The Hero’s Disciple Has Returned

“…Well, this is…”

It was originally a secluded place where people would never come, but whether Mr. Ras had done something while coming and going (Sera had also done some things), it had become a perfect secluded place where I couldn’t feel any presence around. When I felt a human presence, I immediately grabbed my bow and arrows and ran…

“…Ugh.”

Grumble grumble!

I discovered an elf who had collapsed while making loud noises from their stomach.

An elf…

Of all things, an elf…

‘Elves are beings you have to be extremely careful with.’ Even if it’s an elf that looks like a child. To begin with, the fact that they had left the World Tree’s barrier meant that the World Tree had acknowledged that the elf had enough combat power to travel the world alone without problems. That’s why people in this world feared elves.

There are some humans blinded by desire who want to somehow get their hands on them, attracted by their beauty, and there are those who do crazy things to sell them at high prices to these blinded humans, but what always comes back to such people is nothing but poetic justice. (In Jade’s view, messing with elves was the only thing in this world where poetic justice was guaranteed.) Above all, elves are a long-lived race and also have good memory. Being long-lived means they have many opportunities to repay favors or grudges, and having good memory means they hold grudges for a very long time. In other words, if you incur their wrath once, you have to face that elf’s anger for your entire life, and even your children and grandchildren, no, even your grandchildren’s grandchildren will have to face that elf’s anger. That is, if you get involved with one elf the wrong way, your entire family will suffer terribly.

Therefore, for anyone with proper intelligence, it was an unspoken rule that when you see an elf, you should keep your distance without hesitation.

I too, as a person with proper intelligence, wanted to keep my distance the moment I discovered the elf.

Grumble grumble!

I should keep my distance…

“I’m hungry…”
“……”

I should keep my distance…

Sigh…

I really should keep my distance…

♧♧♧

People often misunderstand. They think that villains are foolish, hot-tempered, and unplanned. Of course, there are such villains. Most villains might actually be like that. But truly wicked villains never move lightly. Rather, they are more cautious. Truly wicked people know well that the moment they fail, their heads will fall. That’s why they make plans carefully and thoroughly and take preparation time.

For such wicked people, the prophecy that the Demon King’s army would come was more than enough to consider it a very good opportunity. That’s why during the time when the Emperor was selecting hero candidates and entrusting them to masters for education, the wicked ones were also preparing.

The infamous villains of today are cute in comparison, and the truly wicked villains prove how ugly humans can be by making their names known in the ‘Human-Demon Great War’.

One of them is

‘Human Merchant’ McGill

Literally. He was a villain who, more than anyone else, became a minion of the Demon King, betrayed humanity, and sold his own kind to demons who enjoyed torturing and killing humans. In the ‘Human-Demon Great War’, he’s the most famous monster-like villain known as the most vicious and evil, but now he was nothing special. Now, he was just a vile merchant with a toad-like face and pig-like body who dealt in illegal activities daily, only having plans.

Therefore,

He was easy to deal with.

“Cough! Cough! Damn it! This can’t be! This can’t be!! Luck is on my side! The luck of this world will be on my side! I can’t end like this…!”

Towards McGill’s neck, who was insisting he couldn’t die while bleeding profusely in a state where he couldn’t use his legs, Sera threw a dagger without hesitation.

Thud!

“That’s why it can. Shut up and die.”
“Gurgle!”

Making a sound like a poisonous toad breathing its last, the wicked villain who would have had a future of terrible infamy took his last breath without revealing any of his vicious wickedness to the world.

“This is a fitting end for you.”

Sera nodded with satisfaction, saying it was a truly fitting end for someone who would cut out the tongues and tendons of his own kind if demons wanted it. Should we give a new chance to someone who isn’t a villain yet? The conclusion drawn by the hero of infinite regression was that there’s no reason to care for such a vile person when there are so many people in this world living kindly enough to deserve new chances.

“There are still many bastards to kill.”

Even if she killed all those who needed to be killed, new villains would appear and dirty this world, but it was clearly better to clean than not cleaning just because it would get dirty anyway, so Sera decided to exercise patience.

“But ‘luck is on my side’…”

Hearing those words, she couldn’t help but recall a certain elf.

An elf who claimed to have received ‘luck’ as a ‘special blessing’ from the World Tree

The World Tree bestows a special soul power to each elf child when they are born. That’s why elves express it as ‘bestowing a special blessing’. So each elf refers to themselves with the special blessing they received, like ‘Elf of Flame’, ‘Elf of Frost’, ‘Elf of Wind’. For elves, the World Tree is a parent, and as it’s a precious gift from a parent, they say it with pride. So among them, there could also be a ‘Lucky Elf’. That possibility was certainly not non-existent.

If there was a problem…

‘She wasn’t lucky at all.’

A strange elf who kept getting lost, losing her wallet, being deceived by merchants, experiencing all sorts of misfortunes, yet insisting to the end that she was a ‘Lucky Elf’

Still, like an elf, her archery and agility were excellent, so in many lives, she was often taken as a party member. That’s why in this life too, she was thinking of including her in the party, but…

‘Because she’s swept up in all sorts of misfortunes, it’s impossible to know where she is.’

Whether she’s a ‘Lucky Elf’ or an ‘Unlucky Elf’, that elf is swept up in various misfortunes with each regression, popping up here and there unpredictably, so even for Sera, who monopolizes numerous pieces of information, it was a problem that she couldn’t find her even if she wanted to right now.

‘I hope she’s not lost and starving somewhere again?’

That elf was perfectly capable of that.

She really was an elf who perfectly fit the name ‘Unlucky Elf’.

♤♤♤

“See, I’m a ‘Lucky Elf’ after all! I thought everything was going wrong, but here I am eating such delicious food!”
“……”

If there really was luck, shouldn’t she have not gotten lost and come to a place where absolutely no one comes in the first place? The urge to make such a rebuttal wasn’t non-existent, but not wanting to be cruel to someone who had just regained their strength, I could only shake my head and endure.

“Ah! I’m Riel, the ‘Lucky Elf’. Nice to meet you, Life-saving Benefactor.”
“…You don’t need to call me something so grand.”

I wondered if I should speak casually, but no matter how I looked at her, she appeared to be a child, and above all, considering that all the food I had stored, as if there were several beggars in her stomach, had gone into that small belly… There was no way polite speech could come out of my mouth.

“No, no. You are a life-saving benefactor. If it weren’t for you, I might have died of starvation. I just got lost, but I kept falling into strange traps and suffered so much… I really thought I was going to die.”
“……”

So that’s how it was…

Elves are strong.

So much so that it’s not an exaggeration to say that one of them is an army. Why was such an elf starving in the vicinity of my secluded place… The answer wasn’t difficult. This unlucky elf (although she claims to be a ‘Lucky Elf’) happened to get lost and entered this area, then got caught in the traps Mr. Ras had set to protect me (+traps Sera had laid), suffered all sorts of hardships, and finally collapsed from hunger, and I discovered her.

‘Is it luck that I discovered her and she’s recovered after eating a lot like this? No, if she really had the special blessing of luck, shouldn’t she not have collapsed from hunger in the first place?’

Luck, what on earth is it?

It was truly a difficult question.

‘Still, it’s certain that she’s not a ‘Lucky Elf’.’

I don’t know why she calls herself a ‘Lucky Elf’, but…

Well, there must be a story behind it, right?

Just as it’s natural that there’s no one in this world without a story, isn’t it natural that there’s no elf without a story?

I didn’t particularly want to become very close and form a deep connection, and there’s nothing good about knowing someone else’s story unnecessarily, so I decided to just accept it and move on.

♧♧♧

Self-proclaimed ‘Lucky Elf’ Riel

It’s just self-proclaimed.

If she were really a ‘Lucky Elf’, she would have received help from suddenly appearing figures without doing anything when she got lost, suddenly prey would appear right in front of her if she got a little hungry, and if she got thirsty, a sudden shower would fall even on a clear sky. In other words, she was not a ‘Lucky Elf’.

Elves don’t lie. That’s why in some regions, people believe the theory that ‘Elves absolutely never lie.’ It’s true that elves don’t lie, but that doesn’t mean they can’t lie. They restrain themselves because they think it’s too vulgar for a child of the World Tree to lie, and because they consider this a principle, the theory that ‘Elves don’t lie’ isn’t particularly wrong. But ‘not doing’ and ‘not being able to do’ can’t have the same meaning.

In other words, even if an elf who lies appears, it’s not at all strange.

Riel was the lying elf that had never existed in this world.

The reason was simple.

It was because of the special blessing bestowed upon her by the World Tree.

She denied her special blessing

And she had no choice but to lie to deny it.

Saying that she was a ‘Lucky Elf’.

‘…Geez… Because of this unwanted ‘special blessing’, I had to live seeing unwanted things… But to think that I would see ‘this’ with this ‘special blessing’.’

Riel’s special blessing was ‘Blessing’

She was the ‘Elf of Blessing’.

Bestowing blessings.

Just looking at this expression, it might seem like a very good thing. But what about the one bestowing the blessing? What is bestowing a blessing in the first place? What criteria can one use to decide what kind of blessing to bestow and on what basis?

Yes. To bestow a blessing, one must know what the subject ‘needs’. And to know that, one naturally has to know about the subject. As a result, Riel, the ‘Elf of Blessing’, could see numerous things. Because she could bestow ‘blessings’ on any subject with her special blessing of ‘Blessing’, conversely, she ‘had to see’ everything about everything.

That was the reason why she had to leave the World Tree’s barrier, even though most elves don’t leave it. Because everywhere was the same for her. No, it could be said that the outside world, which didn’t know she was the ‘Elf of Blessing’, was much better. Because people have the fixed idea that elves don’t lie, they wouldn’t doubt her even if she lied.

That’s why Riel could also see things about Jade.

And they were truly unique things even for Riel, who had seen numerous things.