Erina, and Me. (Revised)
For lunch today, the three of us cooked up a whole pot of curry and ate our fill.
The menu choice carried a celebratory meaning — a little commemoration of selling out an entire box of curry roux.
This was no ordinary curry, the kind you could get just anywhere. Fresh potatoes and carrots grown right here in Greenhill, organic vegetables, and Greenhill's special A+ grade tenderloin — still piled high in the fridge — sliced in such extravagant quantities that the big pot nearly overflowed.
As for the meat, the owner of Plenty Meat Butchery had recently supplied us until his own fridge nearly burst, by way of apology, so there was enough of it that this was less a curry and more meat coated in curry sauce.
His son Henson had attempted rape, after all, and settling the matter at this level was the cheaper option for his side.
We'd also seasoned it generously with that famously expensive pepper and salt of this other world until the taste was just right.
And on top of that, a pack of instant rice each, fresh out of the microwave.
There was no way this could taste bad. We devoured it like a pack of carnivores, too busy eating to talk. For all three of us, myself included, it was a lunch so satisfying there was nothing left to envy in this world.
"Curry really is a dangerous food, you know. It makes you overeat."
So saying, Erina declared she'd gained far too much weight since coming here and resolved to go on a diet, but well... Curry aside, I figured she'd need to quit the jelly first.
The jelly becoming a hit product in its own right owed something to Erina unwittingly working her beauty on the customers, but Mrs. Hans, who'd first spread the word of mouth, deserved her share of the credit too. I'd have to give her a proper thank-you someday.
After lunch, while everyone retired to their rooms to rest, I stood in front of Erina's door and knocked.
The room I'd assigned her wasn't the first-floor storage space but a small room on the second floor, right next to mine. Aside from my own room — the big one on the second floor — that was the only spare room in the place.
On the day I'd brought Erina home from the slave market, Gote had assigned her the first-floor storage room, and I'd considered clearing it out and making that her room instead. But that would have meant hauling every last one of those heavy inventory boxes upstairs. Since there'd be no real problem as long as Erina wasn't watching when I put the key in the keyhole and summoned my room, I'd told her to take the second-floor room instead.
Erina had been living under the same roof with us for quite a while now, so she probably had a vague inkling of the secret of my bachelor room. Someday, when the chance came, I'd have to tell her. Now wasn't the time, though. She'd only just stopped being treated like some mage or alchemist — if she actually laid eyes on my room, the shock would knock her flat.
"Erina?"
"Oh! Yes, Master?"
Erina opened the door at once. I stood there with her in the doorway, hesitating. I'd thought it was nothing, but actually saying it out loud was incredibly awkward.
"...Master?"
When I just stood there staring blankly at her, Erina asked first.
"Um... the weather's so nice today. Would you... like to come outside with me for a bit?"
"Go out? Outside?"
"Yeah. Not far. You've been cooped up in here this whole time — you said it was stifling, remember? There's a scenic little stream and a hill behind the store, nice and quiet. I thought we could take a walk around and come back."
"Ah..."
A date.
I was asking Erina out on a date. Not as slave and master, not as clerk and shopkeeper, not even as a half-elf and a man from another world — just as a woman and a man. A signal that I was interested in her, romantically.
Last time, after Lady Prill's visit, I'd laid Erina out on the table to examine the changes in her body, running my hands over her here and there with rather more personal interest than the task required — and just when it seemed things might go all the way, the moment had slipped away from us.
Erina had been disappointed, but was I any less so?! I genuinely couldn't sleep a wink that night. No matter how many adult sites I scoured in my room, searching and searching, I couldn't find a single AV actress, East or West, with a physique to match Erina's. Watching substitutes only made the longing worse.
Ever since then, I'd been waiting for a chance to spend some leisurely time alone with her. But Erina pulled in far more customers than I'd expected during the day, so I couldn't exactly close early. Daytime hours were supposed to be a token gesture — three or four hours with the door open, keeping faith with the people of Greenhill.
But today, by some miracle, there wasn't a single noble with an evening reservation. Agents did occasionally drop in without appointments, but even at most that was only a visit or two. Days when business didn't happen were days to enjoy, if you asked me.
"Yes, I'd love to! I'll get ready right away!"
Beaming, Erina ducked back into her room. A short while later she emerged, having traded the maid uniform for going-out clothes — though "going-out clothes" was a generous term for the single outfit I'd gotten for her a while back.
I couldn't have her wearing that revealing, uncomfortable maid uniform even off the clock, so it was a cheap, plain dress of the sort the village women wore. But on Erina, even plainness looked somehow lovely. Was this what they meant by the fit making the outfit?
"How do I look?"
"Good. Beautiful."
"Ahh... Master, honestly..."
With those words, Erina probably understood for certain. I didn't hand out compliments like that lightly, so even as an offhand remark, I could feel the impact land in her reaction.
"And what's that?"
Erina pointed at the picnic basket in my hand. Instead of answering, I opened it for her to see. Inside were a picnic mat, utensils and plates, some easy finger food — apples and other fruit — a few cookies, and, of course, a bag of Erina's favorite jelly.
"You should have told me to prepare things like this... I feel bad, making you do it yourself for no reason."
That's what she said, but the corners of her mouth were curling upward.
"Gote, I'm stepping out front for a walk with Erina. Back soon."
A reply came from deep inside the store.
"Will Manager Greengote... be all right on his own?"
I could tell Erina was asking after the Gote out of politeness — and her unspoken worry, that I might come back with "Really? Then let's bring Gote along!", came through to me loud and clear.
"He'll be fine."
And so we walked around to the back of the general store. The moment we stepped out, the babble of the stream reached our ears. Thanks to the shop's spot at the very edge of the commercial strip — a geographic advantage, of sorts — a short walk to the rear left the town behind in no time. Follow the stream a little way and the path split in two; take the wide branch and you'd reach the washing spot on the streambank. I led Erina down the narrow one.
Our store's position made water far easier to come by than for most of Greenhill's residents — both fetching what we needed and getting the laundry done took a fraction of the time. Not that it did me much good, with a whole room waiting behind a single door.
"Come to think of it, you've always been the one doing the laundry, Master. From now on, any time you like, just say the word and I'll take over."
The laundry must have crossed her mind; Erina looked up at me with an apologetic expression. This innocent half-elf believed that all this time, I'd been gathering her and Gote's washing every three days, carrying it down to the washing spot, beating it with a laundry bat, and trading gossip with the neighborhood wives while scrubbing it by hand. Until now, the only chore I'd ever given Erina was folding the laundry I brought back. Naturally — my room had a drum washer that dried everything perfectly.
"Waaah!"
A little farther on, the trees and the stream fell away, and a vast open field unfolded before us. Puffy white clouds overhead, a carpet of green grass, and on one side a riot of pink wildflowers blooming in profusion, stretching on and on into the distance.
The place looked exactly like the old Windows desktop wallpaper, so I'd named it Wallpaper Hill.
"I can't believe somewhere this wonderful was right behind our store!"
The moment Erina saw the field, she lit up, set the basket down, and went hopping up the hill like a child. Whether it was the hearty lunch or just boundless energy, she was already at the far crest of the hill.
"Maa~ster!"
Whoa... This was the kind of scene I'd only ever seen in movies. This was it. This was the otherworld fantasy. Clouds in the sky, a green hill — and an elf. (A pretty one, with a big chest.)
The wind blew head-on at the top of the hill, and the long hem of Erina's skirt fluttered wildly, endlessly, of its own accord. The breeze rolling down the slope was cool and sweet.
Erina, shrunk small with distance, shouted something my way, but the higher she climbed, the harder the wind blew, and I couldn't make out a word.
Whoosh.
Erina's skirt flew straight up. Underneath, she was wearing the plain white panties I'd given her. White today, huh. She must really like those — she wears them all the time.
The instant the hem flipped up, Erina instinctively slapped her skirt back down — but when she saw me watching with a fond grin, she smiled and let her hand fall away again. In front of me, shyness and modesty didn't exist.
And so, from the bottom of the hill, I spent a long, contented while admiring Erina's panties — no, admiring Erina at play. I was the one who'd given her those panties, and I was the one who washed them in the machine every time. So of course I knew that of the five panty-and-bra sets she owned — one white, one pink, one ivory, one gray, one black — the white pair saw the most wear.
"Eek!"
Thump.
Bouncing about like a puppy, Erina finally took a tumble.
Tumble, tumble.
Hm. So her plan is to come down the hill by rolling. Efficient.
"Hnngh... all that running after so long... I'm worn out..."
"Come sit down and have something to eat."
I brushed the grass off Erina's clothes and looked for a flat spot to spread the mat. A patch of pink wildflowers happened to be perfectly level, so we settled down right in the middle of it. Taking off your shoes and sitting inside a spread-out mat — whether this Eastern style of picnicking was new to her or not, Erina found it fascinating.
"It's hard to believe. In a place this vast, the only people in sight are you and me, Master... just the two of us."
"I felt the same, the first time I came here."
"Meeting you and coming to Greenhill... it really was the greatest luck of my life."
I didn't answer that. I just smiled, quietly. It seemed the shy one here wasn't Erina, but me.
Me too. I'm glad I met you.
North, south, east, west — whichever way I looked, there were flowers. At some point, Erina had gone and fallen head over heels for the romance of the place.
"The flowers are so pretty. I've never seen anything like them back home. You don't know what they're called, do you?"
"Hmm... no idea."
Truth be told, I didn't have much interest in this world's flowers. There was a flower vendor in the market, sure, but all I knew were the flashy, expensive blooms — big, richly colored roses and peonies. Nameless little wildflowers like these could bloom all over this world and I still wouldn't know them.
She hadn't really been expecting an answer, it seemed; Erina simply went on to pick a few of the biggest, most fully opened blossoms and tucked them into her hair as decoration.
"Well? Am I pretty?"
What man alive could look at that and say meh?
"Beautiful..."
"Hehe..."
Then Erina took out the snacks I'd packed and spread them all out. For this moment at least, she looked for all the world like a little girl playing house.
"Wow, you even brought my gummy bears!"
By now, Erina's tastes had well and truly settled. She loved sweets, unconditionally — and above all, soft, chewy jellies, with fruit-flavored ones at the very top of the list. I had a sneaking feeling that come her first paycheck, she might pull a Gote and ask to be paid in jelly.
"Mmph! So good!"
Erina popped a few into her mouth, then suddenly held one between her lips and turned to look at me.
"Master..."
"Hm?"
"Jelly... would you like some?"
Gummy bear caught between her lips, Erina puckered them out toward me.
Wow... this... I'd agonized so long over how to even start something like this... and she was coming to me first, all on her own?!
Eyes closed, bear-shaped jelly between her lips, Erina waited for me, mouth extended.
...
I hesitated for just a moment. Then, slowly, I leaned in toward Erina's face — and laid my lips softly over hers.
