Chapter 7

Chapter 7. "The Thing Bought from Them with Money." (1)

Early in the morning, I rose from my bed and found that she, who should have been beside me, was not there.

"........."

I looked around.

She was gone.

"...Rene?"

I slowly got up from my seat. It was early morning, before the sun had even risen,

and she, who should have been by my side, was nowhere to be seen.

Her absence meant....

It felt as though all the memories I had gathered until now were vanishing,

as though I had been flung back in an instant to one hundred and fifty years ago.

I lowered my head and stared at my raised palm, lost in thought.

...Who am I?

Where is this place? I was certain that, back then, I had... to him....

I lowered my hand and looked around. Though it was a room I saw every day, it felt strangely unfamiliar.

As I continued questioning myself, a sweet smell drifted in from somewhere.

"This is... something baking...."

Without realizing it, my steps slowly began to move. I was still in my sleepwear, and I had not tied back my hair, so it simply hung loose in disarray. Rene disliked it when I wandered around like this, but right now, I did not care.

I had to see her.

Before I began questioning myself and my mind collapsed,

before I ceased to be myself,

I opened the door, passed through the corridor, and stood at the stairs leading down to the first floor. The smell of baking grew stronger there, and my heart eased a little.

She is there. She is definitely in the kitchen.

Thinking that, I went down the stairs.

One step at a time, carefully.

Then I crossed the hall and dining room and stopped in front of the kitchen door.

She was there.

Wearing a black skirt, a black blouse trimmed with white lace, and a white apron over it, with thick oven mitts on her hands, she stood before the oven. I placed a hand against the doorframe and let out a breath of relief.

Thank goodness.

Then I heard Rene's slightly puzzled voice.

"Oh my, Han? What are you doing standing there? You have not even changed out of your sleepwear."

I raised my head, looked at her, and smiled softly. Perhaps sensing that something was wrong, Rene removed her mitts with a worried expression, set them on the table, and came over to me. She placed both hands on my cheeks and lifted my face toward hers.

"Han? Are you all right? You look terribly tired."

"Ah, I am all right. Just a little...."

I waved a hand and smiled at her, and Rene's face turned slightly sad as she said,

"...Surely you are not...."

So she already knew?

I gave her a small smile, and Rene wrapped an arm around my waist and, straining a little, sat me down in a chair.

I looked at her as she kept stroking my forehead with a worried expression and staring into my face. A beautiful face, a lovely face.

Why was it that suddenly the face of Rene from one hundred and fifty years ago, when she had still been a little girl, overlapped with the face she had now?

I knew her.

She had been a little elf girl with a cute face who had hurled the most vicious remarks.

As I recalled those memories and chuckled, she started in alarm and asked,

"Han?! Are you all right? Who am I? Yes?! Tell me!"

I raised my hand and touched her soft cheek as I said,

"Rene Tarsis. The elf I love enough to stake my life on."

"Are you really all right?"

"Mmm...."

Just looking at her had already cleared the tangle in my head that had been so complicated a moment ago.

Rene kept showing me that worried expression, and I smiled brightly at her.

"Do not make that face. I am all right."

"Really?"

She still looked uneasy, so I placed both hands on her face and drew her toward me. Rene, who had been kneeling beside the chair I sat in, pressed close to me with a worried look on her face, tilted forward, and fell against my chest. Looking down at her like that, I said,

"Were you worried?"

"...I was worried."

"It is all right now. Unless you abandon me, I will never go back to how I was before."

For a moment, Rene looked up at me with a sad expression. Then she quietly smiled.

"Do not worry about that. I will remain by your side forever."

Rene said it with a bright smile, and that made me happy.

"...Rene."

"Han."

Just as Rene and I, caught in that strange mood, were drawing closer and closer to each other,

"Ahem! Ahem!"

I jolted in surprise, but Rene remained in my arms and only turned her head toward the hall.

It seemed she had spotted a familiar face, because she said with a pleased expression,

"Exel? You came early."

At the mention of Exel, I, too, turned my head with a slight frown, and there in the hall stood not a werewolf, but a handsome young man with a strong build and long gray hair flowing down his back, his head slightly bowed as he cleared his throat and grinned at us with sly eyes.

The handsome youth wore black trousers and a black shirt, long boots, and over them a long coat. He gave off the very image of a noble young gentleman.

Huh? That is not Exel.

At that moment, Rene turned her head and whispered into my ear,

"...Let us do what comes after this later."

Ugh....

I nodded blankly with a dazed smile, and then Rene slowly drew herself away from my chest, rose to her feet, and said,

"It is Exel. It seems he used magic."

Magic?

I stood up from the chair and walked toward that silver-haired young man who was apparently Exel.

He looked to be around my age, perhaps in his late twenties, and compared to before, he had become much shorter, now standing about as tall as I was.

He watched me approach in silence, then glanced once at Rene behind me, twisted his expression into a sly grin, and said,

"My, it seems I have interrupted you once again."

...So it really is Exel.

"Will this do?"

"Let me see."

I stood before her in a simple enough outfit, comfortable trousers, long boots, a black shirt, and iron gauntlets and gloves on my arms. Rene circled around me, looking me over from various angles, then said,

"Yes. That should do. More importantly... Han, would you help me get dressed?"

"What are you going to wear?"

She smiled and opened her wardrobe, took out several articles of clothing, and placed them on the table.

While she removed the clothes she had been wearing, I picked up the garments laid out on the table and looked them over.

The trousers were

a pair of brown leather pants that clung tightly to the body,

and the top was

a loose brown sweater that looked quite warm.

But those seemed like things she could put on by herself. Why would she need me...?

At that moment, Rene, now almost fully undressed and clad only in her undergarments, took out a black box from inside the wardrobe and set it on the table, and I had no choice but to nod.

Right. She could not put on armor by herself.

She opened the lid and said,

"Now, Han, it is your turn."

"All right."

I nodded to her and reached into the box for the black chain mail folded neatly inside. (Though, of course, my gaze had been fixed on her sensual figure....) Much as I would rather not remember it, this was the armor she had worn when she had faced me in the past.

I knew that it was made from a mithril alloy, enchanted not only to soften impacts, but also to grant the wearer the strength of five grown men.

Come to think of it, back when Rene and I had fought, I had practically thought of her as a monster when she rose right back up after taking a blow from my fist.

As I stood there holding the armor and lost in thought, Rene looked at my absent-minded face and said with a slight smile,

"What are you thinking about?"

"Ah?! Mm, it is nothing."

She touched a finger to her cheek, narrowed her eyes, and smiled.

"You were thinking about the old days, were you not?"

"You... knew?"

At that, she smiled, picked up the leather trousers from the table, bent forward, and slowly slid one white leg into them while casually beginning to speak of the past.

"Of course. Did you think I would forget what happened back then? I will never forget those days. They were the most miserable memories of my life, the saddest memories, the most frightening memories, the most beautiful memories, and the happiest memories. That is why they are also the most precious memories."

You really do have a way with words.

With that, she slipped her right leg into the trousers, then her left, and continued,

"Seeing this armor brings it back to mind. Well, it always does, but... you remember when you fought me, do you not?"

I could only flinch inwardly. I turned my head slightly and answered, and when she saw that, Rene smiled faintly.

"Back then, um... I am sorry."

"Hehe, you do not need to apologize so much. I was fighting with all I had, too. Still, you.... How did you ever bring yourself to punch a woman in the stomach?"

Ugh. In the end, she smilingly dragged up that old story she had buried away ages ago, and all I could do was keep flinching inside.

"B-But I was not in my right mind back then. You know that."

But she was utterly relentless.

"Even so. Before you punched me in the stomach, could you not have at least placed a hand over your heart and thought, 'Should I really be doing this?'"

In that situation? If I had even blinked for a moment back then, I might not be here now.

I simply laughed softly at her question, and Rene, smiling just the same, pulled the trousers up from her thighs to her waist. Though, now that I looked at them, those leather trousers really were stunning.

Since the topic had come up, I decided to keep the conversation going by bringing up something she had once done to me.

"And what about you? Before you kicked me in the head with those lovely legs of yours, could you not have stopped to think, 'How much would it hurt to get kicked in the head?'"

At that, she approached me with a slightly apologetic look. Standing in front of me, she looked up at me and said,

"I am sorry. Did it hurt very much? But if I had not brought you down back then, many people would have grieved."

Elves... there was nothing to be done about them.

Looking at Rene, who had fought me back then while prepared to die, protecting those people with her whole body, I gave her a warm smile.

"It is all right. You risked your life to do what you believed was right. I cannot say anything against that. You fought well. By bringing me down, you saved them, and in doing so, you saved me as well."

Saying that, I stepped toward her with the armor in my hands. Rene beamed and came walking toward me with both arms spread wide.

In that instant, I caught sight of the soft swell of her breasts beneath her light undergarments, and my face flushed so hotly that I hurriedly raised the armor to hide it. Rene smiled in amusement and closed her eyes.

"Now then, hurry."

"Mm."

I slipped it onto her from her right shoulder first, covered her chest, and guided her other arm through.

Then, using the leather strap attached to the neck of the chain mail, I fastened it loosely around her neck.

After that, I moved behind her once more, gathered up the sections of armor that hung slack by the nature of chain mail, and tightened them firmly with leather cords the way one would tie shoelaces.

There was nothing more irritating in battle than armor that got in the way, so I tied it a little tightly.
Now Rene's upper body, from her waist to her neck except for her arms, was covered in black chain mail.

Even so, the heavy chain mail could not hide her slender figure. Once I had dressed her in it, her narrow waist stood out all the more sharply, enough to make her look almost heartbreakingly delicate. I looked at her wasp waist for a moment, then said,

"There... it is done."

"Thank you. ...Mm."

"...Mmph!?"