I Became an Elf, So I'm Totally Fucked! [01]

The sunlight found me before my alarm did. Of all days, why did it have to look so accusing this morning? If only it would hold off just a little longer. Getting out of bed was the last thing I wanted to do—genuinely.

A shaft of light needled my eyes mercilessly through the gap in the curtains. Leave me alone, will you? It's my day off! I rolled over, and a heavy curtain of hair clung to my face. I tried to bear it, but the irritation was slowly building.

"Ugh... what a pain! What even is this."

I'd only had it cut recently—how had it gotten this long already? Midway through grumbling, the voice drifting out of my mouth suddenly struck me as strange. Like I'd swallowed a mouthful of helium.

My first thought was a cold. I'd heard the flu was making the rounds lately. Maybe I should dig out some cold medicine. I had slept with the air conditioner running last night, so it was entirely possible. I brushed it off as nothing and pushed myself upright. Huh? What's wrong with—!

The blanket was impossibly roomy. Even with my legs stretched to their fullest, my toes couldn't find the end of the bed. Unless the bed had grown overnight... no way. Surely I wasn't the one who'd shrunk? ...Right? I forced the thought down and yanked away the thing covering my face. A fistful of pale green hair came up in my hand. I tugged at it, half convinced it was a wig, but weirdly, it wouldn't come off.

Not that I had any memory of dyeing it. I'd certainly never grown my hair out to this length, either. Strands slipped between my fingers and kept going, all the way down past my waist. My mind reeled.

"...What. What the hell is going on!"

I ran a hand down my throat. The Adam's apple that always snagged at my fingertips was gone—nothing but smooth skin. I looked down at the hand itself. Small and pale. Round nails, a smooth back. The T-shirt I'd fallen asleep in slid off my shoulder; clothes that had fit me perfectly until yesterday now hung to mid-thigh, the sleeves swallowing my arms to the elbow. Something was very wrong here, wasn't it?

Sliding off the bed, I found the floor much closer than it should be. My steps were short, and the room yawned emptier than usual. It was the first time since moving day that this one-room studio had looked anything close to spacious. I steadied my breathing and jammed my feet into my slippers. The heels gaped, but that could wait—there were far more important things right now. Shuffling as I went, I stopped in front of the full-length mirror.

"Th-that's a lie! It has to be a lie!"

A girl was staring back at me. Swaying lime-green hair. An oversized white T-shirt. And in her wide, round green eyes sat a tiny four-leaf clover. Between strands of hair, her ears rose to sharp points, keen as fangs.

There was no way I could believe this. An elf? Like something out of a video game? I pinched my cheek. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hurt. I pulled on one of the ears. Owch! That hurt way more! And the moment I let go, the tip trembled all on its own, wiggling without a shred of my permission. A chill ran up my spine at the sight of it moving by itself. It was ridiculous. Deeply, hopelessly ridiculous.

Next I measured my height. The light switch that used to sit at eye level now hovered over my head; I had to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stand on tiptoe just to graze it. That was how much I'd shrunk. Everything, from head to toe, had turned inconvenient.

"It's a dream. Yeah! This is a nightmare. That's it!"

Right—a dream. That would explain all of it. I marched back to bed and hauled the blanket over my head. Count to three, open my eyes, and I'd be back in my own body. Okay, go! One, two, three!

Nothing had changed. Tragically.

As a final resort, I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. In my rush I got some up my nose and hacked and wheezed. Honestly, there wasn't one single thing about this I liked. I barely managed to swallow a curse, wiped my face with a towel, and lifted my head.

In the mirror, a dripping-wet elf glared back at me. Well, aren't you lovely—the face alone could pass for a sculpture. If only it didn't belong to a little kid. That was the whole problem.

I sank down onto the bathroom floor. From the faucet, water dripped—plip, plip—in perfect rhythm. Only after listening to that sound for a long, long while did my heart finally settle. I was calm now. More or less.

"...Fine. What choice do I have? I woke up like this."

Accept it. Screaming would only startle the neighbors, and crying wouldn't change a thing. Besides, it could've been worse—I could have woken up as a monster. Time to figure out what to do next. Time to retrace my steps. Han Chorok. Twenty-eight. Four years at a logistics company. Awakeners and hunters had always been my little sister's department—she was the A-rank, and I was just the ordinary older brother standing beside her. And now that brother had turned into a tiny elf girl.

My name being Chorok—as in green—didn't mean my hair needed painting to match. I had no idea whose handiwork this was, but the sense of humor was atrocious. I'd stand out so badly I'd never manage to go outside. A hat was non-negotiable.

I flopped onto the sofa. My feet dangled in the air. Even that got on my nerves now.

I started with the cause, rewinding the previous night: overdue laundry, a late dinner, a shower, bed. I hadn't taken any suspicious medication. I hadn't chanted any strange incantations. It had been a day so uneventful it bordered on boring.

No luck. Fine—practical problems first, then. Today was Sunday, but Monday was the one worrying me. Hmm... what excuse could I feed my department head? I've woken up as an elf, so I'm afraid I can't make it to work today! That would go down in history as the all-time greatest vacation-day excuse—assuming, of course, that anyone actually believed it.

And then there was the matter of my ID. The man in my resident registration photo and the person I was now were, to any observer, two different human beings. Bank accounts, the phone registered under my name, my apartment lease—the list of things that wouldn't check out just kept growing. Maybe I'd start by checking my bankbook. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I held the phone up to my face. The screen lit, the unlock icon seemed to think about it for a second, and then it wobbled left and right.

The finger pressing the screen felt pointlessly pathetic. Who knew "me" was something I could lose? At this rate, wasn't my entire livelihood hanging by a thread?

Should I tell my parents? But if I called my mother, the odds of her mistaking me for a phone scammer were extremely high. I wouldn't have believed me either. Yet telling my little sister gave me pause. This was the A-rank hunter who'd proudly made this year's association list of rising stars—the one person who would understand this situation better than anyone, and precisely because of that, the biggest problem of all. Reporting anything suspicious came first in her job description, and there was no guarantee she'd cut her own brother slack. When it came to that, she was utterly by the book.

And the scariest part was what came after. Every gate and mana-related anomaly fell under the Hunter Management Bureau's jurisdiction—or so my sister had told me. High-rank hunters were treasured like national gems; that had never had anything to do with me. Sadly. An ordinary civilian whose whole body had been replaced would be handled very differently. Quarantine. Laboratories. Dissection tables. My imagination careened off the rails, and cold sweat soaked into my back.

"Let's just... hold off on reporting anything for now."

Saying it out loud helped a little. ...Even if I still couldn't get used to the voice. Then my bangs jabbed me in the eyes again. Ugh, why are they so long! So annoying! I swept them back and they slid right down again. I glanced around the room for something to tie my hair with. A bachelor's studio apartment was never going to have rubber bands lying around. Just as I was about to give up, I checked the pillow—and something unfamiliar turned up. What was this? A white clover-shaped hairpin. Certainly not mine. The only woman who ever set foot in this room was my sister, and she was so swamped with hunter business I hadn't seen hide nor hair of her in ages. A genuine mystery. I laid it on my palm and turned it over, examining it from every angle. It felt a little ominous, but I needed something, anything. I clipped it carelessly into the hair above my ear, and my field of view opened up in one clean sweep.

"Maybe I should search the internet first. You never know—there might be other people out there with the same symptoms as me. The Hunter Gallery should be my first stop..."

Grrrowl. My stomach protested before anything else. So elves got hungry too. Eat first, think after—human or elf, an empty stomach clouds the judgment. I headed to the kitchen and swung open the fridge.

The entire interior was drenched in orange. Carrots on the top shelf. Carrots on the middle shelf. Nothing in the door compartments but carrots. No eggs, no ham, no leftover fried chicken. I stood speechless before that horror of a refrigerator.

The culprit was a delivery that had come up from the countryside. My mother, declaring that this year's garden had produced a bumper crop, had shipped me a full twenty kilograms of carrots—along with a threatening text warning that she wouldn't let it slide if she caught me throwing a single one away. For the next week and more, it had been stir-fried carrots. Carrot pancakes. Carrot juice. Carrot curry. Once the curry powder ran out, I'd simply chewed them raw, until I couldn't take it anymore, until at last I gave up on eating them altogether. It had exceeded the limits of the human body.

I picked up a carrot. Firm and heavy in my hand, with a faint smell of earth still rising off it. I couldn't help wondering. Maybe, with an elf's body, my palate had shifted over to the vegetable side. It might be fine, right? It might even taste good? Brimming with hope, I took a bite.

It was an ordinary carrot, tasting for all the world like garbage. The exact flavor I'd been force-fed for a week straight. No idea how I was going to explain my current state to my parents, forbidden above all from letting my sister find out—and into that situation, of all things, a carrot had entered my mouth. Something in me finally snapped. As if becoming an elf weren't injustice enough! What is this?!

"Ah, come on...!"

I flung the window open. A thick, muggy summer wind raked through my hair. Across the way stood a shabby old five-story walk-up, and beyond it an apartment complex. I drew my carrot-clutching arm back as far as it would go, packed every last drop of resentment into my voice, and shouted. Loudly. Holding nothing back.

"I'm sick to DEATH of carrots!"

And I threw. With everything I had. The carrot left my hand. Yes. Yes, this is right. For stress relief, nothing beats a good throw. Fly! Far!

But then things took a very strange turn. The carrot carving through the open air suddenly began to grow. Palm-sized swelled to person-sized, and then, in the blink of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an eye, to the size of a bus. How big was this thing planning to get? I found myself staring, unblinking, at the carrot blotting out the sky. My fingertips buzzed and tingled, and a pale green light flickered in the gaps between my fingers. So this was the mana I'd only ever heard about. Incredible. Wow! It sparkles. Only afterward did I register a strange hollowness somewhere deep in my body—the sense that what I'd just thrown had not been the carrot alone. And by then, it was far too late to stop.

The colossal carrot tipped over and plummeted. Straight for the rooftop of the walk-up across the street. With a WHAM, the ground shuddered. The railing on the roof crumbled like a cracker.

"UuuuuuAAAAAH! N-no way!"

Chunks of concrete sprayed in every direction, and a thick haze of dust boiled upward. And there in the middle of it all, the carrot stood embedded at a jaunty angle—perfectly composed, as though it had sprouted there from the very beginning. It was a sight beyond absurdity.

A beat of silence passed. Somewhere a dog burst out barking. Car alarms began to wail, and down below, windows started flying open one after another. I stood rooted to the spot, frozen solid, the corners of my mouth locked in the grin I'd been wearing. Cold sweat crawled from my forehead down past my temple.

The rooftop had been empty. It had been empty... right? No. No! It had to be empty. Please! Please! I whipped my head around, scanning the window frame. From a window in the building on the diagonal, someone leaned out, smartphone in hand—and the camera that had been filming the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rooftop swung slowly toward me. I dove behind the curtain in a panic, heart hammering like it was trying to break out of my chest. All I could do was hope—pray—that this whole thing would somehow blow over.

Buzzzz. Buzzzz. BUZZZZ! The phone on the table rattled itself in place. I stole a glance at the screen. Sure enough...

"W-wait a second! Unmeasurable? What's that supposed to—?!"

The alerts weren't finished. This time my messenger chimed. The moment I checked the sender, my breath caught in my throat. Running into her like this would be a disaster. A catastrophe.

Far away, sirens converged, layer upon layer. Police? Fire department? The Hunter Management Bureau? Whichever it was, none of them were welcome. If I'd known this would happen, I would've just eaten the stupid carrot. The regret came flooding in, far too late.

Without a word, I looked down at my hand. Along the lines of my palm, the green light still shimmered, like a spool of gossamer thread. It was mesmerizing—and at the same time, chilling. The words I'd imagined on the sofa earlier came marching back in single file. Quarantine. Experimentation. Dissection. And standing at the very head of that procession, my sister's face.

The world went dark before my eyes.

"...I'm so fucked."