Chapter 21

Chapter 21. "The Dark Elf, the Dwarf, and a Single Rose." 01

"So then, what are you going to do now?"

At Rene's question, Irisa slowly stroked the head of her son Frid, who was sitting quietly beside her with her arm wrapped around his waist, and answered in a calm voice.

"I should go back. Home."

Irisa spoke with a faint smile, and Rene received that smile with one of her own.

The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the slightly worn window and entered the room, which was somewhat dim yet all the cozier for it.

It softly wrapped itself around the two elf women seated at the small table, gazing into each other's eyes as they talked. Rather than radiant, they seemed modest, and a little noble, as they shone there.

...Maybe I should learn how to paint.

They were far too beautiful to let pass as nothing more than a fleeting pleasure for the eyes.

Around the time I was thinking that, Rene exchanged a few more words with her, then rose from her seat and said,

"Then please stop by our place for a while before you go. There is something I would like to ask of you as well."

"Very well."

Irisa nodded at that, and after smiling at Frid, who was leaning against her side, Rene walked over to me. Then she took hold of my arm, which had been hanging idly at my side, and tugged.

"Han, let's go."

"Hm? Ah, right."

As she led me outside, I did not forget to turn my head and give Irisa a slight bow. In response, Irisa smiled gently.

As I closed the door to their room, I said,

"If I asked, 'We're going to the market. Would you like to come with us too?' what do you think she'd say?"

"She would probably say, 'I want to be alone.'"

I turned my head and looked at the door of the room across from us, the one Luna was staying in, as I spoke. At that, Rene made a troubled face and raised one hand to cup her cheek.

"Hmm, I can lend Irisa some of my clothes, but Luna would have to come with us, or I will not know her size. And Frid refuses to leave his mother's side..."

After hearing that, I grinned and said,

"So that is what you were worried about?"

"...Why me?"

"Because among all the children in this inn, you look like the one with the most free time."

"I am not free. Can you not see this? This."

Jonathan said that and held up the plate he had brought out from the kitchen. Hmm, washing dishes? Well, if that is the case, there is another way.

"It cannot be helped, Jonathan. Could you lend me one of your smaller outfits?"

"Why? Are you buying me clothes?"

"No, not for you. For the elf boy and girl upstairs. What they are wearing right now can hardly be called clothes. Luna is practically dressed in underwear, and Frid is in complete rags..."

After hearing me out, Jonathan let out a deep sigh, nodded, and said,

"All right. Wait a moment."

Still carrying the plate in his hand, the boy trudged off, opened the door to one of the rooms on the first floor, and disappeared inside.

A short while later, he returned with a shirt in his hand. After thanking him, Rene and I hurried straight to the market.

"...You have come again."

"Hello, Mr. Jeff."

Rene greeted him with a cheerful smile, and Mr. Jeff raised the tobacco pipe hanging from his mouth and said,

"So you have already learned my name, have you? Well then, what sort of clothes have you come to buy this time?"

I held up the shirt we had borrowed from Jonathan and said,

"Could you show us a few sets of boys' clothes and girls' clothes in about this size? Ah, and one cloak with a large hood as well."

Mr. Jeff glanced once at the shirt in my hand, then immediately began rummaging through the pile of clothes stacked on his stall.

Soon he pulled out five sets of boys' clothes, five sets of girls' clothes, and a cloak large enough to pitch as a tent, then said,

"Will a cloak this size do? You said a big one, and this just happened to be the first thing my hand landed on. And as for the children's clothes I laid out, pick whichever ones you like."

Rene lifted the selected clothes one by one and turned them around to inspect them. Then she nodded with a pleased smile.

"Yes. We will take all of these. How much?"

The moment he heard that, Mr. Jeff grinned as though he had been waiting for it, supported the pipe in his mouth with one hand, and named his price. After that, a fierce battle broke out between Rene and Mr. Jeff.

There were not many spectators, however. Lunchtime was over, but there was still plenty of time before dinner. It was the quietest hour for customers.

A little while later, I watched Rene rejoicing after beating the price down from sixty thousand woni to forty thousand, while Mr. Jeff was bent forward with both hands braced on the floor and his head hanging low. Seeing that, I smiled faintly.

He hates losing to any 'human' other than me, after all.

Just then, Mr. Jeff, who had been sitting there with his head bowed in existential despair, slowly raised it and spoke to me, where I stood beside Rene with my arms folded.

"...Hey, you there."

"Yes?"

Mr. Jeff pointed a finger at Rene, who was hugging two large bundles against her chest, and said,

"This young lady. She is your wife, is she not?"

I smiled and nodded, and the old man looked openly envious as he said,

"You married yourself a fine woman. She is beautiful, gentle-hearted, and most of all..."

As I stood there listening to him with an awkward expression, Rene walked over to me and held out one of the large bundles. I took it from her.

Then Rene turned, placed four silver coins from her purse onto Mr. Jeff's palm with a bright smile, and he, after taking them, clenched his fist tightly and finished what he had been saying to me.

"...She is good at haggling down the price of things. She will run a household splendidly."

"Thank you."

Rene smiled sweetly and gave Mr. Jeff a slight bow. He waved a hand and said,

"Off with you, then. And next time, I am absolutely not giving you a discount, so steel yourselves before you come."

"Yeees."

Rene looped her arm through mine and smiled at Mr. Jeff, while he watched us for a moment before lowering his head again and staring blankly at the four silver coins in his palm with a small sigh.

I gave the old man a faint smile, then turned to look at Rene's profile as she walked beside me. At once, her eyes shifted to meet mine, and her small lips parted.

"What is it? Do you want me to kiss you?"

"...No, we can do that later. Um, where are we going this time? The bookstore?"

At my question, Rene slipped a hand into her pocket and drew out a small slip of paper. I tilted my head slightly and looked at the writing on it.

Several book titles had been written on the paper in an exceptionally elegant hand.

'Ray L. Lambert's Contemplations on the Winter Sky,'

'John Granf's Collection of Constellation Names and the Legends Behind Them.'

'Latest Edition of the Plant Encyclopedia.'

And so on...

P.S. If you say you have come to pick up the books I requested, they will hand them over to you. That is all.

"Yes. More importantly, Exel reads a surprisingly wide range of books."

She tucked the scrap of paper back into her pocket, and I looked around once.

If I remembered what Exel had told me, once we left the market alley and turned the left corner, it was supposed to be right there.

We had already come out of the market alley, so we turned the left corner and walked on slowly. Before long, we came out onto a broad road. We stopped for a moment and looked around, then quickly found a shabby sign with one simple word written on it.

Bookstore.

That certainly is a simple name. Is "Bookstore" really all there is to it?

I turned to look at Rene, and she smiled faintly.

"It is nice and simple. Come, let us go."

"Right. He said they would be leaving this evening, so we should hurry and get everything ready."

Jingle~

The moment we opened the door, a small bell rang.

Then, from somewhere inside, though strangely I could not tell from where, a woman's voice called out at once.

"Welcome! Just a moment, please~"

Until the owner of that voice appeared, Rene and I set down the bundles we were carrying and took a brief look around the shop.

Unlike the outside, the interior looked extremely spacious. There seemed to be more than ten bookshelves, stretching all the way to the back.

But...

...it was chaos.

The books that did not fit on the shelves had been piled here and there in the empty spaces along the aisles, and among those stacks, slips of paper that looked like labels were poking their heads out.

On top of the large bookshelves, scrolls thick with dust were perched so precariously that they looked ready to fall at any moment.

While I was silently composing a severe critique of the shop's state of organization, Rene, who had picked up a book from one of the piles on the floor and was reading it, noticed me looking at her and turned the cover toward me with an amused face so I could read the title.

"'The Ideologies of These Races as Seen from a Human Perspective.' Volume 1. How surprising. I heard it was out of print and impossible to find."

She held up the book with clear interest, and I gave a small laugh as though to say, Is that so?

She liked books, but I did not care much for them. If you asked me why, it was because I had Rene, a walking encyclopedia, at my side.

If I already knew what she knew, there was no fun in it. When you are talking with someone and end up hearing again what you already know, of course it becomes dull.

That is why I had to take an interest in things she did not know. Skills, for example. Say, something like playing an instrument.

That way, we would be able to take greater interest in each other. If there was something I did not know, Rene would know it, and I could ask her. And if Rene wished to hear music, then I could become her musician and play beautiful pieces for my wife.

I do not know what other married couples are like, but ours lives happily by filling in what the other lacks with what we ourselves possess.

Of course, sharing common interests is fun at first. But with time, things grow stale. We both understood that, and so we each learned to take an interest in different things.

With that, Rene smiled softly as she flipped through a few more pages, then set the book down in an appropriate spot and, still smiling, began selecting another.

After giving her a small smile, I stepped a little farther into the bookstore. Worn books, clean books, and books that landed somewhere in between. Everywhere I looked, there were books.

"If I lived in a place like this, my head would start to ache. Nothing but books."

"If you live in a place like this, your head fills up. Because there is nothing but books."

"Hm?"

I turned toward the voice, and there, atop a ladder, a young woman? A girl? A lady... well, a young lady was looking down at me with her arms full of books.

She looked as though she had only just stepped out of her teens. Her plain brown hair was braided into a single long plait. She peered down at me, then smiled brightly.

"You have been waiting, have you not? Just a moment."

As she said that, she carefully climbed down the ladder, then set the books in her arms atop a table so overloaded it looked ready to lose a leg at any moment. After that, she wiped the beads of sweat from her brow with her sleeve and said,

"What book are you looking for? We have everything here, from spellbooks to erotica."

From spellbooks to erotica, nothing missing? But I have no talent for magic, and since I already have a beautiful wife, I am not especially interested in those sorts of books either.

I waved a hand at the brown-haired young woman and said,

"Ah, I have only come to pick up some books that a friend ordered."

At that, she nodded.

"And what is your friend's name?"

"Exel."

The answer came from behind me. Rene had returned carrying about five books in her arms, books she seemed to have taken a liking to.

The moment I saw her, I walked over and took the books from her arms. After handing them to me, Rene smiled and addressed the young woman, who was still staring blankly at her with a finger against her lips.

"He also asked us to deliver this."

Rene held out the neatly folded square slip of paper Exel had told us to pass on to the bookstore owner.

The brown-haired young woman looked at us both for a moment, then took the folded note from Rene and slowly unfolded it to read. In the meantime, I rummaged through the books Rene had placed on the table and read their titles.

If there is one thing I ever read in books, it is the title. And that is about it.

"This time it is five books? Hm? What is this? 'What He Likes for Dinner?'"

"I thought I might learn a few more dishes using birds."

Rene opened the book in her hand and replied with a soft smile. I nodded and read the title of another book.

"Um, next is..."

I looked at the title of the book in my hand for a moment, then slowly slipped it back where it had been. After that, I turned my head slightly and glanced at Rene's face.

She watched what I had done in silence, then gave me a sly grin before sliding the book she had taken from the shelf back into place and saying,

"It is interesting."

"...I-Is it?"

While I was giving her an awkward smile, the brown-haired young woman, who had been reading the note, spoke up with a bright face.

"Waaah, so Mr. Id's real name is Exel. That is unexpected. In any case, please wait a moment. I already set aside the books he asked for."

With that, she trotted off somewhere behind the shelves, her skirt fluttering as she went.

A short while later, she returned carrying a bundle of books tied tightly with cord twisted from paper, then held it out to me and said,

"My name is Mari. I am the granddaughter of this shop's owner. You are friends of Id— no, of Mr. Exel, are you not?"

I took the bundle from her, and Rene, standing beside me, answered Mari's question with a gentle smile.

"That is right. But Miss Mari, could you ring these up as well?"

Rene pointed to the books I had set on the table, and Mari smiled brightly.

"Hmm, let me see."

As she said that, she walked over to the books lying on the table and examined them carefully, turning them this way and that. Then she turned back to us with a pleased smile and said,

"I will take off the price of one volume, so altogether it will be forty-five thousand woni."

Forty-five thousand woni after taking off one book? It did feel a little expensive...

I turned to look at Rene. But upon hearing that one volume would be free, she only smiled, then took out her purse, counted out the coins, and handed them to Mari.

Rene absolutely never haggles over the price of books. Something about respecting their worth, I think.

In any case, I could not quite remember it right now.

"Thank you. We will come again next time."

"Thank you very much. If you come again next time, I will throw in one more book for free."

Mari slipped the money Rene had handed her into the pocket of her apron, then took out some cord from another pocket and deftly answered Rene's words in kind. Rene smiled sweetly at her, then pointed at Exel's books.

"But what about the price of those books?"

"Oh, those were already paid for when he placed the order. So please just take them."

Mari tightly tied up Rene's books and held them out to me. I took those from her, then picked up Exel's bundle of books from the floor as well, one in each hand.

...At some point, I seem to have become a porter.

"Then, please take care."

"Yes, goodbye. And do not forget to come again."

Rene followed me out at a slow pace, answering Mari's farewell with a gentle smile.

Jingle~

When we stepped out of the shop, Rene came out carrying the two clothing bundles, then pressed close to my side and said,

"It is heavy, is it not?"

"No. This much is about as light as you are. You know that, do you not?"

At my words, Rene smiled quietly and said,

"That is right. You are a special man."

I gave her a small smile.

"And the wife of that special man is you. Are you not happy?"

"I am. I could not help but be happy. The fact that I can remain with you always is an immense happiness to me."

Rene answered with a bright smile.

That is right. This much weight would probably feel a little burdensome to an ordinary person, but since it was in my hands, it was not heavy at all. No, more precisely, I could not feel its weight in the slightest.

...The ability I had gained because of what happened in the past had not disappeared yet.

I had returned to being human again, but...

Well, thanks to it, I had been able to end up with Rene, so I no longer minded such things.

As long as I have her. As long as I have Rene, who always smiles at me.

I no longer feel hatred.

Just then, Rene, who had been gazing at me with a bright face, suddenly grinned and poked me in the waist with her elbow.

"You, how do you know my weight?"

"Hm? I do not know it exactly, but I can more or less tell by feel... because we sleep together."

"And roughly how much is it?"

Rene kept asking with a face full of mischief, and I was gradually drawn deeper into her teasing. I lifted the bundles of books in my hands slightly and said,

"Hmm, maybe about three bundles like these?"

"Even if you are being generous, one bundle would be no more than ten kilos. Am I really that light?"

I tilted my head as I looked at her.

"Hm? I thought you would be about that. Am I wrong?"

At that, Rene broke into a bright smile.

"Yes, you are wrong. No matter what, thirty kilos is far too light. Perhaps Luna would be around that weight?"

"Uh... Is that so? I have never felt that you were that heavy."

After hearing that, Rene laughed with a mischievous face, carried one of the bundles in one hand, and wrapped her other arm around mine as she quickened her pace a little.

"All right, enough of that. Hurry up. Exel and Irisa will be waiting."

"Ah? Right."

When we returned to the inn and opened the door to Exel's room first of all, we found there the silver-gray werewolf himself, Exel, sitting on the bed by the window with the curtains drawn, reading some book by the few strands of light slipping through the curtained glass. He greeted us with a pleased expression.

"Welcome back. You returned fairly quickly, all things considered. So then, did everything go well?"