The Porter Has No Interest in the Hero’s Party

Remarkably few people have visited elf villages. This is because those curious about elves usually meet elves living in towns or wandering around first, and after traveling with an elf for about three days, they abandon their curiosity about elves.

The saying “seeing one shows you all ten” applies to first impressions and three days of acquaintance with elves, and their selfish, emotionally deficient, and socially unacceptable behaviors have contributed to turning their companions into either elf-haters or people who tried to understand elves but ended up hating them.

“You haven’t seen many elves before, sir? I heard there are elves in the Empire too.”

I nodded at Lena’s question. While I didn’t know much about elves, it wasn’t that there were no elves in the Empire, nor that I had never met an elf before Mille.

“All my interactions ended at business relationships, so I didn’t notice anything particularly unusual. I haven’t even seen their faces much.”

I had met elves only when checking received goods or when passing by chance on the street. No matter how wicked and eccentric a human’s nature might be, that was too brief a time to reveal one’s true self. From these small moments and impressions, before meeting Mille, I had actually thought that elves might be fairly decent beings who were simply misunderstood.

“So I’m really looking forward to visiting the elf village. What kind of people will they be?”

“First, let’s go to my house and greet my mother! Then I’ll show you around the village.”

Mille looked excited like a child bringing friends home. Lena looked at the back of Mille’s head fondly and said:

“When you put it that way, I’m excited too. But, won’t they say something? The villagers don’t seem like they’ll be friendly.”

“It’s okay! They don’t care! The villagers barely talk to each other!”

Was not talking much a good thing or a bad thing? I couldn’t bring myself to ask Mille and just shook my head as I walked forward. Seeing Mille’s bright appearance, the elves of Elbiron might be brighter than other elves. They might be the kind of harmless beings like those elves I had briefly encountered for business, and we might be able to stay quietly without any problems.

“I hear water flowing somewhere.”

Ashuria, who was walking at the front, said as she looked around. The hero, who was walking beside her, nodded and said:

“Water sound? Is there a valley nearby?”

“Valley? There’s nothing like that around here.”

Mille looked around with a puzzled face. I also looked around and then turned my head toward the direction of the water sound and focused my gaze. Through the trees, I could see the back of a male figure, who was moving his pointed ears here and there while looking at the ground.

“Someone’s relieving himself.”

“Hm? What are you looking at?”

The male elf, who had pulled up his pants, saw us behind him and frowned, responding confrontationally. Even though he could clearly see that we were armed, his aggressive approach seemed either innate or courageous. The hero spoke in a calm voice:

“Ah, excuse us. We’re on our way to Elbiron. Do we just continue in this direction?”

“It’s a single path, and you don’t know that so you’re asking?”

The hero blinked and looked at me. Lena said in a small voice:

“Let’s just go without engaging.”

“That seems right.”

Ashuria also advised with a deadpan expression. The hero, having taken our advice, smiled again and bowed his head.

“Ah, yes. Excuse us.”

“I was already annoyed about getting stuck with grave digging, and now I’m seeing all sorts of strange folks.”

The elf grumbled, picked up a shovel that had fallen to the ground, and began covering the spot he had just urinated on with soil. Ashuria blinked and asked the working elf:

“Excuse me, did you just say grave?”

The male elf stuck the shovel vertically into the ground and glared at Ashuria.

“What now?”

Ashuria shook her head and said:

“You shouldn’t disrespect the dead. Don’t you have any respect for the deceased?”

“I’m going to bury them in the ground anyway, so what does it matter if I urinate here or spit? Will the dead rise up and get angry? They’re dead anyway. It’s practically like giving them fertilizer to decompose well.”

Lena grabbed Ashuria as she was about to say something more. She smiled and said:

“I told you. Let’s just go.”

“But what…”

Ashuria was dragged along with a dumbfounded look on her face, and Mille said with a laugh:

“He must be in a bad mood because he got stuck with grave digging. Elves decide who will bury the dead by drawing lots.”

“I don’t understand. That doesn’t justify disrespecting the dead. Unless the deceased was a demon worshipper.”

“Maybe they were a demon worshipper. Just think of it that way and move on.”

Lena said with an indifferent expression as she pushed Ashuria’s back. Since this was the first time we had seen Ashuria so flustered during our travels, the hero and I were watching her with interested expressions.

“Ah! That’s Elbiron over there!”

Red pointed roofs stood in the middle of the forest. Log cylindrical buildings stretched in a row like maple-imitated houses, and the large fence was alternately filled with wood and iron, creating a strange atmosphere.

The elf guards protecting the entrance were showing off their tall stature in solid wooden armor as they maintained their positions. Mille waved to the guards and said:

“Hello! It’s been a while!”

“…..”

The guards looked at Mille, sighed deeply, and turned their gaze elsewhere. Undeterred, Mille raised her hand high to greet another guard. The guard neither returned Mille’s greeting nor made eye contact. He looked at the hero and said:

“Please identify yourself.”

The hero took out his ID from his pocket. The guard checked the ID by eye and nodded.

“Ah, we are the hero’s party from the kingdom. As negotiations between the kingdom and empire are ongoing, we’re looking for a place to stay for a while…”

“Ah, yes. I understand. So you’re coming to rest for a while. During the negotiation period.”

The soldier cut off the hero’s words with a very annoyed expression, waving his hand. The hero looked at the guard with a bewildered face and tilted his head. The guard didn’t even check the hero’s expression and opened a notebook. Then he counted our number, wrote down the figures, and said:

“You may enter.”

The hero still seemed not to understand the situation from just before, blinked his eyes, and then nodded a beat late, saying:

“Ah, yes. L-let’s go.”

We couldn’t understand the guard’s sharp attitude either and tilted our heads, and Lena asked Mille:

“Was the guard having a bad day too?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“He cut off the hero’s words and just sent us in carelessly.”

Mille tilted her head and answered Lena:

“Isn’t it good for both sides that it ended quickly? The hero doesn’t have to explain everything, and the guard doesn’t have to do much work.”

“…Is that so?”

Lena seemed to be already starting to adapt to the village. I suppressed my awkward feelings and stood at the village entrance looking around.

The inside of the village was even more bizarre than when viewed from beyond the fence. There was no vitality at all, and the passing villagers didn’t even pay attention to us. Looking to the side, children walked with their mouths tightly shut like gloomy philosophers, and adults walked with their mouths tightly shut like people planning suicide.

Apart from the red-painted roofs, there was no color in the village. As if people naturally lived in trees that were originally like that, the bark wasn’t trimmed, nor was the surface planed.

Brown and ochre. This was a gloomy brown city. Even the green foliage felt meaningless and gloomy in this place. The hero stood at the village entrance and took deep breaths.

“Uh… hmm…”

“How is it? Our village? It has a calm feeling, right?”

Because Mille said this with a smile, we couldn’t express our honest impressions. In a situation where we were watching to see who would speak first, Lena said:

“Yeah. It’s a nice village. It feels like living in nature. I heard elves are nature-friendly, and that seems true. It’s really beautiful.”

Ashuria chimed in, not to be outdone:

“Indeed. The quiet atmosphere reminds me of the church chapel where I used to be. Finding such tranquility in nature is a charm, and it seems elves know that appeal well.”

I couldn’t lose either. Glancing at the two, I nodded and said:

“I regret not visiting an elf village in the Empire. It’s a village with a unique character that will probably stay in my memory. It’s wonderful.”

And then we all looked at the hero without any particular order. Mille’s eyes were sparkling with expectation for the hero and the shower of compliments we had just given.

“Huh? Uhh? Uh, uh…! Well, that is… Ni-nice. Really nice. So… Right! Like that mountain…! Nice!”

The hero awkwardly smiled and spread his arms.

“Tsk…”

“Oh no…”

“Hero… That’s a bit…”

We shook our heads and looked at the hero, and even Mille said with a strange expression:

“Um… th-thank you?”

“Ha, hahaha…”

The hero looked miserable again today.