Chapter 45 – 45. Doll

After training, which became my daily routine, I returned to the cabin. For some reason, Master, who came to meet me every day, was nowhere to be seen.

When I came out to meet him, he told me not to do anything stupid, but since he didn’t, I feel empty. Human duality was such a contradiction.

“Master?”

After entering the cabin, I lightly washed my face and knocked on Master’s door. I felt like I could hear a noise from inside, so I opened the door and went inside.

The moment I went in, I realized that something like sand was scattered all over the floor. Looking closely, it wasn’t sand, it was ashes.

“What is this…… What did you burn in your room?”
“No…… John, I’m sorry… I’m not going to eat breakfast this morning….”
“What were you doing all night…….”
“Hehe, non-US-.”

After Master said that, she fell asleep. After examining her face for a while, I realized that she had thick dark circles around her eyes.

I couldn’t believe that a witch could be like this overnight, but I didn’t think it was a big deal and went to the storage room to get a broom and a dustpan.

After tidying up the ashes on the floor of the room, the resulting ashes were scattered in the garden. It was because I remembered hearing on YouTube that crops grow well if you sprinkle ashes from burning something on the field.

After shaking off the ashes, I lightly skipped breakfast and remembered what to do.

“It’s good- Master is sleeping too…… Since Margaret-san will sleep too— shall we go a little farther today?”

I looked at the back of the cabin. Usually, Master insisted that I never go because it was dangerous——the place I was summoned to when I first fell into another world.

* * *

The girl who was fiddling with the doll realized that the link with the doll that was connected to her was broken, and traced back the broken line.

The moment she found out that the owner of the broken line was a vampire, a monster that even a witch couldn’t easily kill – the girl grinned and smiled.

“How did he die? Could it be that he was mistakenly caught by an evil witch? Maybe he was attacked by an army of humans!

That’s right, master. That bat is stupid, so that could be it!

Boy! Ellie! What if you insult your friend? Do you think you’ll get scolded if you keep doing that!?

Sin, sorry. Master…… .”

The girl let her imagination run wild while talking alone with the doll in her hand. I was curious about what happened to the vampire, but I didn’t have to risk checking myself.

Because she had magic that didn’t have to. Poof, the girl who threw the doll in the shape of a white bear we were talking about just now confirms that the doll has become a white bear standing on two legs, and gives a light command.

“Now, what happened there——check it out and come.”

The doll moved immediately to her will.

* * *

High.
High and far
It was only after I started climbing that I realized that a mountain was such a difficult existence to climb.

I don’t think it was this hard when I went down – I wonder how it happened, but every time I go up, my stamina goes down.

‘No, did you get some kind of disease? ….’

I wondered if I had altitude sickness or something, but the odds of that were extremely low. Although this mountain was high, it was not that high, and hadn’t it been less than 30 minutes since he climbed the mountain?

So, it was wise to assume that there were other reasons for the difficulty of climbing the mountain. There must be something in this mountain that absorbs stamina and mana.

However, considering that Master did not bother to eliminate the cause, it was safe to assume that there was no way for me to discover and eliminate the cause.

I thought that I should go down now without wasting my energy, but unluckily I tripped and fell.

“100 million-!”

It was a steeper slope than I thought, so I really couldn’t react and fell to the floor.

Among the skills Instructor Ludwig taught me, there were no skills like how to deal with a fall from a mountain, so I had no choice but to cover my head and be careful not to injure my head as much as possible.

In the midst of rolling like that for a long time, I gasped for breath at the intense shock that hit my back.

“Cuck!”

It was only then that my body, which had been rolling on the floor, stopped, and I knew that I had collided with a huge tree.

When I got up with my legs shaking, my whole body started to ache, perhaps because I had rolled down the slope countless times.

This one is broken somewhere. I could instinctively sense that fact.

‘It’s fucked up, really…….’

I could be sure that if I got caught by Master, I would be in a lot of trouble. If I went to a place where I was told not to go secretly without saying a word and came back injured, I would act the same way.

That’s why I couldn’t help but tell Master, so I sighed deeply and looked around.

As I was about to return to the cabin, I discovered a problem.

“Where are you?”

Perhaps it was because I had fallen halfway down the mountain, and I couldn’t tell where the cabin was.

I was able to figure out my current location with the Boy Scout survival method I learned as a child. Calculate the sun seen from the cabin before coming here, the position of the sun seen from this position now, and the angle between the sun and the mountain…….

I’m on the left or right side of the cabin now.

‘It’s really fucked up.’

I don’t think Master can’t find me. I was wearing a necklace that Master had made for me, and the magic that Master had personally cast was on it.

It wouldn’t be too difficult for Master, who sensed my magical power, to find my location, and there was also Margaret, who could teleport, by her side, so as long as she realized I was gone, she could quickly come to rescue me.

Yeah that was the problem

‘Until lunch…… Even if I can’t do it, I still have four hours left…….’

For some reason, Master complained of fatigue and fell asleep.
No matter how early, he asked me to wake him up at lunchtime.
I left the cabin without telling Margaret where I was going. Cursed to be invisible to others, there was no way she could wake Master.

I have to endure four hours in this rugged mountain.
In a dangerous place where you don’t know what kind of monster resides.

“Fuck.”

I was shipwrecked.
Help me.

* * *

Match-!

Some time passed, and the true John regained his senses by slapping his cheek with his palm.

Excitement was absolutely forbidden in this extreme situation. Didn’t the famous Bear Grylls say that excitement and anxiety are emotions that eat away at you?

‘Yes, who am I? An Earthling who was cheated and fell into another world. A genius modern man who taught atomic theory to witches!!’

After making such a self-suggestion, Yohan moved forward confidently and at the same time wary of his surroundings. If there were traces of footprints or excrement on the ground, they would go round and round.

Maybe it was because of my cautious behavior, or maybe it was because of the necklace Evangeline made for me- I haven’t met a single monster yet.

‘It is rather something to be careful about…….’

Evangeline’s necklace was an object that gave off a threatening impression and made monsters avoid the necklace, not an object that prevented encounters with monsters.

In fact, when Evangeline ate part of the forest with a nuclear explosion, monsters with little to eat attacked Yohan.

That’s why you have to be even more careful. If there is a monster who comes to himself despite these necklaces, it is a monster who is confident in my ability – John means a monster to be torn lightly.

‘Please don’t meet, don’t meet…….’

As if betraying John’s prayer, John heard rustling around him and carefully touched the handle of the weapon he had brought.

If it could not be avoided, it had to be fought. And, of course, a surprise attack as soon as it appears would be the most efficient.

However, perhaps the other party also realized that Yohan had noticed his presence, so he didn’t come closer than a certain amount and started to wait.

A very long confrontation lasted, and it was the other side who moved first.

“Don’t move—!!”

“Uh huh?”

“Drop your weapon! Surrender! There are a lot of my colleagues around me!”

When Yohan saw the opponent appearing through the bush, he was taken aback and did not move.

It wasn’t that they were frightened by the bows in their hands. Looking at the appearance, it was true that it was stiff.

‘…… Elf?’

John’s gaze turns to the elongated ears. And back to their faces.

A face so beautiful that the elongated ears would not look strange at all. It was the face of an elf that was often revered as a race of beauty, since it was a race of the forest.

John, who was standing in a daze, was soon overpowered by the approaching elves, and the elves who overpowered John tied him up and dragged him into the village.

* * *

“Go in!”

Quaang-!

Thrown into the prison, I rolled on the floor several times, glaring fiercely at the elf who had thrown me.

However, the elf lightly ignored the gaze and left the prison, as if he was not afraid of humans who were tied up and imprisoned.

I moved my body carefully and took a seated position, recalling the elves I had just met and reminiscing.

‘Elf…… It was real. Master said there was no such thing…….’

There are no other races such as elves or dwarves in this world. Beasts that have become larger and more powerful by receiving magical powers, and witches who use magic, do exist. Non-human species do not exist.

While thinking that, I met an elf.

‘It wasn’t fake. There’s no way all those elves are fake…….’

As I was being dragged to the prison, I saw countless elves. At least hundreds of elves.

They couldn’t all be fake. If it was fake, it should have been obvious that it was fake, but it wasn’t like that.

However, Master’s words that there is no such thing as a heterogeneous race would be a lie if they were real, but I did not want to doubt Master.

‘It can’t be a species that suddenly appeared in the last few hundred years…….’

As questions piled up, the prison door opened again. The elf who put me in here raised me up again and started dragging me somewhere holding on to the rope.

As I was being led like a cow to a slaughterhouse, I looked at the elf leading me.

“Hey, where are you going?”
“Be quite.”
“No, if someone asks, please answer…….”
“If you open your mouth one more time, I will stab you with this.”

Saying that, the elf lightly lifted the spear in his hand. No matter how magically strengthened, stabbing with a spear hurts. I could have died beyond getting sick.

Following the elf’s advice, I kept my mouth shut and walked slowly. After a long walk, the elf released me and sent me into a building.

“Chief, I brought you.”
“Ah, are you here?”

Inside, sat her lady elf, who looked extremely benevolent. She looks like she’s in her early thirties, she’s beautiful without rust like an elf, and even her voluptuous body under her face.

If it were on Earth, the elf with the appearance that many people would have shouted and rushed at, invited her to sit on the chair in front of her.

“Now, please sit down.”
“Yes…”
“Please move away from her for a moment.”
“All right. Chief. If you did something strange to the chief…… I won’t let you go.”

After glancing at the elf who disappeared leaving a warning, I looked at the maman elf sitting in front of me.

If I had met this elf for the first time instead of Master, I wondered if I would have been crying maman-maman-crying in her arms by now.

“Nice to meet you. He is the person in charge of the village chief.”

“…… This is John.”

“Are you human?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the first time we’ve seen humans, so we don’t know anything about how to treat them.”

The Maman elf touched my cheek and talked about my treatment. It was fortunate that he did not say he would blindly execute him.

While I was thinking that, the Maman elf reached out to me and spoke lightly.

“So, but… I need to test you.”

“…… A test?”

“Yes, because I have a special magic- the ability to tell if someone is harming the town or not.”

“Well, how can it be harmful or not…….”

“When you hold hands, you can see the person’s heart. If it’s good, you can’t see anything, but if there’s a problem, you can see the image of a devil.”

Hearing that, I nodded lightly and held out my hand. If it was that kind of magic, there was no reason for me to take it.

That’s because I had magic nullification.

If a good person sees the image of an angel, wouldn’t he know it, or would he not see anything? If that’s the case, it’s enough to secretly nullify the magic.

“Okay, check it out.”
“…… You are bold.”
“Because there is no black heart.”

The moment I smiled and held my outstretched hand, I activated my magic.

And at that moment, the maman elf’s body chugged! It exploded leaving behind white smoke.

“…… Uh?”

Hope?