Chapter 6
Elf life was monotonous.
Elves were known as a race that loved peace and nature under the World Tree’s protection.
Humans live an average of only sixty years, so instead of relying on nature’s cycles, they clear land and farm.
In contrast, elves rarely changed the places they lived over their long lives.
As a result, rather than harming the ecosystem too much, they gathered or hunted only what they needed.
And because they lived at an unhurried pace, they learned swordsmanship, archery, magic, spirit arts, and all sorts of other things very slowly.
They were also so laid-back and even-tempered that they had no reason to fight with their neighbors, and elves were almost excessively kind and caring toward one another.
So I guess Mom had wanted to take in us, with our tragic circumstances, as her children.
The downside was that, to me, a former human, elves seemed incredibly lazy.
They say ten years can change the face of the land, but even now, sixty years later, Uncle Jake next door still hadn’t finished making the jigsaw puzzle I’d told him about.
I told Uncle Jake that we used to have this kind of puzzle game where I came from, and he said he wanted to make one too. He was working toward a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
It had been a full sixty years and three months.
And Asel, my friend next door who was forty years older than me (because elves have such a low birth rate, they consider someone up to 200 years older a friend), dreamed of becoming an Elven Knight someday.
To become an Elven Knight, he had to become a Sword Master.
At 127 years old, he’d only just begun to wield aura—an Aura User...
No, isn’t this a bit much?
I became a Sword Master when I was forty-eight!
Of course, since I had to add my previous twenty-seven years, people generally knew that I’d become one at seventy-five.
And that wasn’t all. I’d also reached a similar level in archery and spirit arts as I had in swordsmanship.
I had no talent for magic, so I’d only learned enough for everyday needs.
Chris was a Sword Master too, but I was lower-rank while Chris was mid-rank.
While elves learned a little of this and that, Chris had focused solely on swordsmanship.
Even if Chris had devoted themself to swordsmanship, the gap between mid-rank and lower-rank was so huge, it made me feel bad.
For reference, the difference between lower-rank and mid-rank was enormous.
We’d clearly become Masters at almost the same time, but our ranks had ended up so far apart.
They said insight was what mattered once you became a Master, but whether that guy was a genius or what, I just couldn’t beat him.
Mom comforted me, saying that even by human standards I was a genius, but it was hard not to lose confidence with a monster like that right beside me.
And the combat style of chaining together skills I’d learned in the game was completely useless, so I had to learn everything all over again from scratch.
One of the things I learned was Elven Swordsmanship. Aside from the very straightforward name, it was a pretty good style.
It focused on the fundamentals and had no set forms, but it let attacks flow seamlessly into one another, making it possible to respond to any situation and excel in fights against multiple opponents. Mom said she’d created it herself.
There were no set forms, so Mom couldn’t explain it, and thanks to her earnest efforts to teach me by putting it into practice, my body never got a day off.
Would things be any better now that I was a Master?
What did being a Master matter when my opponent was a Grand Master?
I just got the crap beaten out of me.
At least Chris had reached the point where they no longer needed much help from anyone else, so Mom’s lessons weren’t necessary for Chris anymore. That meant I got Chris’s share of the training too.
"Huff, huff... W-wait! Mom, let me rest for a bit!"
I couldn’t keep going with my stamina completely spent, so I flopped down on the spot.
"Oh my, already? We’ve only been at it for three hours. Is my daughter’s stamina really that bad?"
"Hah, hah... Lasting three hours with you attacking me with an Aura Blade is pretty good, isn’t it?"
"But I can do this all day~"
Had she been watching Captain Americano or something?
Twitch.
"That’s because you’re a Grand Master, Mom! I’m not some monster like you!"
"Oh my... Is this the mouth that dares call its mother a monster?"
"Gyeeeek! Uffgh!"
Too exhausted to even lift my arms, I had no choice but to watch my cheek get stretched and see just how far it could go.
Seriously, why does it stretch so much? Is elven skin made of rubber?
Mom let go after tugging my cheek to her heart’s content, then gently rubbed it.
"By the way, Mom, now that we’ve both become Masters, won’t we be fine without getting beaten up? We’re pretty strong around here, right? We don’t need to train this hard..."
"Hmm~ You two aren’t even a hundred yet, and you’re already pretty strong, aren’t you?"
"Yeah, yeah!"
"Then~ let’s go enroll in the academy!"
"Huh? All of a sudden?"
Elves also studied at a school called an academy, but it was usually a place people entered at two hundred to learn all sorts of things.
"Mom, we’re not even a hundred yet."
"My children are geniuses, aren’t they~? Geniuses should learn in a genius’s way. And you’re going to an academy humans attend, so you don’t need to worry about your age~"
"H-humans?"
Though humans and I had once been the same kind, the humans we’d last encountered had left me with a slight trauma, and I was used to living in the elven kingdom of Edren. I’d planned to live here forever.
And now she was suddenly talking about an academy in a human country?
I wasn’t sure we’d even be able to have a proper conversation with humans breathing down our necks.
I really had become an elf, thinking like that.
"There are lots of good people among humans, too, you know?"
I knew that, but I also knew there were even more who weren’t good.
"There are plenty who aren’t. Someone might try to take us as slaves again."
"Then we can just kill those people~"
Lady Daphne, saying something frightening in the cutest way.
"Even so, I don’t want to live among humans. Why do I have to suffer there?"
Mom closed her eyes and shook her head as if my reaction troubled her.
"We elves are so insular that even the things taught at our academy are terribly outdated. I want my son and daughter to learn new things and grow into wonderful people."
"Hmm... But still..."
Mom looked at me, still hesitant, with a faint smile, then spoke.
"I guess the academy is still too soon for you, then? Until you’re ready to go, let’s enjoy sparring together~"
My eyes began trembling uncontrollably, and all at once, I became insanely curious about the lives of humans in this world.
"Of course I want to become a smart and wonderful elf, right?!"
"Then you and Chris can enroll in Deus, the academy humans attend~ I know someone there, so there shouldn’t be any problem getting you admitted."
Chris looked displeased.
"Just like that?"
"Yep! Just like that."
"No... Isn’t that way too sudden?"
"We elves are far too insular. There are plenty of good people among humans, and I want you to learn there while you’re still a little less influenced by us."
Oh, so that’s what Mom had been thinking.
"Besides, I felt Katrina was gradually becoming as slow as the other elves~ And Chris might find a clue to breaking through the wall to the upper rank of Sword Master. I grew up in a human city too, you know."
"You did, Mother?"
"Of course~ I was pretty famous, in my own way."
That was a bit shocking. She was 160 centimeters tall, looked incredibly, incredibly cute, and all her actions and gestures were adorable, and her figure was cu... Ahem...
Her figure was certainly... quite formidable, with curves in all the right places.
Anyway, she’d once lived among humans with an appearance like that?
"In that case, I’ll go. I’ve been frustrated because I couldn’t find a clue to breaking through that wall anyway."
"That’s great, Katrina~ Go with Chris."
"Mom, won’t you be lonely? I think I’ll be lonely..."
"Why is my daughter being so clingy all of a sudden~? Then should we wash up and sleep together tonight?"
"Can I?"
"Of course~"
Maybe because I’d lived as a woman for sixty years, though I sometimes missed the part I’d had when I was a man, I’d come to accept myself as a woman, and I sometimes bathed with Mom.
"Then let’s wash up and go to bed for today~"
The day before leaving for Deus, I said goodbye to the people I was close to. The next day, Mom and I said our farewells at the entrance to Edren, where we’d arrived after passing out sixty years ago.
Mom had already spoken to Deus, so getting admitted shouldn’t be a problem. To enter human villages, apparently you needed an ID and a little money.
She said she’d made arrangements for me to use an ID she’d used in the past.
Apparently, the ID was so old that she couldn’t simply use it as is.
"My name might come up now and then in Deus~ Those stories are exaggerated, so never~ ever believe them, okay?"
What could those stories be about that she was emphasizing it so much? I couldn’t help being curious.
"Now, take care of yourselves, my beloved son and daughter."
"We’ll be back."
"Mom, we’re off... Don’t get sick while we’re gone, okay?"
"It’s only six years~ And how could a Grand Master get sick?"
Before leaving, I hugged Mom and waved until she was out of sight.
I never imagined we’d end up leaving like this, but the thought of traveling somewhere new for the first time in ages made my heart pound with excitement.
The last humans I’d seen had left a strong impression, but I also remembered being human myself.
Even though Chris was the only person I’d known back then, I knew there were plenty of kind people too.
The problem was, I’d only ever seen them on TV.
Hoping there would be lots of good people in this world, I set out on my journey.
Katrina (Elf) Female Lv. 21
Class: Daughter of the Elven Sword Saint
Stats
Strength[135]
Agility[153]
Magic[171]
Stamina[212]
Bonus Points: 0
Skills
[ Alien Language Expert max ] [ Elven Inner Art Lv. 7 ]
Titles
[ Stretchy Punching Bag ]
Possessions ??
??????
Before setting off, I opened my status window for the first time in a while.
I couldn’t believe my stats were this high for a level 21.
Stats that could only be increased with bonus points in the game had gone up through training.
After I realized that, I put all the bonus points I got from leveling up into Stamina.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with Mom’s training.
I was horrified remembering Mom’s training method, where she’d get excited that I was holding out well and push me even harder.
Thanks to that, though I was only level 21, I’d become a monster with over 670 total stats.
With physical abilities like this, I should be able to hold my own anywhere, right?
I hadn’t gained any other skills. Even though I’d gotten pretty good with a sword and bow, only the inner art was registered as a skill, and while it showed a level, I couldn’t tell what the other numbers were.
But what’s with my class? I hadn’t looked at my status window in a while, and now my class had turned weird.
And that title... Ugh, my head’s starting to hurt.
I opened my inventory too and double-checked that I’d packed everything.
Mom had told me that storage items called subspace pouches existed in this world too, but
they couldn’t hold nearly as much as my inventory, and time still passed inside them, so food spoiled.
And my inventory could store up to 99 of the same item in a single stack, right?
That’s ridiculously overpowered. Arrows, for example, could be stored up to 9,999 at a time.
"Got everything? Let’s get going."
I was about to set off at Chris’s words when
I suddenly got curious about the numbers on Chris’s status window and asked.
What a monster...
I waved until the children disappeared from view as they grew farther and farther away.
Chris turned away as soon as we’d gotten some distance, but Katrina kept looking back at me and waving.
The other elves were right: my daughter really is adorable.
When she was little, she was such a tomboy that I felt like I was raising two sons, but now I can’t get over how adorable she is.
At first, I’d adopted them on impulse, but I don’t regret that choice.
I figured I could manage being apart from my two children and sent them to Deus, but watching them grow farther away, I already miss them.
Honestly, I still want to keep them close and raise them myself, but I agonized over sending them to Deus.
They’d been through a lot, and unlike the other elves, they’d always put their all into training with me, so they’d grown quickly, but
I could see Katrina gradually growing lazy, becoming more and more like those sluggish elves.
Edren is safe and wonderful for now, but to me, elf society, which has stopped growing, is no better than a leaf boat adrift on a raging river, liable to vanish if humans invade.
It’s embarrassing to admit, but the current emperor of the Empire is aware of my existence and wouldn’t start such a thing, but there’s no guarantee his descendants wouldn’t.
With tears in my eyes, I sent them to the academy where Stella, that bitch, is—but I’m worried she might fill my children’s heads with bullshit.
Suddenly thinking about that awful Stella put me in a bad mood.
Before going home, I should blow off some steam on the nearby monsters.