I Am Your Daughter-in-Law

"Hey, wait, just a second! Don't open the door! I only just summoned her — she's an elf!"

"An elf, you say?"

"An elf~?"

What was I supposed to do? The summon was fond of me to a degree that made no sense at all, but my parents were another matter entirely.

Posts from the gallery were just starting to surface in my head — all those people suffering at the hands of their summons.

"Father-in-law! Mother-in-law! I must offer my greetings, dayo!"

The summon let go of my face, shot upright, and announced it.

"I shall open the door for them this very instant, dayo!"

The door banged open.

"Ahem!"

"Oh my, oh my?"

For a moment my parents were thrown — it wasn't me who stepped through the suddenly opened door, but the summon — and then, just as quickly, wonder overtook them.

"Clara Drebovna Drebana offers her greetings to the two honored elders as their daughter-in-law, dayo! Please call me Clara, dayo!"

Clara caught her skirt to make a formal bow — or rather, she lightly pinched the hem of my T-shirt and lifted it as she did.

Between the childlike way she talked and everything she'd already done to fluster me, I had more or less given up on expecting manners. What I got instead went past polite. It was a grace so refined I had never seen its like.

More than anything, an appearance so unreal it made you wonder whether she was even human seemed to have stunned my parents rather thoroughly.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Technically she isn't an ordinary person. She is from another world...

No — she was beautiful on an entirely different level from any elf I had ever seen. An otherworlder among otherworlders...!

...What was I even saying.

"A daughter-in-law...? Son, would you care to explain what on earth is going on?"

"Th-that's... today was the first time I met her, too...?"

"Ahem, ahem! Shall I call you my dear daughter-in-law, then? Miss Clara?"

Dad adapted with terrifying speed.

"Please call me in whatever way Father finds fun, dayo!"

"Suho."

All at once his voice had gone serious.

"We'll need to buy our daughter-in-law some clothes. I used to shop for Suyeon's things back in the day, so I'll step out and be right back."

...? Hasn't it been something like ten years since he last bought clothes for my sister? Dad, no—!

Before I could stop him, he had the front door open and was gone.

"Hmm..."

Beaming. Just beaming.

Even under Mom's unblinking stare, Clara did nothing but smile and smile.

And here I'd thought every otherworlder looked down on the rest of us!?

She isn't even going to demand to know why you're staring at her with such disrespectful eyes...? The way she bowed, she seemed like nobility.

"I wonder if Suyeon left any spare underwear. ...Miss Clara? Would you come with me for a moment?"

"I shall do as Mother says, dayo!"

They say you can't spit at a smiling face. Mom took one look at the state of what Clara had on and led her away to Suyeon's room, standing empty now that she lived in the college dorms.

Come to think of it... there was probably ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nothing at all under that T-shirt.

I only told her to throw on whatever was lying around! I absolutely did not dress her in just that! Believe me!

Once the brief, clattering commotion had passed, Clara and the rest of my family sat down side by side at the dining table.

Dad, back from his shopping trip, had bought a princess dress at a nearby department store. I was the one who had started out protesting what he thought he was doing, bringing something like that home — and now I had no choice but to concede.

Looks really are a tyrant!

Somewhere in this world, there existed a person who could actually pull off a frilly pink princess dress.

And judging by the fruit he'd also picked up while he was at the department store, did Dad know that elves ate nothing but expensive fruit?

"So, young lady, what you're saying is that you're our daughter-in-law?"

"That's right, dayo!!!"

"Ahem. Our dear daughter-in-law certainly has spirit. I like that!"

"And what are you rushing into this time!"

"Ahem."

My parents, age gap and all, bickered today just as they always did.

After she'd had her say at Dad, Mom's arrow swung toward me. Those eyes looked ready to interrogate me over exactly what I had done to land us in a situation like this.

I genuinely didn't know either. For the moment, I turned to the summon.

"Um, Miss Clara?"

"Just call me Clara, dayo!"

"Ah, right. ...Clara, would it be all right if I asked you something?"

"Ask me anything at all, dayo!"

Had it been about three months after I finished rehabilitation? That day the dream I'd been so certain of got me treated like a man on the sidewalk, asking strangers if they'd heard the good word?

Well. Nothing to be done. Even if I got called an idiot all over again, I still had to ask.

"...By any chance, do you know the Hero?"

"The Hero?"

Ah.

I knew it the moment that single word left Clara's mouth.

"I do not know, dayo!"

"......"

She had nothing to do with the Hero at all.

"But I might have remembered, before, dayo!"

"What? Before?"

What was she saying all of a sudden?

"I think I had many older sisters, but after I was summoned, there was no one left whose face or name I could remember, dayo!"

What?

This was the first I'd ever heard of summons losing their memories when they were summoned.

Should I ask about it on the gallery?

"Then why are you my wife, Clara? How is it you remember that?"

"I fell for you at first sight, dayo! And you asked someone like me to marry you, dayo! That is how we became husband and wife, dayo!"

"...When did I do that?"

No, Miss Clara — the moment you were summoned, you looked at me and said you were my wife, didn't you?

It wasn't a proper answer, but she wore the proud look of someone who had answered perfectly.

Had something happened with Clara that never showed up in the dream?

Then why don't the other otherworlders know me?

"Hmm, Clara. Do you happen to know all three syllables of my name?"

She would already have heard my given name, since my parents had called it several times. What I was checking was whether she knew my surname, Han.

"I only know Suho, dayo! Hurry and tell me your family name, dayo!"

Hmm.

The otherworlder I summoned recognizes me as her husband. It seems tied to what I saw in the dream, and yet the other otherworlders don't know me at all. Honestly, I can't even tell whether Clara herself knows me or not.

Ugh. My head hurts.

"...I'm Han Suho."

"Han. Su. Ho. It is a truly wonderful name, dayo!"

Delighted to have learned it, Clara broke into a wide smile and called my name over and over.

She really did look like someone hearing a name for the very first time and turning it over on her tongue.

But this was the problem.

"Son?"

Mom's eyes had become the eyes of someone who suspected I had sweet-talked an innocent summon into marriage the moment I laid eyes on her.

No! She does look a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠little young, and she does look innocent, but—!

Mom, your son isn't that bad a person!

"Haha, Mom. I think something got mixed up in her memory when she was summoned. We should probably take our time figuring it out."

Fortunately, the conversation itself wasn't a problem. Otherworlders spoke Korean, every last one of them.

No one knew why.

So I'd wondered whether this, too, was something the me from the dream had done. Making otherworlders of different races and different nations forget every language they had used, and know only Korean?

...Not a very realistic story.

The meal was over. Now there was something I actually needed to confirm properly.

"Clara? If you don't mind, could I see your status window?"

"Sta...tus window?"

Had I made a mistake?

She'd treated me so familiarly up to now that I hadn't thought it through. A first meeting with a summon was not supposed to go like this. A high-handed attitude. Being ignored. Those were the things you were meant to expect. Personal information like a status window was something she still wouldn't be able to show me—

"Oh!? There are letters floating in the air, dayo! How amazing, dayo! Is this the status window, dayo? Let us look at it together, dayo!"

—or so I had assumed.

But why didn't an otherworlder know what a status window was?

And Clara's status window, once I actually got a look at it, was—

Huh?

How many Peerless Beauties was that. And — an imperial princess?

Wasn't the highest person among the elves a queen?

The stats were strange, too. I pulled up the level-by-level stat chart saved on my phone and set them side by side, and there was no longer any doubt that something was off. Her level was only 5, but the stats sat close to a level 12's. The numbers in parentheses — the ones actually in effect — were even more absurd. Traits applied a correction to your stats, and the values really being used were the ones inside the parentheses....

What kind of trait produced a correction this good?

First I tapped the Yearning of Flame entry and checked the description.

?

A Mid-level Ability User at level 5?

From what I'd seen on the gallery, you had to be level 11 before you counted as mid-level.

With stats like these, did I even need to go looking for a party?

"...Son?"

I'd been staring a hole through Clara's status window, and Mom must have thought something had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gone wrong, because she called to me in a worried voice.

"Ah — Mom, it says Miss Clara is twenty-four! And her stats were so good I ended up staring for a while!"

"I think Han Suho is wonderful too, dayo!"

No, I'd said her stats were good....

Once she knew my name, Miss Clara kept calling it the way you'd chant a cheer. And without quite meaning to, after learning she was a full three years older than me, I had started attaching an honorific whenever I addressed her.

"Han Suho. Han Suho. Han Suho. Mm-hmm! It really is a good name, dayo."

"Twenty-four? So our dear daughter-in-law is a grown woman. Then there's no problem at all. I approve of this marriage."

"Father, thank you so very much, dayo!"

At Dad's words, Miss Clara let out a bright, ringing laugh, and the look on his face melted even further.

Suyeon grew up and stopped being as sweet with Dad as she used to be....

It felt as though Miss Clara were filling that gap. Mom, too, seemed to soften once she heard Miss Clara's age.

Oh, come on! You really thought I'd sweet-talked some innocent little kid? Mom?

Anyway, the party problem I'd been worrying over had vanished, so now it was time to ask whether she could climb the Tower with me....

"If it is my husband's request, I shall grant anything at all, dayo!"

Unlike everyone else's, my summon needed neither persuasion nor payment.

And so a day like a storm came to an end.

I had Miss Clara stay in Han Suyeon's room for the time being, and I lay down on the bed in my own.

"With stats like those, monsters on the unranked floors won't even be a match for her. But wasn't the highest person among the elves a queen? Then where does an imperial princess even belong?"