“Welcome.”
When we arrived at the entrance, an attendant bowed to us.
This restaurant, like the boutique from earlier, operated by reservation only,
but when Elladrien showed them a plaque bearing the crest of House Roten, we were allowed in right away.
As it turned out, she had made a reservation in advance under the Roten name.
“I was originally going to come with Signica, but when I talked to her today, she told me to just go with you.”
“Ah…”
And so we entered Ruzadin de Saveur.
The interior was far more splendid than anything I had expected before coming in, or even back when I had heard about the restaurant.
Of course, there was an even more dazzling… elf who might as well have been an exhibitionist beside me, but the interior décor was still impressive enough to draw my gaze.
“Please wait here for a moment. Your food will be prepared shortly.”
The place we were shown to was, at a glance, a private room meant for VIPs.
‘Wow, damn, look how soft this chair is.’
Usually, restaurants deliberately made their chairs uncomfortable to increase turnover,
but here, everything was perfectly arranged so that one could dine in comfort.
‘As for Miss Elladrien…’
I glanced up at her for a moment, and unlike me, she seemed quite used to places like this.
The sight of her calmly sitting there waiting for the food contrasted sharply with me.
Noticing my reaction, Elladrien asked me,
“Is this your first time coming to a place like this?”
“Yes. I heard it was really expensive… so it felt a little burdensome to come alone.”
It might have been embarrassing to say in front of an attractive woman that it was my first time here, but I decided to be honest.
Because I knew that pure honesty looked better than clumsy bravado.
“You’ll be eating at places like this a lot from now on. We’re the Hero’s party, carrying all sorts of responsibilities and destinies, so the Imperial Family takes very good care of us when it comes to things like this.”
“Will the Imperial Family take care of me too?”
“Bell told them to treat you the same as us.”
“Ah…”
The Imperial Family formally acknowledging me as a member of the Hero’s party must already have been a considerable concession.
It seemed Veronica had worked even harder for me than I’d thought.
“I’ll have to thank her later.”
“Mm. That would be good.”
With those words, we remained silent until the food arrived.
There wasn’t really anything else to talk about right away, and it seemed the situation still felt far too awkward for both of us.
—Clatter.
“Wah.”
A magic circle suddenly appeared on the table, and food materialized before my eyes.
“Pfft.”
Elladrien let out a small laugh at the sight of me being startled.
“Sorry. I didn’t think you’d react like that, but it was cuter than I expected.”
“……”
At her words, I grew a little embarrassed and lowered my head for a moment.
“Let’s eat. I’m hungry.”
“Yes.”
—Click. Click.
Forks and knives moved neatly over the table.
There were all kinds of knives and forks laid out.
“You use this one for fish, and this one for salad…”
Elladrien explained various things for my sake, since it was my first time,
“But you can just eat however you’re comfortable. As long as you can eat it, that’s enough.”
In truth, even as I listened to her explanation, I had been thinking the same thing inside,
so I decided to eat however I wan—
No. Absolutely not.
If I was going to eat that way, why would she have gone out of her way to explain each utensil’s purpose to me?
Eating according to her explanation as much as possible was both courtesy and an expression of gratitude toward her.
“Hm…”
Look at that.
She was humming as if she was pleased…
Wait.
“Um… Miss Elladrien?”
“Mm? What is it?”
“That smile looks like the kind someone would make while watching a little child…?”
“You are a child.”
“No… I mean, I am, but.”
When I raised my head and looked at her expression, I didn’t feel all that great about it.
It felt like I was being treated like a kid…
You know.
Like when a baby takes its first steps and the parents clap beside them with proud smiles.
It felt exactly like that.
“Still, I’d rather be treated as a man than as a child… I’m not that young by human standards.”
At those words, Elladrien looked at me as if surprised,
“So you know how to say things like that too. You’re more of a player than I thought.”
“No, I’m not asking you to see me romantically…!”
“I know, I know. I know what you mean. I was just teasing you.”
She picked up a piece of salmon from her plate and put it in her mouth.
“If you really don’t want to look like a child, then show me that kind of side someday.”
“What kind of side, for example?”
She thought for a moment at my question, then answered.
“Hmm… I’ve liked knights from the human world since long ago.”
This time, I looked surprised at her words.
“Knights?”
“Yes. The reason I joined the Hero’s party was, well… partly because I was summoned, but I also wanted to see a true knight in the human world.”
“A true knight…”
I pondered what a true knight was, not just an ordinary knight.
Then she added further explanation to help me understand.
“A knight who, when the lord they serve is driven to the edge of a cliff, remains loyal to that lord until the very end and protects them.”
“Ah.”
I immediately understood what she meant by a true knight.
Most knights nowadays simply referred to warriors who had reached Expert.
But in the distant past,
a knight was not a title granted simply because one had reached Expert.
It was a title nobles bestowed only upon those they truly trusted.
That was what a knight was.
Because of that, if someone was called another person’s knight, it was often impossible to win them over at all.
The relationship between the two would not have been an ordinary one.
They say it’s the axe you trust that strikes your foot, so from an enemy’s perspective, such knights were the first targets they tried to persuade,
but later on, since everyone knew it wouldn’t work anyway, it apparently became more of a perfunctory attempt.
“But aren’t people like that the sort who only show up in books from hundreds of years ago?”
When she heard me, she made a bitter expression.
“Elves are beings that live forever. We don’t interact with humans much these days, but in the distant past, we had a lot of exchange with them. So all the books about humans in our libraries are easily hundreds of years old…”
As soon as I heard her explanation, I nodded.
Indeed, elves and humans today did not have active exchanges.
They only occasionally sent official envoys to each other; it wasn’t as if civilians or merchants traveled back and forth.
From what I’d heard, about two hundred years ago, a noble of the Empire kidnapped one of the High Elves known as shrine maidens who conveyed the words of the World Tree, and the two races had nearly gone to war over it.
Fortunately, the humans bound and sent every member of that noble house to the elves, then paid an enormous amount of compensation, barely preserving the level of relations they had now.
“Anyway, it was just as you said. Those kinds of knights have already vanished now. I wondered what kind of character they must have to bear the title of knight, but when I looked, all they did was stare at me with lecherous thoughts.”
The moment I heard that, countless things to refute her with sprang up in my head.
But for now, I should keep my mouth shut.
I could ask later if the situation allowed.
“So now I’ve pretty much given up on finding someone like that. Once we defeat the Demon King, I’ll return to Ernia.”
“Ernia… That’s the elven capital where the World Tree is, right?”
“That’s right. A fertile and blessed land.”
“I heard the trees there are 120 meters tall? I honestly can’t even imagine it.”
“They’d have to be about that big for us to build houses in them and live there, wouldn’t they?”
“I would like to see it at least once… though that’s probably impossible.”
“It’s a shame, that’s all…”
We continued our meal while chatting about this and that.
Then,
“Wine?”
“Yes. Just a simple pairing.”
Wine.
They called it pairing, but in the end, alcohol was alcohol.
And alcohol was a magical liquid that made courage well up inside you when you drank it.
As soon as I saw the wine, I thought,
‘If I drink this, maybe I can ask the thing I’ve been curious about but holding back.’
The “I’ll ask when the situation allows” situation I had mentioned earlier seemed to be right now.
I carefully took the glass in my hand,
—Gulp. Gulp.
and drank it down without even bothering to savor the aroma or anything.
“Haa…”
Seeing me, Elladrien asked with a worried expression,
“A-are you okay? It’s not as if it has no alcohol content at all.”
“I’m fine. There’s something I want to ask, even if I have to do this…”
At those words, her eyes narrowed slightly.
“I’m curious what you’re trying to ask that you’d even borrow the power of wine.”
She placed both elbows on the table, propped her chin in her hands, and said to me,
“Ask. I’ll answer just about anything.”
—Gulp.
This time, it wasn’t wine that went down my throat.
The saliva that had pooled in my mouth forced its way down my Adam’s apple.
“Um… this might be a rude question.”
“Mm.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and,
“By any chance… is exposure some kind of culture among elves…?”
I blurted out the question I had been holding inside.
“Hm…?”
When she heard my question, her expression went blank as if she’d been struck,
“Hahahak!”
Then she burst into laughter, slapping her knee so loudly it didn’t suit her appearance at all.
“Haah… seriously. So that was bothering you that much?”
“Y-yes. It’s not that I was looking at you with lecherous eyes like you mentioned earlier, Miss Elladrien, but since I’m a man, I kept noticing…”
As she listened to me, she wiped away tears and finally answered my question.
“Ugh… seriously. All right, first of all. I did feel your gaze. But I understand that kind of gaze, so don’t worry too much. Like you said, it’s true I’m wearing clothes like this.”
“That’s a relief…”
“And second, the reason elves wear clothes that reveal a fair amount of skin is because of communion with spirits and nature. If your body is covered too much by clothing, it becomes a bit difficult to commune with them.”
At her explanation, I nodded and rinsed my mouth with water.
I had thought it might be a much ruder question than expected, so I had even drunk wine before asking, but judging by her reaction, there didn’t seem to be any need to stay tipsy.
“Oh, and for reference, even if you did look at me a little lecherously, I probably wouldn’t mind.”
Mm.
Am I already drunk?
I feel like I just heard something absurd.
“Have some confidence. You’re quite handsome, enough for even an elf like me to acknowledge it. Your personality and the way you speak are pretty likable too.”
“Uh…”
For now, I lowered my head and said,
“Thank you.”
I didn’t understand it, but I thanked her anyway.
“The fact that I wore these clothes today was Nika’s idea too. She asked me to tell her how you reacted if I went out dressed like this. And other things, like what sort of things you like.”
Signica Violet did…?
“Why would she…”
At my question, she dropped another bombshell.
“She’s got a serious thing for handsome faces.”
“???”
Pardon?
The mage, who should be the most rational person in the party… is obsessed with looks?
“No, actually. Being into faces is the rational thing. If she weren’t rational, wouldn’t she end up feeling attracted to someone who obviously has no charm at all?”
No… she’s not wrong.
“She told you from the start, didn’t she? That she brought you along because she liked your face. She meant it.”
“Ah…”
“Until now, young lords who heard the rumor that Nika liked handsome faces and thought they were fairly good-looking approached her, but she brushed them all off with an indifferent expression. But with you, she was completely delighted like a young girl, saying you were handsome.”
No, she is a young girl right now, so saying “like a young girl” is a bit strange, isn’t it?
As she muttered that in front of me, I felt like some uncivilized thing drifting through outer space.
It was like I had been confronted with a massive truth far beyond my level to handle.
“Ah, right.”
Even in that situation, I gathered myself and brought up the final thing I had resolved to say to her.
“Thank you for what you did in the dungeon. Sacrificing your own spirit couldn’t have been an easy decision.”
When she heard me, she lowered her head briefly.
“No. I was lacking. I’ve always been more interested in the bow than spirits. So I kept putting off spirit arts… The timing was just bad. From now on, I’m going to work hard at spirit arts too.”
“Will you make a new contract with a spirit?”
“I’ll have to. But it’ll probably be very difficult. I let a spirit die to a demonic beast. Spirits hate being destroyed by demonic energy more than anything. The rumor has probably spread all over the spirit realm.”
“Sylphy endured that for our sake…”
“……”
She fell into thought for a moment.
Perhaps countless memories of her own were passing through her mind.
“That’s why it’s all the more regrettable. But what can I do? I can only treat the next one better.”
With that conversation as the last, we left the restaurant.
After returning to the marquis’s castle, we exchanged farewells and parted ways.
Perhaps because it was fine dining, the meal took longer than I had expected, and the sky was already beginning to darken.
“It was a good time.”
If I hadn’t had this sort of time with her, it probably would have taken far longer to grow closer to Elladrien.
I had been a little flustered at first, but it hadn’t been a bad time. Thinking back on it that way, I went about my personal tasks and ended the day.