Let's Live Kindly
“That’s what happened, I’m telling you! Isn’t that way too harsh?! I helped first, but she treated me like some dangerous criminal!”
“Wait, if I’d been there I probably would’ve wet myself. Yona, you really are a scary kid, huh?”
“That’s so mean, Elly! Thanks to you I survived, and I’m grateful you healed my hand… but when you react like that it makes me want to cry!”
I let out a fake sob, sniffling pathetically. Elly sighed and slid a large glass of milk across the counter.
“Don’t cry in someone else’s tavern. Just drink this.”
“…Is this on the house?”
“Well, you came as a customer today, so I can manage at least this much.”
“Yay!”
Free stuff is always welcome. I beamed and gulped down the milk. The rich, savory flavor filled my mouth before sliding smoothly down my throat. Maybe it was because my body had reverted to a growth phase, or maybe the cows in this world were a completely different breed from Earth’s. Either way, the dairy here was genuinely satisfying.
With a white mustache still clinging to my upper lip, I slowly scanned the room. Adventurers chatted noisily, clinking glasses and devouring food like starving wolves. It was a perfectly ordinary scene for a tavern in Labyrinth City. But there was one glaring oddity.
Every single server was a man dressed in a bunny suit.
Not waitresses. Waiters. Men. And they were serving customers in skintight bunny outfits…!
Burly muscleheads, delicate pretty boys, bespectacled intellectuals who looked like they belonged in a library—every type of “bunny” (definitely not girls) was subtly flirting with favored customers, brushing against them or flashing coy smiles.
That explained why every single patron here was female. While adventuring as a profession did skew heavily female, the crowd gathered at The Elf and the Silver Coin was one hundred percent women without exception. Of course that made sense—this place operated as both a tavern and a slightly risqué establishment. To them, it was probably paradise, a place where the day’s fatigue melted away.
…To me, it was hell on earth.
So, to cleanse my eyes, I fixed my gaze on the owner of the place—the same person who had just given me free milk. Elly. Ash-gray hair tied back casually. Wolf ears and a tail that matched her rugged features. Her yellow eyes stared vacantly at her employees while she held a magic herb cigarette between her lips. She wore a neat bartender’s outfit, but her voluptuous figure made the whole look downright indecent.
…Unfortunately, I couldn’t focus on that entirely.
My eyes kept drifting to her empty right sleeve, fluttering from the shoulder down. It practically screamed “woman with a tragic past.” Knowing her history—that she’d once been a successful adventurer who lost an arm to a monster and retired—only made it more obvious.
Well… I knew the real Elly beneath that melancholy exterior.
I reached out and tugged on the swaying empty sleeve.
“Elly. Elly.”
“Hm?”
“What are you thinking about right now?”
“Ah. I was thinking I really, really want to fuck my boys. Who the hell came up with those outfits anyway? Yona, are you actually a genius?”
“Wow, you’re being pretty blatant today! If it’s that bad, why not just close your eyes and ask them? The guys wouldn’t turn you down.”
“You’re probably right. …That’s the problem.”
Elly let out a long sigh, stubbed out her shortened magic herb, and continued.
“They all treat me like some kind of savior…! You know Jason’s getting married soon, right? He found a good woman who doesn’t care about his past. He came crying to me saying it was all thanks to me. How am I supposed to tell someone like that, ‘Heh, if you’re grateful, repay me with your body!’? I can’t!”
“I can never tell if you’re actually a good person or a bad one, Elly.”
That’s right. Truth was, Elly had opened this slightly lewd tavern hoping to build a reverse harem where she could sleep with her employees whenever the mood struck. After years spent as an adventurer focused on getting stronger and earning money, she’d never even held a man’s hand—apparently this was the backlash. But rather than serious relationships, she wanted something more casual, the kind of instinct-driven connections typical of beastmen.
So she’d picked out men from the city’s male brothels who matched her tastes. That part was fine. The problem was that Elly didn’t really understand how this industry worked.
She hadn’t forced any of them into debt. Thanks to her strangely kind personality, she didn’t curse at them, hit them, or rule through violence. The tavern was the main business, not a brothel, so she never forced them into prostitution. And if they did sell their bodies, she only took thirty percent as commission. All of this was only possible because of the fortune she’d saved during her adventuring days.
For reference, the standard commission in this industry starts at fifty percent. The truly vicious places take eighty or more. I knew this well because I’d once seriously considered becoming a male prostitute. Back then I’d thought, Unlike the other guys, I actually like lewd stuff, so wouldn’t it be perfect? But the industry was scarier than I expected. One wrong move and you’d be stuck as a prostitute for life. Even if you somehow cleaned up your past, you’d have to start over from zero. Once I realized the money flowed to the pimp instead of me, I never looked at the red-light district again.
Up to that point, Elly would have been just an ordinary pushover boss. But that wasn’t the end of it, which is why things turned out like this.
These men had all fallen to the point where selling their bodies was their only option. Each of them carried at least one tragic story. Maybe it was her natural personality, or maybe she thought—as a forever-single virgin—that the first time should be with someone you loved. Whatever the reason, Elly had solved each of their problems within the limits of what she could do: parental abuse, vicious loan sharks, paying for a talented younger brother’s tuition, and so on.
…And at that point, I could no longer call her a pushover.
To the employees of The Elf and the Silver Coin, Elly was practically a goddess who had solved their problems, opened new futures for them, and even provided generous financial support. After seeing them thank her sincerely, show her respect, and swear loyalty, Elly couldn’t bring herself to say, “In that case, come to my bed.” And so things had reached the present.
A woman who loved men but couldn’t do anything when it counted, a good-hearted coward who remained a virgin. That pretty much summed up Elly.
The reason I knew all this was simple. Elly was a character I had created. I hadn’t given her much of a backstory, but one thing was certain—she was fundamentally a good person. In this world where so much had been twisted, she was one of the few people I could trust. That’s why I’d decided to get close to her. Approaching her with the attitude that I already knew everything made things surprisingly easy.
Elly stared gloomily at the muscular giant—Jason—who was apparently getting married soon. I tugged on her empty sleeve again and grinned.
“Elly. Do you want to marry me after all?”
“…Not if the kid has a milk mustache.”
“But you like pretty boys like Kyle, right?”
“Kyle’s a half-elf. He looks like that, but he’s older than me.”
I wiped the milk from my mouth and proposed again.
“Then how about when I become an adult?”
“A man who might smile and stab me in the neck one day… no thanks.”
“I keep telling you that’s a misunderstanding! I’m not that crazy! As long as you don’t try to sell me off as a slave, that won’t happen, so don’t worry!”
“Normal kids can’t rip off their own wrists, nor can they kill the boss of a criminal clan just because an opening appeared. And even if they succeeded, they definitely wouldn’t come back the next day smiling brightly and asking for food.”
With that, Elly subtly pulled her sleeve out of my grasp.
“You’re so mean… I like you this much!”
“Yeah, yeah. While we’re on the subject, let me ask. You propose to me almost every time we meet—what exactly is your goal in marrying me?”
“Obviously your body and your money!”
“…I shouldn’t be the one saying this, but that’s a genuinely trash reason!”
Elly took a genuine step back, looking horrified. It was the same reaction Lydia had given yesterday. But today I wasn’t going to back down so easily. I closed the distance in two steps and shoved my face close to hers.
“Look at me, Elly. Pink hair? Pretty boy? You’ll definitely regret it if you miss this chance! Think of it as a long-term investment of about five years!”
“Next scam, please.”
“Gyaaah! I’m a virgin, you know?! Stop with the prejudice that pink hair means I’m lewd! And you’re the same when it comes to experience!”
“Eep!”
“It’s natural for me since I’m young… but how old are you now, Elly? Almost thirty, right?”
“Not yet! I’ve still got two years!”
“Two years pass in the blink of an eye! Why not catch yourself a decent, young man before you get any older? Specifically, me!”
“Who’d want a damn brat like you…!”
In truth, with my previous life’s memories still vivid, I didn’t think thirty was old. But in this world, the proper marriage age was twenty-four. At thirty, she’d already missed her prime, and on top of that she was still a virgin? By the standards of women here, that was incredibly humiliating. Since I’d been a virgin myself back on Earth, I understood that feeling perfectly. I knew exactly where it hurt.
I, Kim Yona, am a man who can dig into someone’s wounds and throw them right back at them if it means teasing them. Of course, it’s not that I couldn’t get women—it’s that I didn’t. I was busy with work. Really. There’s no other reason.
…There shouldn’t be.
Anyway, after bickering with Elly like that for quite a while as I continued eating, it happened.
BANG!
The tavern door suddenly flew open with a violent crash, and an intense aura flooded The Elf and the Silver Coin. The noisy bar fell into heavy silence. Since this place targeted mid-tier adventurers with reasonable prices, no one here could resist that pressure.
No one except one person.
Elly, who had once been a top adventurer.
“What bitch is causing trouble in someone else’s—”
Elly stood up with a growl. Her ears perked forward, and her tail puffed up stiffly. The movement of her ears and tail was cute, but the sharp glint in her eyes and the fighting spirit blazing above them were anything but. It was hard to believe this was the same person who’d been joking with me moments ago. Even with only one arm, her movements were flawless—far better than most—as she vaulted over the counter.
She stepped in front of me protectively. Just like always, her stance radiated absolute confidence that she would crush any disturbance with brute force. Everyone in the room, including me, swallowed hard as we sensed what was about to happen.
“Elly-senpai. It’s been a while.”
“…You are?”
A familiar-looking woman gave Elly a small, polite bow. Hair like blazing flames and eyes to match. Her build was on the smaller side, but the full plate armor covering her body erased any sense of frailty. An expressionless face and precise, disciplined movements that screamed “knight.” I knew her name.
“Lydia? What brings you here? No matter who you are, I won’t overlook you causing trouble in my tavern.”
“Sorry. My mistake.”
Lydia obediently withdrew her aura. Elly also calmed down, apparently not interested in fighting. Everyone thought peace would return to the tavern.
At least until Lydia looked straight at me and added one more thing.
“I got excited while looking for the thief who stole my wallet.”
“Ah.”
Have I been caught?