The Horn Is Weird...(3)
Eve Nirvana Yggdrasil stared blankly in the direction the pink-haired boy had disappeared. Yona. He was a boy unlike any other in so many ways.
Lemon and Apple had been all but abandoned in their childhood simply because they were the daughters of criminals. Naturally, they lacked the culture and knowledge expected for their age, and they possessed neither wealth nor martial prowess. That was why Eve had taken them in, put them to work, and taught them whatever she could… But roughly a year ago, Yona had been a boy who couldn’t even put up the slightest resistance against those two sisters.
Yet yesterday, he had supposedly dismantled an entire plunderer in a display that far surpassed Lemon and Apple. Humans were a race that grew as quickly as their short lifespans demanded, but this was clearly an abnormal rate of progress. On top of that, the amount in question had been a mere eight coppers… or rather, from Yona’s perspective at the time, a sum that meant the difference between life and death.
It seemed he had ground his teeth in burning resentment, claiming the twins had nearly let him starve to death with their thoughtless actions. But the moment the twins themselves faced mortal danger, he had saved them. Emotions weren’t the sort of thing that vanished cleanly just because one received proper compensation.
Nevertheless, the instant Yona received the Lucky Strike, he truly let go of all his grudges. That alone was astonishing, but what surprised her even more was the way he treated Eve herself.
“He has never once spoken a lie to me.”
Eve knew it well. She was aware that her appearance and habits invited misunderstanding. She had actively exploited that fact in the past, but after retiring it had become little more than an annoyance. As a result, she had grown accustomed to the wariness others directed at her. There were occasional people who approached her with genuine goodwill and friendliness, but the Eye of Truth saw through every one of their pretenses.
Of course, she didn’t believe lies were inherently evil. At her age, she was long past the point of getting worked up over such trivialities. Basic etiquette, consideration to avoid hurting others, habits ingrained in the body—Eve understood perfectly that not all falsehoods stemmed from malice.
Precisely because she understood that so well, she found herself even more flustered by the sincere kindness Yona showed her.
Yona wasn’t like Lemon or Apple—someone too dense or clumsy to lie properly. If he wanted to, he could hide his expressions and emotions whenever he wished. But he didn’t. When she observed him with the Eye of Truth, Yona was always genuine.
“…So someone like that can exist after all.”
In reality, it was because Yona knew about Eve’s authority that he took such care never to utter even an accidental lie. Having had his interpersonal skills and social awareness obliterated, he had instead fallen in love with his own worldview and characters like the author he was—but Eve could not possibly know that.
The Eye of Truth was an authority that only exposed intentional falsehoods. It could not read specific thoughts, nor could it distinguish cases where the target was genuinely deceived. No matter how wise Eve might be, how could she possibly realize that Yona had once been an author trying to write a novel with the exact same setting as this continent, and that she herself had been planned as one of its characters?
To her, he simply seemed like a transparent person. To a woman who had lived for a thousand long years… no, precisely because she had lived so long, the boy felt all the more special.
But until just moments ago, that had been nothing more than a personal impression, a mere curiosity.
“Hehe. Defeating the Floor Guardian of the first floor and bringing back the World Tree’s authority… Now that’s a story I’ve heard quite often.”
It was only natural. Elves had already attempted it across several centuries. Their mental emptiness had been a far greater problem than it was now. So many elves had taken their own lives before even reaching a hundred years—making a mockery of their long-lived reputation. Naturally, they had struggled desperately to reclaim even a trace of the World Tree. That was why Eve, despite being the World Tree’s young eldest daughter, had been placed on the throne as queen.
Even if those elves of the time had realized the first floor was nothing but a shadow cast across dimensions, an illusory deception, they could hardly have left the labyrinth’s first floor untouched when the World Tree itself stood there in plain sight. They had swarmed the place, trying everything they could to reclaim their past lives. Some elves had even taken up permanent residence on the first floor.
Of course, every last one of those attempts had ended in failure. The World Tree had died to save the elves and no one else; it was an immutable truth that no method could overturn.
But the moment the first adventurers to reach the second floor encountered the being known as the Floor Guardian, fought it, and absorbed a fragment of a dead god’s authority into their bodies—the eyes of the half-resigned elves flipped wide open.
Even without the World Tree itself, finding even a trace of it would be enough. The elderly elves would gain the strength to live on while reminiscing about the past, and the young ones would learn their roots and grow even greater. And if the one who obtained that authority happened to be male… then they would wed him to the queen, the World Tree’s eldest daughter. A child born between those who carried the World Tree’s power would become a true leader and restore the elves to perfection!
With their happy circuits running at full throttle, the elves had staked their entire race’s fate on the endeavor. They poured everything they had into investigating the first floor.
…And so eight hundred years passed.
The elves overcame their depression through their own power and awakened to the doctrine of gold supremacy. Meanwhile, Eve—who had left the position of spouse vacant all that time—became a historically renowned old maid.
“……”
Thinking back on those days still made her angry; the vein at her temple twitched. Eve took a deep breath, deciding to forget the bad memories and recall the good ones instead. For example… the promise Yona had made at the very end.
“I never expected him to say something like that.”
It had been an exploration plan on which individuals staked their lives and the entire race staked its future, yet no one had truly believed it would succeed. It had been filled with nothing but wistful hope.
But Yona had been different. That small boy had declared it with clear conviction, as naturally as if stating that the sun rose in the morning and the moon at night. He would obtain the World Tree’s authority and use it for Eve’s sake.
Yona himself probably didn’t understand what that meant. How could a boy born in this era know about events from hundreds of years ago? But Eve was different. She was the one who had spent eight hundred years guarding her chastity as the recipient of what was essentially a blank-check marriage proposal.
And then there had been that final smile.
Yona had always worn an expression that perfectly matched his age—adorable, with a strange sensuality mixed in thanks to his pink hair. Yet in that single instant when they shook hands, he had been completely different.
An arrogant, ferocious smile that looked as if it would swallow the entire world. Or perhaps it couldn’t even be called a smile. If anything, it resembled the growl of a wild beast. A smile filled with primal violence—the kind that would seize whatever it desired by any means necessary and mercilessly tear apart anyone who got in its way.
That glimpse of ‘masculinity’ by Earth’s standards had completely overwhelmed her. Because it was the first time in her thousand years of life that she had smelled a ‘male.’
“Aah…”
With both Lemon and Apple taken away by Yona, the Eden General Store was now completely empty. In that small, shabby space—yet one that was undeniably cut off from the outside world—Eve’s smile grew even deeper.
“Hehe. A little while should be fine. It’s not as if I’m in any hurry.”
Eve rose from her seat, locked the shop door, and drew the thick curtains over the windows. Then she measured the size of the horn resting on the desk and took out an adult toy of similar dimensions from the display shelf.
This was a general store. Naturally, among the various goods it sold were tools to soothe the loneliness of solo adventurers. She had been thinking it was about time to clear out the stock since it wasn’t selling, but…
“Even if I’m going to clear it out, I should at least check where the problem lies.”
Having finished rationalizing it to herself, Eve put the sizable model into her mouth.
Perhaps because she had guarded it for so very long, she was a little afraid of what lay below… and above all, because Yona had said he liked virgins.
Swish—
The sound of fabric sliding to the floor echoed. Only after pulling two loads that day while thinking of Yona’s fierce smile and moaning “The horn is weird~” was Eve finally able to begin her work.
It felt like I’d written far too many bad checks, but I had still succeeded in entrusting the unicorn horn to Eve for practically free. All that remained was to wait comfortably… yet the fact that I was currently penniless hadn’t changed one bit.
If I shook out my pockets I might scrape together a few coppers, but after tasting the flavor of silver, it was far too small an amount to move my heart.
“So from now on, I’m going to make money.”
Lemon and Apple, who had been dragged along half-kidnapped, looked at each other. Then they tilted their heads at the same time.
“Are we going to the labyrinth again today, sir?”
“Then I’ll go fetch our equipment real quick, ma’am.”
“No. Not the labyrinth—I’m thinking of earning money right here in Labyrinth City. And for efficient farming, I need you two.”
“What does ‘farming’ mean, sir?”
“Oh, your speech has gone back to normal. Is that okay?”
“There’s no one else here but us, so of course. And farming… well, you’ll understand once you try it.”
The difficulty changed completely depending on whether you had helpers or not.
I narrowed my eyes and scanned the surroundings. It was a reasonably bustling neighborhood, but not particularly upscale. Quite a few adventurers were walking around, though they were at best on the same level as Lemon or Apple. In other words, it was a place with just the right amount of insecure public order.
Places like this always had at least one.
I repeatedly swept my gaze across the area near the alleyways. Before long, I found them.
The wild thugs of the streets!
“Go, Lemon! Apple! Pick a fight with them—anything works!”
“You’re showing your true colors already, sir!”
“Starting today, we’re taking over this turf, sir!”
I didn’t know what their circumstances were, but the twin elves charged in excitedly the moment I gave the order. I loosened my fingers while watching the local thugs panic at their momentum.
Crack—
This chilly yet heavy sensation.
“It’s been a while.”
It was time to return to being a pickpocket rather than an adventurer.