The Shiland Hills
The tail end of evening. The second night Artia would spend in this other world was nearly upon her, and she was getting ready to stand watch alone.
The Shiland Hills were the borderland between Orteia, kingdom of the Sun Elves, and the Council State of Macaia—a stretch where elf hunters and Macaian border guards prowled at all hours. It was openly hostile ground for any elf, so keeping watch was only common sense. If those hunters caught wind of Artia's party now, they would scour the hills with fire in their eyes. From their point of view, ownerless elves of the very highest grade had just respawned, pop, smack in the middle of their turf. With Artia here, of course, that get-rich-quick dream would stay a dream inside a dream. Even so, letting their guard down would have been irresponsible, and Artia had volunteered for tonight's watch without a second thought.
Someone else might have shrieked—What! Night watch? Urgh! My head!—and recoiled at the nightmare of Earth's military. Artia was unfazed. The work was the same, but this time the watch was strictly voluntary. And spending the night with the countless stars of a fantasy world for a blanket had a certain romance to it, didn't it?
Hm? Was there any reason to stand it alone? Wasn't a watch supposed to be two to a post?
Well... there was a practical reason for that, too. Freedom or not, the elves had been tied up and starved until only a few hours ago, and their bodies were, to put it kindly, nowhere near sound. They had only just eaten a single meal and begun to recover. Putting them on a rotation from first watch to last would have looked like a serious defect of character, wouldn't it? When you were the healthy one, you took the annoying, thankless jobs even if you came out the worse for it. The elves kept stammering apologies all the same, mortified at dumping the watch on the very person who had saved them. Artia soothed them, tucked them into the tents, and at last had the quiet to herself.
How long had passed? Far to the west the last faint glow of sunset vanished, and a deep indigo curtain of night settled over the world. Artia, just about to light the campfire, froze.
"Ah?"
Preparing firewood for the watch had been all well and good. The problem was enormous. Artia did not know how to start a fire, and she had nothing to start one with.
How could anyone be this stupid?
She buried her face in her palms. This was the Elda Continent. Lighters and matches from modern Earth, naturally, did not exist. Flint probably existed somewhere, but Artia, who had lived her whole life on modern Earth, had heard the word and had no idea what the thing actually looked like. A shut-in who rarely left the house, she had only ever held a vague mental image of building a campfire. In the game a campfire appeared with a click. Reality was cold. If even one ordinary elf had been beside her, there would have been no problem at all. Elves were born mages, every last one of them, and fire magic was the Sun Elves' specialty.
"Nnngh—"
At this rate she would have to endure a pitch-black night with no campfire at all. Artia's magnificent body, of course, was not about to feel the cold or go blind in the dark over something as trivial as a missing fire. But the vibe would be dead! An already boring watch, and not even the healing camping aesthetic of staring into the flames—what a nightmare was this?
Should she wake some elf, any elf, and ask them to light it? But rousing patients who had only just gone to bed, when nothing was actually wrong, purely for her own vibe... that was a bit much. The little triangle of conscience in Artia's heart flashed its sharp points and menaced her.
"Lady Artia."
"Hm?"
Salvation descended upon her fretting. A shadow approached from beyond the campfire—which was not a fire, only a pile of wood. A beauty who could turn the sky's faint starlight into a dazzling chandelier in a single breath. Elgaia.
You came to save me, you wonderful woman!
Elgaia glanced at the cold stack of firewood and, as if it were nothing, snapped her fingers. Tak! A bright, warm flame leapt up with a rush.
"Ooh!"
Crackle, crackle. A sound that somehow settled both body and mind, and flames swaying soft in the dark. In the brightened world Elgaia's face came into view, touched with a smile—and, impossible to hide, with fatigue. Artia was glad to see her, and worried, too. Elgaia was in the same straits as the other elves. She needed rest...
"You don't need to worry."
Had she read the look in Artia's eyes? Elgaia struck what people commonly called a flexing pose. Once she actually held it, all that showed was a soft forearm, and, embarrassed, she dropped the pose at once. The flush rising on her face was not only from the campfire.
Hmm. Cute.
While Artia was thinking that, Elgaia, having more or less collected herself, cleared her throat and spoke.
"Ahem! I really am fine. I've been much sturdier than the other elves since I was little. There probably weren't many elves tougher than me, you know?"
"Yeah?"
"Ah! You don't believe me, do you?"
"No, I believe you."
"Hmm~? Well, compared to you, Lady Artia, someone like me is nothing at all."
After that short exchange, Elgaia dropped down with a thump into the seat beside her. She could talk like that, but she had to be tired. Unlike the other elves, hadn't she used magic—magic on the level of intercepting a Great Thunder Spear, no less? Even so, she was here for Artia's sake. Gratitude welled up from Artia's chest and made her tremble. The looks, the heart, the cooking... an exceptionally proper young lady.
Marry me!
If Artia's body had been a male elf rather than a female one, she might have proposed on the spot.
Ahem!
Artia scattered the brief delusion and opened her mouth again.
"Come to think of it, there's something I've been curious about."
She would have to stay awake until dawn anyway, and she had questions. She decided to spend the time unloading her curiosity onto Elgaia. It was about the magic scroll that Ander, or whatever his name was, had used during the day.
"A magic scroll? Hmm. Magic scrolls themselves aren't that old. I think they started showing up about five years ago. Back then you only saw them very rarely..."
A scroll that held an attack spell on the level of Great Thunder Spear was a first even for her, Elgaia added, plainly startled. So neither the scroll nor the magic sealed inside it had been ordinary. In modern Earth terms, was this the latest technology? Ander, or whatever he was, had not been an ordinary man after all. A scroll of that grade was not something you could get just by having money. How on earth had he obtained it? Should she wake him tomorrow and interrogate him? Artia mentally beat the vile man's face one more time, then spoke again.
"Come to think of it, the element of the magic that came out of the scroll was a bit unusual."
"Ah—that..."
Pale lightning. No matter how you looked at it, it was not ordinary lightning-attribute magic. Asked about it, Elgaia hesitated. She drew one deep breath, then spoke, and what she said was a considerable shock.
"That... is dragon magic."
"Huh?"
"The invaders from another world who drove this world to the brink of destruction five hundred years ago... that pale light is proof their power was at work."
"Dragons... you said?"
Dra! Gons!
Artia now seriously wondered whether this world was Elda-302. Dragons? Dragons! Of course, dragons were the foundation of foundations in fantasy, the classic of classics. Grandfather Tolkien, obviously—and didn't Western myth and legend constantly spit out evil dragons that tormented kingdoms and brought them to ruin? Stories of world-ruining wyrms and the dragon slayers who killed them... But in the game, this Elda Continent had no dragons. Artia could say that with confidence. Back in her first playthrough, wondering whether there might be a hidden boss, she had scoured the world map like she was hunting lice.
And yet, look at this. Dragons actually existed here? Slaying a dragon was an achievement everyone in this line of work dreamed of at least once. The chance to earn a title like Caught a Dragon Bare-Handed actually existed in this world! Artia felt her heart pound. She didn't show it. A fight with a dragon was something to look forward to, for her—but if dragons truly existed, then for the people living in this world they would be nothing short of calamity and grief.
Quite apart from the excitement Artia felt inside, Elgaia's mood, now that she had spoken of dragons, sagged even further. Why? The reason soon came out.
"Haa... Using a dragon's power. That's forbidden. Just how far has the Council State fallen... No. If we're tracing the cause, it's we Sun Elves who..."
Sighing, Elgaia went on that this, too, was ultimately the elves' fault, as if she wanted to dig into the ground and disappear. What? Artia flinched at something she had never expected. Macaia using a dragon's power was the Sun Elves' fault? What was this?! Sensing her confusion, Elgaia gave a bitter smile.
"Orteia and Macaia are... at war right now."
"?!!!"
"And the cause—haa. Unfortunately, it's our fault. The elves' fault."
A truly shocking fact. You people. So you weren't elves at all—you were elfholes?! The elf hunts... not slave-hunting born of humanity's ugly desire, but the taking of prisoners of war? There had to be some circumstance behind it. Please let that be it.