Chapter 9
Knife-ears, pointy-ears, and the Elf Disability Association.
All common nouns referring to a certain race on the Tower.
Ever since the Gallery days, elves had been a famously well-liked race.
For the record, “well-liked” was meant ironically.
Of course, anyone who’d heard even a little about elves knew that.
Followers of a cult devoted to the World Tree.
Racists who shun people of color.
A war-criminal nation that started the Second Continental War, and a bunch of lunatics preaching vegetarianism in the Middle Ages.
That’s just what I’d picked up from the Tower Gallery.
For some reason, Awakened who’d actually encountered elves while climbing had all become even more rabid elf-haters than that.
And now, having met an elf for the first time today,
I felt like I could vaguely understand why.
“What did you do to our Ppeukkumi...!!”
Pointed ears and voluptuous breasts.
Green eyes that looked as though they held an entire forest.
And a perverted outfit that brought a prostitute to mind.
The elf who’d suddenly appeared before me shrieked in a shrill, whiny voice.
Then she approached the Ferum Flower lying in a miserable heap and scooped up the sap seeping into the dirt with her hands.
“Aah... Ppeukkumi’s precious sap...”
I’d thought calling it Ppeukkumi meant it was like a pet, but apparently the sap inside it mattered more.
I stared at the elf before me with an expression that said I couldn’t understand what I was looking at.
‘...What?’
What is this crazy druggie knife-ear bitch?
A cult, racism, and vegetarianism weren’t enough—now drugs, too?
Is she trying to start an Opium War, seeing as her people are war criminals?
Just how much lower can the elves’ reputation sink...
Is the future of elves really going to be okay like this?
“Ppeukkumi... Mommy’s sorry...”
Meanwhile, the elf woman gazed at Ppeukkumi’s pitifully dead body, crying through her mouth.
Before long, she glanced around as if checking whether I was watching, then cautiously began licking the sap left in the torn flower bud.
Is this one of those “the chicken is pitiful, but fried chicken is delicious” things?
“Lick.”
......
“Elerelele─”
......
...Twitch!
“Uhehe...”
......
She’s crazy.
That woman’s crazy.
Even some clown who played the stock market would’ve pretended to take a phone call and quietly slipped away if he’d seen that.
Normally, I would’ve avoided her too and escaped the Tower in a hurry.
But unfortunately, did the Tower not want to see me happy?
Right then, along with a familiar notification chime, a quest window I’d never seen before appeared in front of me.
Ding!
[ Main Quest ]
Earn the trust of Iris, the Elf Princess.
- Reward: Floor 3 Entry Ticket, Random Skill Box x1
......
What? Earn her trust?
Me? With that... no, with that elf?
Twitch!
“Uhehe...”
......
Uh... I don’t really want to be friends with that thing.
Besides, “Elf Princess Iris”?
Despite the way she was staggering around high as a kite, she seemed to have a higher station than I’d thought.
I grabbed hold of my consciousness, which kept threatening to drift away, and called out to the elf princess, who was now trying to shove her face into the flower bud.
“Um...”
“Eek?! I-I’ll never forgive you!! Ppeukkumi’s killer!!”
The elf princess, who seemed to have forgotten I was there, jolted in surprise and glared at me like she wanted to kill me.
“Apologize to me!!”
......
I had no idea what tune I was supposed to dance to anymore.
Right, my role was the sworn enemy who’d killed her precious companion plant, wasn’t it?
It felt like a pretty forced bit of roleplay this late in the game, but since I’m so considerate, I’d let it slide.
In other words, this was the worst possible time to make friends.
But it wasn’t as if there was no way.
I took out one of the cans of sap from my Inventory and waved it in front of the elf princess.
Slosh!
“Th-that is...!!”
She must’ve recognized the liquid in the can at a glance, because her green eyes followed its path every time I swayed it from side to side.
I felt like some cheap-doujinshi hypnotist.
But I wasn’t trying to hypnotize her, so I immediately poured the sap in the can onto my palm and slowly let mana flow through it.
“Transmutation.”
Fwoosh!
Just like when I made the caffeine candy, the sticky liquid began compressing into a single point and hardening.
I squeezed the jelly-like sap down once more, molded it into the shape of candy, and caught the finished pieces in my hand.
One can made about three pieces.
I picked one up and offered it to the elf princess, who was drooling in front of me.
[ Ferum Candy ]
- Rank: A
- Details: Candy made by concentrating Ferum Flower sap. It acts on the central nervous system, causing powerful sedation and paralysis, and carries a risk of extreme dependence.
“Here. Take it.”
An A-rank item, one rank higher than the sap: “Ferum Candy.”
Just like the caffeine candy, its rank had gone up by one.
The elf princess accepted the Ferum Candy I held out with a suspicious expression, stared it down for a long while, then said with a tsundere pout:
“I-if you think you can win me over with such an unholy thing, then...”
Crunch, crunch.
“......!!!!”
But her body was honest.
The moment she put the candy in her mouth and chewed, her green pupils quickly dilated.
After wearing a dazed, almost hypnotized expression for a while, she immediately knelt before me, her formerly fierce eyes now gentle.
Thump!
“......?”
......
She looked at me with the pitiful eyes of a puppy longing for something.
Without thinking, I got possessed by Mr. Kang and started training the little knife-ear in front of me.
“...Paw.”
Clack!
“Lie down.”
Flat!
“Bark!”
“Arf arf arf arf─!!”
“G-good girl...”
Chomp!
Crunch, crunch.
......
No, this...
What is it...
Um...
Is this... right?
Is this really the elf princess’s drug-fueled corruption, brainwashing, and training, Tower-bro?
“...I’m going insane.”
Whirl!
“No, I didn’t mean spin.”
I feel like I’m doing something bad.
Is this why moms tell kids not to go with strangers just because they offer them candy?
“Pant, pant...”
Of course, the elf princess in front of me apparently hadn’t received that kind of parenting from her mother, since she was lying there with her belly exposed after just one piece of candy.
But if she’s a princess, wouldn’t her mom be a queen or queen consort?
How did they raise their daughter for her to turn out like that?
The elves’ reputation drops another floor today...
Where on earth is the future of elves headed...
“Woof!”
“No, please speak like a person...”
“Grrr...!”
......
In the end, staring at Her Highness the elf princess, now a fallen beast who’d forgotten human speech and qualified as an honorary mutt, I held out the last piece of candy and tentatively asked:
“Um... So, would you, uh... want to be secret friends...?”
......
Even as I said it, it sounded like there was something badly wrong with that line, but my brain was too stunned to come up with anything else.
“I’ll make you candy whenever I come by.”
......
“W-what do you think...?”
In response to my proposal,
the princess simply accepted the candy in silence.
Ding!
[ Main Quest Cleared. ]
[ You have cleared Floor 2 on Lunatic difficulty. ]
[ Clear rewards will now be granted. ]
[ You have obtained a Floor 3 Entry Ticket. ]
[ You have obtained Random Skill Box x1. ]
The moment she took the candy, a quest-clear notification appeared before me.
Then the princess scurried away from me like a cockroach, and perhaps from belated embarrassment, hid her flushed face as she murmured softly:
“...Iris.”
The name I’d seen in the quest window.
After making her very belated introduction, she disappeared into the shadows of the forest, leaving me with one final remark.
“Make sure you bring that.”
And so, my time on Floor 2 came to an end.
*
*
*
[ Would you like to enter Floor 0? ]
[ Yes ]
Vroooom──
“Uegh...”
Along with the motion sickness I still couldn’t get used to, I emerged from the Tower.
The all-green scenery was replaced by bleak concrete in an instant.
Squish!
“Ugh... It’s so sticky...”
And I was covered in sap from head to toe, white liquid dripping from my entire body.
......
A moment later, embarrassment washed over me.
Unlike last time, at least I wasn’t naked. That was something, I guess.
Still, looking like this, it was inevitable that passersby would get the wrong idea.
Whirr.
“I knew this might happen, so I brought one.”
I took a towel out of my Inventory.
Something I’d brought along just in case after my “Emperor’s New Clothes” incident last time.
I didn’t have any spare clothes to bring after mine melted last time, but hey, a towel was better than nothing.
Better than having to suffer the humiliation of being covered in white liquid and unable to explain it.
Rub, rub.
Sticky...
“Ugh... It’s not coming off easily...”
While I struggled to wipe the sap from my hair with the towel,
a red-haired woman in the distance suddenly started running toward me.
A familiar lab coat and a figure that made its presence known.
And even darker circles under her eyes than last time.
“Hah... hah...!”
Sogatamyeontanso.
Hong Yeon-hwa.
Wait, why are you here, noona?
“Hah... You...!!”
After spotting me, she furrowed her haggard face as much as she could and grabbed my shoulder.
Then she blurted out:
“Candy.”
“...Huh?”
Tremble, tremble.
I could feel her hand shaking on my shoulder.
Like she was having withdrawal symptoms, Hong Yeon-hwa asked me again:
“Do you have any more of that candy from before...?”
......
I wanted to just pass out.
No... Carbon-bro...
You were a druggie too...?