For some time now, something had been eating away at me. Something involving a certain pointy-eared fantasy race.

When I first encountered Yelah and her little team of mercenaries, something stuck out. Literally. Each of them were unique in their own way, but still had that quintessential human feeling. Grehn was a huge guy. Vlugh had his dark skin and white hair. Rette was slender with straight, raven-black hair. And Yelah’s messy, dirty blond mane made for quite the topper on her wiry human sundae.

All seemed fine. Except their ears.

While the four humans sported somewhat exaggerated features, they in no way felt alien. That is, except for their slightly pointy ears. Honestly, it could be anything. It wasn’t even that out of place on a human body. When I had questioned them about it, they couldn’t understand me. But thanks to Dip, I learned that, apparently, they were humans. And you know what? I was happy with that answer.

I mean, their ears weren’t that pointy. Maybe half elf level or something. Or even less, perhaps. I knew they were humans for sure when the Linker Bees attached themselves to them. So that was the end of that.

I mean, I can be patient. Sometimes. At some point, the opportunity would come, and I could confirm the existence of elves and learn why these humans had slightly pointy ears. I was busy, after all. It was an interesting idea, but not one I needed to confirm urgently. And so, I bode my time.

Looking around Yiwi through the humans’ and Ben’s eyes, I wondered if I might catch a glimpse of a humanoid creature that defines popular fantasy. No dice.

And then it happened. In a debt collector’s hideout, no less. A tall, skinny person with massive pointy ears. I had finally found one.

“What the fuck is an elf?”

Yoho stared in confusion at Yelah, who slapped her hand over her mouth. She had forgotten herself, blurting out the response without thinking. A response, by the way, WHICH IS FUCKING STUPID.

“Excuse me? What do you mean by that exactly, little miss Yelah? What. Do. You. MEAN?!”

“Like I said, what the fuck is an elf? I have no idea what that is. Is that another word for ‘bag of dicks?’ Cause I can assure you, Harven is definitely one of those.” She said in her head. At least she was being careful. Who cares about being careful?!

No. No no no. I was not accepting an answer like that!

“I think I’ve heard Rette say something like that before, but…” Grehn mumbled.

That’s it. Box time.

I frantically instructed the B-boxes to search for anything elf-related in the memories of every human I controlled. I even made Dip’s memories get searched. And the results?

Monumentally disappointing.

Yelah had never heard of elves in her life. However, she did interact with Harven. Since I made the B-boxes search based on my perception of elves, he showed up several times thanks to his physical appearance. Vlugh had never interacted with Harven, but he had seen two other Drevani who had elf-like features. Apparently he had met them both on separate occasions during gatherings of Drevani emigrants, and wait who cares about that?!

Toh’s memories were also useless. He had just seen Harven once or twice. Grehn had a little more, but it was basically nothing. He had seen Harven exactly once, and knew someone from his hometown back in Rikitan who had the trademark features.

However, not a single one of the humans had ever heard the word ‘elf’. Except two. Grehn, as he mentioned, had heard it in passing from Rette once some time ago. And speaking of Rette, she was the only human with any useful knowledge.

Rette’s memories contained a few instances of elven ideas. However, her important memories were with her father, not with mentioning it to others like with Grehn.

There wasn’t much there. The memories were unfocused, either because of Rette’s young age or because she seemed more interested in playing with her toy money than listening to her father’s ramblings. But what she knew was that her father, a scientist and historian, focused much of his research on elves.

Beyond that? Not much else.

Curses!

What was I supposed to gather from this? Nobody knows what elves are. There are people from many different countries who can have elven features. Even people from an isolated country like Dreva, or from the island nation of Rikitan, had natives with elven features. And what else? That Rette’s dad, a Riktish scientist, studied elves in some capacity.

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If that was the case, then elves weren’t completely unknown in this world. The fact that Rette, who didn’t actually look at her father’s research, heard him specifically mention the word ‘elf’ meant that elves as I knew them existed in some way, shape, or form. And that people knew about and studied them.

“Alright guys. Side project. I want you to investigate any and all material on elves.”

“Is something like that really that relevant…?”

“Yes it is, Yelah! It’s a big deal!”

Was I mistaken? I kept holding assumptions and ideas for what this world had in store, and it kept pissing me the fuck off!

I mean, I knew to expect the unexpected. It was within expectations for unexpected things to pop up. But my real problem was with the unexpected direction taken by some things I expected to be unexpected! I mean, I expected them to be unexpected in a certain way and then they just went in a totally different direction and were nothing like I expected!

That makes sense.

Well, were other fantasy races present? Goblins? Orcs? All the rest? I had originally been content with waiting to find out for myself, but now I knew elves existed. They existed, but nobody really knew about them. So what about other fantasy races? It would be good to know if they existed, at least, and in what capacity.

I decided that now was as good a time as any to investigate such matters by looking into some memories. I’ll be back soon to help with the medical stuff, Queen!

“Excuse me? First you surprise me with some emergency after I just finished an interesting project, and now you will leave me to work on the emergency myself? You responsibility dodging snake! Hey! Respond! Enno!?”

________

“Poo. Why do I have to do this one?”

Vlugh was having a fun time. His massive scowl really highlighted that. After the Queen had freaked out about something or other, the mercenaries had split up to do various important things related to the Yiwi Operation. Oh, and Grehn had gone to the library to skim some scrolls to find something about ‘elves’.

Yelah was also going to have a good time. Since Yoho wanted to follow her around, she got stuck with a bunch of random errands to avoid exposing everything.

Speaking of everything. Vlugh was feeling like he absolutely did not want to do anything. His head hurt, his stomach felt stupid, and he really wanted a refreshing drink. Preferably something with lemons. But those fucking knight assholes just had to destroy their orchards. And nobody in Yiwi wanted to make anything with Lemonholm’s lemons, quite understandably.

But most of all, Vlugh felt a visceral pain in the pit of his heart. All because of the monster bees.

His memories had a lapse. After getting captured by the monsters, the Queen had tried to control his Mind. For reasons unknown to him, the Queen chose him. And there was no way he would allow that to happen. It went against everything he believed. It was an invasion so deep and critical that Vlugh was resolute in his decision to change his Life.

And from there, all was blank. Had he succeeded in changing his Life? Had he succeeded in… abandoning his friends?

No.

Somewhere in there, Vlugh remembered something foreign attaching itself to his Mind. He had failed. And he was relieved.

He hadn’t abandoned his friends! He was alive! But wait… Something itched at him, all the way until he woke up. A little presence on the back of his neck. Ultimately, he had fallen under the control of those freaky monster bees, despite his best attempt at resisting.

And it was great. Which was horrible.

Every time Vlugh thought of resisting again, those thoughts were instantly shut down. He couldn’t reach back to remove the Linker Bee. He couldn’t even think of changing his Life. Every time he did, a faint vision of antennae in the shape of glasses appeared and something completely derailed his thoughts.

And so, he was having a great time. And that was all before he had even gotten to this freaking boring meeting.

All those thoughts were ethereal, but this meeting was right in Vlugh’s face. Of all things, he had been tasked with attending the upcoming Yiwi Fighters meeting. So he had sauntered over to the open-air pavilion with foldy chairs everywhere wearing a big fat smile, sat down for several hours, and ended up with a big fat scowl.

This shit was boring. Capital everything. Vlugh realized that as long as he heard and watched the speeches, he didn’t have to pay attention at all! The monsters could sort through all that crap themselves, so why torture himself by thinking about the boring stuff? Unfortunately, that meant he ended up thinking about infuriating stuff instead. Like the aforementioned monsters.

So either way, Vlugh would end up having a fun time.

“…and the mercenaries? Those guys will always side with the City lord, won’t they?”

Oho? Talking about mercenaries? Vlugh was a mercenary! But he saw that the dull speaker was about to respond, so he began to zone out again-

“Excuse me sir, may I speak about this?”

Instead of the old, crusty dude, a new face stood up to speak. The speaker, who had been putting Vlugh to sleep, grimaced at the young man but relinquished his spot. The new guy was energetic with a bright face, and Vlugh recognized him as one who had been sitting with rapt attention in the front row. Two other people also stood up and proudly positioned themselves at the sides of the new kid as he began to talk.

As for what the new guy said? He went on and on about how mercenaries weren’t all money-hungry bastards, but that even if they were, then they should be even angrier at the City Lord than anyone else.

Well, he wasn’t as boring as the old guy. Vlugh could get behind that. And he was pissed off at the City Lord. No more damn lemons!

Maybe these meetings wouldn’t be a complete waste of time after all.

The kid hijacked the meeting completely. Even the grumpy old guy from before got into things, shouting and cheering at momentous moments. As for Vlugh? He was starting to like the kid’s style. He really seemed like he wanted to make a difference.

But Vlugh wouldn’t be swayed completely. Partly due to the ever-present force in his head. Even so, when the meeting was officially adjourned, Vlugh found himself sauntering up towards the kid who was being mobbed by onlookers.

“Please excuse us, everyone. We need to return to our leader.”

“Outta the way! Get outta here!”

The trio pushed their way into a side alley, somehow managing to escape as other peace keepers kept the crowd at bay. They took a deep sigh of relief just as they bumped into the waiting arms of Vlugh.

“Yo! Nice speech, dude. You been in the Fighters long?” Vlugh asked with a big smile. The stocky guy quickly moved in front of the other two, instantly wary about a shady mercenary appearing in a shady alley. Unfortunately, he stood no chance. At least, that was the estimation of a certain excitable bee who was watching from the tops of the buildings.

“Excuse us, Mr Mercenary,” the main kid said, “we really must be on our way.”

The trio moved to squeeze past Vlugh, who made no motion to stop them. No matter. Vlugh had achieved his goal.

Hm? His goal? Ah, yes. Of course! His goal was to make his appearance and self known to the trio so he could appear as a familiar face at a later time. Just another brilliant Vlugh maneuver.

Except that there was no such thing as a brilliant Vlugh maneuver. He might be a bit silly, but Vlugh wasn’t as big of an idiot as he sometimes made himself out to be. Sure, he might grandstand and all that, but he had at least some semblance of self-awareness. Yelah and Rette were the smart ones. Even Grehn had his moments. But Vlugh didn’t make the plans. He didn’t have the ideas.

This was another invasion. The image of glasses appeared again, and it was confirmed in Vlugh’s eyes. Even when the Queen was distracted, he stood no chance. Something was always lurking there, ready to move him around like a puppet to achieve its dark machinations. There was no escape.

But then again, that wasn’t Vlugh’s style either. He could still hold out hope. Last time, he had tried to resist by escaping. By leaving his friends behind. But that was a mistake. He would resist in a better way this time. Every moment of captivity was a chance to resist.

That speech kid really was inspiring!