MEETING

“I heard there was a human, so I’ve come to grace you with my presence.”

My dungeon cell had a single, locked door to the outside, from which the only other openings were a long waist-level slot where food was occasionally slid into, and a head-level window with some brass bars to prevent escape.

From this window, I saw the face of a young girl, speaking in an overly haughty tone as she looked down at me. I couldn’t see much of her body through the door, but she appeared to be wearing a sort of head-dress made of almost translucent material that I could only guess cost a pretty penny or two.

In addition to her apparent wealth, my visitor also had a very young and youthful appearance. Of course, being in a town of elves (I could even see her pointed ears between strands of light brownish, almost red colored hair), this was little surprise, and it was impossible to tell her age by her face alone. But I kinda had that feeling about her.

In other words, I was graced with the presence of a rich brat.

What am I supposed to do with this girl, exactly?

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It was barely the day after creating Aya, and two days after meeting my first other-worlders, the lightly tanned elves of this oasis town called Alrakne, and so far I’ve been mildly comfortable. I was fed decent enough meals each day, and wasn’t forced to undergo anything all that embarrassing, beyond having to learn how waste is handled here.

Something I’d learned on my first day here was that the town was preparing for a festival in a couple days. They wanted to cart me off to some human settlement, but anyone who’d be willing to take me was currently busy with the preparations.

As for the nature of the festival itself… I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t managed to worm that out of the guards yet, but from what Aya gathered it was some kind of celebration relating to the sun.

What’s more, today was day of the festival itself, so I expected I wouldn’t be getting any visitors, besides my one or two meals.

So then, why is this girl here?

“Stand,” she ordered in a demanding tone. I remained seated on the ground, wearing only the simple robes I’d been wearing since arriving in this world. I worried for what might happen if my Adaptive Clothing was “confiscated” for being too luxurious, but it would be weird if they were suddenly replaced with lower quality garbs.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem the guards cared enough to bother, and probably figured they’d be proof of my value or something. Dunno.

“I was told you could speak?”

My nosed scrunched up for a moment. What’s with this girl?

“Yes, I can speak just fine,” I replied in the same language as herself. I’d almost gotten use to speaking with Aya, who was able to speak English with me.

“Oh! You speak in the tongue of the High Elves! I wasn’t told of this,” the young girl said, as if finding something amazing.

Tongue of the High Elves? Is she a High Elf?

I thought for a moment. She wasn’t speaking a different language from all the other elves. No, wait. There’s some kind of dialectal differences, like comparing Californian English to Cockney. The core words and how they were put together were the same, but there were clear differences in phonology and diction.

“I speak many tongues, little one,” I answered. “All tongues, even.” A little advertisement wouldn’t hurt.

“Is that so?” She asked, both amazed and skeptical of my claim. The girl seemed ready to test my claim, but instead asked for an explanation. “Then why did you ignore my order?”

I tilted my head to the side, as if to look at the young girl like she was stupid… Though she probably couldn’t see my expression in the dark very well. In fact, she likely couldn’t see me very well at all, given her eyes occasionally squinted in the dark, trying to make out my outline.

“A kid appears unannounced while I’m enjoying my peace and quiet, and without even introducing herself, she begins making demands of me as if I were her servant. That, is why I ignored your order.”

Lecturing people while in my position was probably a bad idea. But… She gave off the impression of being a child, that I felt admonishing her was natural.

Of course, I still felt it might be a good idea to make sure that didn’t undermine the authority she probably had, without realizing it. I wasn’t sure what kind of status she had.

I wasn’t that stupid.

“Hmph. Shouldn’t it be obvious enough that I’m a High Elf Royal?” She spoke in a boisterous tone, as if proud of her lineage. So not just a High Elf, but some kind of Royal? Still, she seemed reluctant to give her name.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Wait, perhaps being a “High Elf” is some kind of nobility title? The girl herself didn’t look all that different from the other elves I’d seen, beyond being better dressed.

“Well, how am I to know that?”

“Obviously by the fact I am speaking to you in the the High Elf dialect!”

“Then I suppose that makes myself a High Elf?”

I responded with complete snark, amused by the stumped expression she gave. How was she expected to answer that?

I wanted to see how the girl would prove her status, and was abused by the way her expression seemed to contort between various emotions, before she finally came up with a response.

“It’s rude to talk laying down while the other party is standing!” She announced, as if proud of her reasoning.

I smirked. But I don’t want to talk, I wanted to say… but I decided to humor her.

“A fair point.”

Without further complaint, I pulled myself up, although taking my time.

Once I was on my feet, I approached the gate, and looked down at the small tiny girl.

6’1" was a bit above the average height of men in my old world. However, in this world, for one reason or another, the average height seemed even smaller than on Earth. It wasn’t by a ton, not enough to consider the people around me midgets, but it was significant enough that I towered above most people, including the young girl in front of me.

The small window on the door was too low for my to look through it without crouching my head, but inversely, it seemed it was too high for the royal brat to look through without standing on the tips of her toes. Thus, with just a little bit of distance I could easily look down at her, straight through the door’s opening.

Her eyes observed me from the moment I stood, until I arrived, and even now, with her neck tilted slightly upwards, she surveyed my appearance. “Do you not descend from a Gladiator Lineage?”

She asked me a weird question.

“Not exactly, no.” I figured from the way the term was translated, it was some kind of family of warriors. Did she make that judgment based on my height? That was more likely a result of my diet growing up, but I didn’t know how to explain that.

Still, I was curious. “What’s a Gladiator Lineage, anyways?”

“Hmph… You don’t even know that?”

She looked at me as if I were a weirdo asking why dogs can’t walk upright.

“They are lineages bred with combat in mind, both for sport and war,” she explained in a kind of lecturing tone, as if what she was saying were common sense.

Wait, bred? As in, crossbreeding for particular traits and all? Are these weird warrior families that are just really particular about their mating?

Although, the usage and tone of calling it breeding feels like there’s something more to it…

“So? What did you want with me?” I asked, still mulling over the implications of what I just learned.

The girl crossed her arms, and turned her head away, as if pretending to lose interest in me.

“I heard there was a strange human caught wandering about the desert, so while the festival is going on, I decided to see it for myself,” she explained.

Am I some kind of zoo animal?

Hold up, did sneak in here unsupervised?

She continued, “I thought you could entertain me, given how far you must have journeyed to arrive here. Alas, it appears you’re just a fool whose lost his way.”

So, she was hoping to talk with an adventurer of some kind?

Yeah, she won’t get anything like that from me. I’ve been to foreign countries and experienced a quite a bit, but there was nothing from this world that I could tell her about.

Ah…

“What is it?” the girl asked.

She saw my expression change, and put up her guard.

“If you wish to see the world, how about coming with me?”

It was a perfect idea. She likely knew some of the common sense and politics of the region, so she’d make a nice companion to bring along, for someone who knew nothing of the world.

Besides, Aya was nearly done mapping out the entire city, and every building in it, so I almost had nothing else to do here besides appreciate the quiet.

However, at my suggestion, the young elf crossed her arms, not amused by the idea.

“You don’t seem to be in the position to make such offers,” she stated in a dry tone.

I smirked, stepping back away from the door.

“Oh, you mean all this? I’m here because I want to be,” I stated, as my clothes changed from the plain white robes form they’d held for so long, into a black business suit.

“I could probably escape here pretty easily. I’m just new to this world, and need a guide to teach me the norms,” I explained, as my clothes once more changed form, becoming an elaborate trench coat, fluttering as its newly expanded volume pushed against the air.

The young girl looked into the cells, surprised by what she saw for a moment, and even leaning into the window to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her.

“Are you—?!” She began to ask, clearly surprised, but stopped, eyes wide.

“—A mage, perhaps?”

“No, a wielder…” she said, as if realizing something about my ability.

“Something like that?”

I wasn’t sure what those terms meant to her, even with my translating ability, so I answered with vagueness. “I’m something of a visitor from another plane of existence, and I’ve been kinda lost, you see…”

At these words, although there was amazement written on the girl’s face, there was also skepticism. I wouldn’t blame her. Sounds like a ludicrous story.

“So you claim to be a hero?”

A what?

“Not sure I’m familiar with that usage.”

Although I expect her to answer and explain what a hero is, she instead goes into thought. I have some idea of what this “hero” figure might be like, but I don’t know for certain.

Silence fills the crypt.

I’m curious about what her thoughts are, but I don’t want to interrupt whatever’s on her mind. While waiting, I realize that my next meal should be arriving soon…

Then, after waiting for a long five minutes, she speaks.

“Hey, about your offer…”

“Yeah? You want to leave with me?”

“No. Instead, I want to ask that you postpone any plans to leave,” she says.

“Just give me a bit, so please don’t leave!”

Then, without giving me an explanation, the young sand elf ran off.