Chapter 5
Just as I was despairing,
Thwack!
An arrow flew in without a sound and struck the leader in the head.
The leader staggered and raised his right hand, feeling for the arrow embedded in his head.
"Huh... Huh? Wh-what is th..."
Thud.
I watched the leader, who’d seemed so strong, collapse and die in a completely absurd fashion.
I turned toward where the arrow must have come from and saw a girl rushing toward us, her long brown hair streaming behind her.
Looking at her ears, I saw the same long, pointed shape as mine.
An elf?
The woman came straight over to me, slashed the rope around my wrists with her dagger, then hurried over to Karin.
I didn’t know what was going on, but I hurried over to my fallen friend.
Karin’s condition was enough to make my face scrunch up just by looking at it.
The woman took bandages from her bag and hurriedly pressed them against Karin’s wounds.
"I don’t know where you’re from, but trust me and come with me. If we don’t treat her quickly, this woman will die."
A great deal of blood had pooled on the ground, and Karin’s complexion was as pale as a corpse’s.
Nod.
I couldn’t carry Karin on my back because of the wound in my thigh, so I lifted her in my arms and ran after the elf leading the way.
Blink, blink.
I opened my eyes, feeling the warm sunlight streaming in through the window.
Where am I?
As my vision gradually came into focus, I looked around and saw an unfamiliar room.
The moment I tensed my body to sit up, a terrible pain shot through my thigh and made me jump.
"Aaaagh!"
I let out a cry and lowered my half-raised upper body back onto the bed.
"Ah... It hurts..."
Ugh, it hurts... I was fighting, and then I got hit...
I sat bolt upright!
"Aaaagh!"
Remembering how No. 2 had attacked me, I managed to sit up in a hurry, but the agonizing pain made me scream.
Where am I? Have I been captured?
The ordinary-looking house left me unsure.
What do I do? Where’s Chris?
As one worrying thought led to another, the door opened and Chris hurried inside.
"Karin, are you awake? Are you okay?"
"Huh? Yeah..."
"Thank goodness... You’ve been out for three days! You have no idea how worried I was!"
"Three days? Oh! What happened to those bastards?"
"Everything’s okay now, so don’t worry. Honestly, I’ve told you over and over not to let your guard down, and you still go and act carelessly at a time like that?"
I wanted to argue with Chris, but I could see the dark circles under their eyes. They must have been so worried about me not waking up that they hadn’t slept properly.
I’d feel bad making excuses now.
I was about to ask what had happened when a woman’s voice came from the open doorway.
"You really are friends, huh? How boring~"
A beautiful woman approached, smiling brightly as her long brown hair swayed.
"She’s the one who saved us."
"I’m Daphne. Your name is Katrina, right?"
As she smiled and said that, I was so captivated by her beauty that I blurted out what I was thinking.
"Wow... You’re beautiful."
"Oh my, compliments won’t get you anything, you know~"
Her gentle hand stroked my head.
"I’m so glad you made it. If I’d been even a little later, it could’ve been awful. You held on so well. Good girl~ That’s a good girl~"
She was handling me like a child.
Since I used to be a twenty-seven-year-old man, it was a little embarrassing, but I stayed quiet, thinking how grateful I was to the person who’d saved us.
"You just woke up, so you’re still feeling weak, right? But since you’re awake, eat something and rest. Wait just a moment, okay?"
With that, Daphne slowly left through the door she’d come in through.
"Phew. When you first got here, you were practically a corpse. Do you know how worried I was?"
Chris’s worried expression made my heart feel all fluttery, and it was hard to hold back.
"Aww, is that so? You were scared your big brother might get hurt?"
At Chris’s expression turning cold, I closed my eyes and flinched, afraid I might get physically smacked.
'Wait, I’m a patient, aren’t I?'
Remembering that I was a patient, I looked at Chris and grinned.
Smack!
"Eek!"
"I can tell exactly what you’re thinking. Try to be a little more serious."
As I held my aching head, Daphne—who knows when she’d arrived—slapped Chris on the back.
Smack!
"Don’t hit a patient. Now~ It’s still hard for you to eat anything, so have some porridge first, then go back to sleep, okay?"
Maybe it was because she gave off such a nostalgic, motherly feeling, but I hid behind Daphne and stuck my tongue out at Chris.
Ignoring Chris’s dumbfounded expression, Daphne explained that eating too much all at once would upset my stomach, then tried to feed me what looked like porridge, telling me to take it slowly.
Uh... This is kind of embarrassing.
I said I could eat by myself, but she kept bringing the spoon to my mouth, so I obediently accepted it.
When I’d scraped the bowl clean, Daphne gently laid me down and told me to sleep well. But how could I possibly be sleepy after sleeping for three whole days...?
Soft, steady breaths.
We lived happily in a small village, getting along like siblings thanks to our parents, who’d been childhood friends.
But that happiness was shattered when monsters suddenly attacked, and the two of us were the only ones who survived. We ended up wandering from place to place.
Since we’d only ever lived in our village, we knew nothing about the world. We did our best to follow our parents’ advice and relied on each other, until we met some humans. We fought back as hard as we could, but we nearly ended up being captured.
"Those poor children. Sob, sob."
Thanks to the story Chris made up, Daphne had hugged me as soon as I woke up, leaving me bewildered.
At first, the soft sensation against my cheek startled me and I tried to pull away, but I was too weak after lying down for so long, so I just enjoyed the moment.
It reminded me of the warm embrace of a mother I’d missed.
After enjoying her arms around me and her hand stroking my hair for a long time, I slowly started to feel embarrassed.
"By the way, where is this?"
Only then did Miss Daphne let go of me. For some reason, I felt a little disappointed.
"This is Edren, you know? It’s the kingdom of the elves, where most elves live."
The Kingdom of Edren
Though it used the grand-sounding word "kingdom," it wasn’t all that large.
By human standards, it was about the size of a country’s capital.
They say most young elves are frightened by their parents’ warnings about the scary humans, so they never leave the kingdom.
But there are always children who don’t listen to their parents.
Not long ago, Daphne’s friend’s daughter crossed the border out of curiosity and was kidnapped by someone.
There was a peace treaty with the humans, so enslaving elves and beastfolk was illegal.
Breaking that law was punishable by death, the harshest penalty, but human greed made them covet beautiful elves as slaves, so kidnappings and sales into slavery were far from uncommon.
I felt sorry for the kidnapped elf, but it was a stroke of luck that Daphne had found us while searching alone and helped us.
"Ahem~ So, you should be grateful to me, you know?"
Ah, I hadn’t thanked her yet.
"Thank you. If you hadn’t been there, Miss Daphne, we would’ve..."
"You’re really grateful, right~? Then you’ll do me a favor too, won’t you?"
Seeing her ask so adorably made me want to grant her anything she wanted.
"I’ll do anything I can!"
"Hmm~"
"Then, would you be my daughter?"
Huh? A daughter? Out of nowhere?
Just like that?
So we’re living here now?
No, wait. She looks younger than me, doesn’t she?
Daphne.
One of the only two Grand Masters in Edren, she was 1,200 years old.
She was actually 1,264, but apparently it was good manners not to count a woman’s age past the tens...
To elves, who grew until they were twenty and then lived in that form for what was practically eternity, we, who’d lived for twenty-seven years, were no different from newborn babies.
And Daphne... no, Mom had always wanted a child, but apparently she hadn’t found anyone she liked enough.
Her standards were absolutely ridiculous.
"But I’m a woman who wants to feel protected, you know~? I don’t like men who are weaker than me."
Those were the conditions for becoming the husband of Lady Daphne, Edren’s First Sword.
Maybe she just didn’t want to get married...
"Come on~ I’d love to try all sorts of things, too, but what can I do if there are no men I like?"
... ...
That was why this unfortunate woman, who wanted a child but couldn’t have one, had offered to become our mother.
At first, I was bewildered, but she kept asking us to become her children and treating us kindly. I was suspicious at first.
There’s no such thing as kindness without a reason.
But she took such warm care of us despite barely knowing us, and she seemed like a good person, so two months later, we officially became her children.
Sometimes she whined like a child, which was cute, but the kindness of a woman who was over 1,264 years old...
Squeeeze!
"You were just thinking something really rude, weren’t you!"
"Aaaah! My cheek’s going to tear!"
Her grip was more painful than I’d expected...
Two months had passed, and my wounds had healed completely. But lingering aftereffects meant I still couldn’t walk without help, and since I had crutches in both hands, I couldn’t fight back. All I could do was watch my cheek stretch as far as it would go.
"Ahaha, you two seem close as ever today."
"Oh~ Ellen, you’re here!"
"Mom! My cheek won’t go back to normal!"
"Oh my~ Don’t be such a baby."
"Oh, Uncle Ellen, welcome."
"You too, Chris. Have you been well? But please call me big brother if you can."
"I’m dying!"
Ellen watched me move my legs around and smiled.
"You’re completely healed now. If you keep up with your rehabilitation, you should be able to live normally."
Ellen
A genius alchemist, a wizard of the human body, and many other titles—he was one of Mom’s very few friends.
He was the one who saved my life, and all the treatments that had seemed impossible were thanks to Ellen’s skill.
"Thank you."
"I should be thanking you for becoming that rambunctious woman’s daughter."
"Hmm~"
"Well then, I’ll be off."
At his friend’s words, Mr. Ellen flinched at the sharp look in Mom’s eyes and hurriedly fled.
Clap, clap.
After watching him leave together, Mom clapped her hands to get our attention.
When I turned toward the sound of the clapping, Lady Daphne was looking at me with a bright smile.
"So you’re all better now~? Once you’ve finished rehabilitating, you’ll have to train too, right?"
Flinch.
It had been nearly a month since I’d seen Chris being beaten under the guise of training.
Watching that, I’d learned one thing: our mom was incredibly bad at teaching.
As a result, unlike me, who was gradually getting better, Chris’s body was becoming a wreck.
If Mr. Ellen hadn’t come by now and then, wouldn’t Chris have given up long ago?
I couldn’t quite explain it, but Mom believed learning by doing was quicker and easier to remember. Looking at Chris—or whatever remained of Chris—as they were pummeled into mush under her tutelage, I could picture my own future.
"I can’t stand seeing my children get beaten up and come home, you know~"
Mom gave me a bright smile as she looked at my face, which was drenched in cold sweat.
... Should I run away from home?