If You Can't Avoid It, Enjoy It
"Ah— no. I mean, a nuisance was caused, I'll grant you that. But please, lift your head first. Um..."
"I am Elioren Sildiel."
"Ah, Lord Elioren. I'm fine. Truly."
The moment our eyes met, he folded into a full ninety-degree bow.
It was already uncomfortable being spoken to so formally by someone older than me. An apology this extravagant only made it worse. Flustered, I hurried to let Elioren know that it was all right, and only when he saw me fidgeting did he finally draw his back up straight.
Kind when he chose to be kind, and unmistakable when he meant to scold — a face with real backbone to it. And it wasn't only the face. His temperament matched, because the next thing he did was turn on Iseria.
"Iseria. Did you apologize? Don't tell me you—"
"I did! I apologized earlier...!"
"Is that true, Sir Jinwoo?"
"Yes. I received a sincere apology."
So even your own father doesn't put much faith in you, huh, Iseria.
She could pull all the wronged faces she liked. It wouldn't help her. She had done wrong — a fairly large wrong — and the truth was that her usual conduct had never been especially respectful either.
"Please, sit. I cannot promise the tea will suit your taste. It is one the elves enjoy..."
"Ah, yes. It smells wonderful."
Slurp—
I took my seat and drank a mouthful.
Mm. The sweet-bitter depth of black tea, and the cool clarity of a mint-family herb. Genuinely good. Maybe I ought to buy some as a souvenir on the way home.
"Mm, this is really tasty. Is it a variety that only grows in Nuardel?"
"Yes. Though Silbaerin should have something similar. They call it snow-fragrance grass."
Snow-fragrance grass. Snow-fragrance grass. I was fairly sure I'd seen it while passing through the city streets.
Hold on. Did this man actually know something about the human world? He'd brought up Silbaerin so naturally that for a second I forgot he was an elf.
Oh, right. There was something I'd started to ask Iseria earlier and never got to finish.
"Lord Elioren. Mind if I ask you something?"
"Of course. Speak freely."
"Can a human from Silbaerin enter Nuardel?"
"Ho. As it happens, I was about to tell you."
What — a coincidence like that?
I met Elioren's eyes and waited. He wet his mouth with the tea, then went on.
"Humans of Silbaerin, however, are an exception. They possess the minimum qualification required to enter Nuardel."
"Sorry? What qualification is that?"
This wasn't some corporate lobby you badged into. There was a separate qualification? And if only people from Silbaerin met it, I was suddenly very interested in whatever came next.
Elioren seemed to read the curiosity. A faint smile touched his mouth.
"Haha. Nothing grand. Among human societies, Silbaerin simply lay closest to Nuardel, and so now and then they came to be. Half-elves."
"Hah."
He was tossing out something that belonged in an imperial history book far too casually. Go back to Silbaerin after this and I'd be dragged into a basement by mysterious thugs muttering, So you've found out...
"It is not so grave a matter. My father told me of it, so the tale would be difficult to preserve as a record within human civilization. In any case... the humans of Silbaerin carry at least a little elven blood, and thus stand a better chance of being permitted into Nuardel than humans from elsewhere."
"Ah, I see. But a chance? It isn't guaranteed?"
"Heh. You have put your finger on it exactly."
Put my finger on what? You were the one who ended the sentence on purpose, dripping with implication. It was a lot like ChatGPT chirping, Wow! You just nailed the heart of the problem!
Iseria's father, Elioren, was an elf of an entirely different stripe from his daughter. Both of them were strikingly beautiful, but Elioren carried that particular lucidity you only ever found in a scholar. He seemed to know a great deal, and when you asked, he enjoyed making the answer easy to follow...
"One need not be a human of Silbaerin. Any human who possesses pure mana may receive the World Tree's welcome. The humans of Silbaerin merely have a higher likelihood of pure mana, elven blood being mixed into them. Not all of them are pure."
A question flickered through my mind as I listened in silence.
But I was... just a human, wasn't I? Not even a native of Silbaerin, and I had no idea whether my mana was pure or not. I was nothing more than a man who liked cooking and happened to be decent at it. I'd had an identification card made the last time I went into the city, sure, but that was about the extent of my credentials.
Even while I sat lost in the thought, Elioren continued.
"This is by no means a matter of racial discrimination, but I suspect you were not born in Silbaerin, Sir Jinwoo. Am I correct?"
"Yes. That's right."
"You were not born in Silbaerin, and yet you already possess pure mana. Pure — or rather, it takes a rather peculiar form."
Ugh, this man. He had a suspicious talent for stopping at the most loaded possible moment. Cut it off like that and of course the curiosity came right back.
Still, there was a conclusion I needed to hear first.
"So why were you planning to tell me all of this?"
"Ah, yes. In conclusion, your entry presents no problem whatsoever — setting aside the manner of it, and your own wishes — so you may rest easy."
"Aha..."
Uh. The two most important parts just got left out. And there was no problem?
I didn't know anymore. Since I was already here, though, no problems was better than a pile of them.
"Incidentally, there is something I would like to ask of you as well."
"Yes. Please, go ahead."
"Might you tell me what happened while Iseria was staying at your home?"
"Ah, this might run a bit long... The first time we met, Iseria snuck into my kitchen in the middle of the night. I thought she was a thief, so—"
"Eek! Why are you bringing that up all of a sudden!!"
Iseria, who had been spacing out beside us, nearly jumped out of her skin the moment the story turned to her.
What was I supposed to do? Her father was asking how his daughter had been living. I could hardly refuse to tell him. I ignored the fuss she was making and kept going.
How she had broken into my house, stolen food, and been thrown out. How she had been rude to Kailan, Duke of Silbaerin. How she had stirred sleeping powder into my water, put me under, and kidnapped me off to the land of the elves...
Elioren's expression hardened in real time as he listened, and by the end his face had gone as blank as a crudely drawn cartoon — mouth set in a single hard angle.
He opened it, voice low.
"Sir Jinwoo. Forgive me, but might I hear the rest at a later time? Just now... my daughter's education appears more urgent than anything else."
"Yes. I'm fine with that."
"Thank you. I will have one of the household accompany you. Please, look about the city."
"J-Jinwoo!! Save me!!!"
"Be still, Iseria."
Sensing the killing intent, Iseria tried to follow me out. The elves guarding the door blocked her, and she was left standing alone in the room.
Karma... has to be settled, doesn't it?
You reap what you sow, Iseria. With today as the start, I hoped she'd grow into a mentally mature adult.
"No!!!!"
"Iseria. A runaway done on a whim, I was prepared to let pass. But the things I have just heard..."
Her short scream and Elioren's lecture began together, and the door of the reception room shut.
Once it was confirmed that nothing was actually wrong, I flipped straight into enjoy-it mode. Time and mood both turned generous in an instant. I sat down in a chair in the mansion's lobby and waited for my escort.
Wandering alone was more comfortable, but this was a foreign land. Get lost for no good reason and I'd only tire myself out.
Maybe three minutes passed. I turned at the sound of someone approaching.
And there she was.
"Veila, you little brat!!!!"
"Eek! I'm sorry!!"
The accomplice in the Kang Jinwoo Kidnapping Incident. Veila.
So you were my escort. Good. I'd been meaning to get my hands on you. This had to be Elioren's gift — keep her at my side all day and work her over. I'd felt it from the very first greeting. Educated people really were different. Likable, and the aftercare was perfectly on point.
I spoke in a cold voice.
"Veila. Attention."
"Yes, sir!"
"What did you do wrong?"
"I confined Sir Kang Jinwoo, and in a moment of blind gluttony I drugged him and kidnapped him! Ack!"
"Hearing it laid out like that, I can't forgive you."
You people really were grade-A bastards. Is this the elf average?
"Hah... is what Veila's saying actually true?"
"Seems so. From what Lord Elioren was saying earlier..."
"Eeeek. For real?"
Other elves passing through the mansion caught Veila's confession and started murmuring among themselves. Apparently she wasn't the elf average at all. If anything, she was the prime culprit dragging that average down.
"I'm sorry—ack!"
"Yeah, yeah. Do better."
"Yes, sir!"
I gave her a suitable dressing-down and stepped outside.
I had no idea how long I'd be staying in Nuardel, but it wouldn't be a day or two. While I was here, I ought to find out what the elves ate, and what counted as a local specialty.
"Let's go, Veila."
"H-huh? Where to?"
"The biggest market in this city."
Travel or a move, it didn't matter. The fastest way to settle into a new place was to throw yourself in wherever the locals mixed most freely. That was a truth that didn't care about situation or era.
I'd seen a market with Iseria earlier, but the scale had been far too small. Go in deeper and there would be a proper bustling one.
"Hmph! Leave it to me. I may not look it, but I've been a Nuardel local for over eighty years!"
Wow. An elf was definitely an elf. She looked about the age of a pretty college student, and she was eighty? She'd lived that long. I could trust her as a guide.
I followed where Veila led.
After about ten minutes of walking inward, the buildings around us grew denser, and with them the energy of the people.
"Whoa, over there... is that a human?"
"I've never seen a human before."
More eyes gathered than I'd expected. I was human, and black hair was rare in this world, so I'd figured I would draw some aggro. If Veila, sword at her hip, hadn't been beside me, I probably would have been buried under questions.
"Sir Jinwoo. Are you all right? Shall I lend you a robe?"
"I'm fine. Even if I wore one, it'd show anyway..."
I armored myself in shamelessness and took in every corner of the city.
Unlike the Empire, where brick was the chief building material, Nuardel was full of buildings made from wood. The Empire used timber for frames and beams too, of course, but this was a different feeling entirely. Log houses. Stout houses of wooden planks. Here and there, even a treehouse made from the tree itself.
Now this was something to look at. Brown and green in every direction — even my eyes felt as if they were turning green.
While I was rolling my gaze around like that, something red caught it.
I started toward a red, round something piled high on a stall in the distance. At first I'd only been curious because of the color, fierce as it was. The closer I got, the harder my heart pounded.
No way... no way?
I'd never had a proper romance, but if you finally met a lover you hadn't seen in a long, long time — would it feel like this?
I reached the front of the stall at a quick pace.
Red fruit, smooth and luminous under clear sunlight. I hadn't even leaned in to smell it, and still it drifted over: a thick, clinging sweetness, and the fresh green of a vegetable.
"Veila, th-this is...?"
"Ah, those are tomatoes!"
Used everywhere, East and West alike — the undisputed champion of summer vegetables. In Western cooking especially, a legend among legends, an ingredient without which many dishes simply could not exist. The GOAT of umami, a heavyweight in its own right.
Tomatoes.