A New Kind of Scam
“The members have been decided. Starting with myself, the chieftain of the elves…”
“……The chieftain herself is coming?”
“Yes. Is there a problem…?”
“Ah—no, nothing like that…”
“We followed a perfectly fair process. My selection was pure coincidence—”
And so, official exchanges between As and the United States began.
The American government agents moved with taut nerves—far more tightly wound, in a sense, than when Astria herself had crossed over.
Back then, her entry and visit had been classified at the highest level; all they needed to worry about was security inside the research facility. One entrance. Seal that, and nearly every problem stayed sealed with it.
Now? As’s existence had been made public, yet the gate’s location and the facility itself remained tightly held secrets. That meant everything—from the welcome for the elves to guiding them aboveground—was classified, and the agents of the intelligence services, none of them especially practiced at this sort of thing, had to handle it all.
“—Welcome, people of As.”
“We thank you for the hospitality, people of Earth.”
One by one, the elves whose names appeared on the prearranged list stepped through the gate. The agent checking the roster and calling out each name couldn’t help a small, involuntary smile.
These names… they almost sound like English letter combinations.
Eruel herself sounded like “LL” drawn out a little, and the others weren’t far off—Jien as ZN, Albi as RB, Sissisi as CCC, and so on.
As had never had contact with Earth, as far as anyone knew. Finding the great language of America in their names felt less like coincidence and more like deliberate fate.
Yes—this had to be proof that American English was a language even the gods themselves recognized. How else could it have arisen naturally in a completely unrelated world like As—
……No way.
He’d heard somewhere that no historian or linguist had ever pinned down the exact origin of English. Roughly derived from Latin, developed in Britain among Celts and Anglo-Saxons—that much they knew. But the missing link in the middle, the precise how of its evolution, remained a blank.
That was more than a thousand years ago, yet the average age of an elf was said to run into the hundreds. And the Dragon King of As they all revered? She was thousands of years old without breaking a sweat.
No… it couldn’t be…
It was pure conspiracy-theory thinking, yet plausible enough that he couldn’t shake it. The idea that the Dragon King of As had visited Earth long ago—and that she herself might be the starting point of modern English…
For a moment, the chill of revelation raced through him, as if he had glimpsed one of the world’s hidden truths.
“Earthling?”
“……Ah—s-sorry! This way, please.”
No. Impossible. He told himself that, yet the same thought kept circling inside the agent’s head.
Fortunately, whatever nonsense filled his mind, the security detail proceeded without a hitch.
That day, the elves’ debut on Earth was a success.
America is crowded with magnificent wilderness. It isn’t for nothing that Forbes ranked it among the most beautiful countries on Earth for natural scenery, or that five of the world’s seven great natural wonders lie within its borders.
Of course, the fact that this beauty was seized not by the indigenous peoples born of the land but by invaders from outside remained a problem… yet standing in a position not so different from those invaders, I couldn’t simply condemn them out of hand.
I gazed at Niagara Falls thundering down before me and let out a soft sound of admiration.
Behold. Don’t you want it?
As had natural vistas every bit as grand—waterfalls that fell without end, places that truly deserved to be called the edge of the world. Yet Earth possessed a value no landscape of As could match.
At least here, the scenery did not try to kill the people watching it.
Just the fact that it’s safe lets me enjoy the view this calmly…
No need to watch for transcendent beasts claiming the territory as their own. No sudden yawning of the earth that would swallow every creature that came to drink from the falls.
Earth had not a single scrap of magic or other transcendent force. That alone made it this safe—and the realization filled me with quiet wonder.
I was still studying the falling water when a small voice spoke up.
“Um… e-excuse me.”
“Hm?”
“You’re that lady, right? The one on TV!”
A tiny child who barely reached my knee was looking up at me. I had never appeared on television; President Ronald would have had a full-blown fit if I had. But I knew exactly whom the child meant. Right now television and the internet alike were overflowing with talk of one particular group.
I recalled yesterday’s news—the footage of As’s children making their first visit to Earth.
—Greetings, people of Earth. I am Eruel, chieftain of the high elves of As…
Blonde hair, generous figures, every last one of them breathtakingly beautiful—the elves’ looks had set the world ablaze. The fact that their faces were identical down to the last detail, as if someone had simply copy-pasted them, only added fuel to the fire.
And those looks had been modeled after mine. There was no need to wonder whom the child saw when she looked at me.
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Wow! So you’re really an alien?”
“Well… As isn’t quite the outer space you’re thinking of, but close enough.”
Farther off, the agent assigned to watch me was fidgeting in visible distress. I gave a small gesture that everything was fine and continued talking with the child.
“Can I take a picture?”
“Of course.”
“Mom!”
“Th-thank you. Honey, go stand next to her.”
The mother, who had been hovering a short distance away with the same anxious look, hurried over and raised her smartphone. Then she realized that fitting a child who barely reached my knee into the same frame as someone well over two meters tall was impossible. She kept backing up until, looking apologetic, she spoke again.
“Um… could you hold my daughter? She won’t fit in the shot otherwise…”
“Gladly.”
I lifted a finger. The child rose gently into the air.
“W-woooah?!”
She flailed in surprise, then floated straight into my arms. Still not quite understanding what had just happened, she immediately began bouncing with excitement. She was so worked up she tried to wriggle free so I would do it again; calming her down took real effort.
I finally got her settled, held her quietly for a few photos, and was about to hand her back to her mother when—
Thwack! The child’s hand smacked against my barrier. I glanced down. Even without looking at anything but the hand hovering near my head, I knew what she had been reaching for.
“I’m sorry.”
“Uh… uh…”
“My horns are sensitive. I don’t let people touch them casually.”
I set her down as I spoke. The child’s face crumpled with disappointment.
“…I want to touch them.”
“When you want something like that, you ask first.”
“Can I touch your horns?”
In the space of a few words her expression filled with bright expectation again. Looking at her, I said:
“No.”
“…Waaaaaah!”
I left at once. The mother could soothe her; any more attention and even walking away would become a nuisance.
As I moved off, the agent who had been watching from a distance hurried over to take her place at my side. She wore an expression of pure disbelief, as if replaying the scene. A being from another world before whom even the president tread carefully—a monster not so different from the giant bird nesting in Canada—had just been kind to a child. Apparently that was shocking.
But the behavior was necessary. In short, I needed to farm some favorability. No one else from As was even thinking of doing it.
The newly arrived elves were winning human goodwill, true, but from what I’d heard they weren’t doing anything particularly visible. That left me to go around and show that the beings of As were not especially harmful to humans…
“—Whoa, you’re really tall!”
“……?”
“Let’s ask this person! I’ve got a hundred dollars here and a mystery box! Pick one!”
I tilted my head at the man thrusting a wad of cash and a plain white box toward me at the same time.
……A new kind of scam?