“Hey, Shion, are elves supposed to be midgets?”
“You don’t know what elves look like? They’re about the same size as us, except with super flat chests.”
To make sure, he flipped the girl over and — for the purposes of investigation — groped around her body. She did not wake up, though she might have stirred slightly. While the mounds of her chest were modest, they were undoubtedly present. He certainly didn’t think they deserved the adverb “super.”
“Hm, not exactly flat.”
“I’m pretty sure ‘elf’ was the wrong direction to take in the first place… In fact, I think that might be a Silkie.”
《Notification: Help Activated — Silkies are considered a type of fairy, or sometimes a type of ghost, that are bonded to homes. Though their appearance may vary, they often take on the shape of beautiful young girls and aid in house chores. Should they become displeased with the residents, they may employ illusory or telekinetic magecraft to drive the residents out of the home. Caution is advised. They have a strong tendency to preserve the state of the house to the best of their ability.》
“Huh. You know about them? I’m impressed,” he said as he skimmed the help message.
“I remember hearing about them from the books people read to me when I was little,” she answered without a blush. “They’re fairies who are good at housework, and if they like you, they’ll help you protect your home. If they don’t like you, they’ll throw things around, break things, and generally just be a huge pain for you.”
“Fairies, you say? And not ghosts?”
“Duh. You can’t touch ghosts, right?”
Fair point. He had just flipped the girl over, after all. Flipping requires touching. In other words, touchable meant fairies and not touchable meant ghosts. It was a method of categorization that left him scratching his head a little, but he supposed he’d have to accept it. Maybe that was simply how they classified things here.
“Why would a fairy be passed out in a place like this, then?”
“I didn’t even know fairies could pass out… but there’s nothing weird about it being here, right? This is a home, after all.”
To Renya, it seemed rather meaningless to be a beautiful young girl with a knack for house chores when she had to spend all her time in an abandoned house. Now was not the time to ponder such things, though. First, he needed to ask the fairy some questions. To do that — assuming they could even communicate in the first place — he had to wake her up. He put a hand on her delicate body and, as though he were handling a fragile glass sculpture, gave it the gentlest of shakes. His nervous mannerism drew a giggle from Shion, who was observing him from her position against the wall.
“…”
He tried a few more times. The girl’s eyelids twitched, and a small gap slowly appeared between them. He caught a glimpse of two jade orbs, crystal-pure. They peered back at him through the narrow opening. Then, she suddenly burst into a fit of panicked motion. Her eyes sprung open, and her upper body sprung up. Presumably, she would have also sprung away, but her legs seemed to have failed her, which left her dragging herself across the floor with her arms in a desperate attempt to distance herself from Renya.
It was an extremely uncomfortable sight that made him feel like he was partaking in something very wrong. So, he sat down on the floor cross-legged, undid his sword belt, and threw it to Shion. Once he saw Shion catch it, he turned to the fleeing girl and called out to her.
“Hey, look, I’m not holding anything dangerous anymore. Don’t be so scared. I don’t mean to harm you.”
The girl, perhaps exhausted from all that pulling, stopped crawling away and turned around.
“…Get out of here!” she shouted at him in a harsh tone.
Well. It looks like communication won’t be a problem. Good to know.
“Why do you want us out? If you’ve got a good reason, then we’ll certainly consider leaving.”
“Because this is my home!”
“Shion, let me confirm something. Does stuff like property rights and land ownership apply to fairies?”
“They’re fairies, Renya. Of course not.”
“No! This is my home! I was born here so it’s mine!”
“Okay, okay, take it easy. We’re not here to figure out whose home it is, much less hand you an eviction notice. In fact, I have no idea what’s going on here, so I’d really appreciate it if you could do some explaining for me, uh… You know, it’d also help if I knew your name,” said Renya, figuring that the modest approach of asking for an explanation and her name would do him well.
“Before you ask someone their name…”
“Oh, yeah, I should start by introducing myself, right? I’m Renya Kunugi. That’s Shion. We’re both adventurers. It’s a pleasure.”
The girl looked down, then in the softest of whispers, said,
“I don’t… have a name…”
With her eyes downcast, the girl began to tell her story. She explained that she had first become conscious in this house about three years ago.
“I was in the basement.”
“There’s a basement? In this house?”
“The workshop has a trapdoor.”
She had been born into darkness. The smell of dust and grime permeated the gloom surrounding her. Not a sliver of light could be seen. Being a fairy, however, she did not mind, so she simply walked up the stairs to the ground floor.
“When I got out, I was supposed to say hi to the people living here, but…”
“The place was already deserted, huh? Is it normal for Silkies to be born into empty houses?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know any other Silkies.”
At that point, the house was already in significant disrepair, and weeds were growing rampant throughout the garden. Faced with a house that was falling apart, she had wanted to do her Silkie duty and start fixing it up, but her fairy nature did not allow her to do so.
“Silkies like me are generally fairies who help out the residents. Or we might have to wait until the residents request for us to do something.”
“…And there were no residents in this house to make that request,” Renya supplied.
As a result, she had no choice but to devote herself to her other job as a Silkie: preserving the current state of the house. To that end, she had to try her best to prevent people from entering the premises. The presence of people, after all, represented a change to the house’s “abandoned” state. Normally, she should have been eagerly waiting for new residents to move in so that she can help them and fulfill their requests. However, the house had already been abandoned when she was born. That presented a contradiction. Her head knew it, but her body wouldn’t listen. It was a rare case in which a Silkie’s fairy nature ended up functioning like a curse.
She had to prevent intruders from approaching, but as a Silkie, she was poorly-equipped for combat. Fairies by nature had plenty of mana to work with, but they could only use very basic magecraft. It was likely that she would not last long in a head-on fight against humans. With such concerns in mind, she continued patrolling the house until one day, a real estate agent brought some clients to take a look around the house’s surroundings. As they talked, she overheard the ghost story about the merchant, and decided to make use of it.
Widely known to be tricksters, fairies had a knack for making people see or hear things, simple manipulation of objects from afar, and turning invisible. By employing these talents, she soon set the stage for rumors to run wild, and a haunted house — every bit as creepy as told in the story — was born. She figured that nobody would want to be near such a creepy house.
“And then a creep like Renya showed up.”
“Right, I’ll be having a word with you later, Shion.”
“A… A creep—”
“Hey! Damn it, fairy,” he complained at the small figure who started to slowly back away from him, “you of all people don’t get to look at me like you just saw a ghost. I mean, I’ll admit that I might have been a little too excited to hear that this place is haunted, but…”
Renya sighed and trailed off, his self-awareness catching up to him. The fairy also decided to sit back down, looking a little embarrassed. Apparently, her blatant revulsion had been reflexive. Now that everyone was being civil again, he took a moment to consider how to lead into his next topic. Then, he spoke.
“Anyway, the point is that I’m thinking of purchasing this property.”
His statement took the fairy by surprise and was met with a blank stare. He studied her for a second, trying to catch a glimpse of something — some flicker of emotion in her eyes, perhaps — that would hint to what she was thinking. Was that rejection he saw? Or approval? He couldn’t tell. Nevertheless, there were things that had to be said, so he continued in a patient, deliberate tone.
“Of course, you can refuse. If you’re adamant about not letting anyone touch this place and keeping it as an abandoned house, then I’ll certainly consider looking into a different property. I have one question though. I don’t know much about Silkies, but how long will you last like this? Can you just keep protecting an empty house?”
The fairy shook her head.
As I thought.
Judging from what Shion and the Help Function had said, he suspected that once bonded to a house, this kind of fairy maintained her existence through communication with the residents. The whole “driving residents out when she doesn’t like them” seemed a bit contradictory, but anyhow, he was pretty sure that interaction with people was a necessary element. Supposing he was right, if she were to keep guarding an abandoned house like this, she would grow weaker and weaker. Sooner or later, she would likely perish.