I agonized over it.
After careful consideration, I concluded that the safest choice in this situation was to flatter him.
“Elfinire was a truly kind and wonderful elf.”
And yet, when I finally said it—
“Hmm? That does not sound like her.”
“......?”
“Lies do not work on me, so there is no need to say something you do not mean.”
Why had I even bothered worrying about it?
Only then did I relax at the Chieftain’s words and let out a long sigh.
He chuckled at my reaction, seemingly amused, then lightly jumped down from the root and landed in front of me.
“Now then... I heard that you defeated the Mutant.”
“It happened by chance.”
“You do not appear to possess such exceptional martial prowess. You must be stronger than you look.”
The Chieftain stroked his chin as he studied me.
“Next, you apparently disappeared for an entire week after the day Elfinire reported finding you. Where did you go?”
He continued stroking his chin as he asked the question.
It sounded perfectly ordinary.
His tone was entirely casual.
However—
“......”
At least, it sounded casual to my ears.
I looked at the Chieftain’s face directly in front of me.
The corners of his mouth were raised in amusement.
His eyes, however, were concealed behind his dark sunglasses.
“I went... home.”
I had already given Elfinire the same answer, so there was no way to take it back now.
Would he believe me?
The Chieftain stared at me for a moment before nodding.
“I see. To think you had gone home.”
“......?”
“That was an answer I truly never expected.”
I blinked as I watched him turn away.
“You believe me?”
“Of course I do. My ears cannot be deceived by lies, and your words did not sound false to me.”
“......!”
“Besides, did I not tell you earlier? Lies do not work on me.”
So he had not merely been speaking figuratively.
The Chieftain gently raised his sunglasses and spoke.
“What is your name?”
“I am Han Mir.”
“I see. I am Elsesto, the Chieftain of Elsid. Let us get along while you remain in the village.”
I nodded at Chieftain Elsesto’s words.
“Good. In that case, let us have a drink.”
“...Pardon?”
GRAB.
Elsesto suddenly seized my arm and pointed his thumb toward the World Tree’s root.
The section of the root that he had shattered when he emerged earlier had already regenerated as though it had never been damaged.
“There is some traditional elven liquor inside. How about we share a refreshing drink and have a conversation?”
“...Really?”
I looked at Elsesto, whose ears had perked up expectantly.
Alcohol.
I had drunk it plenty of times throughout my life, but I had never become intoxicated even once.
If anything, I disliked alcohol because it usually tasted bitter.
I clicked my tongue softly and nodded.
“Elumia! Could you prepare something for us to eat with the drinks?”
“Yes, Chieftain. I will prepare something, so please begin without me.”
“Much appreciated.”
Elsesto grinned broadly and clenched his fist.
Then he suddenly turned and threw a powerful punch toward a distant root of the World Tree.
And then—
BOOM!
RIIIIING—!
Tinnitus echoed through my ears.
My clothes whipped violently in the resulting pressure as I stared blankly ahead.
“That is insane...”
With a single strike—
A completely ordinary punch that was not even reinforced with Mana—
Elsesto had created a hole in a root of the World Tree nearly a hundred meters away.
“Come along, Mir.”
GRAB.
After creating the opening, Elsesto casually tucked me beneath one arm and kicked off the ground.
Wind struck me directly in the face.
A blast of pressure so powerful that I could barely keep my eyes open swept past me for a moment.
Then I found myself standing alone in a warm and comfortable space.
“This place is...”
“It is the home I created inside Mother. Its atmosphere is completely different from the previous Chieftain’s residence.”
Although Elsesto’s appearance hardly suited someone bearing the title of Chieftain, his residence matched the position remarkably well.
It resembled a cozy wooden house filled with wooden furniture...
“Wood?”
I blinked and looked at the table beside me.
What was this?
It was real wood.
Every elven house I had seen on the way here had been made entirely of stone.
Perhaps that was why seeing wooden furniture here felt so strange.
“All of it was made from Mother.”
“......”
Furniture made from Mother...
That was certainly an alarming way to phrase it.
Elsesto threw off the extravagant coat draped over his shoulders, opened a cabinet, and removed an old-looking container from within.
“It has been ten years since I last opened this.”
POP!
After removing the stopper, he approached me while shaking the vessel, its contents sloshing inside.
***
Approximately thirty minutes later.
I set down my empty cup and stared at Elsesto, who had collapsed face-first onto the table and was snoring.
We had been drinking at the same pace, yet he was already unconscious.
“He must be weaker to alcohol than I expected.”
After muttering softly, I lifted the bottle and refilled my cup.
A clear, transparent liquid streamed into it.
I raised the cup to my lips and glanced to the side.
[Synchronization Rate: 2.0%]
My Synchronization Rate had already reached two percent.
There was no complicated reason behind it.
The moment I drank this liquor, my Synchronization Rate had abruptly increased.
It was no longer rising regardless of how much more I drank, but the liquor must have been far more precious than I had imagined.
‘Reaching two percent did not unlock any more of the Black Dragon’s power.’
I had hoped that something might be unlocked, just as Haze had been.
Disappointed, I swallowed another mouthful and muttered.
“More importantly, this does not taste like alcohol.”
I rolled the liquor around inside my mouth.
There was none of the unpleasant odor unique to alcohol.
Instead, the sweetness of fruits such as peaches and apples filled my mouth.
Considering how sweet it was, the alcohol content did not seem particularly high.
Perhaps Elsesto’s liver was simply in poor condition.
“He should be unconscious by now... Oh my.”
BOOM!
The wall exploded, sending fragments scattering through the room.
Startled, I froze and stared at the destroyed wall.
Beyond it stood Elumia, her eyes widened in surprise.
“You are not intoxicated?”
“Was I supposed to be?”
“...Yes. Whenever I brought the food, it was always too late because the guest was already drunk. That was why I came without even lighting the stove this time...”
True to her words, Elumia was carrying nothing.
I scratched the back of my head and shrugged.
“That is fine. I do not particularly enjoy alcohol, so I can simply stop drinking.”
“That is a relief.”
Elumia sighed in relief, then looked at the unconscious Elsesto with contempt.
“To think that the Chieftain of the elves would pass out before his guest.”
“Ha ha...”
“I will take care of the Chieftain. Why not continue looking around the village? What we saw together was only a very small portion of it.”
I had wanted to do that anyway.
I had noticed several interesting-looking places on the way to the World Tree.
I nodded and quickly walked toward the regenerating root.
“......”
Come to think of it, everyone had destroyed these roots with remarkable ease.
I lightly struck the regenerating root with my fist.
And then—
“Ugh...”
I clutched my hand as pain like a broken bone shot through it.
This thing was unbelievably hard.
Everyone had broken it so easily that I had assumed it was weak.
They had even said it was a dead root.
Why was it so hard?
It felt as though I had punched an innocent boulder with all my strength.
I could not put any strength into my hand.
It genuinely felt as though something had broken...
[Despite nearly dying hundreds of times, you endured through your indomitable will.]
“...What?”
[The Common Skill ‘Natural Healing’ has been created.]
[Natural Healing.]
[Accelerates the body’s natural recovery over time. Given enough time, it can even purge a lethal dose of poison.]
Was the system mocking me?
I stared stupidly at the floating messages and blinked.
‘In other words...’
I had genuinely broken my hand by punching a regenerating wall.
The system had interpreted that as a brush with death.
And that was how my first Common Skill had been created.
“Hah.”
A hollow laugh escaped my mouth.
This damned system.
If it was going to give me this skill, it should have done so when I fought the Bloody Mantis Mutant.
Why the hell had it waited until now?
I stared down at my reddened right hand.
Until moments ago, it had hurt so badly that the pain had caused my entire hand to tingle.
Now the pain had already vanished, leaving only the redness behind.
‘At least the skill’s effect is undeniable.’
I opened and closed my right hand once more.
Even its color had already returned to normal.
Having the skill was certainly better than not having it.
This was unquestionably a good thing, but my feelings remained complicated.
Was it really appropriate to gain a skill for such a ridiculous reason?
I clicked my tongue softly and glanced behind me.
Elumia was smiling at me.
“Once you have finished exploring, return here if you cannot find a suitable place to stay. I will prepare accommodations for you.”
“Yes. Then I will be on my way.”
“I hope you enjoy yourself.”
With Elumia seeing me off, I jumped down from the root.
That was when I realized something.
“Urgh...”
The root was rather high.
Without Natural Healing, I would have injured my ankle so badly that I could not have taken another step.
Truly.
***
“To think you have already collapsed. It seems even you cannot defy the passage of time.”
“...I was only pretending to be unconscious. I am perfectly fine.”
Elsesto staggered upright.
Elumia looked at his flushed face with an expression that plainly asked who he expected to believe that.
Seeing her expression, Elsesto cleared his throat.
“Elumia. Did you... see that?”
“Yes. I did.”
Elumia and Elsesto simultaneously looked at the bottle resting on the table.
“That is the first human I have ever seen remain sober after drinking it.”
The fruit of the World Tree.
A priceless liquor brewed from that fruit.
Any being lacking sufficient stature would become intoxicated after a single sip.
It was so potent that even among the elves, only High Elves could endure more than a few cups.
“Yet that human withstood it. That must be why he carries such an ominous aura.”
“......”
Elumia fell silent at Elsesto’s words.
She had also noticed it from the moment they first met.
It was concealed, yet not truly hidden.
An ominous aura that made her instincts scream.
The other elves did not appear to have noticed it, but Elumia had lived for a very long time, even by the standards of High Elves.
She had recognized it immediately.
From their first encounter, she had remained wary of the human because she felt that touching him carelessly might erase her very existence.
“I invited him to drink because I wanted to test him, yet I ended up being the one tested.”
CHUCKLE CHUCKLE.
Elsesto laughed deep in his throat, sank farther into his chair, and lightly gestured toward the solemn Elumia.
“Even so, you need not worry about the human. In my judgment, he is not a bad person.”
“...If that is the Chieftain’s judgment, then I shall accept it.”
“I am still concerned, however. If one of the other children were to face that aura directly, something terrible might happen.”
“Would such a situation ever occur?”
“That is true.”
“HA HA HA HA!”
Elsesto and Elumia burst into laughter at the same time, neither one taking the lead.
***
After my ankle had recovered to some extent, I began walking around Elsid.
As I explored, I realized that the area I had already seen truly amounted to only a small fraction of the village.
There were fields filled with flowers of every color and even a bustling marketplace.
Elsid was merely a village, yet it even had a market.
As I watched the elves buying and selling goods with money, I realized that they were not so different from humans.
Of course—
“Human! Eat this too!”
“I-I do not have any free hands.”
“Then hold it in your mouth!”
It did make me wonder why they needed money when they handed out food merely because I was walking through the market.
I struggled to refuse another piece of meat from an elf running a stall and glanced around.
To my right and left—
Everything was covered in brown meat.
At first, I had gladly eaten whatever they offered me.
Now, however, I was reaching my limit because every last thing was meat.
‘If I stay here any longer, my stomach will burst.’
Even Natural Healing could not help with that.
I quickly hid myself in a nearby alley.
Finally freed from the torture of being force-fed, I caught my breath and slumped against the wall.
“My bag is full as well.”
The bag was packed with everything the merchants had given me.
It would take quite some time to eat all of this.
As I wondered what to do, I heard a faint sound and turned my head.
‘What is that?’
It was different from the lively commotion coming from the marketplace.
This sounded desperate and vicious, as though someone had been driven into a frenzy.
What could possibly be at the end of the alley to produce such a sound?
Driven by curiosity, I walked toward it.
Then I found them.
“Huff... Huff...”
Sweat streamed down a sharp jawline.
Pale green hair was tied high atop the head.
Elfinire stood in the middle of a wide clearing, her entire body drenched as though she had been caught in the rain.
“Elfinire. You still have a long way to go.”
“...I know!”
A pale-green-haired man stood in front of her, holding a wooden sword.
Elfinire gritted her teeth, wrapped her fist in dark green energy, and charged at him.
The man brought his wooden sword down toward the approaching Elfinire, coating it in pale green energy.
The wooden sword met her fist.
At that instant, sharp thorns rapidly burst from the blade.
“GACK!”
A thorn struck Elfinire directly in the center of her forehead, sending her flying backward.
The man let out a long sigh as he looked at her.
“Elfinire, I understand that you wish to discover Mother’s Blessing as quickly as possible, but you know that you will not find it by doing this.”
“Shut your mouth, Elspear. I have to awaken Mother’s Blessing as soon as possible if I am to become a true warden...!”
Elfinire gritted her teeth and forced herself upright at Elspear’s words.
And then—
“Gasp! Y-You!”
Our eyes met.
The instant she saw me, she ground her teeth and disappeared.
I silently watched Elfinire’s back as she became a distant green dot and vanished.
“Ah. She left.”
SCRATCH SCRATCH.
Elspear scratched the back of his head while holding the wooden sword.
Then he looked at me, smiled, and raised his weapon.
“In that case, human, would you take her place and spar with me?”
“...Why should I?”
“Hmm... Then how about this?”
SHING.
The thorns protruding from the wooden sword disappeared.
At the same time, its previously blunt edge sharpened until it resembled a genuine blade.
Dark green energy pointed unwaveringly toward me.
Amid that pressure, my attention shifted away from Elspear and focused elsewhere.
I had no choice.
[Floor 6]
[Earn Recognition from Elspear, Guardian of Mother]
The condition for the sixth floor, which had been displayed as ‘????’ until now—
It had been unlocked the moment I encountered that man.
[Black Dragon]
Now I could not refuse.
I let out a long sigh, immediately threw aside my bag, and transformed my right hand.
The moment I finished preparing for battle and raised my head—
“......!”
Elspear’s pupils had constricted to pinpoints.
His body was cloaked in killing intent as he glared at me with terrifying intensity.