Chapter 64
64. What Does a Person Live By
If they speak like a person, act like a person, and look like a person, then they're just a person.
The dark elves in this village aren't ordinary NPCs. Even knowing that, I hid behind excuses once again.
I knew Rizmel was hurt by my words, but I used the convenient shield of them being NPCs anyway.
“I should get going.”
I sprang to my feet. Erwen looked at me with a pleased expression and gave a light wave.
“Yes, how commendable. Be careful not to fall.”
Given our age difference of probably thousands of years, that might have been only natural, but in front of Erwen I was no different from a child.
By now, Erwen had told me where Rizmel was likely to be, and I ran straight there.
If I were to name the day I ran the fastest in my life, today would definitely be it.
The place I reached after running at full speed was a sort of rest area on the outskirts of the dark elf village.
The rest area had swings and seesaws made of wood and vines. It looked like an elf-style apartment-complex playground.
Compared to the other places, this one felt especially worn by time. Rizmel was sitting on a bench in the corner of the rest area.
“Rizmel.”
I approached Rizmel, who had her head down, and called her name. Come to think of it, this was the first time I'd properly called her by name.
I had never told the dark elves my name, and conversely, I had never once called any of the dark elves by theirs.
Looking back, that seemed like the last boundary at the edge of my mind.
The line that let me think of them as NPCs instead of people.
I didn't want to build a relationship by telling them my name, and I didn't want to build one by calling their names either.
Because after all, they were NPCs—dolls that would go back to repeating the same lines once the quest was over.
“……”
Rizmel silently lifted her head. I closed my eyes for a moment. I was afraid of the expression she might be making.
Rizmel's swordsmanship training quest had already been marked complete.
That meant there was a chance Rizmel had turned into a hollow doll, like the shepherd girl on the second floor.
Then again, considering that the seventh-floor faction quest carries over to other floors and the traits of elite NPCs, maybe not.
In the end, it was fifty-fifty. What expression was Rizmel making? I wished it would show her complicated feelings as they were.
“You... what are you? I told you not to look for me anymore. How did you even know to find me here?”
“Erwen told me. She said you'd probably be here.”
“My aunt? Not Eleanor? How did she know I'd be here...?”
And, thankfully, Rizmel was making a deeply conflicted, forlorn expression. An expression only a person could make.
“Then why did you come looking for me? We're done, aren't we? I don't want to be around humans.”
Though her tone was cold, her voice was still trembling. I spent a long time choosing my words.
I'm a fucking idiot.
A fucking idiot with weak willpower and no social skills, whose only talents are swearing and making excuses.
That's why I need to choose my words even more carefully. If I say the wrong thing, I'll hurt Rizmel even more.
But no matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn't easily come up with anything to say. Because that's the kind of person I am.
A person who has lived making too many mistakes, who has lived nothing but mistakes, a person made only of mistakes.
I have no idea what the right thing is.
But there is one thing I know. I know exactly one way even a fuck-up like me can improve.
Instead of lamenting what I don't have and doing nothing, taking one clumsy, insufficient step forward.
Just as I beat goblins to level up, and just as I changed to the Normal class to clear the first floor.
Giving my all to the simplest words even someone like me can think of.
“I'm sorry.”
And Rizmel smiled.
**
For a while, I sat there and had a long, heartfelt talk with Rizmel.
With every exchange, I realized how immature and lacking I was when it came to dealing with people.
In that respect, Rizmel being a dark elf was a huge stroke of luck.
All dark elves dote on humans, enough that even my clumsy, awkward apology could quickly make them soften up.
The way of dealing with people, the road called human relationships, is terribly rough. One wrong step and you can fall.
But the path laid in a dark elf's heart was a safe road I could walk without falling, even with my clumsy steps.
Erwen's warning to be careful not to fall suddenly felt different.
“I hate humans for this exact reason. They're fragile and die young, yet I can't just ignore them, so they're hard to deal with.”
“Humans aren't all like that; I'm just a little unusual.”
“Even if you say that, I haven't seen many humans, so I don't really know. Just how unusual are you?”
Hearing Rizmel say she'd hardly ever dealt with humans, I tried to explain what humans were usually like.
But as I thought about it, I realized that even I, a human, didn't really know much about humans.
Besides, there was no guarantee the humans of this seventh-floor world were the same as the humans I knew.
“Then just see for yourself. Weren't night elves originally tasked with opening up the forest?”
“You've been hanging around Eleanor and now you're saying the same things.”
“We haven't really spent much time together, but anyway, that's true. Go meet some other humans besides me.”
Rizmel shook her head. From her explanation, the current queen's decree meant she couldn't freely make contact with humans.
“I do want to meet lots of humans in my heart... no, but that doesn't mean I particularly like humans, okay?”
Come to think of it, the queen was said to be keeping the human faction at arm's length because she wanted to make peace with the high elves.
I heard it was because she still had a deep attachment to the World Tree and the Great Forest, the soul-cycle device that grants elves immortality.
“Ah, now I get it.”
The reason Erwen had been able to tell I was Eleanor's guest. She'd said, 'Because she's the only one,' right?
Unless it was Princess Eleanor herself, no one could have broken the taboo and brought a human here.
And Eleanor brought me here in order to break off her engagement to the high elf prince.
If the engagement was scrapped and peace with the high elves was canceled, the ban on contact with humans would be lifted too.
Eleanor had said she wasn't the only one who disliked making peace with the high elves.
Though they don't show it, the dark elves who favor humans, Rizmel included, may all feel the same way.
“Then I'll make it so you can meet other humans.”
That gave me one more reason to cooperate with Eleanor's plan.
**
The next day, I came to the training grounds as usual for swordsmanship practice with Rizmel.
Rizmel, who had been training alone with rows of shadow dolls, widened her eyes in surprise when she saw me.
“What? Why are you here?”
“Why else? I need to learn swordsmanship.”
I had already made up with Rizmel. So I naturally thought sword training would resume, but was there some problem?
Rizmel heard my question and answered with a slightly troubled expression.
“What I said about having nothing more to teach you was true.”
The quest had been marked complete not because Rizmel changed her mind, but because I had truly finished all the training.
But I think differently. I still don't know how Rizmel was able to detect the modified spider's beam in advance.
That isn't something possible with just the sensory enhancement I'd mastered. I naturally thought there had to be some higher-level technique.
“That may be true... but that's not something I can teach you. It's closer to the realm of magic.”
“The realm of magic?”
“Yeah. I'm specialized in swordsmanship, so I can't teach you that. It's not something you can learn just by being taught.”
In other words, separate from yesterday's matter, my swordsmanship training with Rizmel ended here. Of course, that didn't mean I had nothing left to train.
Since I also had other weapon skills besides swordsmanship, I could still train with Rizmel as a practice partner.
But if I was going to spend that time, it'd be more helpful to just do scouting work and hunt field monsters.
I had apologized to Rizmel, but my thoughts and beliefs hadn't changed much.
I still didn't want to see myself lazily killing time and indulging my petty desires.
It's not like I have no regrets, but I don't plan to spend time idly with Rizmel just to do inefficient training.
“If you want to learn that, you should ask Eleanor, not me.”
“Huh? Why is Eleanor coming up?”
“I said it's in the realm of magic. Eleanor's the best at shadow magic.”
Rizmel added under her breath, 'Though I wouldn't recommend hanging around that perverted girl too much.'
Eleanor had once easily blocked an elven knight's insane attack with shadow magic.
Shadow magic is a racial trait of dark elves, and my class was a warrior to begin with, so I'd just brushed it off.
Come to think of it, Eleanor had said that when she heard I was training swordsmanship with Rizmel.
It was still early, but someday she could teach me something worthwhile.
“Aha.”
So that's what she meant.