Editing Dark Elf:Volume1 Chapter2

==Chapter 2: Right and Left, Nothing but Crises==

===Part 1===

[[Image:Dark_Elf_v01_bw2.png|thumb]]
So smooth. So soft.

“''Ik ki ki! Vefk iq adoguoqw ftoiweto bae ito!!''”

Little Girl, the dark elf in the sheer white dress, was riding Klaus Knockburn, bouncing up and down in delight. The pure gold flower decoration in her hair and the green gem around her neck seemed awfully dangerous on such a small child. Not to mention her short skirt. Now that was dangerous!

Then again, he was currently using his camouflage magic to transform into a male deer.

(Th-this isn’t right. How did this even happen!?)

The sun had fully set.

Since the camouflage magic was the only card in his deck, Klaus needed to be prepared to use it. That meant acquiring the magic derivative found in Ghost Turnips and Witch Pumpkins, but that was easier said than done. First of all, the Witch Pumpkin was not an option. Their skin and stems were thick as a shield and a metal knife was not enough to break through. And while he had forcibly eaten part of a Ghost Turnip’s flowers before, not all of them had flowers growing from them. He had no idea where to find one like that in this vast forest and he lacked the physical or mental fortitude to walk through the bushes and search for something that might not even be there.

That meant he needed an indirect supply, such as an animal that normally ate Ghost Turnips or Witch Pumpkins.

But that was also easier said than done. He actually had a chance there, but he did not know how to catch a living animal or fish out in the wild. He would occasionally spot shapes through the gaps in the trees or the surface of a river, but they ran away before he could eat them. And the teasing glimpses only made it more painful.

He was going to die at this rate.

He had less than a full stem left. Once it reached 0, he would suffer from symptoms similar to dehydration.

So he went for a high risk, high return last resort. He could not seem to capture them for whatever reason, but he could catch glimpses of them. And if he could observe them, this was always an option.

He could turn into an animal using Camouflize.

And if he camouflaged himself as a calm herbivore, he could lure in a carnivore.

He wanted an animal with Witch Pumpkin or Ghost Turnip inside it. A carnivore might not seem like the best option there, but they would be eating the herbivores. That meant they were very likely to have indirectly ingested what he wanted.

He could not survive by running randomly around the forest.

He had to focus on the ecosystem. What effect would the hard, unmoving Witch Pumpkins and Ghost Turnips have on the forest as a whole? Focus on that and he had a chance.

Of course, this meant he was forcibly camouflaging himself while already low on stem. If he screwed this up and failed to catch anything, he would definitely suffer from the dehydration-like symptoms. It was a risky gamble.

He was prepared to fight for his life. Pushed to the limit, he concluded that fighting an animal was far better than just rolling over waiting for death.

But now he was trembling in deer form.

(Little Girl? Why did I have to run across her now!?)

What about her mother? It was dark now, so shouldn’t she be back at their village? Several questions spun through his mind, but at least she didn’t look injured.

And in an unexpected move, Little Girl walked 5cm in front of him and hesitantly placed something like meatballs on the mossy ground.

He scarfed it down.

Maybe they were for pets and maybe they were for livestock, but they were meatballs without a hint of saltiness. They may have been deadly bait normally placed on the ground to draw out prey, but he didn’t care. Two golf ball-sized hunks of meat were not enough to fill his belly, but it had been so long since he had proper food cooked(???) by someone. He nearly burst into tears despite being a deer.

(Yes, yessss!! The headache is going away. I’m recovering. This is meat. Cooked meat. And it has the magic derivative. Cooking is the bessssst!)

The meatballs gave him two stems’ worth. Had the meat come from an animal that ate Ghost Turnips or Witch Pumpkins, or had the vegetable or stem been ground up and included in the meatballs? Only now did he start to question the entire idea of a deer eating meat, but Little Girl didn’t seem to question it.

“''Bov, wkoto’v i jaag dab. Bae pevw kixo dooq hipuvkog, bae raat wkuqj.''”

He felt something soft on the top of his head.

Smiling Little Girl had placed her small hand on his head and patted him. She may have placed the meatballs on the ground just to get him to lower his head enough for that. It had been soooo long since he had experienced such kindness. ''I’m really gonna cry, dammit.

That much was fine. He was even willing to call it a success.

But what good were a puny human’s predictions out in the wilderness?

“''Kp. Bae irroit vwtaqj oqaejk wa verratw pb youjkw. Aqnb aqo yib wa huqg aew!''”

(Gwah!?)

She hopped right onto his back. With no thought to the whole skirt situation. He felt her weight and the touch of a small butt with nothing but underwear between it and his back. He nearly spat the meatballs from his deer mouth, but she didn’t seem to care. The oddly cheerful and very soft skirt girl was still talking.

“''Ik ki ki! U kig wkaejkw katvo-tuguqj yiv i rivwupo hat wko kepiqv aew aq wkout aroq rniuqv, dew u qoxot mqoy kay wtaednovapo katvov faeng do. Wkoto uv inyibv pato wa noitq oxoq iw pb ijo. Ja, ja!!''”

Her smile was too innocent. He was only human, so he had repeatedly attempted to get back at his rotten teacher by transforming into a beetle or butterfly and sneak in while she was bathing or changing, but she had spotted him every single time and beaten him half to death with a slipper. Thanks to that, he had written off his camouflage magic as fairly useless, but how wrong he had been. Were the dark elves just too pure to suspect a thing!? His deer form trembled. Unlike with that black-hearted and rotten teacher, he just felt bad with this girl.

In fact…

(Ow, ow, ow!? M-my hips. A deer just isn’t strong enough. If she was going to ride me, I should have gone with a horse! Then I could jokingly say she rode me cowgirl style!!)

Just like with salt and fat, people sought out inappropriate laughter when they were worn out. And this deer was honestly relieved while innocent Little Girl tightened her legs around him and enjoyed the rodeo ride. He was glad her smile was back. He still had to stop the resurrection of the legendary Brashgain from the 10km remains, but it felt wrong to blame such a small girl just because she was a dark elf too.

Even if he might have to fight against her mother.

Worse, her mother might have already lost her life to Professor Dissection and the knights’ barbaric attack.

How long could he realistically remain on this girl’s side?

(…)

He was glad his deer face could not form detailed expressions.

And then…

“''Ykiw ito bae gauqj wkoto?''”

A dreadfully low voice reached his ears.

He hesitantly looked back to find a second dark elf. It was Slender in the white-bleached leather vest and blue tight skirt of a hunter. ''My wife, did you sense my mental call and come running!?'' No, now was not the time for rejoicing.

She had a terrifyingly icy look in her eyes and she had her large bow at the ready.

(Oh.)

He reviewed his situation here. Little Girl was wholly ignorant, but Slender had seen him dispel his camouflage magic before. And a hunter might be able to tell his behavior apart from an actual deer. So what would this look like to her? Wouldn’t he look like a gentleman of the highest caliber who spotted a young girl in the middle of the woods and opted to trick her into climbing onto his back in a small dress so he could enjoy having her spread her legs and rub her smooth softness against him through her underwear?

“''Akk!? Ykiw kiv bae inn doqw aew ah vkiro, jutn? Yoto bae karuqj wa tugo kup waa?''”

(Wait, Little Girl! Don’t start bouncing up and down even harder when your friend shows up!! Ahh, i-it’s not what it looks like, Slender. I was on the verge of dying from magic derivative deficiency, so this was my only option! Oh, goddess, she’s so warm!!)

“''Kprk!!''”

Slender shouted something and then he heard something sharply whizzing through the air.

Then he heard a loud slapping sound.

Pain exploded in his butt like someone had rubbed mustard paste into a wound. Hallucinated lights really did dance before his eyes. It took him a few seconds to realize what had happened to him.

(A-agh. D-did she remove the bowstring and whip me with it!? But wait! Didn’t that bow have something like a fang on the end!?)

“''Ykb!? Pevw bae!? Inyibv pimo wkuqjv va iymyitg!?''”

When he did not immediately let Little Girl down, his future wife kept shouting at and whipping him.

Slender proved to him she had the makings of a dominatrix, but Little Girl was still on his back. If he ran off now, he would be a very tasty kidnapper. He couldn’t do that. He had eaten a bug to survive, but he couldn’t do that!! Little Girl was working her small hips atop him for some very high-level rodeoing, but the male deer had to put up with the pain and crouch down to let her down. But Little Girl pouted her lips to complain. She lowered her center of gravity and started pressing her far-too-defenseless crotch against him even more.

“''Ykiw’v wkuv, wirruqj aew intoigb? Dew u yiv huqguqj wkuv vratw wa do seuwo oqwotwiuquqj. Vwib vwtaqj! Wko heq kiv aqnb levw dojeq!!''”

(Stop tilting your tiny head and get off of me!! Before I learn to like being whipped by my wife!!)

Little Girl was rocking her tiny body back and forth to enjoy herself some more and showing no sign of getting down on her own, so the trembling deer had to crawl out from below her. He somehow managed to escape the fearsome tunnel created by her two legs and rubbing crotch. No deer in the history of the world had ever moved like that, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. He had to escape before the pain in his whipped ass became something other than pain and he found he could no longer get off without his hunter of a wife whipping him in the great outdoors. If he was going to develop a fetish like that, he didn’t want Little Girl to be watching.

And now it’s time to get out of here!!

“''Jow navw, bae geppb!! Ga bae ga wkuv yuwk iqbaqo yka juxov bae wko fkiqfo? Ykb gaq’w bae ja fkivo ihwot i gao’v ivv, bae rotxotw!?''”

He was pretty sure Slender directed some strong words his way as he left.

And he was even more sure she had not been complimenting him for his hard work.

===Part 2===

It was difficult to think while suffering from pain, hunger, or thirst. Just like your body’s reflexes took priority over logical thinking when touching a hot kettle. Only the detectives in stage plays could get by on last-second flashes of insight. The logic would only catch up to you after it was too late.

Klaus the Deer ran through the forest while looking for traps until it grew dark. Only after coming to a stop and looking back did he realize something important.

(She used her bow like a whip, but she never did launch an arrow at me.)

Nor did she use any Archdragon Magic.

He pondered that for a bit, but there was no point in staying a deer. He might be able to trick the other dark elves searching for him, but he also didn’t want to be hunted down as tonight’s dinner.

He dispelled Camouflize with the usual white steam.

He had two Witch Pumpkin stems’ worth left. But that only applied to the bioconcentrated magic derivative, so he was still hungry. Since he had eaten some, his stomach was begging for food even more intensely than if it were entirely empty. But Little Girl would be more heavily guarded now and he doubted that would work on the other dark elves. Slender had noticed something was off about his deer form, so the others might as well.

And with anyone other than Slender, they would shoot him with a hunting arrow or even blast him with Archdragon Magic.

…''That’s too risky a gamble.

He could not expect to subsist off of food given to him by others. His only option was to secure some magic derivative, acquire food, and search out the dark elf village on his own.

This was no longer as simple as borrowing some tools to bring his future wife back home with him.

The dark elves were attempting to resurrect the 10km dragon Brashgain.

He had to stop that, but he had too little to work with. Food, a place to sleep, and other survival concerns were an issue, but his lack of information was even more of a problem. He lacked a map of the Forest of No Return and he didn’t know where the dark elf village was. How the dragon would be resurrected from his bones, what kind of magical materials were needed, the details of the ceremony, and the amount of time remaining were all unknown. That rotten teacher hadn’t explained anything for him. But he would rather she stayed dead than return from the depths of hell to explain it all for him now.

…''I need help.

His thoughts turned in the natural direction.

Little Girl was so innocent she would probably help him if he asked, but he couldn’t share any secrets with her for the same reason. There was too great a risk of her telling the adult dark elves any secrets he told her. And without giving any thought to the consequences. Then he was dead for sure.

That just left Slender.

She was old enough to know what she was doing, but she had still chosen to save a human like Klaus. If she was willing to save one human boy, surely she would want to stop the destruction of the entire species. He also wanted to prove to her that he had not been preying on a little girl deep in the woods. He had to shatter that idea before it could set in too deeply!!

He could not speak her language. He did not know her culture, customs, rules, or taboos.

He still didn’t know why they had tried to burn him alive for seeing her bathing. Did the dark elves just value purity that highly, or had that bath been part of the ceremony to resurrect Brashgain? Could she be a dark elf princess needed for the ceremony so no one was to interrupt her while she purified herself? ''Oh, no. These fantasies are getting me a little too excited. And all those furious dark elves seem a lot cuter when I think of them as shrine maidens or maids trying to protect their one and only princess.

…''I have nothing to support that idea, though. There’s too much I still don’t know about the dark elf world.

But…

“All I really have to do is win my future wife’s heart, right? And who needs a flask of aphrodisiac to do that?”

===Part 3===

He needed to perform some research and then act on that research.

He stuck his note-taking stick below his belt and finally started walking. He was afraid of missing the signs for traps and forks in the path when it was this dark out, but it was less of an issue than he had thought. He had always needed a light back in the royal capital, but once his eyes adjusted, he could make out the outlines of everything with just the starlight.

…''But I can’t get started without knowing where Slender is.

Given how they had last parted, he doubted they would get any closer if he approached her now. His pessimistic side was shouting questions at him. How long would he have to wait before she cooled her head? And even if she did, how could he be so sure his proposal would be accepted? He was short on time. This forest was notoriously easy to get lost in, so he would never find her if he started searching at random. He needed to go back on the offensive while he had still seen her recently. Unless he wanted to break down in tears later on.

He wanted to see her as soon as possible specifically because she was angry. The longer she was left with that misunderstanding, the harder it would be to convince her of the truth.

…''I love you, Slender, but not because I’m into younger girls. Please understand that nuance, my wife!!

So he ended up searching for his own footsteps in the forest.

“Dammit, is this them? No, I’m not looking for boot prints. I was Camouflized as a deer at the time. Ugh, and I’m hungry too. So these hoofprints are what I’m looking for. Man, I really shouldn’t have started thinking about meat.”

This felt as useless as gathering back up his own spit, but it was necessary. If he could find his trail, he could follow it back the way he came and return to where Slender and Little Girl were.

He walked slowly and carefully through the dark forest, surrounded by chirping bugs. After a while, he recognized his surroundings. This was near where Little Girl had attacked him earlier. But the place was already deserted, so she and Slender must have gone elsewhere.

Still, he would have overlooked the location altogether if he hadn’t been observing his surroundings so carefully. The hunter girl had even collected the remnants of the meatballs from the ground.

…''Does that mean I’ll have a hard time tracking Slender by her footprints?

No, it was too soon to give up hope. He changed what he was focused on and viewed the grass and ground once more.

“There we go.”

Slender was a fully-trained hunter, but he did see a few smaller footprints. Those had to be Little Girl’s. Slender intentionally covered her tracks, but that girl still left a trail.

…''Little Girl again? I’m basically stalking her now, aren’t I?

That was concerning, but he was in no position to worry about it now. Surely his future wife would understand. He still wasn’t sure why Little Girl was out this late, but he wanted to believe Slender would be looking after her – and thus he could find her by following Little Girl’s tracks.

That was when he heard a dry cracking sound through the chirping of the bugs. He never would have noticed it in the noisy royal capital, so he was amazed at how much his time out in the wild had changed him.

He ducked down, gulped, and narrowed his eyes to peer into the darkness.

“''Kooob, jutnnn!''”

He heard an elongated voice. He did not know what it was saying, but it sounded quite young. He also recognized it as Little Girl’s voice. He was getting even worse if he could recognize her by her voice now.

And she did not seem to have noticed him.

She seemed less accustomed to moving through the forest than Klaus. It made him anxious just to watch her. He was looking for Slender and didn’t really need to observe Little Girl so closely, but she was the only one leaving any hints for him at the moment.

…''And if I follow her, I might be able to find Slender.

The dark elves had been out and about during the day, so they were not nocturnal. They may have worked on shifts. But that still left Little Girl’s presence here a mystery. Why was she out during the night shift? Did dark elf culture not include the concept of a bedtime for children?

Klaus watched his footing and avoided breathing through his mouth even on this difficult route. He mimicked the path she took and eventually heard another voice.

Bingo.

Another dark elf spoke from beyond some low bushes. He could not see her yet, but it was the kind of gentle female voice they never seemed to use with a human like him.

…''Bingo, but I don’t think that’s Slender. Am I in trouble if it’s another dark elf?

He was briefly afraid, but…

“''Pitb, u ip toigb.''”

“''Ak, ito bae? Yonn gaqo, Punoqi. Qay, kay idaew yo inn diwko wajowkot.''”

Klaus was surprised to find how relieved he was.

The voice from beyond the bushes was the dark elf who had appeared to be Little Girl’s mother back at the burning site. She must have escaped Professor Dissection and the knights. Slender must have been helping Little Girl escape because those two had gotten separated in the confusion.

…''So she wasn’t playing with a deer in the forest to distract herself from the pain.

He reflected on that fact.

He had to be careful not to make any noise, so he couldn’t say any of it out loud.

…''She can still enjoy herself. That’s one thing I managed to protect. It may have been one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever had, but I was the one who drove off the knights with my camouflage magic.

If they spotted him, they would take him right back to be burned at the stake. And they had wiped out the knights with their Archdragon Magic, so he was being awfully carefree with them this close. But he was glad he still had enough of a heart left to be warmed by this scene of a mother and daughter reunited.

Of course, this was all his own self-righteousness speaking and they would still attack him if they found him. He had seen more than enough of the dark elves’ Archdragon Magic. He had deserved it, but Professor Dissection had been obliterated by that magic along with the terrain around him. The fates of Page Loinbelt and Sir Rainbook were still unknown, but death did not discriminate. Klaus would be just as dead as anyone if he let his guard down.

And with all of that in mind, Klaus Knockburn slowly approached the bushes without straightening back up. He couldn’t do anything without information, not even survive.

…''I need to get closer.

He was afraid, but he had to do it. He prayed to the goddess. He still hadn’t seen Slender. She was more reasonable than the other dark elves (not that he could understand anything she said), so he had to find her and get her help if he was going to find any way to stop Brashgain’s resurrection.

He was pretty sure it took him a full three minutes to approach just one meter. Then again, his internal clock had completely broken a while back, so who knows really. Bushes made for an uneven wall, so he was afraid he would be spotted through one of the gaps. But he managed to get close. ''Please let Slender be there too,'' he prayed while taking up position directly behind the low bushes. He could not stick his head above them, so he would have to look between the thin branches of the hip-height bushes. And he gulped.

…''What if they’re looking back at me from the other side and our eyes meet at close range?

He shook his head to dispel that horrifying idea. He couldn’t chicken out now. If he gave up his search for Slender, he had no path forward.

He held his breath and leaned his face in close.

His next clue had to be found between those branches.

What he saw first was lots of brown skin.

[[Image:Dark_Elf_v01_bw3.png|thumb]]

Little Girl was cheerfully raising her arms while half-naked Mother removed her clo-

“!?”

Klaus jumped and reflexively looked away from the mother and daughter.

But he found more brown skin there.

…''Kyahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!? Sl-Sl-Sl-Slender!!

He thought his heart was going to stop.

Why?

Why was he seeing so much brown skin in the great outdoors with no walls or doors to hide them!? She had her hands on her white leather vest and she was opening it wide right out in the open!!

“''Wkiqmv hat ijtoouqj wa jeitg pb pawkot iqg po numo wkuv, Fkitnawwo.''”

“''Gaq’w yattb idaew uw. U kig wa rtorito hat pb qujkw keqw iqbyib.''”

Mother seemed to be smiling and speaking to Slender from the direction he was intentionally not looking. He had to fight the instinct to look in the direction of her voice when he heard it. As a cool beauty, Slender replied while coldly not looking in the woman’s direction, but one of her long ears was twitching. She was apparently using it to join in the conversation.

And at the same time…

“''Ikk, wkuv uv qufo.''”

…''Ah!!

Even more of Slender’s brown skin was shining in the moonlight. She had finally removed both the white vest and the inner garment covering her chest. Slender though she was, she did have some curves there. ''Wait, were you using the vest’s strap to push them up, my wife?'' But even if they were small, they were more valuable than diamonds of the same size. Their jiggliness was revealed before his eyes. They were definitely small, but they weren’t nonexistent.

…''So what happens now!? I thought a dark elf had to marry any guy who took away her clothing and equipment and thus left her defenseless (and naked). But now I’ve seen all three of them naked.

Klaus started to sweat profusely.

The human mind had a tendency to work overtime at the least useful times. In other words, it tended to spin its wheels.

…''Does that mean, um, polygamy? Is that a thing in their culture? And the two I’m trying not to look at seem to be mother and daughter, so am I actually going to end up married to Slender + a dark elf mother and child!? This is…this is getting out of hand!!

What if Slender and Little Girl were sisters? His life experiences were nowhere near enough to prepare him for this. How was he supposed to handle a family structure that convoluted?

…''No!! Th-the other two aren’t naked. I have seen more of the mama’s skin than I’m comfortable with, but she’s not naked. So I’m still safe! I’m dedicated to Slender! I don’t need anyone else!!

Also, hadn’t the previous time suggested the actual reward for seeing a dark elf naked was being burned alive? A shadow fell over his face. ''That would be a problem. Are they going to burn me to death thrice to cover all of three of them!?

If so, he was not in for a good time. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he carelessly shook the bush’s leaves. If he was spotted here, it would shatter his future wife’s love for him. But he doubted he could escape unnoticed if he tried to run away now, so he had to stay here and survive.

Still, this situation only introduced more questions. The dancers he had seen before hadn’t been naked, but their revealing outfits had suggested the dark elves viewed bare skin as sacred. So was this some kind of religious ritual? But that idea died when he heard some splashing water.

…''Water? Wait…

Come to think of it, wasn’t the smell of vegetation awfully strong here? And everything was damp. They were next to a river. His adorable future wife had removed her clothing on the rocky riverbank and folded it up at her feet.

…''And I doubt she’s skin diving for fish.

His continued observations showed the water only came up to Slender’s knees.

Which meant…

“She’s bathing?”

“''?''”

Slender looked up with her distinctive long ears twitching, so he clapped his hands over his mouth. It took all his willpower to avoid taking a reflexive step back. His heart rang loud in his ears. He had screwed up, but making an audible footstep would only make it worse. He would only confirm her suspicions.

He could find a better time to send his future wife a love letter or present.

…''How did she notice me!? What did I do wrong!?

He held his breath and remained entirely motionless while battling his own doubts. Slender stared toward the bush for a while with no clothing covering her soft skin. She even crouched down to keep her bow within reach. The look on her face was deadly serious, but that pose meant he could see everything!!

Then some more skin moved into view. It was gentle Mother with her droopy ears. He hoped like hell she was a sensible person and he discovered she had plastered some white leaves over the wet brown skin of her very large breasts. That appeared to be the dark elf version of a ''bathing suit''. That meant she was covered up, but only in the most technical of senses.

Little Girl also had the white leaves plastered to her much flatter body as well as some kind of vine around her hips, but she was crawling through the shallow stream like a dog and tilting her head, which made her bathing suit was just as inadequate.

“''Uv vapowkuqj wko piwwot, jutn?''”

“''Uw’v qawkuqj.''”

Finally, Slender ever so slowly pulled her hand away from the bow lying on the riverbank. She still seemed curious about the bushes, but Little Girl pulled on her hand to guide her into the river with Mother.

…''So she wasn’t certain? If she was, I bet she would have been bow-whipping this bush.

Klaus relaxed his stiff back a little. Even that scared him so much he thought it was taking years off his lifespan. Mother was washing Little Girl’s back with some soap bubbles while the daughter kicked her feet excitedly, but he was more focused on Slender who was sitting on a large rock by the water and wrapping a vine around her hand.

Yes, there were bubbles. Those white leaves appeared to be from a type of soapbark, so they produced white bubbles when rubbed. Slender rubbed one against the vine around her hand and then washed her upper arm. To wash her own back, she undid the loop, held it in both hands, and rubbed it up and down.

…''I see. That’s clever.

Klaus was impressed. Impressed by their technology and culture, not by the way the white bubbles slowly dripped down her curves when she poured water over herself from a leaf rolled into the shape of a cup!! And there were plenty more perfectly legitimate observations to be made!!

…''Jutn. Twice now, Little Girl seemed to refer to Slender that way.

He was also curious about the beginnings of their sentences. Words indicating people, such as “you”, were more likely to appear there.

If he had time, it might be useful to analyze the dark elf language bit by bit. Even if he couldn’t learn to speak it fluently, it would mean a lot to pick up a word here and there.

Or so it seemed, but was that really correct? He was gradually losing confidence. ''Oh…oh, wow! Slender is doing calisthenics while she bathes. She has to be really flexible to do the splits and then bend backwards like that. Ooh, and look at her chest jiggling. …No, no, stop. Don’t let your future wife’s devilish body distract you!! You need to stay focused…but so jiggly…

Once he did manage to focus, a shadow fell over his face.

…''H-how can I ever escape from these bushes and then get to know Slender better!? I-I don’t see how I can escape being cooked more thoroughly than a pizza!!

The dark elves had a custom of bathing. The forest appeared to have a disinfecting plant they could use as soap. And they had vines and light stones to scrub their bodies with.

…''Is that all? That’s not much research to go off of. Hmm, if she only uses natural materials, maybe I could gift her a bath product from the royal capital. No, I can’t. First, I don’t have anything from the city. And second, gifting a girl a bath product would just come off as creepy. If I want to get to know her better, it has to be something inoffensive, so stop thinking about her in the nude. Dammit, and now I’m really craving pizza. I wonder if a dark elf would have ever had one cooked in a proper pizza oven.

But then Klaus noticed something.

He continued to observe Slender while she thoroughly washed herself in the clear stream.

Unlike Little Girl and Mother, she had been carrying a bow with her. Since she had stripped down to bathe, she must not have been there as a bodyguard. But she had been invited out here by that mother and child under the assumption that she would need her bow. That meant she had the bow with her for a reason. Or at least, the bow’s presence would not get in the way of whatever they were doing.

He was getting sidetracked, but it was possible none of his direct observations here were going to get him any closer to Slender.

…''Could it be?

===Part 4===

He had barely escaped with his life.

He had not been in a magic shootout and he had not dodged an explosion by diving and rolling along the ground. He had simply left the bushes as silently as possible and walked back the way he had come through the dark forest. But he was still afraid of encountering a dark elf. Any of them other than Slender would get him burned at the stake, so the forest stroll seemed to take years off of his life.

But there was still hope in his face.

“It’s the smell.”

As long as he knew where his future wife went during her daily routine, he could meet her again. Hopefully.

“The smell of my hair and clothes! The forest animals are avoiding me because they can smell the artificial scents on me!!”

He recalled that naked body shining in the moonlight. Slender had been washing herself so carefully because she had to fool the animals’ noses.

She could wash her scent off.

Finding a river was easy enough. Instead of investigating the flora or the terrain, he only had to walk downstream of where Slender and the others were. As long as he didn’t encounter them along the way, that is. He relied on the information he had gained from the experts. He had to wash everything anyway, so he kept his clothes on and let himself fall into the river.

He thought his heart had stopped.

“Bwah!! Cold…cold!?”

He hopped back up in a hurry and crawled out of the river before he died. He was trembling as much as a newborn fawn while he gave the river a look of utter disbelief.

…''But the dark elves were smiling so happily. Was it this cold when I first ran into Slender too? I’d go numb after just a few minutes in water this frigid!

Were dark elves just that much tougher than humans? He felt irrationally angry about it, but then something else occurred to him. If the forest animals could avoid him by detecting the faint artificial scents on him, then why had Slender been unsure if he was there even when she was so suspicious of those bushes?

“Wait. You’re kidding, right?”

He didn’t know if he was correct. Hell, he didn’t even know if he could detect the scent after spending so long living in the city. But he still made a guess.

…''Could there be a hot spring there? Did they dig into the riverbank to guide the hot water into the cold river to create an area of water that’s just right?

He glanced through the text carved into his stick and something else came back to him. He hadn’t observed the other two closely enough, but he did not remember seeing any goose bumps on his future wife’s smooth skin. And if there was a faint sulfur scent there, it would explain how the hunter had overlooked his presence behind the bushes.

Anyway.

What would he do now? The dark elves had a specific part of the river set aside for bathing and the hot water would only be found there. And they knew where all such points were.

He would have to make do with the nightmarishly cold river.

Otherwise he would starve to death without encountering any of the forest animals.

And if he could capture some food, he would have more options for using Camouflize in the forest. He could even give some food to Slender as a gift.

This was not the royal capital. He had learned the hard way how wondrous food and other supplies could look in this deep forest. Every skewer of meat and every piece of parchment had to be handmade. The two small meatballs he had eaten and the prospect of more food to come only made him hungrier.

“Dammit.”

He shivered as he glanced back over at the dark river.

He took a step toward it. How would he ever obtain a gift for her if he didn’t work for it himself?

“Goddess dammit! This is a test of my love, isn’t it!? Well, just you wait, my future wife!!”

===Part 5===

Klaus had no mirror, so he had no idea what color his lips were.

“…”

He also lacked the energy to scream. He was soaked with icy water from head to toe and all his human warmth had been sapped away. His joints were as stiff as an unoiled doll, but he had done what needed doing. Just to be safe, he took some dirt and animal fur from the ground and sprinkled it over his head.

The effect was dramatic.

He saw some small lights and initially assumed they were fireflies, but they were not. A pair of yellow lights hovered in the darkness. They were the eyes of a nocturnal animal reflecting the moonlight.

“Eek!”

This caught him by surprise. It was so much closer than he had expected. He gulped, turned away from the mystery animal – it could have been a boar or a lion for all he knew – and walked deeper into the forest. It was only about 10 meters away.

…''I’m living in the same world as them. If I learn to be silent, I can get within reach.

Now he was searching for signs other than the dark elf ones. It was a difficult task in the dark, but he found some pawprints and some stiff fur caught on the bark of a tree. He tried to leave as little trace as possible, but walking through the deep forest without stepping on any leaves or grass was simply not possible. The best he could do was take his time placing his weight on them and be careful not to make any noise. He traveled through the dark forest connecting the dots between each animal sign he found.

…''There one is.

It was hard to tell in the darkness, but he thought it was a deer.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t interested in filling his belly with meat. Steak, cutlets, a roast – anything would do at this point. And this was an herbivore. That meant it would have eaten Ghost Turnips and Witch Pumpkin stems and still have the magic derivative in its body. There was a good chance he would indirectly get some of that for himself.

…''Is this the one I observed before getting some meatballs from Little Girl?

He was less than 10 meters away. Wild animals gave off more pressure than he had imagined when there was no fence separating them from him. He knew intellectually that deer were docile herbivores. This wasn’t an 800kg moose, so he didn’t have to worry about being kicked to death by back legs as powerful as a horse’s. This had to be better than trying to fight a bear or a tiger. He hoped.

…''But can I do this? Like really do it?

He wondered that while ducking behind a large Witch Pumpkin. He did not have the hunting bows or spears the dark elves had. Not to mention their Archdragon Magic. Thrown out into the forest without any kind of weapon, a human was weaker than a wild dog. What would actually happen if it they ended up in a close-quarters fight? Any animal larger than a dog was terrifying in that context.

Still crouched, he unclasped his wet cloak. He collected an orange-sized stone from the ground and wrapped it in the cloak. He tied off the round part like he was making a simple ghost doll and he grabbed the ghost’s skirt(?).

He now had a makeshift morning star. The hefty weight in his hands reminded him that this was not like what happened with the Palmtop Mouse or the beetle. This time, he would be attacking a defenseless deer. And this was the kind of animal that could put a smile on Little Girl’s face. He had to shake those thoughts out of his head.

He had to think of this as an opportunity.

He could not survive with a passive attitude. He could not gain meat or fur if he did not make the attempt. Slender would never want to get to know or work with someone who couldn’t even protect himself.

The thought of killing the dark elves disgusted him, so could he really kill this deer and fill his stomach with it?

A self-deprecating smile formed on his lips. Would he never get to know them better if he still wasn’t sure where to draw that line? He slinked over toward the dark shape in the woods. He moved slowly and silently.

The deer raised its head.

But he was already within 3m of it, so he took a large step and raised his blunt weapon just a step away from it.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

===Part 6===

He felt the first blow land. Hard.

One of its horns broke off and a warm liquid spurted from the animal’s head, but that was not enough to kill it. The struggling deer shook its head wildly. It was nothing more than luck that kept Klaus’s windpipe from being torn open. If the other horn hadn’t caught on a low bush, it would have scored a clean hit.

Then he swung down his blunt weapon again. He was fully focused. He couldn’t believe his weary body had this much strength left in it.

“Pant, pant!!”

How many times had he hit it now? He swung one last blow down on the animal that was now too weak to stand on its own. He waited until its convulsing legs came to a stop. He had won. But he was afraid it might suddenly get back up again.

That must have been a painful death. A real hunter would have been horrified by his handiwork.

“Yeah…this isn’t going to make a good gift for a girl.”

Klaus covered his face with his hands after looking down at the smashed head.

He was primarily after Slender, but he decided he should consider what Little Girl would think as well. He recalled how delighted she had been when she innocently climbed on top of him with a smile. He could never let her see a deer looking like this.

…''But what if you couldn’t tell anymore? Like if I made jerky out of it? Oh, but there are no factories in the forest, so the dark elves must make everything themselves. Would homecooked food even seem special to them?

His admirable thoughts were interrupted by the growling of his stomach. Maybe because he was thinking about food.

It was finally time to get cooking. No one could blame him for eating a little of it himself. Eating some meat would stave off the hunger for tonight. And if he indirectly ingested some magic derivative, he would have more uses of his camouflage magic stocked up. This was no longer a passive fight of running away, hiding, and surviving. His next step was going on the offensive.

If he had the time, he also wanted to meet with and get to know his future wife better.

With any luck she might even tell him where their village was.

She had seen through his camouflage using her hunter knowledge, but if she told him what exactly had been wrong, he could fix it. That would give him the means of sneaking into their strictly-guarded ceremony. He could not let the dark elves resurrect the 10km dragon that would bring doom to humanity. He was scared, but with his rotten teacher and the knights gone, he was the only one left. They could never have their wedding unless he resolved all of these many concerns.

Just one person’s help would make so much difference, so his first job was to reach a point where he could calmly think things through. He needed a flexible mind to figure out how to set his future wife’s heart aflutter.

The deer was collapsed on its side with a broken horn and a smashed head.

“Time to eat,” said Klaus. “I can get to work after I’ve had some food.”

But he couldn’t just chow down on this freshly-killed meat. Setting aside all issues related to the magic derivative, he would gag and retch it back up.

…''So I need to cook it. U-ughh. The work never ends.

He briefly recalled the scene of his future wife bathing. He could easily cook the meat by throwing it into the nearly-boiling water at the source of the hot spring. But he might not be able to find it anymore and the odds were good the dark elves kept an eye on those bathing spots.

He would have to start a fire on his own.

Camouflize was his only magic, so he could not shoot fire from his hand.

So he considered the simplest method he knew of: hold a stick between his hands like he was praying and spin it enough to start a fire with the friction. But that wouldn’t work. He could imagine the tragic result easily enough before even trying it. That was an expert technique. He might be able to do it through brute force if he Camouflized into a large bear or something, but he did not see any big animals around. Not that he wanted to see one. Which meant…

“I’m glad I killed it,” he said, rubbing his hand along the unmoving deer’s belly.

He was checking its rough fur. He rubbed his hand back and forth a few times to be sure, like he was cleaning a window with a rag.

Bluish-white light flashed in the darkness.

“Static electricity.”

Most people saw it as a nuisance that only caused a bit of pain when touching a doorknob or a sweater in the winter, but some at the royal capital’s school were trying to bottle it up and use it. They claimed they would remake the magical world into an electrical world if they succeeded, but he couldn’t tell how serious they were about it.

Anyway.

“This I can do. I don’t need any special tools or skills to start a fire!”

He took a look around and gathered up some dried leaves and cotton-like plants in the moonlight. The static electricity itself was small, but he could create as much as he wanted by rubbing the deer’s fur. As long as he could get a small fire started…

“H-huh?”

It didn’t work how he had hoped. The static was there and it was contacting the leaves and cotton. Fluffy and dry things had a greater surface area and thus burned more intensely, so he had thought something like cotton would be best. None of that was wrong. His information was correct, but he still did not receive the results he had expected. The fire would not start.

…''Of course it won’t. I’ve never heard of someone bursting into flames because they were having fun making their hair stand on end.

Fallen leaves and cotton were not good enough fuel. But he doubted he could find tallow or a flammable gas this deep in the forest. He could get tallow by rendering the deer’s fat, but that would require a fire.

…''Is there anything else that burns – that burns more? Hold on, wait. I’ve seen something like that already…

He thought, took a look at his note-taking stick, and then looked up.

He had completely forgotten.

“The torches. The dark elves were using torches when they tried to burn me alive!”

===Part 7===

Traditional torches burned pine resin instead of tallow. A long-lasting light could be produced by taking a stick or piece of wood filled with plenty of flammable pine resin, covering it with dried grass or stems, and tying it all together with a thin string. Klaus was pretty sure he had seen candles made by wrapping dried leaves around pine resin shaped into a stick.

He did not have to search long to find a sticky fluid on the hard tree bark that was not ordinary sap. He tentatively concluded that he wanted the sticky stuff that the bugs stayed away from.

…''Damn. I could take all of this with me if I had an empty bottle.

There was no use worrying over it. He scraped the heavy stuff away with the large, hard leaf he took from a bush and scooped it up. The unique and powerful smell suggested he needed to be careful how he handled it. He definitely didn’t want to get any on his clothing. He would never be able to shake pursuit then.

He returned to where he had left the dead deer. Luckily, no animals had stolen his prize in the meantime. He scraped its belly fur again to create static electricity and held the pine resin close.

“Whoa!!”

He shouted more from the blinding light than from the heat. It was a small flame, no larger than a candle, but it was too much for his eyes after growing accustomed to the dark night. The surprise hit him first, soon followed by fear of the dark elves noticing, but he was not about to give up the fire he had worked so hard to acquire.

The danger never arrived. No dark elves showed themselves and the forest remained quiet.

He couldn’t help but laugh.

“Heh heh. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

This time, he could finally escape the hunger. And once he had plenty of magic derivative, he could use as much camouflage magic as he liked. This forest was ruled by the dark elves who would capture and roast anyone they found here, but he had outdone them. He had proven they weren’t the only ones who could survive here.

At long last, some hot food would be his.

Thanks to the cold dip in the river earlier, that thought was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

But then something occurred to him.

He had no knife.

How was he supposed to get the fresh meat out of the dead deer covered in thick skin?

“…”

He stared blankly for the few seconds it took him to realize – no, to accept – that he had gotten the order wrong.

He had no knife. Nor could he get one. He grabbed at the unmoving deer’s solid fur with his empty hand and tugged, but its skin showed no sign of tearing. It felt as sturdy as pulling on the carpet.

He had fire, so could he burn away the troublesome skin? He thought about it, but could not imagine it ever working. It would not catch fire that easily and the whole thing would just get burnt if it did.

Then what could he do? Had he hit a dead end after so much work?

How many different processes were needed to create a metal blade strong enough to skin a dead animal? Could he not expect any real food until he had done that? And could he not obtain a single stem’s worth of magic derivative? Even though he had the fire needed to cook the meat and the dead animal too!?

His head tilted backwards in despair.

The starry sky above seemed to be pressing down on him. He connected those countless dots to create a grand constellation in his head. It was the goddess. And the goddess had a message for him: ''Nope. Incorrect☆ Return to square one and try again from the beginning, okay?

“Are…”

He set his burning pine resin on the ground.

He took a deep breath and reached a conclusion in his mind.

“Are you kidding me, you stupid deerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr○☆△□♂♀!!!???”

He pulled the morning star rock out of his cloak and gripped it in his hand.

Skin the animal? Prepare it with a knife? Who was he, Mr. Fancy-Pants? He took aim at the deer’s belly over and over. The head was already smashed up by repeated blows, so he could do the same to another part of its body. The skin split open and the fat and muscles were crushed until they spilled out. He smeared the minced chunks onto a nearby stick and held that into the fire. Once the pink had turned grayish, just like the stir-fried mincemeat in a royal capital kitchen, he stuffed the end of the stick in his mouth.

“Urp!?”

…''Ew.

It only tasted like blood. He had to stick out his tongue and remove the rough fur stuck to it. If you were served this in the royal capital, it wouldn’t even qualify as an amusing punishment for losing a bet – it would seem a lot more like severe abuse. He could not recommend this to animal-loving Little Girl or even to Slender.

But he could still eat it. As long as he had something that wouldn’t give him food poisoning, he had to eat it. He repeatedly crushed the deer corpse, smeared the mincemeat onto the stick, and cooked it. He could eat it. He forced back the tears to swallow it. And he repeated the process.

“Wait, no! This is my note-taking stick!”

He panicked when he realized his mistake, but the tears on his cheeks were not from pain.

Even this awful food gave him sustenance.

He was hit by a sudden drowsiness, just like when he had finished a nice big meal. The taste of meat and the fresh magic derivatives were overwhelming him. And all he really had was fur, skin, and crushed meat smeared on the end of a stick. He realized his values had declined drastically from when he had lived in the royal capital being tormented by his rotten teacher and that knight girl. It scared him. He hated to admit it, but these tears did not come from fear or sorrow.

He was definitely going about this all wrong. He knew that all too well. You were supposed to skin the animal, cut its gut open, remove the organs, and remove the blood. Before cooking it, you were meant to wash it, season it with salt and pepper, cover up the smell with spices, chop it into more conveniently sized pieces, melt some butter in the hot frying pan, and then slowly lower the meat inside. Oh, and you couldn’t forget to remove the moisture first since the oil would be sent flying.

“But…so what?” he slowly spat out.

He could feel all of his blood vessels expanding. Something was being circulated around his body – maybe the physical nutrients and maybe the magic derivative. It was going to take a while before he actually digested the food, but he had still regained enough strength to complain.

“Survival isn’t about looking all cool and clever. Ugh…yeah, that’s right. I killed this thing and ate it. I smashed it to pieces and it looks pretty damn ugly, but that’s how these things work. You’re always killing something, chewing it to pieces, and swallowing it whenever you fill your stomach. Ugh, bleh.”

He could not keep eating like this forever. As he continued swinging the heavy stone down on the deer, he started to taste a strange bitterness in the meat. He checked and found the grass and leaves on its fur was getting smashed in with everything else. He couldn’t keep doing this. It smelled too much like medicine for comfort. It might even be poisonous.

If he could properly prepare the meat, he could make jerky that would last several days. If he could smoke it, he might have even made it into a present for Slender. Instead, it had provided just the one meal and only one Witch Pumpkin stem’s worth of magic derivative. The rest would go to waste. He normally would have felt dizzy from that kind of loss.

But he instead felt like he had outsmarted some unseen foe.

He felt like crying, raging, and puking, but not even he knew why.

Klaus Knockburn had avoided death for tonight. He had acquired food and survived. None of it had anything to do with Slender. He had been wandering and struggling all alone, but he had succeeded in the end.

===Part 8===

It was morning. For a day not ruled by the clock, morning began with the sunrise.

“Gh.”

Sleeping out here was nothing like his home in the royal capital. His joints were aching after spending the night on the mossy ground with only his cloak around him.

…''Oh, my muscles!

Moving a single finger made him grimace, but he still grabbed the stick lying next to him. He marked the beginning of a new day using the earring’s pin. He prayed he wouldn’t have to figure out how to mark the passage of months.

He had left himself defenselessly unconscious out in the wild and survived. He hadn’t even been tied up and taken away by the dark elves who could move silently through the darkness. Why was that?

“This worked better than I thought.”

The skinny boy glanced over at the three round stones he had placed a short distance away.

That was the dark elf sign for a nearby trap.

Once he knew that sign, he could use it to avoid traps and to trick the dark elves.

He checked to see if the real trap he had collected along with the stones had caught anything, but he hadn’t expected it to be that easy. He had only borrowed a few poison arrows sticking up at the bottom of a pitfall and set them up in the bushes around him, but they had failed to accomplish anything. Was there a trick to setting them up? Leaving an unmarked trap was a risk to him as well, so he collected the poison arrows, counted them to make sure, and then tossed them down the original pitfall.

…''That trap they always use in plays is pretty funny, but how do you even make one of those? You know, the rope that yanks you up by the ankle when you step in it. With one of those, I could have some fun with- ahem, perform some research on an upside-down miniskirt dark elf.

He pondered that again in the mottled morning sunlight, but he couldn’t imagine the details of how that thing worked.

So what to do now?

He needed to get food and water while he could still move, but he would never make any progress if that was all he ever did. His primary goal was getting to know Slender better. If he could stop the resurrection of Brashgain and save humanity while he was at it, so much the better. If he had Slender on his side, she might even introduce him to the local cuisine. And if he stopped the dragon’s resurrection, he could leave the forest with his wife and return to the royal capital. Then he could princess carry that brown girl into the chapel and marry her without a care in the world. ''Ah ha ha! The future is bright!!

A rustling sound dragged Klaus Knockburn’s thoughts back to reality.

He slowly crouched down. When caught by surprise, it was better to hide your presence than to noisily run around and shout. He was amazed to find he had picked up that weird bit of forest etiquette.

…''So who is this!? I doubt my hunter of a wife would be making all this noise!!

While he was panicking on the inside, something burst from the bushes. It was a red-eyed rabbit.

But why? That question made him gasp. Changes did not happen for no reason. Aphids would gather on the plants and ants would gather to feast on the sweet juices produced by the aphids. The distribution of life was highly organized, like a collection of gears. If that organization was falling apart, like water overflowing from the bath, then there was trouble afoot.

In other words…

…''Someone’s here. I don’t know who, but there’s a hunter nearby!

This was the infamous Forest of No Return, so it would not be a human. That meant a dark elf hunter. He did his best to be as silent as possible while he slowly turned his head toward the direction the rabbit had fled from. Fortunately, he was downwind of them. They might have noticed his scent if he was upwind.

If this was anyone other than Slender, he needed to run.

If they were armed and resentfully trying to resurrect Brashgain, there was no room for conversation. If he did hope to reach an understanding, he would need Slender to act as an intermediary. His future wife came first. He could not forget that.

But when he silently peeked out from behind a thick tree trunk, he relaxed.

“Oh, it’s only Slender. Damn, all that anxiety for nothing.”

“?”

He doubted she could have heard him, but her long ears twitched and she casually looked back his way. To hide, he slowly pulled back behind the tree. After observing the animals, he had concluded that moving too quickly would only make noises that gave you away.

…''We sure do run across each other a lot in such a large forest. My wife, could it be that your body desires me?

Was this area where she usually hunted? He was curious, but that was not the main issue.

Slender was about 20m away, so what now? He was safer than he would be at their village, but she was still armed with a powerful composite bow and Archdragon Magic. He did not speak her language and her customs were unknown. Even if she was on his side for now, she might eventually get fed up with his mistakes and try to kill him.

What did he need if he was going to risk his life to interact with her?

…''When in doubt, start with observations.

Slender detected the smallest signs to hunt down wild animals, so trying to follow her around undetected seemed like a bad idea, but he could not put together a plan without first gathering information. When she moved to the side, he snuck from behind the tree to some bushes.

This was far better than pursuing a deer or an eccentric old geezer.

His future wife really was beautiful. If he had to chase after anything, her ass in that tight skirt was a good choice.

===Part 9===

Based on Klaus’s observations, Slender was not trying to hunt down a wild animal. She was not ducking low or trying to hide her presence. She stood tall and let her lithe fingers toy restlessly with the curve of her bow while she walked through the forest. He couldn’t believe how cute she was.

He initially thought maybe she was on patrol, but that didn’t fit her actions either. She would come to a stop where three stones were lined up, bend over, hold her long silver hair back with her hand, and check at her feet. Sometimes she would even remove a trap or unlock and retrieve a beartrap along with its thick chain and then place them elsewhere.

…''Is she on trap maintenance duty?

He wondered about her actions while curled up behind a large Witch Pumpkin. That might sound boring, but it was an important job. Magical landmines could be found spread across the battlefield, but the location of those traps was crucial to the arrangement of an army’s defensive line. If she was allowed to do this on her own, she had to be fairly high up in the hunter ranks.

Klaus put up with the muscle pain while he learned something else from his observations.

He crouched down a short distance away and noted the faint footprints she had left on the ground.

“Hm, footprints, huh?”

The dark elf hunters generally erased their tracks as they moved, but he had noticed they also intentionally left footprints that were too far apart to connect by a straight line.

“''Patquqj, Fkitnawwo. Bae’to er iv oitnb iv oxot, u voo.''”

“''Va ito bae. Gug wko qujkw vkuhw levw oqg?''”

Leader, another hunter, arrived from another animal trail and greeted Slender. He checked their footprints and found they had different boot prints. And not just because their boots were handmade.

…''They’re intentionally altering the design with swappable soles. Are they split between a few different teams to form shifts? And each team has distinct footprints to tell them apart?

They probably split it up so, for example, Footprint A would handle Area 1 and Footprint B would handle Area 2 on that day. That way they could tell if even another dark elf was outside of her designated area.

…''But if I learn their shift schedule, trailing Slender should be pretty easy. And it would be even easier if I could acquire boots with the same sole as hers.

He realized just how purposeful everything the dark elves did was. The composite bows and distinct boot soles were good examples, but so was the white leather they wore. He had initially been surprised to see them wearing something so conspicuous, but it was probably meant to make sure they never mistook a dark elf for an animal while deep in the woods. The red, yellow, and green gems they wore probably indicated social status and occupation. Even the rabbit-ears hood may have been similar to how a butterfly’s eye patterns could confuse a bird trying to eat it. That form of defense could be unique to dark elves whose ears stuck out so far they risked hitting them on something when only shaking their head.

That thought reminded Klaus of the treasure he held in his hand. He had been holding onto it as a rare metal product he could use as a writing implement, but it was actually Slender’s earring. Some girls wore earrings to help with their balance, but he had only seen small piercings on the other dark elves. Slender was the only one with something so large.

It was the one thing with no purpose he could see.

And if it served no purpose, it had to be a personal interest or hobby.

Klaus used the earring to write an important note on his stick.

“Is Slender surprisingly fashionable?”

===Part 10===

Slender’s interests had been obvious from the beginning.

She tried to stay cool and collected, but he had glimpsed the way to her heart from time to time.

But Klaus could not create some intricate piece of jewelry even if he did find some gold or gems in the forest. Fortunately, he didn’t need to aim for a perfect score right away. Do that and you would be crushed by the yawning skill gap between the experts and an amateur.

…''There have to be plenty of handy materials around here. Like a hard nut or a shell in a mountain stream.

How he would go about gathering the materials and processing them into an accessory was an important question, but he wanted to know something else first. This was a dangerous move, but he wanted to get it done before he left Slender.

He only had to crouch behind cover, draw a perfect square in the green moss so it wouldn’t leave a permanent mark, and quietly recite the incantation within that magic circle. His example was right there through the trees.

“Of the three traits, I choose salt. Magic lifeform, mammal, primate, elf, dark elf, rulers of the forest who prefer the darkness. I have grasped thy nature like counting the corners of a polygon or star. The polygon emanates and the star gathers – together they symbolize the control of power. By knowing thee, I become one with thee.”

This time, he would be using the original unchanged.

Dark elves were a lifeform too, so this was entirely possible.

“Camouflize Decoration – now I am thee!!”

Illusionary white steam spread out and Klaus looked down at his body.

Long, silver hair tickled the skin of his shoulders and back. The skin reflecting the mottled sunlight was a healthy brown. Its color had never been so clear to him. Which made sense since this was an entire dark elf girl’s body with no clothing to cover it. Even the hair only covered the back and the nape.

He had wanted to try this out when he had some Witch Pumpkin stem to spare. No matter how much he built up on the inside, it would be digested away after a full day, so he might as well use it for something.

Now that he had gone through with it, he nodded in understanding.

(I don’t reproduce any kind of clothing or possessions when I camouflage as other lifeforms either, so I should have expected this.)

“Oops, my stick was camouflaged along with me.”

His voice had transformed to a girl’s one as well. He touched his throat and found no Adam’s apple. He had set down the soft gold earring to avoid crushing it when he sat down, but he could not take notes with just it.

Yes, he wanted to know Slender’s size. If he was going to, for example, make her a ring, he needed to measure her finger first. And needing to speak with her in order to prepare the very surprise gift meant to bring them together was nonsensical. So he had decided it was faster to camouflage himself as her and take the necessary measurements that way.

(These are pretty nice, though.)

He tried hopping up and down and two things his male body lacked jiggled softly. ''And she dares call herself Slender? Wait, no, I guess she doesn’t.'' The sound of his hands touching his skin was weirdly alluring, but now was not the time to act like a horny idiot. ''I won’t deny I am one, but I must resist!!'' The dark elf he had named Leader had turned out to be a low-level hunter, but the name he had given his future wife was dead on. He had had his suspicions when he saw her bathing, but this confirmed it. She really did use her vest’s strap to make them look bigger. He could focus on this later. Right now, he needed to be cautious. ''C’mon, now’s not the time for this. I mean it, me. N-nwohhh!

“Ahem.”

He had burned the image into his eyes, so now it was time to take a deep breath, refocus his mind, and try to be a scientist (in training) once more. First of all, he had learned he ended up naked if he camouflaged himself as a dark elf. That created a new task. The hunters wore white-bleached leather and the priests wore thin silk. Procuring clothing like that in the forest would be no easy task. His plan of transforming into a dark elf and sneaking into their village was looking a lot less realistic.

(Then could I camouflage myself as a fly or mosquito and sneak in that way? No, that’s a bad idea. Don’t forget how those termites almost ate me when I was a Witch Pumpkin. The rules of the wilderness apply out here. A harmless bug or a small animal might go unnoticed by the dark elves, but there are tons of predators out there. Besides, what if a dark elf spots me and pulls out a fly swatter?)

Getting to know Slender and gaining her cooperation was still the best plan. Why sneak into the dressing room as a mouse and spy on her boobs from a corner, when you could get her permission and actually touch them? He had gained a lot to think about, but it would be best not to change plans without thinking it through first.

He heard a flapping sound at his ear.

“?”

Thinking it was a big moth or something, he reflexively swung his hand past his head, but then he felt some pain in his ear. He hesitantly touched it and felt it. The ear was long and a little hard. It didn’t have an earlobe like a human ear did. He wasn’t sure how to best describe it, but he could freely move them. He could even move each one separately.

He had some difficulty without a mirror, but he managed to attach the earring to that long ear.

Then he moved the ear.

…''It’s kind of heavy. It feels like it would get in the way, but maybe she just really likes how it looks.

He could not tell the differences and advantages the long ear had compared to a human ear.

Camouflize only camouflaged him. It made him look like something else, but it did not actually transform him into it. That was why he had retained his five senses while in Witch Pumpkin form and how he had been able to look back over his shoulder while in mare form. There were exceptions, such as crushing an enemy with an extreme size difference, but camouflaging himself as something for offensive purpose was generally useless. He could not breathe fire just because he camouflaged himself as a dragon. So he could only make guesses here.

(Maybe it’s like a cat’s ears. They turn their ears in the direction they want to focus to gather sounds from primarily that direction. And they can use the auditory differences between ears to judge distances in 3D space, such as the distance to their prey. Maybe they can even focus on the sound of the wind or of magic, but I can’t say for sure.)

At any rate, the task at hand was taking Slender’s sizes.

In order to measure each part in turn, he ran his hands across his body like he was washing himself in the bath. He measured the fingers, the wrists, the ankles, the ears, the neck, and…where else could she wear an accessory? He measured every option he could think of and recorded the numbers on the ground with his bare heel. He could not use Camouflize repeatedly since that would use up his magic derivative, so he considered even taking her height, weight, and other basic measurements while he was at it. Wouldn’t it be a waste otherwise?

In dark elf form, he approached a thick tree trunk and tore off a stringy plant that measured several meters long. Was it a parasitic plant like mistletoe or dodder? He wrapped the pinky-thick plant around his bare chest. It lacked the marks of a tailor’s measuring tape, but he could accurately record the length by making a mark in it with his fingernail. This had seemed like a good idea at first, but it ended up prickling his skin a lot. Especially at the tips that were a shade lighter than strawberry milk.

“Hmm, not even 80cm. The actual numbers give a different impression than the visual.”

(Sigh. If I keep this up, I’ll be as bad as Professor Dissection.)

And.

He heard several small objects clattering to the ground.

“?”

Four-legged animals could not hold anything since they used all four legs to walk, so they could not drop something like that. Then what was this? ''Who'' had just dropped something?

In (naked) brown girl form, Klaus looked over curiously and found the answer past the bushes.

A girl with long, silver hair, brown skin, and an identical face was staring, wide-eyed.

That one was the real Slender.

“''Ik…''”

She had a look of utter disbelief in her eyes.

Following her gaze, he looked down somewhat. Yes, she was less focused on the “identical face” part than she was on the body. In other words, the chest and the part further down than the navel which were entirely bare in the mottled sunlight.

And her measurements were written plainly on the ground at his feet.

She did not speak his language, but she might be able to read the numbers.

“''Ikkkk. Ikkkkkkkk.''”

(Uh, oh. I screwed this up real bad.)

She had already seen his camouflage magic, so she would know exactly what she was looking at when she saw someone identical to herself. She would not suspect some other magical lifeform like the royal capital’s Doppelganger or that eastern nation’s Tomokazuki.

“''Ykiw wko konn ito bae gauqj!? Wkiw’v, ep, pb dagb! Iw noivw faxot uw er!! Tujkw wkuv uqvwiqw!!''”

Slender blushed, pointed vigorously at him, and shouted something with tears in her eyes. She had dropped the arrows from her quiver, but she didn’t seem to notice.

But what was this?

She was shouting an awful lot, but she never used any of that brutal Archdragon Magic that so easily defeated the knights.

“''Huqo, bae yuq. U gaq’w mqay ykiw muqg ah pijuf bae’to evuqj, dew u yaq’w munn bae hat qay. Uh u munnog bae naamuqj numo wkiw, u yaeng qoxot nuxo uw gayq aqfo wko awkotv haeqg wko dagb. Va levw jow aew ah pb dagb hat qay. Rnoivo.''”

“…?”

(Why isn’t she attacking? Does this mean…I really can make contact with her?)

He had no idea what she was saying, but if she was talking, she had to be trying to communicate. She was giving him a chance, so could he make use of this? He didn’t know what fidgeting Slender was thinking here, but she might be able to convey his thoughts to the dark elves like a translator.

He wanted them to stop resurrecting Brashgain.

They might attack him for knowing their secret, but it was worth trying.

When he had seen Little Girl running through the forest in tears, he had felt a squeezing in his chest.

When he had seen her reunited with Mother, he had breathed an honest sigh of relief.

They were enemies now and they were trying to hunt him down, but he wanted to avoid having to fight the dark elves if at all possible. Not just with Slender and Little Girl, but with all of them. Maybe that made him naïve, but he could never treat them the same way he did that deer he beat to death the night before.

If any of the dark elves got hurt, it would sadden Slender and Little Girl. He could not be friends with Little Girl ''and'' fight against Mother.

This was a first step toward communication, so Klaus Knockburn placed a hand on the center of his chest (while still a naked girl) to show he had no intention of fighting. He could not decode the dark elf language and what little elf he knew had failed last time, so he had no choice but to use human language.

“You-”

He was cut off by a strange explosion.

The world spun around him.

He had no idea what this meant. No one else had intervened, but this was real Archdragon Magic. The mass of air that erupted directly in front of him had come from Slender.

“''Ykiw yiv wkiw!?''”

“''Bae haan. Juxo ev i vujqin dohato evuqj pijuf. I nuwwno yitquqj yaeng kixo dooq qufo!''”

Was that Leader and Curvy? In his upside-down vision, he saw some other dark elves rushed over to join Slender. The world continued to spin around him a few times and he felt a squeezing in his stomach when he realized he still hadn’t hit the ground.

How far had he been thrown?

…''Oh, come to think of it, Slender seems to say “bae” a lot. Especially when she’s looking at me. Could that mean “you”?

He retreated into his thoughts during his extended airtime, but soon enough, he crashed into the ground like a catapult stone, tearing into the soft soil and bouncing a few times. Did those snapping sounds come from the short bushes he was crushing below him? He could not even consider bracing for impact. He happened to weave between some thick trees, rolled right past a giant Witch Pumpkin that had to be hard as rock, and eventually came to a stop.

(It’s no use.)

White steam burst out and the naked girl was a clothed boy once more. But the pain was still there. He could not move and he passed out while half-buried in some thick bushes.

…''I have no idea what she’s thinking. Maybe I was wrong to ever assume she thinks the same as humans do. Why would you do that, Slender?

===Part 11===

Things were not going well. He had no clock, but the morning color was gone from the sky. It looked more like daytime shifting into evening.

“How am I still alive?”

Klaus Knockburn groaned after confirming he still had the earring and the stick below his belt. He would have loved to get up and find he was still a naked girl, but the magic had long since worn off.

After all, he had been hit by the same Archdragon Magic that had defeated fully-equipped knights. He had rolled a long way. It was a miracle he had not split his head open on a tree or rock. Had the dark elves failed to check on the body because he had ended up inside some thick bushes?

Whatever the case, that had not made for a comfortable bed and his entire body was aching, but he didn’t seem to have any broken bones.

“Ow…”

He wanted to get moving if he could still walk. He groaned as he extracted himself from the bushes and he noticed something wavering in front of him.

It was a white flower. A tiny white flower. He briefly froze when he saw it. He doubted it was edible or useful in luring out animals. But it seemed to shine bright. He did not consider picking it. He instead admired its beauty like someone cupping their hands around a small fire for warmth.

That tiny wave of emotion reminded him that he had to remain calm.

And even if it had ended in spectacular failure, he had just used his camouflage magic. He had eaten two meatballs and some deer meat the day before, but that would all be digested by tonight. The deficiency symptoms were fast approaching. If he could not acquire some food, he would be right back to when the hunger was dulling his mind. And he wouldn’t be able to use his one and only weapon: Camouflize.

He needed some kind of edible food with the magical derivative and it had to be something he could catch. This was not the royal capital market where meat, seafood, and even rare foreign fruits were available for purchase. Those conditions were devastating so deep in the forest. But he had an idea. He had already acquired fire using static electricity and pine resin.

“I could really use a container,” he commented while getting to work.

He was not after a land animal or a fish. He didn’t know how to store an animal long term after he killed it and fashioning a fishing rod was well past his skill level. The rod, the line, and the hook all sounded like a challenge. But he also doubted he could find any sizable fruit in this conifer forest. The enormous Witch Pumpkins were out of the question. Those were not an edible species, so he couldn’t get through the thick skin.

So there were two things he wanted. He used his note-taking stick to refresh his memory while he walked around picking small plants from the ground. These were the herbs Curvy had used to repel the termites. It had looked like they were normally dried and then soaked in water to rehydrate them before use.

The other thing was up in a tree. The round object was larger than Klaus’s own head and hanging from a tree branch, but it was not a fruit or mistletoe.

“A beehive.”

Although it was round, it didn’t seem to be a hornet’s nest. Maybe they had built this around a damaged hive.

He had heard honey’s flavor depended on the kind of flowers it was produced from, so if the bees had been collecting Ghost Turnip or Witch Pumpkin nectar, the honey would contain the magic derivative.

Larvae were also supposed to be edible. A proper lady from the royal capital might scream and push them away with her fork, but Klaus had already broken through the “eating bugs” barrier.

Bee larvae could not escape on their own and they were an excellent source of nutrients.

A hive that big would have enough honey for several days and it would even indirectly give him the magic derivative if the nectar had come from Ghost Turnip flowers. And unlike an animal full of blood and guts, it wouldn’t rot as soon as he worked so hard to kill it. He doubted he would need any specialized knowledge to preserve it.

“And maybe I could use beeswax as an adhesive for the accessory. Nuts, stones, shells – there are plenty of materials out here. I just have to trust that my future wife isn’t so picky that only a big hunk of diamond will do.”

He couldn’t afford to miss this opportunity, but all the worker bees were a problem. There were no doctors or even first-aid kits out in the forest, so an attack from a swarm of bees could be fatal.

The bees could even drive off a deadly bear attacking the hive in search of honey, but Klaus actually used his head. He rubbed some pine resin on a bundle of herbs tied together with a plant stem and then he rubbed his cloak to set the resin ablaze with static electricity. In an underhand throw, he tossed the result directly below the beehive.

The chemical-smelling smoke had a dramatic effect.

The bees swarmed around like a dark storm, but they could not find an enemy needing defeating. Meanwhile, the smoke filled the round hive and large bees fell from its surface. The fat queen bee eventually crawled out from the hive, but the smoke was too much for her and she fell to the ground instead of flying away.

Her kingdom was doomed. The queenless workers began to wander and they ended up scattering with no one in charge.

“Now to finish it off.”

Klaus cautiously waited a while longer and then threw a small stone at the hive. It didn’t look like any bees remained inside. After approaching the tree, he picked up a long stick and poked the hive until it broke loose.

The whole thing dropped to the ground.

It was made of surprisingly sturdy stuff because it didn’t break open after falling from above Klaus’s head.

“Sigh.”

He had it, but what now? His plan had been to get Slender’s help in stopping the dragon’s resurrection, but was that a lost cause now that she had launched Archdragon Magic straight at him?

He had assumed it would be safe to contact his future wife, but he had little to actually back that up. And in that case, he was rapidly running out of options.

“What ''do'' I do now? What good is this stuff really? Munch. Maybe I should switch my focus from Slender to Little Girl. Oh, this is good. No, she’s too young for me. It would be wrong. Lick, lick. And my heart already belongs to Slender anyway. Agh, how can this honey taste so good!?”

The unflavored meatballs from Little Girl had been decent, but honey tasted the same whether it was natural or farmed. It meant a lot to be eating something that tasted the same as it did at the royal capital’s markets.

He continued muttering to himself with a blank look in his eyes until something smelled off to him. Literally. He could smell something burning. Speaking of, what had he done with the herbs he had used to smoke out the beehive? The ones he had covered in flammable pine resin and lit with static electricity? When he found no answer to that question, he froze. ''Uh, oh.

Trembling, Klaus Knockburn slowly looked over his shoulder.

Red flames were spreading at the base of the tree.

“Ah.”

He dropped the large ball-shaped beehive and stood up in a panic.

Was this forest cursed so every plan you had was doomed to fail!?

“Ahhhhh!? Wait, wait, wait, no! This can’t be happening!!”

He tried to extinguish it by covering it with dirt, but he had to wave his removed cloak with all his might to deal with the embers that escaped that. If this didn’t work, he was completely out of ideas. There was a river nearby, but he had no bucket.

The dark elves used powerful Archdragon Magic, which allowed them to wield every form of devastation, but he had oddly never seen them use fire. This was why. Why would they choose to use magic that would start a forest fire if they weren’t careful? ''Oh, and that might be why they used a clearing to try and burn me at the stake. Did I really need this revelation now?

“Out! Go out!! I’m sorry! I never should have thought I was hot shit for figuring out how to use pine resin!!”

He was nearly in tears toward the end while stomping his boots on the stubborn embers. After confirming it was entirely out, he was too afraid to leave and kept dumping more dirt on top.

He had somehow gotten the fire out.

However…

“Wh-what do I do about this?”

He could only tremble and stare. He had avoided disaster, but the underbrush was scorched and dark soil covered everything after he dug it up with his bare hands. Anyone could tell a person had done this. And that revelation would put the dark elves on alert. But he had no way of hiding it.

“…”

His thoughts ground to a halt. He grabbed the ball-like beehive and curled up on the ground.

“I can think ''after'' I eat this.”

===Part 12===

''Man, now that was a feast.

Klaus had filled his stomach with honey so richly sweet it left his tongue tingling, but no new ideas occurred to him. If anything, he was feeling sleepy after satisfying his body’s needs.

“For now, I just need to get out of here. Immediately!”

The sun was already setting. In case the dark elves would search the entire area around the remains of the fire, he needed to find somewhere far from here to sleep.

He could tell he had only gotten one Witch Pumpkin stem’s worth of magic derivative from the honey, but it meant a lot to have gotten it in the evening. That meant he could last the night even after what he had gained the night before ran out.

He would have to figure out what to do about Slender later. Whether he was asleep, awake, eating, or starting fires, he kept thinking about her, but at the moment, he needed to find a safe place to sleep and somewhere he could think without any interruptions. If he screwed this up, he might find he had no way of avoiding a dead end later on. However…

“Kh.”

He noticed something while searching for someplace to sleep. He slowly crouched down to hide behind some bushes. He knew moving too quickly would make noise and draw attention to himself.

He had noticed a sound, which was unusual for the dark elves. The priest he called Glasses stepped on some underbrush while walking nearby. She did not look worried. She was smiling and chatting with Curvy who appeared to be on patrol.

“''Konna. Aew lajjuqj?''”

“''Uw’v i kiduw. Oxoq uq opotjoqfuov, uw dawkotv po ykoq u gaq’w ga uw.''”

The way Glasses let out a heated breath and wiped the sweat from her neck and cheeks with a cloth was weirdly sexy.

As scary as they could be, they still had times when they smiled together like this. Glasses eventually waved goodbye to Curvy and left along a different animal trail.

…''Maybe she was just out jogging. Do unaging dark elves worry about staying fit and dieting? Well, even the young will get clogged arteries if all they do is eat fatty foods.

This was hardly a surprise since they were not like the monsters in plays that essentially appeared out of nowhere. The dark elves ''lived'' in this forest. They would have daily routines. When he watched more closely, he spotted more of the dark elves than just their signs. For example, he saw Mother and Little Girl out picking small berry-like fruits.

…''But wait. Did that little girl in a sheer dress just tap her fist against her lower back when she stood back up? I could practically hear her saying “oh, my back” from the motion alone. Does that mean she’s actually an old lady? Could Mother be the younger one? Does she not wear the clothes of a hunter or a priest not because she’s already retired, not because she’s still in training? I-I still don’t know anything about dark elves, do I!? Do they start to shrink back down after they reach a certain age!?

“''Bae’to va hnozudno, Qunwibi.''”

“''U faengq’w renn ahh wkuv aewhuw awkotyuvo.''”

Short Hair began to hold herself and fidget bashfully when the others apparently complimented her revealing dancer outfit. The gold decorations and yellow gems jangled every time she moved. Dancers appeared to have a superior position in their society – something others wished they could be. So were they like the elites of the priests?

Klaus had been right to wash off his artificial scents in the river. He was still a good distance away, but he could actually see this defenseless side of them now.

And when he held his breath and observed them from afar, their expressions were no different from the humans in the royal capital. Some looked sleepy and some were smiling, but they were all enjoying their day.

He hoped those smiles could be directed toward humans someday.

But the truth was they were attempting to resurrect a 10km dragon.

And he may have been asking too much of them after what Professor Dissection had attempted to do to them.

“…”

He came to a stop and wondered if everything he was doing out here was a waste of time. He didn’t understand Slender now that she had attacked him out of the blue, he had no chance with the other dark elves, and Little Girl was an old lady. What could he change through understanding them? Humans could never thrive in the Forest of No Return, no matter how hard they tried. Wasn’t he just waiting for his inevitable death out here? He could see so many girls with silver hair and brown skin, but they were so far removed from the concept of a wife. He felt like he was doomed to be single until the day he died.

While worrying in the deep forest, he looked weakly up into the glimpses of the night sky overhead.

He saw a dark shape there: smoke.

“!?”

He spun around and looked in the direction of the fire he thought he had extinguished, but he immediately realized that was a completely different direction. This was not his fire reigniting.

…''Then where is that smoke coming from?

He thought maybe the dark elves were cooking something, but the smoke looked awfully toxic for that. Yes, this smoke was intentionally colored in a way not seen in nature.

The word “intentionally” led him to the answer and he spoke the possibility that came to mind.

“Smoke signals?”

===Part 13===

Smoke signals were hard to miss. They were a signal, so that was by design.

The boy hesitantly approached, but not because he was afraid of whoever was making the signals. He had heard a quiet sound along the way. They could silence their footsteps through how they walked, but there was no fully silencing the rubbing of their white leather clothing. They were there. And if an outsider like him had noticed the smoke signals, those rulers of the forest would have seen it as well.

The entire forest was on edge. The dark elves had used torches before, but they may have been particular about fire management. With good cause given how close to disaster Klaus had come earlier.

And he had never seen the dark elves sending messages using smoke signals.

This had to be a human. Whether it was his rotten teacher or a surviving knight, he wasn’t the only one out here.

…''But giving away your position like that is suicide.

Were they that confident? Based on what? The knights guarding Professor Dissection had gotten their asses kicked and his teacher had run off, leaving her student behind, so the power of the dark elves’ Archdragon Magic was inarguable. Something didn’t fit. And in his experience, these small hunches rarely led to the pleasant sort of surprise. Especially ever since he had entered the Forest of No Return!

He hurried toward the smoke signals…and he was surprised to find he could do so while making sure the dark elves didn’t notice him. He had gotten used to this. All he had done was wash off his artificial scents, overwritten those with animal fur and such, and learned to be careful about making noises and leaving footprints, but those little things added up.

And eventually…

“?”

He quietly crouched down. He could see some footprints, but they different from any of the team-specific dark elf footprints he had seen. These were more complex and ornamental. The design gave no thought to silence or grip, nor did it hold any hidden meaning.

…''Was this person wearing armor?

The fancy footprints were deep and heavy compared to the nimble dark elves. He initially thought it must have been a large man, but the foot size was about the same as his own. Thus, he concluded they were wearing heavy armor.

Something flashed in the corner of his vision.

The glint seen through the trees was sunlight reflecting off of metal. That seemed downright careless. A dark elf hunter or archer would probably scoff because even Klaus could tell someone was there. He heard metal rubbing together past the trees. The dark elf hunters considered the best defense to be hiding silently behind bushes so you were never discovered, so they preferred not to wear heavy armor that could easily get leaves or branches caught in the joints.

In that case…

“Loinbelt?”

“What!? You?”

“Loinbelt, were those smoke signals you?”

He had somehow managed to make contact before the dark elves. Klaus’s words contained a shade of accusation and the page moved his face into view. He looked awful. There was no sign of the Loinbelt who had kept an honest expression on his adorable baby face. He had bags under his eyes, his hair was an unkempt mess, and his lightweight armor had dried mud caked onto it.

He must have faced his own trials in the forest, just like Klaus had survived by eating a bug. And Loinbelt was still here because he had chosen to survive.

But why had Loinbelt sent those smoke signals if he had struggled to the point of obtaining his own fire?

Idealism was meaningless in the forest of the dark elves. The rapier and knife at his hip would accomplish nothing. Surely he had learned and accepted that lesson if he was still standing now. Loinbelt looked adrift in a purposeless life when Klaus grabbed his shoulders, stared straight into the page’s eyes, and spoke slowly to him.

“What do you think you’re doing? You need to get away from here! A large group of armed dark elves are on their way! You’ll be surrounded!”

“…He’s gone,” said Loinbelt, staring into the distance. His eyes were not focused on Klaus’s face. “The honorable Sir Rainbook fought proudly to the end and lost his life in the line of duty. I was too terrified to move, so he shoved me aside and was crushed into a red paste!!”

“…”

“So I will kill them. I must have my revenge. No matter what it takes. Yes, I know I’m only dreaming. Their Archdragon Magic is too powerful and my armor might as well be made of paper. They have me beat in both quantity and quality, so I need to fix that. I need to gather more and better forces so we can overwhelm them.”

Klaus had never actually met Sir Rainbook, but he felt certain the knight had not protected Loinbelt so the boy’s soul would be bound by revenge like this. But the words of an outsider would never reach Loinbelt.

“So you sent out smoke signals to call in reinforcements?”

So he started with what he did know for sure.

Something about this was clearly wrong.

“They’ll never arrive in time! Do you have any idea how far we are from the capital? They can’t even see your smoke signals from there.”

“Oh, I called for reinforcements immediately after the devastating attack. By carrier pigeon.”

Now things were making more sense. In a bad way. And this one was even worse than when Professor Dissection got involved.

Loinbelt explained quite clearly.

“This is to call the reinforcements to me. They should have already arrived in the forest. I called for the elite knights who are second to none at cleaning up once disaster strikes: Last Resort Unit.”

An explosive boom rumbled across the deep forest. But not from just one direction. The projectiles and fearsome explosions of the dark elves’ Archdragon Magic were met by a different form of deadly attack from the other side.

Lightning. In other words, electricity. A niche lab in the royal capital was experimenting in making electricity visible inside a device known as a neon tube and Klaus himself had made use of static electricity to ignite pine resin, but this was on another level entirely. This lightning was manually bent and twisted like a sugar sculpture. A different culture entirely was tearing away pieces of the dark forest.

“Vanguard, not so far forward! Feel free to leave the brunt of the burden on me!!”

“''Ito bae mugguqj po!? Yo’to douqj revkog difm!?''”

“Silence, monster. You seem to have entertained yourself with our dog hunters, but now I will ensure you can never speak again.”

The people speaking the human language were not begging for their lives this time. There was an exchange of words from both sides. A female voice dripping with hostility overpowered even the dark elves, leaving them unsure about their next move.

This was Last Resort Unit.

But the difference in power between human and dark elf was supposed to be insurmountable. The humans shouldn’t have been able to outdo the dark elves in the field of magic no matter how elite a force they sent in. And yet…

“What is-?”

Klaus was cut off by several dark shapes rushing out from the bushes nearby. He didn’t even have time to cry out as his mouth was covered and he was knocked to the ground along with Loinbelt.

“Lady Elzane! We have secured Loinbelt!!”

“Plus one unknown – unarmed and human. Shall we rescue this boy as well!?”

They had not been brought down to be restrained. It was for their own safety. And Klaus grimaced when he heard “Lady Elzane”. That was unfortunately a name he recognized. And not in a good way.

A warhorse was ridden by a female knight using just one arm to easily lift a giant lance known as a chauve-souris. It was a flashy weapon named after a bat, but its practical design caught the enemy weapon on its side blades while slaying that enemy with the center blade. Her armor was much more ornate than Loinbelt’s. She only wore a highly aggressive style of chainmail on her upper body to prioritize the mobility of her arms and torso. Conversely, her legs were covered with enormous pieces of metal armor to attach her solidly to her saddle. The spur and spike on the armor’s heel and sole may have been used to give accurate instructions to the horse.

Overall, it gave her the same silhouette as a hakama-wearing martial artist from the isolationist nation far, far to the east when they removed their upper clothing and tied it around their waist. The armor itself did not appear to have any mobility-enhancing symbols or magic circles included in its design. That sort of thing had instead been placed in the metal armor surrounding the horse’s neck and torso. The horse had been boosted so thoroughly it would have damaged a human’s muscles and tendons.

She had beautiful sky blue eyes and hair worn in massive ringlets that fell nearly to her ankles. Also, that hair was an impossibly bright lemon yellow. It was clearly different from an ordinary blonde. It was more fluorescent or metallic. It reminded Klaus of the neon tube experiments he had seen at the royal capital school.

Non-medical hair dyes were obviously a luxury afforded only to the upper classes. And even then, most of the nobility had to resort to mineral dyes that damaged the scalp. Only a select few could use purely plant-based dyes.

She was a horseback warrior through and through.

Giving her long hair so much body and splitting it to either side was likely a fashion meant to accommodate her riding.

Fashion.

That word felt like it came from another world entirely. She was not actually using perfume, but the sweet scent from her nape and chest still tickled his nose. After nearly starving due to the faint scents on his hair and clothing, that sounded like suicide to him, but she could get away with it as long as she could bring plentiful resources along with her and had the strength to fight off the dark elves who detected her presence. That extraordinary knight held a position that allowed her to do all that just to remain fashionable.

She was combing her hair atop her warhorse. Did that involve the legend claiming that a witch’s power came from her hair? That may have been a personal rule of hers, much like his need for the magic derivative.

She broke the comb in two, tossed it aside, and brushed a giant croissant of hair off her shoulder.

“Hm? Why if it isn’t the Knockburn boy. I would recognize that adorable face anywhere.”

“I am not your childhood friend. And need I remind you for the zillionth time that I’m older than you?”

She would occasionally arrive at the school as an outsider to ask his rotten teacher for advice. That teacher had given her some lessons on leading a combat group based on how bees, wolves, and lions formed their respective groups. Her name was Elzane Livzy. She was a year his junior, yet this was how she treated him. She was simply too accustomed to looking down at everyone around her. The fact that she did not look down ''on'' them meant she was still a little cute, though.

…''But the difference in status is so great I have to be all formal with her even though she’s younger.

Also, after she had repeatedly fallen victim to and been brought to tears by his rotten teacher’s eccentricities, she had eventually started to view Klaus as something like a mascot. Whenever she asked for advice in a closed room and received relentless flirting in the darkness in exchange, the straightforward and sensible boy waiting outside had felt like a breath of fresh air to her. So when she felt especially victimized by the rotten teacher (in other words, every single time), she would hold him in her arms like a big teddy bear, rub his head, smell his hair, and otherwise soothe herself before leaving the lab. She was younger and a stranger, yet she had taken up the “older girl next door” position in his life. ''Damn and she thinks she can get away with anything because her fancy diet has made her tits so big.'' In a school life where age and school year were everything, he found this incredibly frustrating. (Especially because he found him powerless to fight back.)

She smiled a little while carrying a lance twice her height and with the tight chainmail accentuating the size of her boobs like fishnet stockings or a boneless ham’s netting.

“Out adventuring, were you? I admire the spirit, boy, but from the look of you, I imagine you were ''yet again'' having a rough time. Where is Reika?”

“…Missing.”

“I see. Then we must slaughter every last one of them.”

''Wait a second.

He had no idea when the terrible knight constantly visiting their lab had ended up leading the elite Last Resort Unit and it confused him that her lightning was so effective against the dark elves. As far as he could see, Elzane was the only one using magic while she waved her giant lance on horseback. A single human was overpowering and pushing back the dark elves. This clearly contradicted the rules he had gathered on his note-taking stick. How could this violation of the rules be permitted?

He lacked the information to reach an answer on his own, so he needed more observations. The answer revealed itself as another warhorse emerged from between the trees. A lithe blonde girl of about 12 rode the white horse.

No, that wasn’t just a girl.

She wore the transparently-thin green outfit of a priest and her ears were long and pointed.

“''The hope elf''? The visiting priestess!?”

“Address me as Rosehera, young one. And I would not complain if you added ‘St.’ to that.”

She looked like a child, but she spoke like an elderly woman. She even held a hand up to hide the elegant smile on her lips.

Unlike the dark elves, this hope elf could speak human language. There was an independent elf language, but Rosehera used the human tongue (while making it clear this was a favor she was mercifully granting them).

The dark elves all looked young no matter their actual age, that knight had an unbelievable chest despite being younger than him, and now this small hope elf spoke like an old lady. Were Klaus and Loinbelt the only ones in the forest who looked their age? Was there not a single ordinary girl here!?

“The dark elves are no more than a distant branch of the elf family, so their power cannot defeat one such as I who has a mastery of the elven arts. Archdragon Magic? No more than magic that takes the dragon name in order to conquer dragons. Ha ha. A mere parlor trick. They started by thinking of the unconquerable Brashgain and then lowered the mental hurdle by setting their sights on dragons one or even two levels below him. Then again, even that is superior to trying to make sense of those error-ridden texts you have so foolishly preserved in your royal capital’s library.”

“…”

“''I have lent that girl my power,'' so each of her attacks packs a punch those dark elves will never see coming.”

…''She’s on an entirely different level.

Rosehera was the only hope elf in the entire royal capital with its school full of eccentrics. In fact, there was no community of hope elves like the dark elves and their village.

Only the most powerful and intelligent of elves became known as a separate species known as hope elves. Categorizing someone as extraordinary as Rosehera in the same species as other elves would have caused too much confusion in academic society, so they had instead created a new category. She was just that powerful.

She was not just the only hope elf in the royal capital. She was the only one in the entire world.

If she were to fall to a deadly blade, the loss would be incalculable. Yet she had been taken from the safe capital to fight in this deep forest? Just how badly did the humans want to settle this problem?

Loinbelt kneeled next to Elzane’s horse. He bowed with his knee in the mud and his head down low where she could kick him to death if he upset her. That may have been some form of etiquette.

“The honorable Sir Rainbook fought nobly to the very end.”

“I see.”

“Please lend me your blade of vengeance, as a final kindness to one too inexperienced to fulfill this duty himself.”

“I humbly accept your request,” replied Elzane, pulling a new comb from her armor.

The dark elves had killed a noble. That may not have mattered much in the rules that governed the forest. Klaus himself believed those humans had only themselves to blame for assisting Professor Dissection. But humans had to follow their own rules. They could not allow a noble to be insulted. So to erase the shame of his defeat, they had pulled out all the stops and sent in an elite unit and the hope elf.

The knight glanced over at the hope elf.

“What would be our most effective option? I can always crush them one at a time with this borrowed magic, but we do not know how many dark elves are out there. We don’t want them to mask their numbers by hiding or playing dead in the vast forest.”

“I might be the supreme member of the elf family, but I am very familiar with this puny subspecies’ weaknesses. Leave this to me.”

The blue-eyed hope elf, who was practically a legend herself, raised her small index finger.

And she continued with a smile.

“You need only set the forest ablaze and burn the entire place to the ground. Dark elves live in the forest, so they know not how to survive outside of it. Then you can massacre every last one of them.”

===Part 14===

Klaus Knockburn felt the thin thread of his conscience nearly burning out in his mind.

What was right and what was wrong? The horseback knight and the hope elf may have been right. Klaus and Loinbelt had both nearly been killed when the dark elves ganged up on them, so striking back with twice the force may have been justified. It was the right thing to do. This may have been what it meant to see someone shining with an inner light.

But.

“Levazastar Linked Magic Circle,” whispered the long-eared girl in a green priestess’s outfit, whose blonde hair billowed below a small crown. “Cast out the primitive image of adding fuel to a fire. What matters is the wind and the humidity. We remove moisture from the forest’s air and then send in plentiful wind. An unnatural magical tailwind can move very swiftly indeed. The dark elves will never be able to escape it on foot.”

“We sent another unit to seal off the road’s entrance and exit, but smoke damage to the village will be unavoidable.”

The blonde girl who looked no older than 12 hopped off of her horse, leaned over to pick up a stick, and began scraping it against the ground with both hands. It was a major job covering a few dozen meters, but her actions were just like those of a small child doodling on the ground.

But an overhead view would have shown she was drawing a large and intricate magic circle. Klaus could only draw out an accurate square at his feet, so this was far beyond his abilities. It may have been even more than his rotten teacher could accomplish. At the same time, this meant she was planning to do something that not even the hope elf could control without such an intricate circle.

Meanwhile, Klaus noticed movement from a bright yellowish-green reminiscent of the electric sign experiments that the average person was not even aware of. Elzane was shaking her massive twin ringlets while pulling a comb from her arm armor and speaking.

“Madam Hope Elf. Will that really be enough for such a large task?”

“Once, a group wished to carve out a remote portion of a large kingdom and declare independence for themselves. Although behind the scenes, a powerful nation across the sea just wanted a naval port protected by the new borders so they could safely scatter magical sea mines.”

“…”

“This is how I solved that little problem for the kingdom. I transformed their impenetrable Shark Ocean Fortress into a giant oven and kept the blaze burning for three days and three nights. The king’s aide, who had hired me, apparently gave up when attempting to count the bodies.”

Rosehera planted her tall shoes on the ground and stuck out her little butt while she faced the ground and prepared two magic circles. The circles would link the wind with humidity and prepare the entire forest the way she wanted.

She was creating a highly flammable environment where a single spark of static would start a forest fire. This hope elf was superior to the ordinary elves who already had powerful magic and nearly endless lives, so her actions would surpass theirs as well. There was zero chance of Rosehera screwing up her magic.

The dark elves of the forest would be wiped out by Klaus’s “side”.

Could he really let this happen? That question had been growing and growing in the boy’s mind for a while now. The dark elves were strangers to him. In fact, they had even tried to cruelly kill him. But no matter how self-righteous he had been, he had still seen how they lived their lives. He had seen Little Girl deriving comfort from Mother and he had seen Leader being rebuked by Curvy.

And he had seen Slender rescue him.

Maybe those smiles would never be directed at him.

But was that any reason to be okay with those smiles being permanently erased?

Maybe they wouldn’t smile his way, maybe they wouldn’t give him anything, and maybe Slender would never be his wife.

Those thoughts saddened him, but he would never place his own likes and dislikes above other people’s lives.

Everyone was looking at this all wrong. The dark elves had attacked “Professor Dissection” Kyle Hardjuicer. If someone barged into your home and said they wanted to capture and dissect your family, anyone would resist to the best of their ability. But the next thing he knew, everyone was talking about retaliating in the name of the noble Sir Rainbook. How could they judge the dark elves for what happened? The dark elves didn’t even understand human language, so they wouldn’t even know who Sir Rainbook was. They couldn’t possibly have maliciously targeted him. And hadn’t Loinbelt said he only died because he moved into harm’s way to protect the boy?

What even was this?

Klaus Knockburn asked himself which side he wanted to take here. Were the dark elves really fascinating enough to throw away his life now that he was finally safe again?

What about his future wife?

What did he think about Slender?

Yes, she had rescued him from being burned at the stake, but more recently she had also tried to kill him as soon as he attempted to communicate. That made it flat, even, 50/50. He could no longer say she alone understood him, so would he really risk his own life to protect the dark elves now?

And if so, why?

“Oh. Damn, so that’s why.”

“Hm? What is it, boy?”

Elzane Livzy, the horseback knight who did not bother hiding her bright hair, gave him a confused look that actually made her look younger for once. He ignored her. Instead, he turned toward the hope elf whose large, pierced ears were twitching up and down while she drew out her magic circles with the long stick held in both hands.

“Excuse me, St. Rosehera.”

“Ho ho. I know I said I would not complaint, but that title is more embarrassing than I expected.”

She kept the stick moving and gave a casual glance back his way. This magic was something she could do ''while focused on something else''. Yet it would burn all of the dark elves to death in the very forest where they lived in peace.

“So what did you want?”

“Just for future reference, this…Levazastar thing? How long does the magic circle take to complete?”

“Hm. Not long.”

“So you can just create as many of them as you want?”

“No, not even I can do that. It looks simple, but the details are quite tricky. A common factor between all forms of expert craftsmanship.”

“Really?”

“The tools at hand are another issue. Drawing out the linked circles is simple enough, but a normal compass is not enough to determine their exact location. That requires an astrological sextant. Acquiring one of those through a special route at the royal capital was no easy task, let me tell you.”

“I see.”

“Still, the initial linework is more or less complete now.”

He thought his heart had stopped.

But Rosehera narrowed her blue eyes and wiped sweat from her brow as she clarified.

“This is a large geoglyph. I must view the stars and make precise corrections to the details, so we must wait until around dawn.”

“Ha ha. I see, I see.”

Klaus Knockburn nodded several times while slowly walking along the edge of the magic circles. He viewed the massive amount of material this expert was letting him see. They had to weave between the trees, but the magic circles covered several dozen meters. Together, they rivaled the size of a sports arena back in the capital. Once he had put enough distance between him and Elzane’s group, the skinny boy casually hid himself behind the forest’s trees.

He looked back twice, blatantly checking to see if anyone was following him, and then he broke into a sprint to get away from the knight camp.

…''I couldn’t tell what Slender was thinking. First she saved me and then she tried to kill me, so why was her behavior so inconsistent? The answer is so obvious.

“Pant, gasp!”

…''Now that I’m in her position, it all makes sense. She had to put on an act because the others were watching! It never did make sense that I took a direct blast of Archdragon Magic and survived. When I was camouflaged as her, Leader and the others were nearby! So that was the only way she could think of to save me!!

The preparations were approaching completion like the hands of a clock.

So if nothing was done, the vast Forest of No Return would be engulfed in flames. Leaving Rosehera and Elzane now was tantamount to suicide.

But he had still run off.

He couldn’t stop them. Hope Elf Rosehera and Last Resort Unit Commander Elzane Livzy were simply too powerful. Before even attempting to fight, he could tell his camouflage magic would not help here.

His feelings were a mess. It was possible this had nothing to do with humans or dark elves to him. He may have simply wanted to run away from seeing anyone dying. They could call him a chicken or a coward if they wanted. He tried to shout that there was nothing wrong with that.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

But when he opened his mouth, no actual words emerged.

He knew he was making a terrible mistake. The dark elves would be using silence to their advantage while they took up the optimal positions to attack, so there was no way they wouldn’t hear him making so much noise.

Something dropped down from a branch overhead.

It was heavy, but also soft and warm. This was not his first time being flattened on the ground in this forest. But now it was a dark elf hunter instead of an elite human knight.

The person pinning him down had long hair, brown skin, and ruby-red eyes. She wore a white leather vest and a blue tight skirt. Her most notable features were the bow much too large for her size and the earring on only one ear.

This was Slender.

Now of all times, her gentle warmth stabbed straight into his brain.

“''Ykb gug bae teq iyib?''”

He was sobbing like a child when she pushed her face in close and asked some kind of question. She seemed to be accusing him from only 5cm away. As if trying to push him back to rejoin his own kind.

“''Wkiw uv ykoto bae fipo htap, va ykb yaeng bae towetq wa wko hatovw qay?''”

Klaus felt his voice catch in his throat.

Then he slowly shook his head and worked his trembling lips.

In order to speak her words in another language.

“Why did you…run away?”

“''…?''”

Speaking to her in human language was meaningless, but she still gave him a puzzled look. This was strange. It fit a little too well.

Klaus Knockburn loudly clicked his tongue below her and threw out everything he had learned so far. Learning what “jutn” meant or that “bae” meant “you” wasn’t want mattered. He didn’t need to decode each individual word and write up a dictionary. The rules were much simpler than that.

“''It’s just shifted ahead by two letters! With consonants and vowels separate!'' Dammit, why did it take me so long to figure that out!?”

A language like that could not have developed naturally. They may have intentionally altered the language themselves.

He wanted to laugh out loud at the thought of the linguists around the world who wasted years trying to study it as a natural language. Had it been so ridiculously simple that the possibility never even occurred to them? Maybe the dark elves had used their long years of experience to learn how to intentionally slip inside human blind spots like that.

[[Image:Dark_Elf_v01_bw4.png|thumb]]

He could easily guess why they had forbidden themselves from using the same language as humans.

They feared the humans. They didn’t want to be deceived again.

So they had sealed off all communication.

Klaus Knockburn awkwardly worked his way through the words, converting each one in his head.

“''U eqgotvwiqg baet niqjeijo.''” (I understand your language.)

“''Ykiw!?''” (What!?)

This time, Slender’s eyes opened wide and she held a hand to her mouth.

Now that he could convert it in his head, he could tell what she was saying. So he shouted in dark elf.

“''Now that I understand you, you can’t deny it!! I can hear your screams, see your fear, and sense everything you’re thinking and feeling! So tell me – what is it you want to do here? Tell me in your own words!! What do the dark elves hope to accomplish by resurrecting Brashgain!?''”

He waited.

He waited until he some terrifying words reached his ears.

“''What…are you talking about?''”

“…”

She tilted her head in genuine confusion. It was cute, but that was what made it so frightening. The feeling spreading from his fingers to the rest of his body was different from the fear he had felt when nearly burned at the stake or when facing Professor Dissection.

Communication was not always a good thing.

Communication could also be used to deceive or feign ignorance.

Was she the type who could lie about love with a smile on her face?

No, this was different.

“''I’ve never heard anything about resurrecting Brashgain.''”

“''But then…''” Klaus sniffled and raised his voice to a desperate shout. Almost like he was lashing out at the girl in front of him. “''Then what was all that? I was nearly burned at the stake in that clearing. You dark elves keep chasing after me and no one would take my side. So tell me the truth!! That all has to do with some kind resurrection ceremony, doesn’t it? I feel bad about stumbling across you while you were bathing, but punishing that with death is an obvious overreaction! And you expect me to believe you’re not some priestess who holds the key to the ceremony and there’s some rule saying no one can gaze upon you while you purify yourself beforehand!?''”

Slender shook her head.

He sensed some kind of misunderstanding. And even a minor one could lead to disaster if ignored.

She slowly explained the reason for it in as few words as possible to ensure he understood her.

“''Goignb ritivuwov.''”

Deadly parasites.

After converting it in his head, Klaus Knockburn bit his lip.

The world went dark before his eyes.

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