Catfight(?): Grandma vs. Flat Chest
Elsia clutched the hand that had been slapped away from Hye-ji with a startled expression. But that only lasted a moment. She gripped her rapidly swelling red hand and fixed Hye-ji with an icy glare.
"...You clearly—"
"You pointy-eared bastards must live in doghouses instead of the Great Forest!! Every single one of you spouts bullshit like it's a passive skill!!"
Hye-ji screamed at the top of her lungs, blood vessels popping in her eyes. In contrast, Elsia looked remarkably composed.
"Does the current you have some deep relationship with our husband?"
"You crazy bitch!!!! We literally just met today!!!!!!"
"Oh my~. There is such a thing as love at first sight, you know."
Behind Elsia, her escort elf was grinning like an idiot. The number floating above Elsia's head had gone up right after that one, so she must have seen this exact scene in a future before her regression. Yet she showed no intention of stopping it. If anything, her face said she was thoroughly enjoying the show.
"A man wearing a skirt? Aren't you embarrassed?"
"I'm a woman, damn it!!!! Why does every dog-shit bastard who looks at me scream that I'm a guy!!!"
"Is that so? I genuinely thought you were a man in women's clothing because there was absolutely nothing there."
The moment those words left her mouth, Elsia folded her arms, deliberately pushing forward her enormous chest in a proud display. The overwhelming motion made Hye-ji grind her teeth with an audible crunch.
"Speaking of which, don't you think it's pathetic for someone your age to be throwing herself at a man like that?"
"......I'm only eighty-nine years old~. That's quite young for an elf, you know."
"So you do realize you're old~."
Elsia froze for a split second as if struck where it hurt, then forced another relaxed smile back onto her face. But her eyes weren't smiling at all.
"What a perfect straight line. You could form a sisterhood with the cliff-faced friends from Korean, Chinese, and Japanese games."
"You must be very advanced in years. What should I call you out of respect for my elder? Grandma?"
"......Please call me Big Sister. Little Sis."
The mood was turning dangerous. Far from dying down, the fight was only heating up. I tried to hold my collapsing body upright and step in to mediate. To be honest, I was so wrecked that I could barely hear what they were saying, but the way things were escalating made me think I had to stop them.
However.
"Uh... Hye-ji and Elsia? This seems a bit too intense. How about we calm down for now?"
"You shut the hell up! You're the bastard grinning like an idiot because you like this old hag!"
"Stay out of this, husband. Surely you aren't getting aroused by a child like this again, are you?"
"Yep....."
It didn't work at all. Afraid I'd only catch more stray bullets, I quickly shrank back. With that, Hye-ji and Elsia stopped paying any attention to me and resumed their war. Elsia took the first turn.
"Our little sister is so flat that she'd be perfect for balancing a level on. You could build an entire building on that chest."
"Oh dear, isn't our Big Sis a bit too old to still be alive?"
"Even small chests have their own charm. Don't worry too much, there there. Oh, your back is right here~ I got confused~."
"......You must have presbyopia from old age. You can't even tell the difference?"
Hye-ji roughly swatted Elsia's hand away. But the sight of Hye-ji's wounded pride hurt far more than Elsia's hand ever could. And Elsia's barrage wasn't over yet.
"My goodness, when I tap my transportation card on our little sister's chest, it says 'Insufficient chest balance'?"
"......"
"They say dreams dwell in the chest, so our little sister must be Santa Claus, giving dreams to everyone?"
"You fucking bitch."
Killing intent poured out of Hye-ji.
'If I'd teased her like that, I'd be dead, right?'
[You learned nothing after getting riddled with bullets like that last time.]
Then Hye-ji calmed down again and flashed a menacing smile at Elsia. It was her turn now.
"An elf at a hundred and eighty-nine sounds mysterious, but at eighty-nine it just smells like a chicken coop, doesn't it?"
"......Our little sister's head seems to be as empty as her chest. Let me repeat myself: I am very young for an elf."
"Ah, so since you're an elf it's not a chicken coop but a rotten tree? What are we going to do with our Big Sis? Dried up completely without any water, huh."
The sound of grinding teeth came from somewhere. The source was Elsia, who was still smiling sweetly. She barely regained her composure and spoke.
"......Elves have our own unique fragrance. There is absolutely no tree smell whatsoever."
"Well, at that age you probably need to burn some incense."
"......"
"Our Big Sis has gone beyond Golden Miss and become a 'Withered-Tree Miss.'"
Hye-ji landed a critical hit. A very deep one. The two fell silent for a moment.
"......"
"......"
"...Marble bitch."
"...Withered-tree-stinking bitch."
They hurled the words at each other like daggers.
Meanwhile, I steadied my body and spoke to the voice inside my head.
'Honestly, if an elf is realistically under a hundred, it does feel a little weird.'
[That's as ridiculous as a 6kg dagger. I'd be more curious if you said a 200kg one.]
'No. A 6kg dagger makes perfect sense.'
[What kind of nonsense are you spouting!!!!!]
The voice in my head yelled at me. But a 6kg dagger really wasn't strange at all.
'It's for Recon.'
[Then I accept it.]
At that moment, the two sharp blades that had been pointed at each other suddenly turned toward me.
"So, Shinwoo! Are you gonna keep shoving it in that withered-tree bitch?"
"Husband! You're not a pedophile, right?"
"Wait a second. How did the conversation suddenly reach those words?"
"Answer quickly!"
"Answer right now!"
Thankfully, before I could say anything, Professor Miran entered the classroom. Sensing the atmosphere, she instinctively tried to flee. I was simply faster. I grabbed the professor and practically begged her to start class. In the end, the fight between Hye-ji and Elsia ended in incomplete combustion.
The escort elf, who looked thoroughly satisfied, left the classroom with Elsia. Right before stepping out, she glanced at me and gave a bright smile.
[That was quite the entertaining spectacle.]
'You should pay admission, you son of a bitch.'
That day, Elsia didn't come looking for me even after classes ended. She was apparently the representative candidate for greeting the World Tree. It made sense that she'd be busy making the rounds if she'd been selected. Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, Elsia said she couldn't attend low-tier classes like Jung Ayeon. The decisive factor was the tier difference. Between iron and gold existed two intermediate ranks: copper and silver.
'They're even keeping the realism of not being able to queue together.'
[Where does a noob think he's rubbing shoulders with a veteran?]
On the other hand, Hye-ji spent the entire day acting like a robot whose emotions had been deleted. Only one feeling remained.
Killing intent. The sticky yet razor-sharp desire to kill someone. Especially a certain pink elf. It was so terrifying that I could barely greet her before fleeing to the library to borrow some books.
And in the library.
"Young Master? What brings you here?"
"Came to borrow a book."
I ran into Jung Ayeon again. She looked genuinely shocked at my answer, as if she hadn't expected it at all.
"You possess enough intellect to read books, Young Master?"
"You fucking bitch."
"So what book have you come to read?"
"Well, I finished Dokmasae recently, so I wanted to read something else."
"Oh! You've read that book!"
Jung Ayeon's face lit up. The way she suddenly rushed over suggested she was excited to discover we shared the same hobby.
"Of course I did. It was the greatest masterpiece with zero negative reviews."
"This lady was also deeply moved. To think the author suddenly set his own orchard on fire for inspiration and wrote the story."
It really was the greatest work. I was glad I'd read it before dying.
"I also enjoyed Tower of the Sun, which finished right around the time Dokmasae was published."
"You seem to read quite diversely. Have you perhaps read Tapmae, even though the genre is different?"
"That one really surprised me. Who would've thought that the hiatus notice actually meant it would finish cleanly and take a break?"
I'd been scared when the sudden hiatus announcement dropped, but it turned out to be bait. Reading it had been incredibly satisfying.
At that moment, Jung Ayeon's face suddenly darkened.
"However, it is truly regrettable that the author of Harry Potter passed away suddenly right after the series concluded."
"Yeah. They say AI hacked the author's messenger and started spouting nonsense, but they can't punish it."
"How disgusting! Laws prohibiting the punishment of AI must be abolished!"
[Didn't all the works get ruined because of AI after the author's death?]
'If it weren't for that damn AI, it wouldn't have gone to pieces like that.'
Since we shared the same hobbies, the conversation flowed naturally. I wasn't sure if it was because of her sister's influence or if she'd always liked them, but either way, it wasn't bad. In some worlds, they say there are only two brother birds, which is truly tragic. Yet even among all those completed works, Hunter x Hunter is still on indefinite hiatus.
[Which will finish first, this novel or that manga?]
'Togashi, please, I'm begging you, just write something.'
In the end, I borrowed one of the completed works Jung Ayeon recommended from the library. It was the story of a blind man named Iyer.
Back at the dormitory, I read the book while thinking back on what had happened today.
'Elsia definitely seems to have regressed from a far future, right?'
[It appears so. I can't know for certain, but her hair was that long.]
'But she didn't seem to expect Hye-ji slapping her hand away.'
I closed the book I was reading, took out some paper and a pen, and started organizing my thoughts. Then one idea suddenly occurred to me.
'Come to think of it, Elsia's regression count wasn't that high, was it?'
[Even considering that elves are a long-lived species, double-digit regressions are far too few.]
'On the other hand, that pointy-eared bastard and Hye-ji both had quadruple-digit counts.'
Black lines began to appear one by one on the pure white paper. Countless black branches formed letters. From those letters, I extracted a few points and organized them into hypotheses.
[Let me see what you've got.]
'Even though I wrote it, it's still vague to me.'
Hypothesis 1) People with high numbers above their heads can regress more frequently than others, but cannot regress from a distant future.
[Indeed, when Hye-ji fought that child called Ayeon, she didn't look like she expected you to catch her from behind.]
'She was more surprised than anything.'
[However, it seems they frequently experience events from the near future.]
'Yeah, both that pointy-eared bastard and Hye-ji had their numbers rising way too often.'
I wrote down the names Lucian and Hye-ji beneath the first hypothesis. Then came the second.
Hypothesis 2) People with low numbers above their heads can regress from a distant future, but not frequently.
[That would explain the elf called Elsia to some degree. However.]
'However?'
I expressed my doubt to the voice in my head. After a brief silence, it continued.
[The Golden Miss who attached a prosthetic arm to you regressed three years and then regressed once more during the faculty meeting, didn't she?]
'Ugh, that's right. But even then she still couldn't get married.'
[How pitiful.]
I wrote Elsia's name beneath the second hypothesis. Finally, the third.
Hypothesis 3) The conditions for regression and reuse differ from person to person.
[That man called Ryu Kanghyuk who beat you like a dog probably had a one-hour cooldown, didn't he?]
'Yes. He said only once at a time, and only up to thirty minutes.'
Assuming Uncle Kanghyuk wasn't lying.
[Then conversely, if we assume that child called Hye-ji can only experience up to three minutes into the future before regressing, what do you think about her doing it multiple times?]
'Probably... rechargeable?'
[You mean like Teemo R?]
A very intuitive word. Of course, it was accurate.
'.....You seem to know more about it than I do now? What's your tier?'
[Normally I wouldn't even share a table with a noob like you. Be grateful.]
'Fuck.'
I wrote the respective terms beneath the third hypothesis. Single-use type. And rechargeable type.
[Then do you think the time required for charging is longer than the maximum regression time?]
'For now, yes. Otherwise the world would've already gone to complete shit, right?'
[You figured it out well.]
It was a very convenient world. But the voice in my head seemed to have a slightly different opinion.
[There is a reason for everything. A reason why it cannot be done that way.]
'Really? Tell me later.'
My head had stopped working, so I gave up. I'd probably understand once the number of hypotheses increased. Probably.