Chapter 19
Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to eat anything expensive.
I'd gotten a rough idea of her financial situation by now, and it didn't seem to be in particularly good shape.
Well, there was no way an elf who'd brought a World Tree branch to barter could have a well-filled wallet.
Even if she was a queen, her financial situation was a separate matter.
“Then I'll have this…….”
So when I reached for a cheap triangle kimbap and was about to settle for that, Friella sharply furrowed her brow and grabbed my wrist.
“I told you it's fine to choose something expensive! I'll treat you properly today! It's payday, so this just won't do. Mm-hmm. Forget that stingy little thing and take this! A man needs to keep his strength up!”
She picked up the eel boxed meal beside her and placed it in my hands.
The labyrinth eel boxed meal, supposedly excellent for virility.
At 15,000 won, it was the most expensive boxed meal in our convenience store.
I looked at Friella's hand as she handed me the boxed meal.
Tremble, tremble.
Her hand was trembling.
More precisely, it was the wallet she was holding to pay that was trembling faintly.
Now that she'd actually made the offer, she wore an expression of deep regret as she looked at the price tag.
Unlike her confidently shouting mouth, her body was rejecting the boxed meal.
‘……It doesn't seem like her circumstances have improved that much.’
I didn't need to burden her unnecessarily.
“I prefer meat to this.”
I quietly put the eel boxed meal back on the display and exchanged it for the 5,000-won spicy pork boxed meal beneath it.
I had no desire to force myself to eat something expensive.
Hadn't I received help from her, too?
Thanks to her, I'd chased away nuisances, and thanks to the World Tree branch, I was in peak condition.
“Huh? Wouldn't the eel be better?”
“I'm in the mood for spicy pork. Normally, a spicy-pork boxed meal embodies a man's romantic ideal.”
“I-I see.”
Ms. Friella offered her card with a cough, trying to hide her apparent relief.
The important thing was that she wanted to repay the kindness she'd received.
It didn't matter how much it cost.
After completing the payment and heating the boxed meal in the microwave, I suddenly asked what I'd been wondering about.
“But aren't elves paid a high hourly wage? I heard the site allowance is enormous, considering the rough work you do.”
“W-well, that's true, isn't it? We have good physical strength and can use spirit arts, so we're definitely treated better than other races.”
“Then why didn't you have money for a meal last time? Your salary shouldn't be so low that you'd have to barter a branch just to get by.”
Her face instantly flushed at my question.
“Th-there are such things as adult circumstances. I just had more expenses than expected that time. I'm usually well off.”
Hmm.
She didn't seem like the type to squander money on strange things the way the manager did.
She was almost always wearing work clothes whenever I met her, and aside from the time she spent commuting, she seemed to spend all her time working inside the Tower.
She was an elf who didn't even have time for side activities.
‘Could she have been scammed?’
Or maybe she was paying off debts.
She must have her own reasons.
I didn't ask any further and simply nodded.
Perhaps thinking she'd been cornered, Friella hurriedly changed the subject.
“M-more importantly! Have you been taking good care of that branch? It can't be easy to grow, so it hasn't withered and died, has it? If the leaves start to wilt, you'd be better off steeping it into tea.”
“Ah, the World Tree branch?”
I remembered how the World Tree had undergone explosive growth after consuming the S-Rank Life Spirit Stone last night.
“It's growing well. It even put out a new, thicker branch.”
“It must be a little difficult for a human to grow……. Wait, what did you just say?”
“I said it grew well and put out a new branch.”
At that, Ms. Friella's eyes flew open.
“What?! It put out a new branch?!”
What was with this elf's reaction?
As if she'd heard something impossible.
“Is there a problem?”
“N-no, it's not that……. H-how?”
Hmm.
How should I explain this?
Still, since she was the one who'd given me the branch, I figured I should tell her how it had grown, so I answered honestly.
“I happened to obtain a spirit stone. When I put it in the flowerpot where I'd planted the branch, it absorbed it right away.”
“…A spirit stone? Wait, the branch absorbed a spirit stone?”
“Yes. Was I not supposed to?”
The manager had said it was okay.
“It isn't forbidden, but……. How is that possible? A branch that size should have barely had enough strength to maintain its form, much less absorb a spirit stone.”
Friella muttered in a small, flustered voice.
Her voice was so quiet that I could barely hear what she said after that.
“Could I take a look, perhaps?”
“I don't mind, but……. Not right now. I'll show you after I clock out.”
“After you clock out?”
She looked at me with an expression that seemed to ask why.
“The World Tree is at my place.”
“Ah.”
She nodded with a blank look, as if she'd only just realized it.
“I understand. Then I'll wait here until you get off work.”
Friella took a seat at the table by the window.
She waited quietly, though an anxious look betrayed her impatience for me to finish work.
Time passed, and it was seven in the evening.
Jingle.
“Good evening! The True Ancestor has arrived in her domain!”
The manager came in wearing the convenience store uniform again today, her shoulders thrown back proudly.
When her eyes landed on Friella, the manager looked back and forth between her and me.
“Vassal, why is that freeloading elf squatting in the True Ancestor's domain? Is she trying to sneak a boxed meal without the True Ancestor knowing……?”
“I-I paid for it myself!”
“Tomorrow, the sun will rise in the west. That cheapskate actually bought a boxed meal with her own money.”
“Hey, vampire! I told you, I paid for everything myself!”
“Then perhaps I should stop giving all the discarded food to this freeloading elf from now on.”
“…It would be rude to say that, considering how much help I've received from the vampire.”
“You're still insolent.”
Friella gave an awkward laugh and changed the subject.
“I-I have received a lot of help from the True Ancestor. Hahaha.”
The corners of my mouth were going to start twitching.
“I told her that the branch I'm growing had gotten a little bigger, and she wanted to see it.”
“Ah, so that's what this is about.”
The manager's red eyes gleamed with interest.
“Hmm, there should be something interesting to see. The True Ancestor's vassal did something truly special to that branch.”
“I just heard that it had grown a new branch.”
“It should be standing splendidly. It was so lush it was almost a little bothersome.”
After finishing the handover with the manager, I changed out of my uniform in the stockroom and left the store with Ms. Friella, who had been waiting.
“Then I'll be leaving work now.”
On the way to my place,
the sound of Friella's footsteps as she followed close behind me was strangely irregular.
I glanced back and saw that both her cheeks, beneath her cap pulled low, were bright red.
‘What is it? Is she feeling sick?’
Could something she ate earlier have upset her stomach?
Kim Min-cheol had no way of knowing, but Friella's mind was on the verge of exploding with all kinds of wild fantasies.
‘I-is this really okay? Even if it's because of the World Tree, going to an adult man's home in the middle of the night……!’
It was unimaginable in the homeland of the elves.
Before coming to Taepyeong City, she'd secretly read and watched all kinds of romance web novels and dramas to learn about human culture, and now their clichés came flooding back to her.
‘Usually, when you enter a man's studio apartment like this, some kind of physical-contact event happens.’
‘Usually, there's only one reason a man invites a woman to his home, isn't there?’
‘Is this a green light? Ah, I don't know. I want to ask people with experience……. I want advice from dating experts.’
‘He isn't suddenly going to change once I enter his apartment, is he? The room is small, so our shoulders will brush, and the atmosphere will turn strange……. Eek, I'm not mentally prepared yet……. No, that's not why I came! Get a grip, Friella!’
While she shook her head vigorously and wrestled with her inner conflict, we arrived in front of my lodging.
“We've arrived. This way.”
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
But Friella remained standing in front of the door instead of entering, staring blankly into the room.
“Ms. Friella?”
“Wow…….”
She had been staring blankly into the room, but now she closed her eyes.
She could tell without even looking.
The scent of lush greenery.
The fragrance of nature.
Sniiiiff.
Friella drew in a deep breath, and a smile formed around her lips.
“It's refreshing. Really……. So refreshing.”
How long had it been since she'd smelled nature?
She had forgotten it while living in this city.
She had forgotten that the World Tree's scent could be this fragrant.
There were no forests in the city.
And without a forest, there was nowhere for a World Tree to grow.
In a place without greenery, the World Tree branch, which was nothing more than a branch, had been gradually losing its power.
Returning to her homeland was the only way to save the branch, but she couldn't go back.
Watching the branch wither was all she could do.
That was why she'd sold the branch with half her heart already resigned to giving up.
No, “thrown it away” would be the more accurate way to put it.
Bartering away the World Tree branch was tantamount to saying she would never return to the elves' forest.
Of course, it would have been lost if Kim Min-cheol, the part-timer, hadn't accepted it.
So she'd thought it would have dried up.
She'd thought it would have died.
The World Tree branch, separated from the elf who had cared for it, wouldn't have been able to withstand the city's bleakness.
And yet, the scent of nature she'd thought had vanished was so vivid.
In this tiny room, which had nothing at all to do with the elves' forest.
“Haaaa.”
Friella exhaled deeply and took a step into the room.
A fresh, clear energy filled the room.
At its center stood a sapling softly radiating luminous, pale-green mana.
“Ah…….”
A dazed exclamation escaped Friella's lips.
As if entranced, she took off her shoes and approached the World Tree.
It had definitely been nothing more than a tiny branch the size of a chopstick.
That branch, which had nearly lost all its strength and been waiting only for the day it would dry up.
That branch she'd given away through barter after even the elf queen herself had given up on it.
It was putting out fresh leaves after growing thicker than it had been at first.
“It really did grow.”
Her voice trembled faintly, steeped in wonder.
When she carefully extended her trembling hand and caressed a leaf of the World Tree, soft green mana wrapped around her fingertips, as if the tree were happily answering her greeting.
Though it was a small sapling, it held the power of the World Tree within it.
The power was faint, of course, but as the elf queen, she could tell.
This little sapling possessed the strength to grow even outside the elves' care.
She didn't know how the World Tree sapling could grow in this tiny room.
But one thing was certain: Kim Min-cheol had accomplished what even she, the queen, could not.
She turned her head and looked at Kim Min-cheol.
“This child…….”
Friella suddenly clasped both my hands.
I felt the roughness of her callused palms.
Friella pleaded in an earnest voice.
“Please. Could you continue taking good care of this child from now on?”
I felt a twinge of guilt.
I had originally planned to sell this thing for a high price.
If she put it that way, I couldn't sell it.
With her asking me like that, my answer was obvious.
“Of course.”
I'd already fed this guy some expensive medicine.
I'll take good care of it.