The chief accepted the contract bearing my blood with a deeply apologetic air.
As I explained, dragon blood carries a lot of weight? It might be a bit of a burden for the elves, though.
I put the same blood seal on the remaining contracts, then smiled and spoke.
“Please deliver these to every elf village in my territory. They'll have the same rights as you. To commemorate our contract, I'll do one thing for you. Is there anything you want? A powerful barrier, for example.”
With the dwarves' precedent in mind, I'd made a casual guess. He answered with an impressed expression, as though wondering how I'd known.
“Yes, we'd like a powerful barrier that keeps humans out. One that's harmless to the forest and to us.”
I nodded. Wherever I went, humans were the problem. I'd once been human too, and lived in a place steeped in the worship of money at that, so I knew only too well how great human greed could be. That was why it disgusted me.
I enchanted a fist-sized diamond with a spell that generated the same triple barrier as at the dwarf villages. I placed a spell that sustained the barrier on another diamond of the same size, shattered it into dozens, hundreds of fragments, and scattered them randomly throughout the village.
Now, even if the central barrier stone was removed, this barrier wouldn't break unless every fragment was found and destroyed. I supplied enough diamonds made into barrier stones to meet the other villages' needs.
I wanted to summon the other village chiefs too, but that would take too long, and things seemed likely to become terribly complicated under the pretext of their holding discussions, so I decided to handle it simply this way.—Perhaps, though, I was afraid the elves would suggest a party like the dwarves had.—I took a deep breath.
Then I spoke to the very grateful chief.
“By the way, what's your name?”
“Pardon? Ah! Goodness, I haven't even told you my name yet...... My name's Kareman. I'd be grateful if you'd simply call me Kareman.”
Kareman? Kareman...... It certainly has a nice ring to it, but isn't that a food name? Did he get it because he wanted nothing but curry? Kyahaha, that's a cold joke. Let's stop.
Thinking of food just then gave me a good idea.
They said elves were very good at housework? Living alone gets lonely, so I should take in someone to cook for me.
I looked around for a suitable sacrificial lamb(?), and the female elf who'd challenged me happened to catch my eye, so I pointed at her.
“You, your name!”
“I-it's Mirian Raients, Lord Rainisis.”
Mirian...... A pretty name? I grinned and spoke. Seeing my grin, Mirian flinched in both expression and gesture. I smiled with the corners of my eyes and spoke.
“You, come with me.”
“Pardon?”
She questioned me with a look of ‘Surely not......?’ Feeling obliged to answer the intense question written all over her face, I decided to explain my intentions once more.
“From now on, you'll live in my lair.”
At that declaration, her face instantly turned deathly pale, and beads of sweat began trickling down her forehead. Her father, Kareman, looked aghast too. They probably both felt as though a bolt of lightning had struck them on the head. At last, her color returned to normal, and she seemed to cover her mouth and mumble something. Then she fainted on the spot.
Thump.
“Huh?”
With the female elf's faint and my bewildered utterance, the contract at the elf village came to an end.
I brought the female elf called Mirian, who'd arrogantly challenged me at the village I visited—in truth, with her eagerness to protect the village bound tightly together with arrogance and conceit over her paltry status as the chief's daughter, her behavior was in a sense natural, but I found it extremely unpleasant—back to my lair.
Of course, I brought her back as a toy and plaything to satisfy my sexual pleasure...... Absolutely! Not. Though she was beautiful with an elf's natural good looks, I'd never intended to do that(!) with just anyone. The one I still loved was, after all, ‘her,’ who would be living in exchange for my life.
To tell you my real purpose, she was my cook. Honestly, since moving into the lair and sorting and cleaning everything, I'd been eating haphazardly for these past 8 months. Whenever I was hungry, I ate whatever I could get my hands on, and as a result my diet had been absurdly impoverished and miserable.
I'd even reincarnated and gained enormous power transcending the bounds of race. If I couldn't even eat properly, what was the point of being reincarnated as a dragon?
So I'd been thinking of bringing back any elf to cook for me, and just then a fine guinea pig practically landed in my hands saying, ‘Please take me away.’
Besides a cook, I needed a secretary or maid who could talk with me when I was bored and help me with my work? To be precise, I was training my very own personal maid.
Hehehehe! Is this the first step down the path of depravity? Start with a maid, then all the way to ‘Maaaster!’ at your command? Hehehe......
As I stood grinning over those irrelevant thoughts for a moment, Mirian apparently noticed and spoke in a terribly frightened voice.
“Um...... Lord Rainisis, what should I do?”
I stopped grinning and turned. Her long ears drooped and she looked frightened, then her shoulders twitched and she shrank back when our eyes met. Her face was scarlet from the tips of her ears to the nape of her neck, probably because she couldn't bring herself to say, ‘Shall I undress?’
I guessed she was a little under 200 years old. Elves' social ways were strange beyond belief. They apparently disapproved of sexual intercourse, yet made sure everyone knew all about it from an early age. Their authoritarian and practical sides clashed, giving them an outward image of elegance, purity, and chastity. Once you knew them, though, they too did plenty in secret.
Mirian was much the same. She knew perfectly well in her mind what would happen—or rather...... mistakenly thought she did—but showed her aversion to it. Hmmm...... She looks so adorable like that? A fully grown elf, yet positively brimming with cuteness. I grinned and pointed to the storeroom containing magically made clothes.
“Go over there and put on something from the wardrobe. Wardrobe 21, I think.”
As I'd arranged them, wardrobes 21 through 25 should contain maid outfits. I'd made them by magic, recreating as faithfully as possible my memories of maid outfits from the animation, comics, and games I'd seen on Earth before my reincarnation. Their fabric and designs would hold their own anywhere. The reason mere maid outfits belonged in the storeroom for magical clothes was that I'd enchanted them to adjust automatically to the wearer's build, making them suitable for any figure. They had no particular defensive power or other magical effects, but they'd look perfectly tailored even on slender elves.
Wardrobe 21 held the most ordinary maid outfits. There should be dozens of sets, each consisting of a blouse and skirt in the same color, an apron in the color that stood out best against them, and a ribbon for long hair. That's how many you get when you try different color combinations. At least I didn't intend to humiliate or embarrass her, which was why I told her to wear something from wardrobe 21.
If I'd wanted to, I could've told her to wear something from wardrobe 24? I think that one contained outfits with short skirts and a thoroughly sultry air, positively bubbling with sex appeal(?). Haa, an elf maid...... I'd wanted to try this someday! Wahahahaha!
A little later, she emerged. She wore a blue skirt and blouse with a white apron, whose ties she'd fashioned into a bow herself. Her long blond hair was tied back with a red ribbon for an accent.
Ah, there was another reason I'd had her open wardrobe 21. I wanted her to wear a blouse with short sleeves. This was above an extinct volcano overflowing with heat—more precisely, right in its middle—and though I'd cooled it somewhat with magic, a Red Dragon living here naturally affected the surrounding temperature, making it hot with even a little movement. Her skirt ended just below her knees. She also wore what looked like white cotton socks and dark brown ladies' shoes. She must have found underwear for herself? Surely there wouldn't be anything embarrassing like wearing nothing underneath?
Her uncomfortable expression conveyed awkwardness, but at least she shouldn't be physically uncomfortable. After wearing it for a month or so, she'd probably find it so wonderfully comfortable that she wouldn't want to wear anything else? Her awkward expression was probably because, in this era, clothes like these were worn by royal attendants or maids in distinguished households.
I smiled slightly and told her.
“Hey, that suits you? Just as I expected.”
“Pardon? Yes...... Thank you.”
“Now, I'll tell you what you'll be doing from here on.”
She nodded with a tense expression, and I spoke with a wicked smile. Teasing her for a moment would be fun?
“As you've probably guessed, you'll attend me in bed. Your clan will survive only if you make me as happy as possible. For the record, I like things a little rough, so you'll be in trouble if you don't work hard too.”
She took on a look of ‘I knew it!’ and her face grew so red it seemed red liquid might drip from it. With humiliation, anger, sorrow, and more mixed in just the right proportions on her face, she clenched both fists, trembled faintly, bit her lower lip hard once, and spoke.
“Yeees...... I'll work hard to s-satisfy you.”
Her scarlet face was very cute. Still smiling, I spoke.
“Good. Your first task is to go into the cave right beside the place where the clothes were. You'll know what to do once you get there.”
The place I pointed to was the kitchen. Since she was an elf, I thought expecting meat dishes was unreasonable to begin with. In that case, she might bring a light, fresh plant-based meal of bread or salad. As an elf who'd gone through her coming-of-age ceremony, she should at least know how to cook? Besides, the storeroom was full of all kinds of dressings and fresh vegetables, so she'd make something good herself.
I'd sent her to the kitchen specifically because I wanted to test her cooking skills and had nothing in particular for her to do just then. Taking a rough guess at my thoughts might suggest she was nothing more than a plaything to me, but to me she was more than a maid. She'd be someone to talk to in the solitary life ahead of me.
For now, though, I'd teased her so much that I thought a rational conversation was impossible. Besides, I'd developed an urge to eat a proper meal. At the same time, I grew terribly hungry. La-la-la, shall I enjoy the wait?
TL Notes:
TL Note: Kareman - His name sounds like the Korean phrase meaning 'only curry,' prompting the narrator's food joke.