Scroll 59: End of the Beginner Arc – S*x, No Love

The elf observed the young woman at his side, lost in thought during a long silence. He stood there, swaying ever so slightly near the table. «Wait… something doesn't add up in all of this.» He tried clumsily to order his thoughts until reality hit him all at once: «Of course! I don't even know her name!»

"You're a pretty girl, and a real tricky one" He says.

The young woman smiled, her dark eyes lighting up with mischief.

"The shortest courtship in history," she commented.

Alaster let out a breathy laugh.

"I wouldn't call taking advantage of a poor, defenseless drunk guy a courtship. You know... you remind me a bit of my girlfriend. She's also pretty and very brazen." He told himself internally that he must never again allow an attractive girl to pour him so much neat alcohol all at once.

The young woman interrupted his reflections by stepping closer with innocence. She took two short steps, keeping her hands behind her back, crafting the most naive image possible. Tilting her head, she looked at him with puppy-dog eyes and spoke:

"But, Mr. Al, when love is pure, nothing can stop it."

Alaster cracked a smile.

"I still don't know your name."

She directed her gaze to an indefinite spot, thoughtfully resting a finger over her lips.

"That's true... that could be an inconvenience," she murmured. Suddenly, as if struck by a masterstroke of revelation, her face lit up. "Ah, I know! I'll tell you my name, and that way we can get to know each other!"

Alaster looked at her with narrowed eyes.

"You're pulling my leg," he replied.

The girl smiled again, and raising her hand, indicated a tiny gap between her delicate fingers:

"Just a little bit."

The elf shook his head to clear it.

"I'm sorry, pretty stranger, but I have to go to not have sex. I'll be back... if I survive," he murmured.

He turned around and started walking among the tables toward the side stairs.

At a distant table, a hand with a flawless manicure gripped a glass of wine tightly. Deinderatrix watched Alaster walk away with a mixture of anger, disappointment, and regret. To her, that was the ultimate lack of respect for her feelings. Her chest ached; she had come to this place to unwind after the elf's rejection, as she hadn't actually planned on giving up.

«You... right after telling you so many things... I really am naive,» the mage scolded herself, remembering how she had put him on a pedestal from day one.

Another pair of hands held hers—hands that were more mundane in appearance, though equally white and delicate.

"Lady Detrix," Cladis said, "there must be an explanation for everything. I don't believe Lord Al is like that."

"It's true," Elise added on the other side of Deinderatrix. "I traveled with him, and he never cast a single disrespectful glance my way or said anything inappropriate. It has to be the liquor. My dad gets silly when he drinks too."

"No, liquor doesn't change people; it just brings out their true self," Deinderatrix declared with a cracked voice. "Alaster is a cruel, thoughtless man. He rejected me, I poured my heart out to him, and he simply told me no. But he gives all his attention to a total stranger. Is that woman better than me? Maybe she is..."

Cladis's eyes widened like saucers at the self-deprecating direction the conversation was taking.

"No, no... Look, Lady Deinderatrix, there he comes! And it hasn't even been five minutes since he went upstairs. Obviously, nothing happened."

Deinderatrix wiped a tear with the back of her hand. A sudden relief spread through her chest as if she had dodged a fatal blow. However, a new doubt struck her: she had seen the waitress whisper something in his ear, and seen him touch her leg before signaling her toward the rooms. Yet here he was, coming back down almost immediately. Curiosity was consuming her.

Elise also let out a sigh of relief, thinking that the mage would have fried the elf with a spell at any moment. «Al... you saved your own skin and you don't even know it.»

"See? Nothing happened," Cladis told her, placing a hand on her back. "I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding."

Deinderatrix let out a sigh, took a sip of wine, and looked back at Cladis.

"What if you go and ask him what happened?"

"How am I going to do that?" Cladis asked incredulously. "I'm supposed to be at the cabin with you. What do I tell him if he asks what I'm doing here?"

Elise and Deinderatrix sat thinking for a moment, until the former suggested:

"Why don't you tell him you came for Mr. Norde?"

"Because I have no reason to be here or to get upset with my husband," Cladis rejected.

Detrix made an exasperated gesture.

"Then what do we do?"

"What if we tell the truth? That we came for a drink and bumped into Al," Elise said, shifting her gaze toward the party's Tank, who was chatting cheerfully with the black-haired beauty they had seen earlier. She smiled. "I think I have an idea to find out what happened, but we'd have to wait until we get home."

Deinderatrix looked at her with hope.

"How?"

"Through Syrus," Elise replied, puffing out her chest with pride. "His wife doesn't let him go to these places because when he drinks, he likes to gamble. If she finds out he was drinking, she'll raise hell, and I know his wife: I'm sure she'll sing like a canary."

Cladis watched the elf, who was walking in a zigzag, and then Syrus, who had another bottle in front of him.

"Girls, I don't think it's a good idea to leave like this. Those two don't look capable of making it home on their own."

Detrix and Elise followed her gaze and understood immediately.

"But if we help them, they'll know we were here the whole time," the mage pointed out.

Cladis raised a hand to catch the attention of the table where Norde was sitting. He looked at his wife's signals and, after a few seconds of confusion, understood the message—especially because she was pointing at Alaster and Syrus. The elf was slumped in a chair looking dizzy, while Syrus was starting to nod off.

"Done," Cladis said. "Let's go."

Deinderatrix left a silver coin under the glass, and they departed.

At his table, Alaster reflected: «Girls can go from treating you sweet to cursing your mother in a second. Inary was genuinely upset, and all I told her was that I couldn't do anything because my girlfriend would get mad. In retrospect, giving a girl false hopes isn't just morally bad; if she were someone powerful like Deinderatrix, I'd be in a ditch by the side of the road by now.»

He tried to look to the side, but realized he couldn't move. «What's going on? Why can't I move?» An image seemed to overlay his vision. «Am I in a daydream? It can't be... did I pass out? Wow, looks like an elf can't just lose consciousness without drama.»

He heard Norde's voice in the distance:

"Lord Al... Al! He's asleep. Right, grab him firmly by the arms, don't let him drop. Let's get him home. Syrus! Mr. Syrus... ummm, looks like this one is even worse. Come on, carry them out."

Alaster remained conscious the entire time, even as they carried him up the stairs to his room. The effect of the alcohol persisted, though he no longer felt as muddled. Lying on the bed with his eyes closed, he heard familiar voices entering: it was Elise, Cladis, and Deinderatrix.

"See? He's perfectly fine, just sleeping," Cladis was saying to Deinderatrix.

The mage approached, grabbed Alaster by one of his boots, and started pulling.

"What are you doing?" Elise asked.

"Taking off his boots so he's more comfortable."

"Leave him be, what does it matter? What if he wakes up?"

"I don't think so, he's out like a light," the mage smiled.

«I can't talk, but I'm conscious, girls! Hey, I'm an elf!» Alaster thought.

"You really like him, don't you?" Cladis commented.

Deinderatrix didn't answer; she simply pulled harder.

"You should let it go," Cladis continued. "You're only going to hurt yourself. Elves don't pay attention to human women. He already rejected you, and he's not going to return your feelings."

Detrix dropped the boot back onto the bed and looked at her with annoyance.

"I know that! But I'm still going to try!" she suddenly exclaimed. She sighed. "Look, if he doesn't return my feelings, I'll give up. I'm not a masochist. But I think if I stay close, eventually he'll realize that I'm the one who cares about him the most."

She grabbed Alaster's shod foot again, struggling to remove the other boot.

Hearing the woman talk like that put a knot in Alaster's chest. It made him want to tell her to value herself more, but he couldn't utter a word. «It's hard to accept rejection when you genuinely like someone... I try not to think about her feelings, but hearing it like this hurts. I hope she doesn't feel worse when she notices I heard everything.»

At that moment, Norde walked in.

"Hey, Al, I hope you know your limits when drinking. The folks at the tavern and Syrus told me you knocked back more than half a bottle of rum in less than ten minutes. That's too much even for me."

The girls looked at him in surprise.

"He's asleep, dear," Cladis said.

Norde walked over to her and gave her a kiss.

"You forget he's an elf. Elves don't fall unconscious like that, so he hears us even if he can't answer. I'm leaving—it's past midnight, I'm tired, and I have work tomorrow."

The girls looked at the elf and then at Deinderatrix, who turned bright red.

«God, what a mess,» Alaster thought as he heard the mage's hurried footsteps leaving the room, followed by the other two. «Being paralyzed puts my mind into power-saving mode. There's a lesson in all of this: girls are dangerous. If those two had served me more liquor while laughing, I might be on my way to elf heaven right now. And that cute girl whose name I don't even know, asking me to be her boyfriend after seeing me drunk... Her selection criteria are weird, or she was just joking. I prefer to think the latter; I don't think anyone feels anything for a drunk guy in a tavern.»

He settled himself mentally into his situation. «I've got enough on my plate. I'm an elf, I have magic, I can level up, and here I am, wondering whether the girl who bakes me bread and cookies loves me or not, while having the ability to create otherworldly creatures. I'm going to set a goal for this week: I will spend these next three days entirely on learning the spells I need. I'm not going to waste any more time. I will continue my original path: getting powerful so no one ever humiliates me again. No more corporations firing me, no nobles in this world; no more being manipulated or being indecisive. Enough is enough.»

He held on to those thoughts as he lay flat on his back, just as Norde's friends had left him. They were good people—simple and direct. Even so, it bothered him to be in such a vulnerable position. If Deinderatrix had been an enemy, he would be in real trouble right now.

After a few hours, he discovered he could move, though fatigue and a faint weakness lingered in his senses. At 5:30 AM, Alaster sat up in bed, feeling the softness of the sheets. Uncovering himself from the blanket, he felt the cold touch of the wood beneath his feet as he stood up. With a serious face and sharp features reflecting his resolve, he clenched his fist.

He opened his dimensional inventory:

[Dimensional Space: -120Mp]

Space folded to his will, creating the fracture. The elf walked toward the entrance, slid the latch shut, and returned to the rift to retrieve the grimoires for [Disruption], [Mana Shield], [Summon: Armored Sil-Spider], and another one he hadn't thoroughly studied: [Glacial Wall], which was essential for his next mission. He also pulled out a breakfast previously prepared in Mila's kitchen: eggs, bacon, and bread.

He went out to the backyard and used his twig to brush his teeth—a piece of wood with animal hair bristles and a paste made from salty soap with ash. It was always annoying not to have decent toothpaste, a modern toilet, or a real running water system like the one at Mila's house, which used magical artifacts to heat the water.

Setting those thoughts aside, he finished washing up. In the distance, the sound of wagons could be heard. He checked with relief that he had no headache or nausea. He headed to the barn that served as a makeshift bathroom, took off his clothes, and jumped into the warm water of the wooden tub. He washed up quickly, dressed in a hurry in more striking attire—black trousers, matching boots, a long warrior jacket, and black gloves—and observed his reflection in the water.

«All in black... I look like a villain,» he thought, taking in his figure with wet hair and a steadfast gaze. «I definitely look like a final boss. It's striking to see this appearance; I can't blame the girls for staring... Right, you arrogant piece of work.»

He made his way toward the house to speak with the mage and pay the others for their help with the golem and the goblins. In the dining room, he found the full group, including Cladis. Food was laid out on the table amidst a constant murmur of conversation. Among them, a red-haired young woman stood out next to Tagard, whom Alaster identified as the friend of the girl from the tavern.

«Looks like Tagard found someone after all,» he thought.

He also noticed Deinderatrix, who, with bloodshot eyes, was placing a fried egg, ham, and cheese over a slice of bread.

Alaster went upstairs, grabbed the grimoires after finishing his food, and came down to the living room, where everyone was settled on the sofas chatting. As there were no open seats, he leaned on the armrest of the sofa where Tagard and his companion were sitting.

"Tagard, you haven't introduced me to your..."

"My girlfriend," she smiled, sitting almost in his lap as he wrapped his arm around her waist.

"This is Horin," Tagard added.

"Welcome, Horin. Make yourself at home," Alaster greeted, shaking her hand gently before clapping Tagard on the shoulder. "We'll talk business later regarding the golem. I mean the money I owe you."

Tagard nodded with an understanding smile, while Horin looked at him sideways with a touch of pride in her green eyes. She was a simple girl with a delicate appearance, dressed in a short skirt, sandals, and a white blouse. She looked to be around eighteen, and the comfortable way she leaned against the warrior suggested they had spent a good night together.

Alaster turned his gaze toward Deinderatrix. He walked over and sat on the armrest beside her.

"Hey, Detrix."

The mage, looking in another direction, dropped a icy:

"Hello."

No fluff, no affectionate pet names. The coldness of her response set off an alarm in the elf and drew the attention of those who knew the reason for her annoyance: Cladis, Elise, Remis, and Berona—the latter two having found out after interrogating Syrus. Alaster looked around for the Tank, but Syrus avoided eye contact.

«Damn it, they sold me out,» the elf thought. «Wait, I didn't actually do anything. Elven charm, help me out... Detrix, would you mind talking to me for a minute?»

"I don't think we have anything to talk about," she replied in a curt tone.

Alaster recalled what he had heard the night before and his decision not to act meek. Leaning slightly toward the back of the woman, who remained stubbornly turned away, he whispered:

"Nothing happened with that woman. I like you much more, and out of respect, I care about you."

He immediately stood up and called out to the archer:

"Elise, come with me for a second so I can give you your pay."

Elise, who had been listening intently, froze before responding:

"Alright..."

She followed the elf toward the stairs, leaving behind Deinderatrix, who looked at Remis not knowing what to say.

"I think he just confessed to you," Remis commented, somewhat stunned.

"That elf's got nerve," Berona murmured.

Cladis approached the mage:

"My lady, you should talk to him. As I told you, it was a misunderstanding."

Deinderatrix, with a blank stare, stood up abruptly.

"This elf is playing with me," she murmured in anger.

In the room, Alaster placed one hundred silver coins on the table. He had promised ten coins to each person for three days of work, which was already a high sum for novices accustomed to being paid in copper.

He set ten coins aside.

"This is your pay for the work. The rest is a bonus."

Elise blinked several times, confused.

"Wait, Al... these ten coins are my pay, but what's the bonus?"

"The other ninety coins are the bonus," he explained.

Elise's breathing quickened, but then she smiled:

"Stop joking around, you can't pay me that much. It makes no sense."

"Berona, Tagard, and Syrus got valuable equipment for their class, but you and Remis didn't get anything. I decided to give you this so you wouldn't come out losing."

"Al... I can't accept this," she said, looking at the shiny coins. "It's too much. You have to think about yourself and how you'll pay the others."

"Actually," the elf added, "you can choose between the one hundred silver coins or one gold coin, which equals the same amount. You'd be doing me a favor if you chose the gold—I'm running short on silver."

He pulled a small chest from the nightstand drawer, opened it, and slid a gleaming gold coin toward the center. Elise swallowed hard upon glimpsing the contents of the chest, which held nearly a hundred gold coins.

"The gold," she said, picking up the piece carefully.

She gazed at the coin with glassy eyes, aware that it was more money than her family had ever seen in their lives.

"Well-earned money," Alaster smiled.

The girl stood up and hugged him tightly.

"Thank you, Al," she said with a cracked voice.

She turned around, wiped her face hastily, and walked out of the room. As she crossed the doorway, she brushed past Deinderatrix, who was entering with a stern expression.

The mage locked the door behind her and faced the elf:

"What do you want to talk about? Say it clearly."

Alaster sighed to himself.

"Last night, when I was at the tavern, I realized a few things after Syrus explained how human relationships work. I didn't know. I realized that I like you. I don't know what Syrus might have told you, but everything yesterday was because of the alcohol. I'm an elf, and I really didn't know I could have more than one relationship; I thought I was being unfaithful to my girlfriend. I got confused. But I didn't sleep with anyone. When you spoke to me about your feelings, I didn't want to let you down or hurt you, so I decided not to go near that girl."

Deinderatrix seemed to mull over his words, losing some of her severity.

"You're saying you were confused?"

"Very confused," Alaster nodded. "Until recently, I was alone, and suddenly I found myself in a situation I didn't know how to handle. That's why I rejected you at the time: I didn't know what to do and preferred not to act."

"Elves rarely pair up that way... It never crossed my mind that you didn't understand. Why didn't you ask?"

"I was embarrassed," he admitted.

The mage frowned.

"But if it's like you say, why did you let that waitress get close to you instead of pushing her away?"

Alaster felt his ears grow hot from discomfort.

"That's your fault," he said softly.

"Mine? Why?"

"Because you've been calling me affectionately with that voice all day. After all that, my hormones were simply riled up because of you, and I wasn't reasoning clearly in that moment."

The girl blushed slightly, though she observed him with a degree of mistrust.

"I don't believe you."

Alaster closed the distance between them.

"You have no idea. I want to kiss you."

He gently took her hands, looking for any sign of rejection on her face. Deinderatrix merely maintained a small smile on her lips. The elf drew her close with a gentle tug.

The fire-attribute mage stood on her tiptoes as he leaned in, leaving their faces millimeters apart, their breath held and their eyes closed, just on the verge of meeting in a kiss.