by Ennki Hakari
The guard laughed at his own joke before offering a salute and gesturing again for us to go on in.
“Welcome to Branbayna.”
I nodded to the man as we walked past him and into the town.
Despite the early hour, the town was a lot livelier than it appeared from the outside, with many people milling about the streets. The buildings were all built close together, making the narrow alleys feel like a maze. Clothes hung between the buildings to provide some shade from the harsh sun, though this only made it harder to see where we were going the farther we traveled in.
As we walked through the town, we ran across a sleepy-looking group of men—likely mercenaries, since they were outfitted in a motley assortment of armor and equipment—heading into different buildings where it seemed they were being put up for the day. Almost as if passing off a baton, other men left as the mercenaries entered and made their way toward the fields.
We traveled against the flow of people and found ourselves at a group of stalls that made up a sort of morning market. Ponta let out a little squeal and started wagging its tail about excitedly. I turned to see what had caught Ponta’s attention and saw a large pile of beans, about the size of lentils. They sat next to a roaster, which filled the air with a delicious aroma.
We hadn’t eaten anything since leaving the capital, so I could only imagine how hungry Ponta must be. Prompted by the constant mewing from atop my head, the crowd cleared out of my way as I approached the bean stall. The man behind the counter offered us a smile as we approached.
“Can I interest ya in some beans, kind sir?”
“I’ll take two scoops of the roasted ones, please.”
The old man thanked me and poured two scoops of freshly roasted beans into my open leather pouch. Figuring I should make the most of this encounter, I started to ask him if he happened to know the way to Lamburt, but he asked another question before I had a chance to.
“Are you here to hunt sand wyverns?”
He must have been talking about the swarm that had attacked us earlier this morning.
“Not exactly. Are sand wyverns a common occurrence around here?”
“They used to come in from the desert on occasion, but recently there’s been a large swarm of them lurking about and destroying our crops.”
I looked around at the other customers in the market, but none of them seemed concerned. In fact, they all looked quite cheerful.
“No one seems particularly bothered.”
The stall owner laughed. “Sand wyverns don’t travel much during the day. So long as you’re in town by nightfall, you won’t have any problems.”
“You seem pretty knowledgeable about monsters.”
I was making an observation, but the man laughed again and deflected the compliment with a wave of his hand.
“Not at all. There’s a researcher living in town who studies them. It’s thanks to him that we’ve managed to keep casualties as low as we have. Anyway, that’ll be three suk.”
He seamlessly transitioned back to business.
I dug around in the coin pouch at my waist. “A researcher, you say? Hmm. Ah, I only have silver…”
I handed the man a silver coin and received seven coppers in change. He leaned in close as he dropped them into my hand.
“And that researcher is an elf, y’know. Pretty rare to see ’round these parts.”
Ariane perked up at this. “There’s an elf living here? In a human town?”
As soon as she’d said it, she clapped a hand over her mouth and tugged her hood farther down.
“That’s right. The lord of this town even arranged a place for him to live. That must’ve been about, hmm, ten years ago?”
I decided to ask what I suspected Ariane was thinking. “Could you tell us where we might find this elf researcher’s house?”
“Well, I hear he’s living with the lord in his estate. I doubt you’d be able to meet with him without a good reason.”
“I was simply curious. Anyway, do you happen to know the way to Lamburt?”
I decided to allay the old man’s suspicions by asking him my original question.
He tilted his head to the side and called out to a nearby stall.
“Hey, old man! You said you used to be a merchant in your younger days, yeah? Do you know the way to Lamburt?”
An unshaven, elderly man sitting in the stall took a puff from the pipe hanging out of his mouth and looked lazily in our direction. He spoke in a slow voice as smoke curled up in front of his face.
“If you want to get to Lamburt, you’ll need to head south through the Hibbot wastelands and make your way west. It’s on the other side of the Riebing mountain range.”
If what he said were true, then we’d gone in the completely wrong direction. We probably should have taken the southern route at the fork in the road.
I thanked the two men and turned from the stalls, offering a handful of roasted beans to Ponta as we walked away. The spirit creature eagerly shoved them into its cheeks.
I looked back over my shoulder, locking eyes with Ariane.
“What would you like to do?”
She hesitated for only a moment before tilting her head up to look straight at me. I knew exactly what she was going to say.
“I want to try and meet this elf researcher.”
If the bean seller had been telling the truth, then there was an elf living here—in lands where they were usually hunted and taken as slaves—under the protection of a local noble. That must have been hard for Ariane to believe. But the old man hadn’t made it sound like the researcher was being held as a slave.
I tried asking around—nonchalantly of course—to see if anyone knew the way to the noble’s estate…and if there really was an elf researcher living there. To my surprise, almost everyone I asked knew of his existence.
Apparently, the elf was sometimes seen walking around town with a contingent of guards, likely provided by the noble in order to protect him from anyone with ill intentions.
There were also a few stories of him taking down a drunk and rowdy mercenary with ease, implying that he was also an experienced fighter.
Through the gaps between the buildings, I caught sight of a series of boxy towers, connected by a large wall, in the center of town. On the other side of the wall stood a building shaped like a massive cube. This was the noble’s estate, where the researcher was supposedly living. The entrance was a large gate that could be dropped down at the first sign of trouble. Four guards stood watch in front of it.
It seemed unlikely that we’d just be allowed to waltz on in, but I was hesitant to sneak in as we’d done at other, similar estates. Things were a little different this time. I decided there was no harm in asking, even if it led nowhere.
The men were on edge the instant they noticed us. They clutched their spears—some of them with shaking hands—and spread out, forming a half circle around us and blocking our path forward. I had to admit, we must have struck a pretty bizarre sight: a two-meter tall knight with a green fox atop his head and a woman wrapped in a dark cloak.
“Apologies for the sudden intrusion. We would like to meet the elf researcher who lives here.”
Tension washed across the men’s faces.
“No one meets Carcy without an appointment. You best move along.”
The guard’s response was rather curt, but it was no less than I’d expected. I looked back at Ariane, unsure of how to proceed.
Ariane pulled back her charcoal-gray hood and approached the guards.
“I am a messenger from the Great Canada Forest. I request an audience with this Carcy.”
Ariane’s smooth, amethyst-colored skin shone in the sunlight, and her pointed, elven ears poked out of the snow-white hair that fluttered loosely from the hood. Her green-flecked, golden eyes, set beneath her long eyelashes, stared straight through the men, leaving them frozen in place and gaping as they searched for words.
An older man, dressed in more regal attire
than the guards, appeared from inside the gate and started yelling at them.
“You idiots! Go report to Carcy and the lord at once!”
This got the guards moving. Two of them turned toward the estate, stumbling over each other as they dashed inside.
“Please wait over here.” The man, apparently the captain of the guards, gestured toward a bench near the entrance.
Ariane and I sat down, and I poured a handful of roasted lentils into my palm for Ponta to munch on while we waited.
Soon, one of the messengers came running back. He saluted the captain before breathlessly offering his report.
“Carcy is willing to grant them an audience!”
The captain nodded and the guard saluted again before returning to his post.
So, we’d be meeting the elusive elf researcher after all.
However, I doubted we’d only be meeting with the researcher. My shoulders slumped as I realized that the noble housing him would likely also be in attendance. I worried that encountering influential people in this world would cause problems for me down the road. Come to think of it, I’d already done that with Ariane’s father, Dillan, in the elven realm. What would the repercussions of that be?
“Please, follow me.”
The captain’s voice gave me a brief reprieve from my thoughts as Ariane and I turned to follow him.
***
At the center of the estate was a square garden surrounded by a covered walkway and several buildings, each of which was connected to the next by the walkway.
We were led from the guardhouse to a two-story stone building with the same boxy design as the rest. It was rather short compared to the other buildings towering over it, though it was larger than the typical residence.
The wooden door was adorned with a beautifully engraved symbol and a relatively simple knocker. The captain gave a loud rap, and a man inside answered.
“It’s open!”
The voice was surprisingly cheerful given how nervous I—and Ariane, too, I assumed—felt. But the captain didn’t seem to notice. He simply pushed open the door.
“Greetings!”
The captain stepped through the door and moved off to the side, allowing Ariane and me to enter. We stopped at the threshold and looked around the room.
It was large and open, taking up much of the first floor of the building. Thick wooden pillars lined the walls, and in the center of the room sat a long table with benches on either side and tall chairs with elaborate armrests at the ends. Though it appeared to be for dining, the room looked mostly unused, the unadorned stone floor giving it a rather dreary air.
The captain made his way toward a room on the far side of the dining table, waving us along as he went.
The next room was in complete disarray.
Though there was another table in this room—that appeared to be for receiving guests—its entire surface was covered with books, parchment, and scrolls. The walls were lined with bookshelves, but they, too, were filled to the brim. On the floor was a beautiful carpet adorned with an intricate design, though it was covered in rocks and what appeared to be various animal claws and fangs, leaving us few options for where we could stand.
On the far side of the room was a large glass window, in front of which sat a drafting table, and a man in a chair.
“I’ve brought the messenger from Canada.”
“Ah, yes, thank you.”
The captain saluted the man before turning on his heel and leaving the room.
The man stood from his chair.
“To think someone would come all the way from Canada just for me. Welcome, welcome.”
The man’s long elf ears stuck out through his haphazardly trimmed, green-tinged, blond hair. His green eyes peered out at us from behind a pair of round glasses. Rather than the traditional elven attire I’d seen thus far, he was wearing the same clothes as those of the human town folk, though it was several sizes too big and hung loosely on his body.
“Greetings. My name is Ariane Glenys Maple. I take it you’re the one named Carcy?”
Carcy looked surprised when he heard Ariane’s name. “A soldier from Maple? Well, I’ll be. I’m Carcy Held, but you can call me Carcy. And this knight here… Ohh! Is that a ventu-vulpis?”
His surprise only increased as he caught sight of Ponta sitting atop my head. He shoved several boxes out of the way to get closer to us, excitement evident in his voice.
“My name is Arc, and I am here serving as Miss Ariane’s travel companion. This cottontail fox is Ponta.”
“Kyiiii!”
Ponta scooted to the back of my helmet, seemingly put off by Carcy’s enthusiasm.
“Travel companion? I’ve never seen an elf wear armor like that. I suppose that means you’re a human?”
I simply nodded.
Carcy started to look me over, as if taking in every detail from head to toe, and somehow managed to look even more surprised than before.
“I’m hardly one to speak, but you make quite the unique pair. And a spirit creature bonding with a human? Practically unheard of.”
Carcy grinned as he slowly reached out toward Ponta. The fox hopped down and wrapped itself around my neck to escape. Carcy frowned slightly at this, but his expression quickly changed to a dejected smile.
Carcy let out a short sigh. “Spirit creatures never did like me much. Ah, well. Sit down, sit down.”
He removed a few boxes from atop a chair, throwing them into a corner, and gestured to it. I offered the chair to Ariane and stood behind her.
“Is it true that the village sent a messenger all the way here for me?”
Carcy slumped into his own chair and pushed his glasses up with a finger, just before they slipped off the tip of his nose. He regarded us with keen interest. Judging by the way he spoke and acted, he seemed to have a pretty good grasp of the situation.
“No, I’m actually on a quest to save some of our fellow elves who have been kidnapped by humans. We only happened to end up in this town on our way to Lamburt.”
Carcy smiled and nodded, seemingly satisfied with this answer.
“I see, I see. And then you heard that there was a strange elven man here and decided to check it out. You do know that you’re quite a ways from Lamburt, don’t you?”
I knew what he was hinting at.
Ariane fixed her gaze on the bespectacled man and deftly changed the subject. “I’m quite impressed you’ve been able to live here in this human town without any problems, Carcy.”
Carcy slowly looked around the room before responding in a low voice. “I came here around, well, it must have been ten years ago or so. I left my village forty years ago, travelling from place to place, keeping my identity a secret. Compared to other countries, this is one of the better ones.”
He offered us a tired smile.
“Ten years is quite a long time to be living here.”
“Considering our lifespans, it’s little more than what a year or two would be to you humans. But you’re right, it has been a while. With the Hibbot wastelands to the west and the Calcut Mountains to the east, it’s the perfect place to investigate and research all manner of monsters.” Carcy gave a wry smile and adjusted his glasses again. “But alas, it’s not such a nice place to live.”
Ariane finally cut straight to the question that had been on her mind this whole time.
“What brought you here to this human town?”
Considering the job we were currently tasked with, Ariane had a healthy distrust of humans. We’d both been surprised to learn that the elf in front of us was living openly in a human town, and under their protection no less.
Ariane’s golden eyes were fixed on Carcy.
“When I first arrived here, I kept my identity a secret. However, the lord of this town heard about a man researching the various monsters in the area and took an interest in me. He invited me to his estate and, after learning I was an elf, offered me this place to stay. Now I’m living here, carrying out my s
tudies, publishing books on my findings… It’s pretty much what I was doing back home.”
I took another look around the room and saw that much of the parchment scattered about contained intricate drawings of monsters, with notes written haphazardly in the margins. As far as I could tell, all the books crammed onto the shelves were also about monsters. Carcy was the real deal.
Ariane, however, didn’t seem entirely convinced. She stared at him intently, as if searching for something.
“I notice you didn’t include your village in your name. Does this mean you’ve cut ties with it?”
Carcy hit his fist into his hand, as if he hadn’t even realized what he’d done. “Aaah, no, that’s simply because I’ve adjusted to the human way of referring to myself. I don’t use it in any of the books I publish either. I’m from the village of Landfrea.”
“The trading town…”
Ariane seemed familiar with the name. She looked satisfied with his response.
“Right now, I’m studying the sand worms that live out in the Hibbot wastelands, but they spend most of their time underground so I rarely see them, much less observe how they live. They’re incredibly strong, too, making it all the harder to get my hands on a specimen.”
Carcy scowled, then his eyes widened, as if he’d suddenly realized.
“That’s it! I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get my hands on a sand worm, but maybe you can help! It should be a trivial matter for a Maple soldier such as yourself, and with your companion here…”
“I’m sorry, but we’re in the middle of another mission.”
Ariane delicately deflected Carcy’s request. I thought she would have at least entertained the idea, since it came from a fellow elf. I was rather surprised at her quick response.
Her golden eyes were still fixed straight on Carcy. “Elven soldiers don’t only train with blades and spells. They also spend a great deal of time reading bestiaries to learn about monsters and how they live. If you write books on these subjects for humans, then they’ll also be able to fight monsters.”
I finally understood what she was getting at. Why was Carcy, an elf, helping humans?