The Storm-Calling, Helter-Skelter Rescue of Kang Jinwoo (2)
"Hup—hah. This is the ratatouille from last night, but I think it tastes even better today."
"To think a tomato could ever become this delicious. I still can't believe it..."
The two elves of House Sildiel, on watch since before dawn, took the breaking of day as their signal to eat. Breakfast was the ratatouille left over from last night's dinner. They warmed it with spirit arts until it steamed, piled it onto bread, and bit down on a full mouthful.
Crunch, crunch—
Flavor bloomed. What remained was a savory tomato sauce, salty and thick with umami, its acidity pared back to something purely pleasant. A night of resting had carried the seasoning all the way into the hearts of the eggplant and the zucchini. The vegetables had been cooked with such even care from the start that every trace of raw greenness was gone, while the texture stayed alive right up to the edge of doneness—so even reheated half a day later, they still crunched between the teeth with life.
The coarse, dry wheat bread, seasoned with nothing at all, was nothing more than a ratatouille launchpad. Not that the bread was useless. A launchpad had to be sturdy, or the flavor would never arrive intact.
"Sir Jinwoo is definitely a master. Even the Great Elder couldn't make food like this."
"Right? Honestly, this is the sort of person we ought to keep bound to House Sildiel for life."
Ahaha—!
The elves chattered on, bright and innocent, saying the sort of thing that would have sent Kang Jinwoo bolting in horror if he had overheard. House Sildiel had inherited the World Tree's blessing more deeply than most. Just as House Liliendra could draw on the World Tree's power with greater efficiency, House Sildiel possessed gifts of its own: an innate affinity for spirits, keen enough to form contracts even with those of high rank, and a delicate control of mana that heightened the efficiency of spirit arts and every other magic.
Such talents were born into every elf, but in House Sildiel they stood out all the sharper. It was not a wholly unique power, as House Liliendra's was, yet it was formidable all the same.
Munching on the ratatouille, the sentries wondered what today's menu would be. It was the common habit of elves who had suffered a corruption of the palate at Kang Jinwoo's hands—no, an enlightenment of the palate.
Rustle—
Their heads were packed with a single thought: finish the work quickly and get to the restaurant. They did not even notice the presence closing in on them.
BOOM—!
"Kyaaaah!!"
"Wh-what?!"
The elves reacted to the sudden ambush like startled cats, springing up to dodge an unexpected thrust of a spear. They had set their swords aside to eat, and now they scrambled to snatch their weapons back up.
"We've come to take back our quartermaster. Kang Jinwoo."
"Sir!! Didn't you say we weren't to kill them? If that had landed, they'd be dried fish right now."
"I know. It didn't hit."
"Haa..."
Being attacked out of nowhere was shocking enough. And the attackers were human?
A middle-aged man with silver hair held a spear, and beside him stood a knight who looked green and untested by comparison.
"How did humans even get in?!"
"Kang Jinwoo? You're humans who know Sir Jinwoo?"
"That's right. Hand Kang Jinwoo over quietly, and you can spare yourselves the pain."
The silver-haired man handled a spear as long as he was tall as if it were an extension of his own limbs, and he demanded Jinwoo's return with a menacing air. But the elves had received no handover about humans being permitted inside, and they had been attacked first. They were not about to roll over in a situation like this.
"And how are we supposed to believe that? Lay your weapons on the ground and surrender! You barged into the sacred land of the elves as you pleased!"
"Hoh. Your elves crossed into Silbaerin first and kidnapped Jinwoo by force. And now you want to argue right and wrong?"
"Ugh, that... even so."
"Well, never mind. The two of you are too far down the ladder for a conversation like this anyway."
The silver-haired man ended the talk as if he had given up on it. Then the knight beside him stepped forward and settled into a middle guard—a stance honed so sharp it looked as though it could split a falling leaf clean in two.
"Hmph! A mere human, and you think elves are a joke?"
The elf adjusted his grip and dropped into a fighting stance of his own. In his heart he knew the best course was for the two of them to join forces and take the humans down one at a time, but the silver-haired spearman nagged at him. The man stood with his arms folded as if he had left everything to the knight, yet there was no telling when he might turn and lunge. One of them had to stay on him so he could not move. And so the matchup settled into a one-on-one: an elf squared off against the knight.
A stillness only the two of them could feel settled between them. A timely wind tore a leaf free, and the moment that gently falling leaf touched the ground—
Tap—!
The elf's leap was so light that even the sound of his toes leaving the earth was barely there. His downward cut drove straight at the knight.
Clang—!
The knight caught his own blade in one hand and met the strike nimbly with the flat.
Ugh. What is he, a boulder...!
In the instant the elf faltered at that unshakable solidity, the knight seized the opening and shoved the elf's blade aside with the flat of his sword.
"Wha—?!"
The elf's center collapsed in a heartbeat. He staggered in the direction of the shove and tried at once to recover his balance, but—
"You can sleep."
Thud—!
"Guhk."
Shoved sideways, the elf's nape was left completely open, and the knight struck that snow-white neck with the pommel of his sword.
Thump.
One sentry elf, unfit to fight after a single exchange. Fear welled in the eyes of the other, the one who had been watching the silver-haired man.
"H-hieek...!"
"Go."
"Y-yes?"
"Go and fetch someone higher up."
The moment his partner fell, he had been certain he would be pinned between the two of them with nowhere to turn. Yet the silver-haired man before him was telling him to run and bring back someone of higher rank. To be born a noble, superior elf and suffer this humiliation at a human's hands—it cracked his pride. He had no other choice.
"Nngh... don't think you'll get out of here in one piece!!"
Pat-pat-pat—!
The trembling elf hoisted his fallen comrade onto his back and fled in a hurry. The silver-haired man and the knight committed the direction of that flight to memory and set off after him at once.
Arthur and Kailan had let one of the elves go on purpose. A terrified long-ear like that would make an excellent living navigation system.
A trick we only use when clearing out goblins. And it works.
Arthur turned the thought over as he pressed on in the direction the elf had fled. Goblins and elves both claimed green as their personal color. Both had pointed ears. Both failed to read an opponent's strength and ran their mouths anyway. Somehow, the illusion of elves that Arthur had been carefully building crumbled on the spot.
He spoke to the beaming Kailan.
"Judging by those elves' attitude... if we hadn't ambushed them, don't you think they would have guided us well enough?"
"Hm. Even at the brink of death they were suspiciously polite. That might well have been the case."
"Then why didn't you try talking first? Why did you charge straight in?"
"Well, that way was more fu—hm! Those elf bastards insulted Kang Jinwoo, didn't they? It was reflexive. I couldn't help it."
"Ah... yes, sir."
He had not originally been a man this far gone for the sake of amusement. Lately there had been no incident besides the Monster Wave, and even during the Wave he never took the field himself, always leaving it for the troops' real combat experience. It must have piled up quite a bit.
They walked on and on along the narrow forest path until a comparatively open plain came into view. To Arthur it felt like Silbaerin's farming district and commercial district mixed half and half, so he expected to see a passerby or two. Not so much as a nose showed itself.
"Looks like they all ran."
"It seems so. Still... the security is far too lax."
The place they had first entered had seemed like Nuardel's border, yet there was not so much as a wall, and only two sentries. There was not even an ordinary guard unit. Not a single elf stood against them. Was this confidence, or recklessness? Arthur leaned toward the latter. No matter how outstanding each individual might be, you could not protect everyone this way. And those elves earlier had been so flimsy that he was no longer sure they were outstanding at all.
Something... keeps breaking. The elves.
By now the tension he had felt at the start had faded, and it felt as if he had come on a short trip. Arthur and Kailan slowly looked around the hushed village. In the midst of it, one building stood out.
"Hm? Do elves make wine, too?"
"Oh... elven wine. That might be worth something."
Behind an ordinary wooden house, a fresh vineyard of green grapes spread wide, and beside it stood a fairly large warehouse that looked like a winery. If only they could take a quick look. Kailan smacked his lips and examined the place this way and that.
They had struck first against the sentry elves, true, but they had come to Nuardel with a just cause. Trespass on this vineyard as they pleased, though, and they would be no different from common street ruffians.
"The owner of this winery ran too, I suppose?"
"Most likely, wouldn't you say?"
Regret dripped from Kailan's eyes. Right. He must not forget his duty. And so they turned their steps away from the winery gate—
Creeeak—...
All of a sudden, from directly behind Kailan's head—that is, from the winery gate—came the sound of a gap opening. Arthur and Kailan turned in surprise.
The one who had opened the door and stepped out was a female elf, with silk-like hair the color of green grapes and eyes as blue as a lake. She met their gazes and spoke in clear fluster.
"Uh—uh? Humans?!"
"Uh..."
Faced all at once with an elf of no ordinary looks, Arthur forgot for a moment what he meant to say. In a voice only the two of them could hear, he sought an answer from Kailan.
"I don't know what expression I'm supposed to wear at a time like this..."
"A smile ought to suffice, I'd say."
To make matters worse, the two of them were the very reason every elf in the village had fled. They said you could not spit on a smiling face, so if he simply smiled brightly, the conversation might go a little better. Following the word of the lord to whom he had pledged his loyalty, Arthur stretched his mouth into a smile.
"Haha! Good day to you. Fine weather we're having!"
"......Uh."
Graaah. Please don't look at me with eyes like that...
The look that had been full of fluster a moment ago felt kinder by comparison. Under the elf's gaze, cold enough to chill him to the bone, Arthur took an internal wound as if his mana had detonated inside his body.
Right. What smile? If their places were reversed, would he have wanted the lunatic knight who had thrown the village into chaos to boom, Keh heh! Lovely weather, and look—everyone's run off!? Having finished that self-deprecating reflection, Arthur spoke again.
"We are looking for a human named Kang Jinwoo. Do you know where he is?"
"Uh, Jinwoo? Are you Jinwoo's friends?"
"Um... well..."
Now that he thought about it, calling them friends felt a little too familiar. Calling them coworkers did not fit either—he had only held a temporary post for a short while and then left. And if he simply said they were regulars at the restaurant, that felt a bit cold. While Arthur hesitated over the extremely ambiguous relationship between Kang Jinwoo and himself, Kailan answered.
"We're knights of Silbaerin, come to rescue Kang Jinwoo, who holds the post of supply officer to the order. Do you know his whereabouts?"
"Aha. So that's how it is between you."
She looked to be around twenty, a female elf of bewitching beauty, and she nodded at Kailan's words. She really only nodded. By the flow of the conversation the next question ought to have come then, but the elf merely looked at Kailan and Arthur and kept a steady silence. Feeling something was off, Kailan asked again.
"Hm. Do you know where Kang Jinwoo is? We'd like to take him with us."
"I know. I see."
It was a conversation so barren of social grace that it made the head spin. Excuse me, sir, do you know where the restaurant is?Uh, I know. Why was this elf like this? She had looked twenty. Was she actually old enough to have gone senile?
The sentry elves at the border had spoken irreverently of Kang Jinwoo first, and because they were armed, Kailan had struck to seize the initiative—though he had missed on purpose. It would have been easier to settle this by force, the way he had with those sentries. But this woman wore ordinary clothes and carried no weapon. She was not hostile toward Kang Jinwoo or toward them, and she showed not even the intent to attack. In short, there was no justification. None.
A stifling irritation rose in Kailan, and just as he was about to say something, the female elf beat him to it.
"I understand what you're saying. But I can't tell you where Kang Jinwoo is."
"Why not?"
"Because... you have no way to prove that you really are Kang Jinwoo's acquaintances."
"Ah."
It was a more convincing reason than they had expected, and Arthur and Kailan were left speechless. The female elf went on.
"Jinwoo's cooking... is too delicious. That's the problem. Skill like that would have made a name for itself even among humans. Once word spreads, vermin are bound to gather."
"We're grateful you recognize Kang Jinwoo's skill, but we really are his acquaintances..."
"Well. Seeing as you made it into Nuardel, you don't seem like wicked humans... but I still can't trust you. Jinwoo is a baby, so I have to protect him..."
"Wh-what?"
For a moment they had thought she was an elf laying out her logic with calm. The atmosphere was growing strange. Sensing a chill, Arthur and Kailan belatedly looked closely into her eyes.
"Jinwoo is a baby. I have to protect him. Stay right beside him, always, so the gnats can't get in his way. I make the wine, and Jinwoo makes what goes with it. We are mariage itself..."
"Now that I look... she's well and truly mad."
The female elf's pupils were faintly unfocused. Her blue eyes, which at first had seemed as beautiful as a lake, now looked like a damp abyss whose depth could not be known.
My lord. Let's ignore her and be on our way, even now. She looks a little dangerous.
Hm... I agree.
Arthur and Kailan traded the words in small voices. Then, minding the elf's mood, they slowly and carefully shifted their feet.
Krrrk—
The path that had clearly been clear was, at some point, covered in enormous tree roots. Those roots wound tight around Arthur's and Kailan's ankles and would not let go.
"What in the—suddenly..."
"Where do you think you're going?"
In the instant they moved to cut the roots with their weapons, the female elf—who until a moment ago had been muttering to herself—asked in a voice that had sunk clear and low.
"Damn... kh!"
The roots moved as she swept her hand. The mana radiating from her fingertips seemed to make them even stronger, and no matter how many were cut away, they crawled and writhed upward to bind their limbs.
"Jinwoo... I will protect him."
Rumble—!
Her eerie declaration rang out, and a massive plant stalk surged up from beneath the ground. She rode it and looked coldly down upon Arthur and Kailan.
Arthur thought it, and meant every word.
Master Jinwoo... just what in the world have you been doing out there?!