Episode 8
Even if it might be somewhat unnatural, all I had to do was go up to her and snap my fingers.
After that, I would be in control. There was nothing difficult about it.
I spent some time wandering around outside the guild. I couldn’t go too far, since I needed to know when the girl who had gone into the guild came out.
There were plenty of people gathered around, saying that although their purpose seemed similar to mine, it was different—they simply wanted to catch a glimpse of the Diamond-rank hunter coming out of the guild—so the wait wasn’t all that boring.
By picking out the things people were saying as they pleased, I was able to obtain a few bits of information.
Her epithet, “The Aloof Hunter,” which could sound embarrassing depending on how you heard it, supposedly came from the fact that she herself extremely avoided interacting with others
and achieved great feats alone.
This was one of the ideal conditions I had in mind.
Why? Because when hypnotizing a beautiful woman as a target, something that often happens is that if the target has too good of a social network and her emergency contact web is too thorough, it becomes a real headache.
Especially in modern times, I had once been horrified to learn that it was possible for one person to know more than a thousand people.
Visible interpersonal relationships could be cut off by placing suggestions on the woman herself,
but there had been many times when unexpected problems occurred because there were too many people who recognized her one-sidedly, and relationships even she herself hadn’t known about kept popping up.
So when I came to another world, I wanted to target women without ties if possible.
Another thing I heard overlapped somewhat with what I had heard at first: she was an elf.
Though I only knew as much about elves as anyone else did, apparently she was quite wary of humans, so she never revealed her name herself, and it was not known.
She was famous despite her name being unknown?
Was she some sort of byword for a strong and beautiful archer?
In any case, before long she would tell me everything with her own mouth. In front of me.
Her name, the memories of how she had lived, what she liked, what she hated—everything.
The elf girl came out of the guild.
This time I looked carefully at her ears, but they did not seem particularly different from human ears.
Many people flocked around her, but I deliberately waited a little behind them.
There were that many people waiting just to exchange a word with her, but the elf girl remained expressionless, and once the people fell silent, she turned her head and left.
“Wow, she was seriously beautiful.”
“I’m fine even if she doesn’t say anything.”
“I’d like to see her smile just once.”
The men scattered, leaving behind brief complaints.
There didn’t seem to be anyone thinking of following her like I was. Well, that was only natural.
If you intended to do something to her, you first had to be stronger than a Diamond-rank hunter.
I naturally kept my distance and walked after the elf girl.
Looking calmly at her from behind, I truly wanted to have her. In particular, the exquisite thickness of those thighs was criminal.
As I watched her legs and hips move while she walked lightly and softly, she gradually entered an alleyway with no people around.
I thought she might have noticed she was being tailed.
“Who are you?”
The girl asked without even looking back.
“I was waiting because I had something to say.”
“Don’t come closer.”
Mm, it was an extremely sharp voice.
The girl turned around and mimed gripping a bow with her bare hands, then stared at me and spoke.
It was a strong tone, close to a warning.
“Step back as you are, and don’t appear before me again.”
“I just…”
“You smell dangerous.”
“Huh?”
“You smell incredibly dangerous, in a way I’ve never smelled before.”
Did she know by instinct? She was so sharp it gave me chills.
I thought she was only miming, but when I looked at her hands again, a bow and arrow had somehow begun to materialize translucently.
They were like weapons made of glass.
“If you make a suspicious move, I’ll kill you. Faster than you can blink.”
“……”
I lamented inwardly.
It seemed I had approached her too lightly. I had only thought of the fact that she traveled alone as an advantage, but if I looked at it the other way around—
This girl had achieved feats alone that others could not. It would not be strange if her vigilance were several times stronger than other people’s.
The girl’s threat to kill me felt sincere, so I took a step back.
“I’m not a dangerous person. My name is Dekal. I came to Marne not long ago.”
“I don’t want to hear it. Go.”
…Her wariness matched her looks.
Should I admit failure and withdraw? Or should I force it and try snapping my fingers anyway?
When the other party had already drawn a weapon, as if she had grasped my very nature, I was supposed to do that?
Her saying she would kill me faster than I could blink was neither bluff nor anything else.
No helping it.
I had no choice but to reveal that I was the goddess’s proxy here and try to draw her interest.
I would tell her something that would bring me no benefit at all by revealing it. That was how much I did not want to let that woman go.
“Aren’t you that fool from earlier?”
“Huh?!”
I was suddenly shoved aside and ended up falling over.
When I raised my head, Sallik was looking down at me with a grin.
“Lady, don’t mind whatever this idiot said. He’s a half-wit who isn’t even Bronze-rank.”
“…”
“You…”
“I was going to teach you a lesson earlier, but you just ran away, didn’t you?”
Sallik kicked me as I was.
Ugh! That son of a bitch. Getting hit out of nowhere hurt like hell.
“Get up. I’ll make sure you come to your senses.”
“Stop it.”
At that moment, the elf girl stopped Sallik.
“That person didn’t say anything to me.”
“Then that’s good. Lady, is this your first time in Marne? I’ll treat you to a meal.”
The elf girl shook her head expressionlessly.
“Hmm…”
Having been rejected, Sallik looked at me with displeasure, spat on the ground, and left.
“Ugh…”
How long had it been since I’d been properly hit?
As I was trying to pick myself up from the ground, the girl approached me.
There was no weapon in her hand.
“Here.”
She readily held out her hand.
What was this? She had been so on edge until just now…
“I’m sorry I scared you with strange words. It seems I misunderstood…”
Ah.
I could imagine how pitiful I must have looked from the girl’s point of view.
After hesitating without even managing to speak to her, I had suddenly been knocked down and beaten as well.
It was a situation that had occurred by pure coincidence, without any intention to fabricate it. That guy had barged in as a fitting villain, and her suspicions had blurred.
“You mean saying things like I smelled dangerous?”
I lifted my arm and pretended to sniff myself.
Then, unusually, the girl made something like an expression and grew bashful.
“…Th-that was.”
“That’s strange. I took a shower.”
“Anyway… I’ll be going.”
The girl tried to hurry away as if fleeing.
“Ah, wait a moment.”
“Yes?”
I snapped my fingers in front of the girl’s eyes.
It was perfect timing, aimed at the instant she had let her guard down.
Even amid that, perhaps she did react, because an arrow began forming in the girl’s hand, then gradually disappeared.
“Your name?”
“…I can’t say…”
Impressive. To refuse a question even in a trance.
A trance state was mentally almost completely defenseless, and its characteristic was that the subject became obedient, as if made to listen to commands.
However, on rare occasions, highly vigilant girls would say words of refusal.
But there was no need to get impatient.
“What’s the reason you can’t say your name?”
“Elves… don’t trust humans.”
They don’t trust humans, huh.
If it was directed not at an individual but at an entire race, it seemed to be deep-rooted distrust.
“Then do you not trust all humans?”
“…No.”
“What about me, standing in front of you?”
“I don’t trust you.”
With her eyes open and in a daze, the girl continued to answer.
“That’s wrong.”
“Wrong…?”
“Dekal is one of the people you trust the most. It’s unthinkable for you to doubt his words.”
“You are… one of the people I trust the most… doubting you… is unthinkable…”
She repeated what I said like a doll.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Because of that, if I hate you, it feels very painful and unpleasant.”
“Painful and unpleasant…”
“So you don’t want me to hate you.”
“Yes…”
“I don’t want that person to hate me.”
This keyword was worth seeing no matter what woman it was placed on. It was especially fatal on cool-headed women.
If used on a woman who had built up so many walls that even ordinary communication was difficult, then even without deliberately saying “obey my commands” and provoking resistance,
it could produce an interesting situation.
Of course, making them submit was fun in its own way.
In any case, the first suggestion was complete.
Clap.
I clapped my hands and woke her.
The elf girl immediately stepped back and aimed an invisible bow at me.
“What did you do to my body?”
“Don’t be like that. We haven’t known each other long, but we trust each other, don’t we?”
“Ah?”
The expression of the girl aiming the bow went slightly blank.
Her emotions seemed to be in confusion, and she appeared flustered.
“If I did something wrong, I’ll apologize.”
I approached. Slowly.
“N-no… Dekal…”
The girl spoke blankly, as if she could not believe her own feelings.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That’s a relief. I’d like to call you by name. Can you tell me your name?”
“All of a sudden?”
“Is that not allowed?”
The elf girl flinched and trembled.
That was the first fear of hers I had seen.
“If it’s you, Dekal, then it’s all right… I’m called Isti.”
“Nice.”
“…”
While we spoke, the bow Isti held had completely dematerialized and disappeared.
“Shall we go to an inn before it gets any later tonight?”
“I was planning to leave right away tonight…”
“You don’t want to?”
“U-um…”
Isti’s expressionless face crumbled.
Just from seeing that pretty face furrow its brow, I could tell how much of a ripple my few words had caused in Isti’s heart.
“All right. I’ll rest for a day before I go.”
“Let’s go.”
I took Isti’s hand and walked.
For an instant, she made a motion as if to pull her hand away, but Isti could not bring herself to do it completely and followed me in confusion.