130 130 – Land of the Elven
“Gave her an honest answer, Yua.” Raymund gave the order.
“Did you just pray, lady?” Yua flashed a friendly smile and walked over to the large rock that the figure was standing on. “My name is Yua. This is my friend Elise and her pet, Mona. We have come from a very faraway place to answer your prayers.”
The figure lowered its hood, revealing her pale-skinned head, long white hair, yellow eyes, and pointed ears. Raymund’s two servants held their breath at the sight of the elven woman, something they had never seen before.
Even Raymund almost shouted ‘elf loli.’ But, he restrained himself because now he realized he had to maintain his dignity in front of his servants.
“What made me have to trust you?” The figure spoke with almost no change in expression.
“Nothing? But, how else can you explain our arrival other than we are from the realm of gods and will help you?”
The figure froze for a moment. “Well…. It’s just too weird for me. I never believed in a god for thousands of years, and now that I’m so desperate, I pray to them…. You just said my prayer was answered? It’s just…. Oh, my name is Kimi.”
Yua looked around. “Good afternoon, Miss Kimi.”.
“Just call me Kimi.” The figure jumped off the rock and walked up to the two women.
“Nice instrument.” Still smiling, Yua pointed at the stringed object on Kimi’s back. It looked like a guitar but with a body more like a pear and a much shorter handle.
“A bard, maybe?” Raymund made a guess.
When Kimi got close to the kunoichi, she had to look up because her body was so small, like elementary school children. “But, it seems I have no other choice. After all, I’ve been in contact with strangers many times. How is it different now?”
“Sorry?” The kunoichi raised an eyebrow.
“It’s called a lute.” Kimi took the instrument on her back and then began to play it, creating a series of higher and brighter melodies than the guitar. Even while doing that, her face was expressionless.
Kimi’s lute emitted beads of light that came to Raymund’s servants’ ears and clothes. They gasped when they felt something strange on that part of their body.
“This….” Elise touched her ears which were now pointed like Kimi’s. Mona could only widen her eyes at the drastic change.
“Oh, our clothes changed too.” Yua looked at her dark green outfit, which now looked more like a magician’s long-sleeved robe, but the cleavage was still as exposed as before, and the bottom barely covered the crotch.
Elise also looked at her clothes, which were now decorated with carvings on the armor. However, its basic shape hadn’t changed much, still like a tight leotard.
“Sorry, I can’t say much more after this.” After playing her lute, Kimi covered her head with the hood again. “I always ask anyone who comes here for help. Their chances of success seem greater when they know nothing. They will not be consumed by a great desire after knowing what they face. Although, in the end, it’s all the same.”
The kunoichi frowned. “What should we do then?”
“Freeing this land from that mist.” Kimi sighed, turned around, then pointed south. “Go over there. The two of you will meet three adventurers in a village. Make sure you join them and go on missions with them. Good luck, and thank you.”
“Do they have any special features?” Yua asked again.
“They….”
***
It turned out that the journey was quite a long one. It took about an hour for the two to come out of the forest. From the start, Elise and Yua didn’t find anything extraordinary. They found only ordinary-looking trees and some insects such as butterflies and beetles. The rest of the animals were just big brown cats who ran away as soon as they saw Mona.
Raymund yawned. “Boring.”
“Maybe that’s the village Kimi was referring to?” Yua pointed to a collection of green mounds the size of a house in the distance.
Elise narrowed her eyes. “But, aren’t those just hills?”
“No.” Yua shook her head. “Look, they have doors and windows.”
“Hmmm…. The civilization is very different from humans, huh?” Raymund commented.
Yua and Elise continued their journey in the meadow with short grass. Several transparent ball-shaped monsters jumped around them but didn’t attack. Elise remembered the slime spheres she and Renee had fought. The difference was that the slime spheres there looked bigger and lighter in color than in the human world.
Yua rubbed her chin as they finally arrived at the village, fascinated by the sight. The kunoichi’s guess was correct. The hills were actually houses in the shape of a semi-circle, with the entirety overgrown with grass, except for the rounded windows and doors, as well as the chimney at the top.
Several elves strolled along the dirt roads. Some are pale-skinned like Kimi, but some are brown or even dark. They paid no attention to Raymund’s two servants, only a few men checking their cleavage. Something very ordinary.
“So, where should we go?” Elise asked, trying to ignore the lewd stares.
“Find a restaurant or something. If what you’re looking for are adventurers, they’d have gathered in a place like that.” Raymund explained.
Yua made a gesture like she was saluting the flag. “Roger, sir!”
“How many times have I told you?” Raymund sighed. “Don’t talk to me too loudly in public, or people will think you’re crazy.”
The kunoichi chuckled. She loved to tease her master.
It didn’t take long for the two women to arrive in an area lined with shops, which looked the same as the previous houses but had open fronts and tables filled with all kinds of goods.
“I want to go shopping. Lots of interesting stuff here that I’m sure can’t be bought anywhere else.” Yua looked at the bracelet and necklace shop. The seller smiled kindly at her. “This is the world of elves, after all.”
“You can do it later. The important thing is to find the three adventurers first.”
Elise pointed to the most enormous building there. “Perhaps they were there, sir?”