whether they were 100 or 200 years old...
But after some bastard uploaded a ridiculous meme claiming that elves smelled like a chicken coop,
[Elf = Chicken Coop]
the equation had spread throughout the gallery.
Boom─!!
“If I find the bastard who made that meme, I'll beat him half to death... How dare he turn elves into that kind of image?”
“Grand Elder, what's going on? I keep hearing loud noises...?”
“Ah! Third Elder! I told you not to open the door without permission! And don't call me Grand Elder, either! How long has it been since I quit being Grand Elder? And you're still going on about it!!”
“But, Grand Elder, you keep making loud noises...”
“...Hey, Third Elder.”
The sudden drop in Elfride's voice made the Third Elder tense up.
“Yes...”
“Go on, try calling me Grand Elder again. If you keep getting on my nerves, I'll have a campfire at the World Tree before I go to the academy. Got it?”
“...Understood.”
“Understood...? Strange... Does the Third Elder of the elves really speak politely to a mere nineteen-year-old high elf?”
“All right, then.”
“Good. Now get out of here.”
“....Sigh.”
As Elfride waved her hand like a delinquent, the Third Elder let out a deep sigh and closed the door.
‘How on earth did things come to this?’
Elfride hadn't always been like this.
She had once been the light and hope of the elves, just as the meaning of her name suggested.
‘I miss the old days...’
A thousand years ago, when the Dark Age had ended and the Empire was still known as a kingdom, elves had been magnificent.
They possessed from birth an affinity with spirits that the beastfolk, who smelled like animals, could never obtain even if they died and came back to life.
Unlike humans, who looked like hairless monkeys and couldn't even climb trees properly, they possessed outstanding physical abilities and long lifespans.
Naturally, elves were the finest race in the world, superior to every other race.
But unfortunately, much changed 800 years ago, after those rootless demon bastards appeared.
Those short, dark-skinned bastards spread bizarre technologies such as magitech, metallurgy, and agriculture... and by the time anyone came to their senses, humans had multiplied like cockroaches.
Then, simply because their numbers had grown a little, they started swaggering around, calling themselves an empire instead of a kingdom, and picking fights with the elves!
How dare humans defy elves!
What a horrifying, terrifying situation!
Just when countless elves were lost in shock and fear, saying that the age of elves had ended...
As if to prove that the World Tree had not abandoned the elves, it bestowed upon them an unparalleled genius.
Elfride Karleya
The hope of elfkind, born with an affinity for the spirits of all four elements and contracted with all four Greater Spirits before even reaching the age of 100!
‘If it's Elfride, it's possible!’
The four elders who remembered the Age of Glory held the slogan ‘Make the elves great again!’ in their hearts and secretly served Elfride as Grand Elder, pouring every resource they had into helping her contract with the Spirit King without letting the other races interfere.
However, five years ago, after Elfride said she saw something strange while cultivating her affinity at the World Tree as usual in preparation to contract with the Spirit King, she changed.
From that day on, she gradually began using vulgar words that other races might use, such as ‘old fart’ and ‘boomer’...
At some point, she began openly mocking and ignoring such long-standing elven rules as ‘
No spirit mage below intermediate rank may use mana elevators on or below the seventh floor’
, ‘
Those under 100 may not walk with their hands in their pockets
’ and the like.
The elders, who valued rules as much as the years they had lived, were deeply shocked, but they still couldn't give up on Elfride.
After all, Elfride was the only one who had any chance of contracting with the Spirit King.
‘Just endure for now! Once she makes the contract, the age of elves will return!’
Believing that, they did their best to flatter and placate Elfride while keeping her shut inside the World Tree.
And finally, one year ago, when Elfride succeeded in contracting with the Fire Spirit King and even achieved a complete transformation through the Primordial Flame...
The elders cheered, convinced that the time had finally come to ‘Make the elves great again.’
...They had been terribly mistaken.
[R e s i g n a t i o n L e t t e r]
ㅗ I quit because this fucking sucks ㅗ
The day after Elfride was formally appointed Grand Elder, she quit being Grand Elder.
Naturally, the elven elders were thrown into an uproar.
“She quit being Grand Elder?! That's impossible! What is the world coming to?!”
“I knew this would happen! We've coddled Elfride far too much all this time!”
“Tsk, tsk, in my day, we couldn't even properly step on the shadows of adult elves... Tsk, tsk, kids these days...”
“Second Elder, even if she's a high elf, isn't 237 a little old to call her young?”
“Good grief! That's not what's important right now! Think about how we're going to persuade Elfride again!”
“...What other choice do we have? If words don't work, we'll have to make her listen by force. Didn't we all grow up that way?”
“But she has contracted with the Spirit King! How do you intend to stop her by force?”
“Even if she has made the contract, isn't Elfride a hothouse flower who has grown up sheltered inside the World Tree? If the four of us elders, with our wealth of real combat experience, combine our strength, we should be able to overwhelm her.”
“Hmm... Third Elder, still... using violence, even though times have changed...”
“First Elder, I know you care about Elfride, but now is the time to make a decision. And don't think of it as violence—think of it as ‘the rod of love.’”
“Sigh, all right. But...”
“Yes, we'll have to be careful not to seriously injure Elfride. Even if we've spoiled her, isn't Elfride a great treasure to us elves?”
Thus, the four elders gathered in one place to deal with Elfride.
...The result came in an instant.
Fwoosh─!
“Hey, Elders, I'm stopping here because I don't want the old folks' bones to break if I go any further...”
The contractor of the Fire Spirit King, Ifrit.
A high elf blessed by the World Tree.
“Bother me one more time, and then the World Tree is really going to go up in flames, okay?”
Elfride Karleya was far, far too strong.