Chapter 1: Don’t Fight Over Me! ~Mushroom Competition and Soup~
DESPITE being born as a Fore Elf, I didn’t have any magical energy, fortune, or assets to my name. One day, my fiancé came to me just to say he had no desire to marry me anymore.
The man in question, Lance, was now standing right before my eyes.
Those handsome, elven eyes of his stared back at me from up close.
I could hardly believe it. He’d grabbed my arm and insisted I return with him to the Fore Elf woods.
“Mell? Why’re you spacing out?”
“I’m just shocked is all. I have no idea what to do.”
“I’m the one who doesn’t know what to do,” he said. “What’re you doing all the way out here working in the royal capital?”
“I’m here because you broke things off with me, obviously!”
Bringing that up seemed to annoy Lance, even though he was the one who called it off in the first place.
“…That was a joke,” he said after a long pause.
“Excuse me?”
“I was trying to get you to like me more.”
“You what?”
He told me the marriage was off because he wanted me to like him more? I wanted to shoot him a glare and ask what the heck was going on in his head.
“Um, that logic doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense to me,” I said.
“And you don’t make any sense to me! How can you run around, day after day, working yourself to the bone?!” he roared.
“Because my family is poor! How else am I supposed to help them?!”
“I’m aware of all that. But you’ve always worked abnormally hard!”
“Well, I have a very big family!”
I tried to shake his hand off my arm, but he didn’t budge. Lance was a hunter who could draw the string of his massive longbow with ease. I could never beat him in a battle of strength.
“Ngh! Mmmm! L-Let…me…go!” I ground out between my efforts to escape.
“You’ll just run away!”
“O-Of course I will!”
An older knight—one I recognized as the gatekeeper—happened to be passing by, so I cried out to him.
“H-Help me! I’m being kidnapped!”
“Oh, would you look at that. You’ve got another friend from the elf woods. You two get along now, okay?” he dismissed me.
“H-Heeeeeey!”
He thinks we’re playing around just because we’re both elves?! How did it end up like this?! I desperately wanted to cradle my head in my hands, but I couldn’t even do that—Lance was still gripping my arm.
“Lance! We need to discuss this!”
“I’ve been trying to talk to you this whole time!” he countered.
“Huh? You’re lying…”
“No, I’m not!” he shouted so loudly that my ears started to ring.
Lance went on to explain that, ever since he was little, he was constantly trying to get me to talk or play with him. I had only really recognized him as my fiancé when I was about six years old. He described a time when he had picked a flower off the side of the road, but when he presented it to me…
“Um, Mell, would you like this fl—”
“Please, get out of my way! It’s the first sunny day in weeks! I need to dry the laundry!”
“You ran off carrying a big load of laundry. You even brushed against the flower and broke it apart.”
“I-I did? I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“But that’s not all!”
When we were eleven, Lance had invited me to see the meteor shower that was only visible once every hundred years. However…
“Hey, Mell. Let’s go see the meteors!”
“Sorry, but I’m completely exhausted from making clothes for my sisters all day.”
“But this is the only night it’s visible.”
“I’ll see it…next time… Zzzzz…”
“I couldn’t believe my eyes. You fell asleep standing up.”
“That actually happened?”
“Yeah, it sure did!”
When we were fifteen, Lance still hadn’t given up on finding any opportunity for us to spend time together.
“Hey, Mell! Look at this big animal I hunted!”
“We have plenty at home, thank you!”
“You thought I was a trader peddling something, so you took your basket and ran away.”
“Wh-What a rude person.”
“I’m talking about you! These are all stories about what you did!”
Each story filled me with more and more guilt. I couldn’t recall a single one, but they made it sound like I’d acted downright heartless in how I treated Lance.
“I thought if I called off the wedding, you wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about me. I wanted you to get desperate and start clinging to me. But I was wrong. You just accepted it and left it at that.”
“That’s because…”
Lance was the mayor’s grandson and had lots of followers. He possessed magical energy and was a skilled hunter to boot—earning him the interest of lots of girls in our village. I thought of him as someone who lived in an entirely different world from me.
“What are you talking about? We’re both Fore Elves, aren’t we?”
“I’m sorry…”
With my family and all, my world must have been full already, leaving no room for Lance to exist within it. But that might have changed once my siblings became adults and I got married.
Maybe there truly was a future where Lance became the center of my world.
But that all changed the day he called off our engagement and I didn’t so much as challenge it.
“I’m not returning to the Fore Elf woods,” I stated firmly.
“Don’t be ridiculous! Sure, you’re managing now, but that doesn’t mean you can keep this kind of life up forever.”
“I know that, but I’m not going back. There are things I care about in the royal capital.”
“What could be more important than living in our forest?!”
“Plenty of things!”
“Mind enlightening me?” he pressed.
I’d gained so much since I came to the city. The people at my workplace understood me. They’d accepted a Fore Elf like me. The kindhearted members of the Second Expeditionary Squadron saw me as another comrade.
I met the adorable Amelia, who loved me like a mother.
And then there was—
“Come on! I’ll be all ears after we get back to the forest,” he said, losing patience.
“Wait, Lance! I can’t marry you!”
“Why not?!”
“B-B-Because…”
“Because?”
“Because…I’m in love with someone else!”
“You’re what?!”
A terrifying look took over Lance’s face—a look even scarier than the massive bear stuffed and mounted in the mayor’s home.
“Who is he? What’s his name?”
“Um…his name is Zara…”
“Zara? Sounds like a real cityfolk name. Are you sure he’s not scamming you?”
“Yes, I’m sure! Zara isn’t like that!”
Why do I have to explain this to Lance? The embarrassment is borderline overwhelming.
“Go ahead, marry this city guy. He’ll have you working all day until you die due to exhaustion without a single penny to your name!”
“Um, that sounds a lot like my life in the Fore Elf woods.”
I had to go back and forth between the village and the river three times a day to wash the clothes for all my family members. I lived off the fruits and plants of the forest since I was never given my own spending money. Every night I slept like a log due to sheer exhaustion.
“Compared to those days, my current job gives me breaks, vacations, and a salary. Plus, since I’m not working as hard as I did back in the woods, I get a good night of sleep each and every night,” I explained.
Not even Lance could find the right words to respond.
“Now that you understand, please let go of my arm!” I demanded.
“I’m telling you, I can’t! Forget this. Just come back to the Fore Elf woods for the time being.”
“Lance! Why won’t you listen to me?!”
This was getting exhausting. I feared Lance was going to haul me back to the woods by force.
“S-Someone, help meeee!”
As soon as I shouted that, I heard a voice from overhead.
“Melly!”
It was Zara. I looked up at the sky and watched a white feather drift down toward me. Amelia was soaring above us with her wings spread wide. Zara, who was on her back, jumped to the ground once they were low enough.
“Wh-What the hell is that thing?! A giant bird?!”
Though Amelia had initially distracted him, Lance recoiled at the sight of Zara racing toward him.
“Let go of Melly!”
“Wh-Who are you?!”
“Zara, help me!” I yelled.
My cry for help only made Lance’s grip on me tighten. He pulled me toward him by the hips and wrapped his arms around me from behind.
“Hey! What are you doing?!” I screamed.
“So, this is Zara, huh? He looks just as shallow as I thought!”
“Don’t talk about him like that! You don’t even know him!”
“Kreeeeeeeeeeh!” Amelia put a stop to our quarrel.