“The six-star team White Lake attests to the identity of Lord Acer and will be paying the toll for his entry,” Airena said to the guard before the two stepped away to do some paperwork. As I stared blankly at them, the humans traveling with her stepped up to my side and explained what that meant.
Apparently, a new adventurer was given a single star, and seven stars was the highest rank possible. That made this group one position away from the highest rank. There weren’t many seven-star adventurers in the country, so their group held the highest rank within the city of Vistcourt. They were quite proud to point that out. It did seem impressive in some way, so for now I applauded them. But I had no idea how many adventurers were in this town, so being the best of them didn’t tell me much. The woman gave a bitter smile, but the man seemed satisfied, so I supposed my reaction was fine. Personally I was more curious about the name “White Lake” than about any number of stars they might have, but it didn’t seem like the appropriate time to ask about that.
Once the paperwork was finally complete, the guard called me over.
“Hey, good news. You’re allowed into the city, just like you asked. But you better be careful. This girl is vouching for you, so if you cause any problems inside, she’ll be in trouble too.”
He gave me some information about the city. Most of it was obvious stuff, like “no stealing” and “no drawing weapons in public except in self-defense.” The most important thing seemed to be that anyone staying in the city for more than a week without citizenship had to pay a tax at the town hall.
By the way, though drawing weapons was prohibited in public, certain places like weapon shops and the adventurer’s guild allowed it, and of course you could do so in your private room. You couldn’t even do routine maintenance on them if that weren’t the case, so I guess that was a given.
“Okay, please write your name here. Acer, huh? I’m a city guard, name’s Rodna. If you need anything, give me a shout. And with that, welcome to Vistcourt, Acer.” After I signed my name on the paper he provided, Rodna smiled and patted me on the shoulder.
Looking around, I noticed it had become quite dark. He must have left the gate open so that I wouldn’t be locked out. As I walked into the town with Airena and her companions, they shut the gate behind us.
I had finally made it into a human city, but unfortunately it was already night, so there weren’t that many people around.
“So, Lord Acer, do you have any plans on what to do next?” Airena said as I looked at the town around me. “If not, I highly recommend you register as an adventurer so that you might obtain some personal identification.”
Ah, that’s right. I still needed to decide what I was going to do from now on. But there was something I was more interested in than becoming an adventurer.
“I don’t think I want to be an adventurer quite yet. First I want to visit a blacksmith. Where’s the best blacksmith here?” The first thing I wanted to do was learn to craft the fangs and claws of the forest wolf I had harvested into a knife and other trinkets. I figured the best place to do that would be a blacksmith, and if I was going to learn from them, I wanted to learn from the best. But...
“Um...the most skilled blacksmith in this city is a dwarf, so it is unlikely he would be willing to offer his services to elves like us,” Airena answered with a bitter expression.
I see...
Elves and dwarves typically hated each other, so a dwarf probably wouldn’t want to sell anything to Airena or me. That wouldn’t be too much of a problem, though. I didn’t have any money in the first place, so it wasn’t like I would be able to buy anything. But a dwarf, huh?
“That’s fine. I want to meet a dwarf too, so that’s even better. Oh, if you don’t like dwarves though, you can just tell me where it is and I’ll go myself.”
This was actually perfect. The chance he would be willing to teach me anything was rather low, but it would be a good opportunity to see what dwarves were like with my own eyes.
“Um...do you not dislike dwarves yourself, Lord Acer?” Airena looked at me like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. I had expected to see looks like that from elves the moment I decided to put my life as a high elf behind me, so in the face of her disbelief, I just smiled.
“It would be weird to hate someone I’d never met, wouldn’t it?”
Airena averted her gaze.
According to elvish myth, dwarves stole a fragment of flame from nature, trapping it in a forge and ruining nature’s perfection, but there was no way that was actually true. The story implied that dwarves had a perfect mastery over nature, but if that were the case, they would have wiped out the elves they detested a long time ago. The story was only a metaphor at most. I couldn’t see any elf that took it literally as anything more than a fool.
That said, such a deeply ingrained hatred wouldn’t be wiped away by a few cheap words. I had no intention of trying to change the way Airena thought. As long as I could live the way I wanted to, I’d be happy.
“Oh, but it’s already night. If I went now, I’d just be bothering him. I should probably start by finding a place to stay for the night. Oh, right. Airena, would you be interested in buying any of these?” I pulled out an apua from my bag and put it in her hand. I hadn’t considered selling one of these at the gate because a human likely wouldn’t know what it was just by seeing it. But as an elf, Airena likely would. The abundant life force hidden within each fruit kept it from rotting. Even half a month after being harvested, the apuas I had were still fresh and juicy.
“Huh? Is this...?” Looking at the fruit in her hand, Airena’s face grew pale.
I had been a little worried that the stories passed between elves of apuas being highly valued in the outside world was all a misunderstanding or exaggeration. But judging by her expression, those stories seemed to be true. I couldn’t help but feel a little relieved. I was only able to get into the town because of Airena, and I only knew about the blacksmith because she had told me. After all she had done for me, I needed to thank her somehow.
“That one is a gift for you. Thanks, you really helped me a lot.” I then pulled out a second and put it in her hand. Apuas were a favorite food among elves. I had grown rather sick of them after so long, but I was sure I’d start longing for them again once I stopped eating them for a while.
Her companions watched the exchange between us in confusion, while Airena herself took some time to recover from the shock. When she did, she made me promise not to show these fruits to anyone so easily ever again and to put off visiting the blacksmith so she could teach me about living in human society. Between her serious expression and the way she suddenly abandoned the reverence she had been showing to me for being a high elf, she was actually rather terrifying. So for now, I decided to take her up on the offer.