I sit at the gate, listening to Arsep explain this other race.
I don’t have much information on other races.
I’ve seen a variety of them myself, from demons to dark elves, but I only really saw them—I don’t know anything about the characteristics of each race.
The little I do know is that beastmen have animal features and elves have pointed ears, and that’s about it.
So, it seemed necessary to at least learn the basics.
“How do you distinguish between dark elves and regular elves?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I misspoke. I meant, how can you tell that Flua is a dark elf?”
When I think about it, I can guess that Flua is an elf based on appearance alone, but I wouldn’t know she’s a dark elf just by looking at her.
The main feature of dark elves is their dark skin, but the dark elf girl in front of me has fair skin.
Pointed ears indicate she’s an elf, but there’s no reason to assume she’s a dark elf.
“You can tell if you can distinguish the unique magic of dark elves. In the first place, even with simple transformation magic, appearances can easily be deceived. It’s best to learn how to distinguish others by their magic.”
Arsep claims that she identified Flua’s race by discerning her distinctive dark elf magic.
Since I still don’t understand what magic is, I can’t make use of that.
“Of course, highly skilled individuals can even disguise their magic as that of another race.”
“…I see.”
“Moreover, elves either have green or golden hair.”
“Are there green-haired elves?”
“Yes, just as the larger race of elves is divided into elves and dark elves, within that, they’re also divided into fairy-elves and human-realm elves.”
Up until now, all the elves I’d seen were blond.
I’d never heard of green-haired elves.
“Green-haired elves are rare. They’re pure-blooded, carrying only the blood of elves, and they inherently hold racial prejudice as basic etiquette.”
On the other hand, blond elves supposedly have other races mixed into their lineage, and they’re elves who coexist well with other races…
“Well, it’s not something we need to concern ourselves with. Let’s leave the matter of elven society here.”
Arsep commented that digging too deeply into such topics only makes things more complicated.
At some point, she brought Flua over and seated her beside him.
She sat the girl on his lap and began combing her hair.
Her purplish hair, nearly black, smoothed out like silk threads.
“Come to think of it, how old is Flua?”
Flua seemed to be counting on her fingers, then spread both hands wide, signaling the number ten.
“100?”
I thought that meant she was 100 years old.
Most people would assume, based on her appearance, that Flua is about ten, but I already knew that elves are a long-lived race.
So, I figured each finger represented a decade, not a single year.
But Flua shook her head…
‘Could she be even older than I expected?’
Was I the youngest here, after all?
Even if she’s only 100, she’s much older than me—but adding another zero seems excessive, doesn’t it?
“Is it… 1000?”
“What nonsense are you talking about? Isn’t it obvious she’s ten?”
Arsep scolded me for making a rude remark and told me to get a grip.
At her words, Flua nodded in agreement.
“So… she’s ten.”
“What on earth were you thinking, assuming Flua was not only 100 but even 1000? She’s clearly just a child.”
“Elves are long-lived, so I naturally thought she would be older than me despite her youthful appearance.”
“That’s just a silly rumor made up by unmarried, over-aged elves. While it’s good that you’re curious about other races, it’s important to distinguish fact from fiction.”
A silly rumor by unmarried elves, huh.
It feels like my understanding of common knowledge is being denied.
It’s as if my world of fantasy is crumbling.
Then again, this wasn’t my world in the first place.
“How old?”
Flua, who had been listening quietly, pointed at Arsep and asked.
“Ah… me?”
Since I’d answered about my age, she was now asking about Arsep’s age.
She seemed visibly flustered by the question.
“…Curious.”
Arsep’s age, huh.
Judging by appearance alone, she looked younger than me.
However, I knew she had been asleep for several centuries, and considering her time in action and other factors…
“Haha! The weather is nice; let’s go for a walk! Sitting around beneath the blue sky isn’t ideal!”
Arsep quickly diverted the conversation and suggested a walk, almost as if she were trying to escape.
“…In the demon realm, is this considered good weather?”
Flua asked, pointing to the sky, and I just nodded in response.
In the demon realm, the default sky color is red.
For now, we followed Arsep on the walk.
Though there aren’t any scenic views in the demon realm, the air itself feels surprisingly fresh and clean.
Perhaps that’s why there’s a lot of wildlife.
Well, to be precise, they’re not really wildlife but rather wild monsters.
From various rainbow-colored slimes, supposedly even stronger in pure magic than Arsep, to mindless, oversized orcs with barely any intelligence.
Sometimes you’d even encounter multi-headed snakes or bat-like creatures that fly like slimes.
And besides them, there are giant single-eyed spiders, scorpions, and ants that pop up from time to time.
“Why build a castle in a place like this?”
“I’d like to ask my past self the same thing….”
Arsep, clinging tightly to my back, refused to come down to the ground.
She didn’t just fear monster insects; she downright despised them.
And, of all times, we happened upon an area where insect-type monsters frequently appeared during our walk.
At this point, she refused to walk on the ground herself.
Even Flua, who is much younger than she is, walks on her own two feet.
Anyway, I’m the one dealing with all the monsters.
“Monster…”
“Fl-Flua! Drop that right now! It’s filthy!”
Flua picked up a spider-shaped monster’s remains at her feet, and Arsep flailed in horror.
“Flua, don’t you find monsters disgusting?”
“…I don’t know.”
“Do you really need to ask? That giant, sticky eyeball, the fuzzy body, and those multiple legs… it’s as if the gods themselves failed in creating it!”
Arsep muttered, trembling as she made a comment that would surely hurt any monster’s feelings.
“Over there…”
Ignoring her, Flua pointed into the forest.
“What’s over there?”
“…Nest.”
Hearing the word “nest,” I decided to venture into the forest.
“Ugh… ahhh…”
“This is quite a lot.”
As we entered, Arsep nearly fainted on the spot, frothing at the mouth.
It was understandable; even I felt a chill seeing a giant spider staring back at us.
And it wasn’t alone; there were hundreds of smaller spiders, each about the size of a cat, crawling across webs.
Even someone unafraid of bugs would find the sight repulsive.
“Flua, how did you know there was a nest here?”
More than anything, I was curious how Flua had figured out that there was a massive spider here.
I could sense the presence of monsters, but there were so many in the forest that I couldn’t tell one from another.
The best I could discern by presence alone was a rough sense of a monster’s size.
“The monsters’ magic… it was all…”
“It was connected here, then.”
Flua nodded.
‘Is that perhaps a unique ability of dark elves?’ I wondered.
‘Or could it be that she has an unusually strong sense for the magic that Arsep had mentioned?’
Either way, this is perfect timing.
Recently, there’s been an increase in monsters lingering near the castle, and if I can take down this nest, I’ll have fewer spider remains to clean up.
Not that it mattered, as the swarm of spiders had already begun closing in on us.
“Flua, could you hold Arsep up for a moment?”
Leaving the half-fainted Arsep in Flua’s care, I found a suitable rock nearby.
Although I couldn’t use magic, I had honed a unique technique of my own.
This was a good opportunity to test it.
A little trick I’d practiced when I had spare time.
I threw the large rock toward the monsters, then quickly followed it with a smaller stone aimed at the larger one.
Crash!
In mid-air, the big rock shattered into multiple fragments.
BOOM! BAM! CRASH!
The shattered fragments flew even faster, sweeping through the swarm of spiders, while the stone I’d thrown kept going, piercing the giant spider’s eye.
“Why don’t you use the sword at your waist?”
Flua pointed to the sword on my belt.
It was something an adventurer had abandoned and fled.
“Oh, this is just for decoration. I can’t really use swords, bows, or any weapon. So, throwing stones is the best I can manage.”
It was only natural.
Maybe I could handle a gun, but here, in a world where I’d never even touched a sword, bow, or spear before, it was unthinkable that I’d know how to use them.
In the end, stone-throwing was the best I could do.
“Wouldn’t bare hands be better?”
“Using bare hands would make them dirty.”
I brushed the dirt off my hands and lifted Arsep back onto my back.
That aside, for some reason, Flua was looking at me as if I were a strange person.
‘Did I make a mistake just now?’