Chapter 73: Elf Noona 1
Chapter 73: Elf Noona 1
Elves differ vastly from humans.
A Dream Demon lives much like a human inside dreams, but elven existence is far removed from human life. That much was clear just from a glimpse of the Unfading Giant Tree's memories. She held a one-sided love for a fellow elf boy for decades. To a human, decades are practically a lifetime, yet to an elf, it barely seemed worth remarking on beyond a drawn-out, "...Huh, I suppose that's a bit long?"
I think crimes involving Incarnations were described as having occurred within "the last thirty years," but I was only half-listening and don't remember clearly.
When even the most fundamental perception of time is this different, most of their culture follows suit. The gap between elves and humans runs deeper than the differences between a fantasy world and the modern one. That tendency showed in the letters I exchanged with the Unfading Giant Tree.
"—Hey, writing letters isn't a bother, is it?"
After seeing to my three Incarnations as usual, I had a little time left in the evening. When they'd finished their routines and training and were getting ready for bed—that was when there was nothing left for me to meddle with. They'd be entering lucid dreams soon, so what would I accomplish by sending a clone?
"—It doesn't bother me. Why do you ask?"
That was when I'd talk with the Unfading Giant Tree through letters. Since I was bored, writing letters by hand still held a certain novel charm, and there was real pleasure in reading her replies written in that neat, rounded script. A Constellation who'd watched over the continent for at least a hundred and some odd decades—listening to her tales of the past was bound to be interesting.
"—I just worry that I might be sending letters too often..."
The stationery practically carried a scent of forest and an emotion of shy embarrassment. It was only evenings, and not even every day—we skipped some nights—yet she saw even that as "too often." From my perspective, exchanging letters once every two or three days was nothing, but she was anxious about becoming a bothersome woman who talked at me too frequently.
Honestly, how could exchanging letters with a cute, pretty-looking woman every couple of days ever be a bother?
"—It truly isn't a bother?"
"—If it were, I wouldn't have replied."
"—Still, boys aren't always forthright, so I couldn't be sure..."
Add the elf-specific perception of time to the masculinity of a world where chastity roles are reversed, and she tiptoes around entirely on her own, desperate not to impose. From my standpoint, a pretty elf woman was giving me points, lending me an Authority, even decorating my studio—I felt like a kept man who does nothing but receive favors. Yet in her eyes, she seemed to fret about becoming a bothersome senior who, bored, talked at me daily and thrust unasked-for gifts upon me.
The biggest reason, I suspect, was the notion of one Constellation using another as her proxy. Constellations are treated as divine entities. No matter how wretched a soul they might once have been, the being who created this world bestowed upon them their own Authorities. They create Incarnations, grant them psychic powers, magic, and martial arts, and safeguard humanity. And one Constellation would use another, equally exalted one as a mere errand runner?
Could the CEO of XX Electronics order around the CEO of XX Life—a fellow subsidiary head—like some secretary or gofer? Even if the companies differ in capital size, they're both CEOs. And my present situation was exactly that: a CEO being treated as an errand boy. Whatever my own perceptions, to her, well-versed in the lives of this world's Constellations, it must have felt that burdensome.
I did want to support her with points, but letting her give them to me for nothing felt like it'd wound my pride. So I tasked her with a job, and then I worried: was I, another Constellation, now courting her resentment with my thoughtless behavior? There was only one way to soothe a woman who was worrying in a direction diametrically opposite to my own thoughts.
...Well, sex.
It's not that I've swapped my brains for semen, going from the terrors of the apocalypse straight into Constellation cushy-life. Just as elves have their elven sensibilities, doesn't a Dream Demon have a Dream Demon's methods? Rather than going on at length with words, explaining "I'm different from other men" or "I have these sensibilities," it's simpler and quicker to just lead her to bed and slam her with a dose of Dream Demon essence.
I'll admit there's a fair bit of desire at play too. A solitary elf girl who'd held a faint first-love crush on an elf boy, only for the object of her affection to commit suicide and become a Constellation—I could keenly feel that she couldn't even distinguish whether her feelings toward me were romantic love as a woman for a man, or mere goodwill toward a conversation partner she could actually talk to. She's lived a far more convoluted life than I have, older and richer in life experience, and yet she's a blank canvas when it comes to love and sex, knowing absolutely nothing.
Wouldn't it suggest something malfunctioning downstairs if a woman like that didn't turn you on? Given my relations with my Incarnations and now with the Unfading Giant Tree, it seems I've been thinking more with my crotch than with survival instincts ever since I became a Constellation—so I try a little self-hypnosis. That this is just normal for a Dream Demon. It isn't very effective, but who'd blame me? There isn't a man alive who'd refuse the temptation of "You don't dislike a lewd woman, do you?" So there can't be a woman who'd refuse the temptation of "You don't dislike a lewd man, do you?" either.
Let's keep it simple. Simple.
※
Holding onto a branch of the World Tree, I focused, and the scene before my eyes shifted. I usually send my clone through the TV screen; I wondered if I could send it like the World Tree branch letters. The trick to it was a little different, so it took a bit of time—
"Eek! H-How?!"
To the Unfading Giant Tree, whose startled shriek had come out like a vocal performance, it must have been the blink of an eye. Come to think of it, after she absorbed the Fragment of Nightmare, I'd stopped hearing that singing-like cadence of hers. Was it some kind of racial-dialect translation function? Her voice was still beautiful, but I felt a little wistful at the loss of that unique tone.
"Whoa, this is roomier than I expected."
"You... You came because of the letter last time...?"
Watching her ears droop dejectedly over some misunderstanding was adorable. I'd come outright angling for a roll in the hay, and every little mannerism kept catching my eye. Perhaps she'd mistakenly thought I'd come to tell her to stop sending so many letters, because her complexion visibly darkened. The long ears that had perked up and then drooped limp, the eyes that couldn't meet mine and stayed fixed on the floor—all of it seemed to tantalize me.
But I had to restrain myself from making the first move. To feed the furtive, unsavory desire within me, I needed her to lay hands on me first. That's just the Dream Demon species for you. A Dream Demon's instinct is to use dreams and illusions to tempt its prey and draw them near, rather than to approach first. You can't exactly demand of a spider that spins a web and awaits its prey, "Why don't you hunt by flying around like a dragonfly?"
"Yeah, I came because of that last letter."
"Oh... I'm sorry..."
That small head looking glumly down at the floor. I gently stroked her golden hair, which glittered under the soft lighting. The texture at my fingertips was indescribably soft. I'd never touched silk, but I had a feeling this was exactly what that felt like.
'Well, if it doesn't work out, so be it.'
Ever since before my earliest memories, the adults had been dying off in the war, leaving her the eldest among the elves. She startled at the unfamiliar touch of my hand on her head and lifted her gaze. I met her eyes, offered a faint smile, and glanced around the place.
"You managed to raise it to two whole stories, huh?"
My room is a somewhat spacious studio, but hers was a two-story house. The greenery visible out the window suggested a garden, too. My studio doesn't even have windows. Living alone, a place this large would probably be more trouble than it's worth, but judging by all the potted plants, it seemed to suit an elf well enough.
"Is that tree in the garden the World Tree?"
Beyond the waist-high shrubbery, I could see a tree that soared higher than the house. The branches stretching over the fence were hidden by mist and impossible to see clearly. Those were probably the ones that reached into my room.
"Yes, that tree is the World Tree. The bush beside it is the stone strawberry vine I told you about before, and over there is an ice rose."
She'd been too flustered by my sudden visit and the head-patting to speak, but once the conversation turned to her area of expertise, her eyes began to sparkle as she launched into an introduction of the plants. Some I recognized; others were strangely altered.
"Whoa, this one glows?"
"Yes, it's called a starlight lantern. Once its light fades, you can dry the flower and use it for medicine. It's terribly difficult to grow, so I spent a few points on it."
From the red berries I'd sucked the nectar out of as a kid in my apartment complex without even knowing what they were, to a flower that resembled lily of the valley but glowed from within like an LED light—every time I reacted with surprise, like a child visiting a botanical garden for the first time in his life, she seemed to get more animated, caught up in explaining.
"There are also flowers similar to the starlight lantern—the moonlight lantern and the sunlight lantern. The trouble with those is that if you eat them, it increases your yin or yang energy far too much—ah?!"
I'd been squatting in the garden bed admiring the flowers when she came closer to explain. I casually rose, pretending I was going to look at the moonlight lantern, and deliberately leaned into her. So absorbed was she in her explanation that she couldn't avoid my slow movement and went—thump.
"I-I'm sorry?!"
"Nah, no need to apologize."
Our bodies tangled, and her small chest pressed against my cheek. The Unfading Giant Tree gave off a scent that was both refreshing and sweet. Some air fresheners, when too strong, come off as a foul odor, but her body scent lingered delicately, tickling the nose and lifting the mood.
'Is this why people in fantasy worlds go crazy for elves?'
I breathed in deep from the nape of her neck as she flinched and tried to pull away, drinking in her scent. Her fair skin flushed red, her long ears flapped up and down in apparent bewilderment, and her eyes darted about, unable to grasp what was happening.
I met her eyes and gave another suggestive smile. Like a memory from the Fragment of Nightmare. In the manner of a true Dream Demon.