Chapter 86
86. Dreamlike Situation
Dark Elves are basically friendly toward humans, but on the 9th floor, things are a little different.
That's because the full-scale war among the three major factions has already begun, and the Dark Elves have likely already clashed with humans several times.
Their tendency to like and dote on humans is still the same, but they now clearly know that humans are enemies.
Perhaps because of that, when a 'human who was clearly not an enemy' appeared, the Dark Elves were overjoyed.
“My goodness, my goodness, are you really that person? What have you been doing all this time, only showing up now?”
“Be careful, we don’t even know if that’s really them! Humans only live about a hundred years!”
“Oh, come on. There could be humans who live a little longer than a hundred years. That must be it.”
Half the Dark Elves were simply delighted to see me, and the other half were suspicious.
And even among the latter half, they were still inching closer to me despite their suspicion.
No matter how many times I saw it, they were a race that loved humans to an absurd degree. I wondered what it felt like to be at war with humans.
“We thought you were dead for sure, since you vanished without a trace and didn’t show up for a hundred years.”
Lizmel, who brought me into the fortress, said that with a dry laugh.
“It’s not yet strange enough to think you’d be alive, but wouldn’t ordinary humans be old by now?”
I’d been agonizing over how to explain this too, but I still hadn’t come up with anything.
If most towers were full of tin-can NPCs like the others, I wouldn’t even have to worry about this.
I don’t understand why I alone have to feel like a time traveler.
Did the first-generation challengers climb the tower feeling like this too, or is the tower I’m in special?
“Usually not.”
I answered Lizmel appropriately and spread my mana to scan the fortress’s interior.
It looked like an impregnable fortress from the outside, but seeing it in detail from within made it even more ridiculous.
At this point, it felt like it wouldn’t be breached unless even a dragon attacked. Isn’t that a bit too much?
“Hmph, you’re no ordinary brat, that much is clear. No need to guess—you probably spent the last hundred years doing nothing but dangerous things, and this is how you turned out.”
Lizmel didn’t seem to have much of a problem with my appearance, as I showed up without aging at all.
“That unsettling swordsmanship and mana of yours haven’t changed one bit from before; that isn’t something a fake could imitate.”
“Wouldn’t it be stranger if you stayed exactly the same for a hundred years?”
“The heart can stay unchanged even after living a thousand years. Especially when it comes to the wandering of one who has lost their way; such things don’t easily stop.”
With that, Lizmel suddenly stepped closer and placed a hand on my chest.
“I……was able to meet a lot of humans thanks to you. And after that, I realized just how unusual you are.”
Come to think of it, I’d had a conversation like that with Lizmel on the 7th floor.
She said she’d let me meet other humans.
In the end, it turned into war, but it was a promise fulfilled while helping Eleanor’s plan.
“I mean, I don’t particularly like humans, or people like you, all that much……but I hope that part of you can get better.”
Lizmel, who had seen and experienced many humans over 120 years, hadn’t forgotten my broken side—and she must have prepared these words for a long time.
“It’d be hard for me, but Eleanor should be able to. You’re lovers, after all.”
But that whole first-love-at-first-sight thing was a complete lie.
You’d believed that for 120 years.
This is Eleanor’s fault, not mine.
**
Anyway, now that I was inside the fortress, I decided to make quick progress through the quest.
After brushing off all the Dark Elves’ countless requests for handshakes, I went straight to meet Eleanor.
Since Lizmel seemed to have planned from the start to bring me to Eleanor, I was able to save a lot of time.
Since the entire Dark Elf village of Ruel’s Stump had been fortified, the royal family’s living quarters had become enormous as well.
In the past, they all just lived in the same tree apartments, but now they had something that could properly be called a castle.
There was a separate guard force at the castle, and I passed through it smoothly to face Eleanor.
“Am I still dreaming?”
Eleanor blurted that out the moment she saw me. I was just as surprised.
Of course I remembered the queen being in rough shape on the 8th floor, but thinking about the 9th-floor quest, I’d assumed she would have recovered by now.
The crown—the Dark Elf queen’s symbol, said to have the power to influence the World Tree—was resting atop Eleanor’s head.
“This is the clearest dream I’ve ever had... illusion magic?”
“It’s not an illusion.”
“My goodness, now it even speaks. Can I touch it?”
Eleanor kept talking nonsense as she rose from her seat and walked over to me.
A soft hand stroked my cheek. When I let it be, it slid down my neck and touched my chest.
And then, even more slowly, it went down to my thigh, then gradually moved inward-
“Have you lost your mind?”
—I can’t just let you go. So it’s been a hundred years, and you haven’t changed one bit, you bastard.
“Oh, so it really is you?”
When I slapped her hand away, Eleanor seemed to realize only then that what was in front of her was real.
“But a hundred years have passed. How can a human like you...? Are you really you? Have you come back?”
More than anyone else, Eleanor was the one who shook my heart the most; dealing with her was still awkward.
I could have explained myself, but I deliberately stood there in silence.
I just stayed still until Eleanor calmed down on her own.
**
The audience chamber where Eleanor sat as queen was incredibly large.
Since it was both a castle and the queen’s quarters, I guess that made sense, but all I could think was that it was a waste of space.
There weren’t even any people I’d call retainers; it was just a throne and a huge conference table.
It was literally overflowing with space, and yet Eleanor didn’t seem to have any intention of dividing it up and using it well.
“Let go.”
“No.”
If I left her alone, she wouldn’t calm down at all; she was clinging to me like a cicada and refusing to let go.
The other Dark Elves had also rushed up to me when they saw me, but isn’t this a bit much?
“If I’m not touching you like this, it doesn’t feel real—that you’re really by my side.”
Frowning, I glared at Eleanor’s face as she clung to me. Something about her seemed off.
She had eyes like the former queen’s—eyes that reminded me of a withered old tree.
Naturally, what the queen had said to me came back to mind. That Eleanor would change if she went through war too.
“She showed up when I needed a reason to break off the engagement, and then broke it off for me exactly the way I wanted before vanishing.”
“She showed up when we were anxious that war might break out, helped us as much as she could, and then vanished again.”
“And now, when I was at my most exhausted and miserable, she’d appeared in exactly the same form as before.”
The arm Eleanor had wrapped tightly around my shoulder trembled slightly.
“Even if I chalk the first two up to coincidence, at this point it’s only natural not to believe what I see.”
That made sense. I had just followed the quest line.
I wasn’t the one appearing at Eleanor’s important moments.
The system had simply picked Eleanor’s important moments and placed me in the Tower of Trials.
“That makes sense.”
From an NPC’s point of view, a challenger would be such a mysterious, unfathomable, incredible being.
Maybe Eleanor’s strong affection for me was also something the system had predetermined.
“Hehe, I don’t know how even the way you look is exactly my type. You, of all people.”
Where exactly does what the system decides begin and end? And where does the background setting begin and end?
At the very least, Eleanor’s past that I had looked into, and the years I had felt in Lizmel’s sword—
“Yeah, I don’t know how that could be.”
It was so vivid that it didn’t look like something fabricated as a background setting at all.
**
Even after that, Eleanor still had no intention of letting go, and in the end I had to shake her off by force.
“You’re really too much, you know? I still have a long way to go before I’ve made up for those hundred years!”
“So you’re saying you’d cling to me for a hundred years?”
“Isn’t that obvious? My betrothed didn’t even show his face for a hundred years—I was lonely, you know?”
Saying that, Eleanor smiled with a sly expression and poked at her lower belly. What a load of crap.
As always, I ignored her and asked if there was anything I could do to help progress the epic quest.
Anything I could help with in a war situation would be obvious enough; the original quest line worked like this too.
You receive a mission from the leader of the faction you chose, then head to the front line and make your mark, just like on the 8th floor.
“Ah, of course. It’s something only you can do.”
Eleanor, too, was ultimately an NPC that existed for the quest. In the end, the flow had to be like this.
No need to linger pointlessly again; this time too, I’d clear the quest quickly and just take the reward.
But what came out of Eleanor’s mouth wasn’t about the scheduled quest.
“Will you sleep with me?”
That part was fine; the problem was the system message that appeared right in front of my eyes.
[Epic : Dark Elf’s Chronicle - Queen’s Command]
Eleanor’s nonsense had been registered as a quest.
“Huh?”
What the hell is this bullshit?