The Rough Stone Meets the Chisel (5)
After that, Assir somehow managed to escape the forest and settled down in a human village she happened to stumble upon.
It was a village that had once received great aid from the elves, and for that reason alone the townsfolk fawned over her with almost reverent devotion.
She ate when she wanted, slept when she wanted, and indulged her other appetites whenever the mood struck—a perfect freeloader's life spent filling every craving for food, lust, and sleep without ever leaving her room.
But what, exactly, did an elf mean to humans?
Even a single appearance was enough to set rumors flying, and once she had been parked in the village for a full month, word spread like wildfire. Before long, a never-ending procession of people came seeking her—from neighboring villages all the way to places a two-week walk distant—just for a glimpse of an elf.
Of course the tiny village enjoyed an unexpected boom, and they pampered their resident elf all the more for it.
Assir, however, began to feel increasingly uncomfortable. Day after day she had to force a smile and welcome the endless stream of humans who came to gawk at her, and the constant attention wore her down.
By the time a haughty merchant showed up and told her to become his seventh concubine, Assir decided she was leaving.
One look at the lust practically dripping from his eyes and the way he licked his lips was enough. Stay any longer, and that pig of a pervert would do all sorts of unspeakable things to her.
So on the night she chose to slip away under cover of darkness, Assir never got the chance to put her plan into action.
A sudden raid.
The candle went out, darkness flooded in, and thugs erupted from the shadows. Assir was attacked before she could even resist and lost consciousness on the spot.
To be precise, her elven hearing had warned her a moment before the strike—but she had never fought a day in her life, so knowing did her no good at all.
And so Celebrian Assir, Second Princess of the elves, was bound up in a sack and hauled off like cargo, stuffed into a carriage and kidnapped.
The sudden assault and abduction finally drove home just how valuable an elven woman was. Still thinking with a modern mind, Assir realized she was about to be sold as a slave—no, a sex slave—and wet herself in terror (though she was so thoroughly neglected that by the time they reached their destination, everything had dried).
When she came to, she was already at the Imperial Palace of the Empire.
There she finally met the mastermind behind her kidnapping: Ganix Obina.
Ganix, who also knew the original story, had seen Assir acting completely differently from the source material, concluded she was a transmigrator, and had her brought in.
After treating her like luggage on the way there, he immediately flipped and treated her as an honored guest—bathing her, dressing her, feeding her—until her wariness melted into a soft, gooey mess. Then he launched into his explanation.
He, too, had transmigrated into this world. He and other transmigrators were pooling their strength to survive. With smooth, natural words like those, Ganix reeled Assir in and made her his ally.
After that he wasted no time investing in her, turning her into someone who could pull her own weight.
He hired an instructor to teach her archery and trained her in martial arts.
Scholarship, however, was unnecessary. Once she understood how the world worked and her mind started turning properly, she would become much harder to handle.
Assir herself preferred moving her body to sitting at a desk scratching away with a quill anyway.
An elf's physique was astonishingly flexible and springy. The more she adapted to her new body, the higher and faster she could leap, the farther she could see, and the more precisely she could put an arrow on target.
As her skill grew, so did her sense of accomplishment. Just as confidence began to bloom—the feeling that she could do anything—
Ganix started using Assir in earnest as his own personal bow.
From the day she killed someone on Assir's—on his—orders, Assir began to see everyone except fellow transmigrators as NPCs.
They're just NPCs. Just characters in a novel. Once that thought took root, her arrowheads flew with even less resistance.
She never even questioned why she had to obey Assir's—Ganix's—commands.
His silver tongue was more than enough to make her believe he wasn't giving orders at all; that the brilliant Assir was simply "helping out" because she had no choice.
And now.
On what was not quite an order from Ganix, Assir had taken up residence in the Great Forest.
"Haa… I'm going crazy."
The order itself was simple.
Use her status as Second Princess to stop House Freya from obtaining a leaf of the World Tree.
By then Assir was thoroughly at home in her elven body. The moment she set foot in the woods she found the Great Forest as if by instinct, announced her return, and seized control over the World Tree's leaves without difficulty.
She had realized afterward that the Third Princess was also a transmigrator, but it didn't matter. All she had to do was hole up in the royal palace, plug her ears, and act like a spoiled brat until the next set of instructions arrived.
She ignored every summons from the Council of Elders and every request from the Third Princess to see her. Three days into her self-imposed lockdown—
"There's a Black Flame Dragon here. What the hell am I supposed to do…"
Tenebrix Nox had come to the Great Forest.
There had been rumors from the moment she entered, but now there was no doubt. The ominous presence rolling out of the Third Princess's office building beyond the window was an aura of an entirely different caliber.
"What if they barge in and turn me into paste?"
If it was Tenebrix Nox, she wouldn't even bother opening the door to Assir's room. She could simply incinerate the entire building.
"…Still. Nothing that bastard's ever ordered has been impossible."
She was terrified, her flesh crawling, but Assir had one thing she could cling to. Ganix was thoroughly obnoxious and unlucky to look at, yet nothing he said had ever been wrong.
"Besides… we've got something too…"
And even if something did go wrong, her side had a reliable "secret weapon" of its own.
"…Ah, screw it! It'll work out somehow!"
Assir cranked her barely functional brain until steam practically poured from her ears, then finally dove onto the bed with a shout.
"Thinking is for people who are good at thinking. What am I gonna accomplish by trying?"
It was complicated, but Ganix would handle himself just fine. She decided to drop the headache-inducing worries and simply stay quiet.
That was when—
Knock, knock—
"Huh? What?"
"Lady Assir, your meal is ready."
"A meeeaal?!"
The voice beyond the door announcing that food had been prepared made Assir's face crumple even further.
That damn Front.
The fruit known as the Miracle of the World Tree was the staple food of every elf living in the Great Forest—but Assir had been back less than three days and was already thoroughly sick of it. After living on imperial banquet fare every day, her palate had gone completely high-class. Just looking at Front now made her want to gag.
"I'm not eating!"
"B-but Lady Assir… you really should eat…"
"I said I don't need it! You all eat plenty yourselves!"
"Lady Assir…!"
"Ah! For crying out loud, you're persistent!"
She refused the meal at the top of her lungs, but the attendant beyond the door showed no sign of backing down.
"I said I'm not eating! Just get lost!"
The servant's stubbornness finally blew her fuse, and Assir bellowed one last ironclad declaration of intent.
And then—
"…Ah, come on. If you're an elven princess, quit being a picky eater and just shove it down."
"Wh-what?! What did you just say?!"
The attendant's polite tone had suddenly gone rough and gravelly. Startled, Assir shouted back.
"Kids, Her Highness is being a picky eater. A princess of a nation who won't set a proper example—looks like we'll have to fix that habit, doesn't it?"
Creeeak—crack—
"…Huh? W-wait… wait…! Stop?!"
An ominous sound followed, and cracks spiderwebbed across her door as if a lightning bolt had struck it.
Then—
KRAAAASH—!
"Eekhya?!"
The door exploded into splinters under a tremendous shockwave. The blast of wind and dust knocked Assir flat on her rear before she even realized what had happened.
And then—
"What on earth is going—"
"Well, well, Your Highness. Hard to get a look at that face of yours, isn't it?"
As the thick dust cleared and her vision opened up, Assir lifted her head and looked straight ahead.
There stood a man with a massive axe resting on his shoulder, wreathed in a cold blue aura, staring down at her.
Behind him, more figures began to emerge. Among them was the human form of the very Tenebrix Nox she had been so desperately fretting over only moments before.
"Uh… uhhh…"
Suddenly surrounded by a crowd, Assir's eyes darted every which way as her mouth opened and closed uselessly.
Thud—! Crrrack—!
The man at the front—Darian—casually drove the axe on his shoulder into the floor. A splitting crack raced outward from the point of impact.
"Second Princess of the elves. How about we have a little 'talk'?"
"A t-talk? S… sure?"
Faced with Darian's vicious, ear-to-ear grin, Assir found herself nodding before she could stop herself.