My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

"Where is it?"

It's like there was a shotgun in my chest. Each deafening beat, harder, heavier than the last. It felt like it might just burst out of my chest. Certainly didn't help that I had the side of my face completely pressed flat on my bedroom floor either.

I could feel the stick and sweat start to seep, little dots, trickles of mounting desperation, down my neck, slipping past my brow, with every passing moment spent searching and searching to no avail.

It all started just right after I showered and fully swapped Chester out for boring ol' me again. I had the next few hours all planned out nice and good: find the most comfortable seat in the house and plant my ass on the spot until evening eventually rolls around.

Alas, Adalia had already laid claim to the living-room couch, so I had little choice but to settle for second-best and settle down snug on the single-seater a little to the side.

And for a good while there, things were proceeding as planned. I was content, comfortable, fullscreen-ed, and miles deep into some guy's 2 hour-long retrospective of a random show I'd never even heard of. Then fast-forwarding through a sponsorship about wallets, I remembered I left mine with Chester somewhere in one of his many suit pockets.

That's when things started to go wrong.

I found my wallet just fine, and out of habit, I did a quick flick-through on what I had inside—a couple of bills, rewards cards, coupon cards, lots of cards—and I was very nearly convinced all was right with the world, until, like a kick to the head, I noticed it.

The tickets Amanda had given me for the convention were nowhere to be found. I double-checked, triple-checked to the point I was scouring through lint and dust for any signs of them, all those cards so nicely tucked, taken out of their slits, and left haphazardly sprawled on my desk. But even after all that, nothing.

You can imagine the process next. All the opened drawers, closets, lots of knobs left ajar, and countless jean pockets upturned. All the while, the panic and frustration kept swelling bigger like an infinitely inflatable balloon.

There were a lot of voices in my head. A giant mob of me, myself, and I's, berating me for what an absolute dipshit I was for losing something so precious. But there were a few other voices too, a small, silent minority that clung to the feeble hope I couldn't have been that much of a careless idiot.

It's not like I could have possibly mistaken it for some convenience store receipt and tossed it in the trash. And if we're talking valid reasons, then I barely had any to go fishing out my wallet in the first place.

I haven't so much as bought a can of Coke in the past week, and when it came to buying groceries, Ash was the one that… that… always in the morning… always without fail…

Oh.

So much for keeping it a surprise.

Squirming and wriggling, I hauled my neck and shoulders out from under my bed, my legs already making a beeline for the bedroom door before I could completely pull myself upright.

But just as I reached for the handle, I was suddenly met with light, gentle knocks on the other side and instantly I went from opening the door to leave, to instead opening the door to greet. Regardless, my goal was met either way.

Ash's green eyes gleamed with concern, and it only made sense that they did. The state of my room, the look on my face. I can only imagine the kind of dots that were connecting in her head.

"I heard noises, Master," she took a precarious step forward. I moved aside, letting her in, and even more prominent, the confusion shone in her gaze. "Has… something happened?"

"No, nothing big. It's all fine," I said, hand-waving the mess before her. "I was just looking for something, and—"

"Something pivotal, I must surmise," she remarked, throwing a wry frown at my crumpled sheets. "To undo all my efforts to such a state… wrinkles do not unfurl as easily as it seems, you know?"

When she started picking up after the random clothes I carelessly tossed to and fro all around, that's when I knew you didn't need a knife at all to stab a man to death.

"I'll clean up afterward, of course," I said.

"I do not doubt that you will, Master," she said, placing everything in one small pile to the side. "But as it is my single pleasure to be of service to you… pray tell, why would I let you?"

We've been down this road too many times to count, and it doesn't matter how many swerves I took, we'd always wind up at the same place anyway. No point arguing with her there.

"Now," Ash whirled back toward me, the smile on her face the very epitome of diligence. "How else may I be of service?"

It really sounded like she was none the wiser to any recent home burglary. The same cordial, caring bundle of joy that had eagerly welcomed me back home not even an hour ago. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my surprise for her was still intact.

But if the latter outcome was me losing those tickets forever, then that makes me the shittest shithead of the modern era. And to be frank, I'd much rather continue living my life not having to break every mirror in sight whenever I catch my reflection, thank you, I'm begging you.

"Tickets," I answered her bluntly. "Had them in my wallet, now they're gone. You know where they could be?"

I did my best to keep it as a question and nothing else. Since Ash practically had part ownership of my finances, I didn't wanna imply anything that clearly wasn't there.

"Tickets," Ash repeated. I waited, half dreading, half hoping she knew exactly what I was talking about, and that she'd pull them out from behind her back any second now. But that moment didn't happen. Instead, her ears gave a quick twitch. "Follow me, Master. To my room."

I readily complied, step by step right behind her pace to the place I was headed off to anyway if she hadn't knocked first. Ash opened her door, and inward I entered into a space otherworldly.

The late afternoon had drowned the pastel gray of her room in a warm, lukewarm glow that had me thinking of a winding river valley with the sun perched between mountain peaks. Every time I happened to drop by, it always felt like I was intruding on somewhere deeply intimate and private despite the fact I knew I wasn't.

Feelings are just weird like that, I suppose.

Ash strode past me and headed deeper within. A standing mirror propped in a corner followed her figure as she went around her bed and to the other end. There, she began rifling through the contents of her dresser, pulling open cupboards one after the other before eventually landing upon the one that had what she was looking for, and by extension, me.

I recognized what she had in her hand the moment she took it out of the cupboard. That bright flutter of gold that was coated all over those flimsy pieces of paper really had a way of enticing the eyes. And there, imprinted front and center, boldly glimmered the logo for Asteria.

"Pivotal indeed," Ash said as she sauntered back over, reaching out an arm with the tickets in hand. "I understand your desperation now. An utter travesty it would be if you were to lose something as precious as this."

I wasn't sure what to say yet or even what to think. I let her plop the tickets into my palm in the meantime while I sifted through the confusion to find a conclusion that actually made sense here.

So she did take the tickets, then. I wasn't wrong, but at the same time, that also doesn't seem right. I'm looking right at her, and I'm not seeing a crooked thief caught red-handed in a scheme. Ash was the very last person I'd ever accused of anything nefarious. Yet, all the same, I did also just see her take the tickets out of her dresser, so what the hell was going on here?

"Lady Amanda would have been quite upset with you, I imagine," she said, still looking quite content with herself. "But not as much as you would have been for yourself. Fortunately, it is a notion that shall not come to pass. The tickets are here. All is well now. Lady Amanda should be pleased."

"Amanda?" I blurted out. Ash knows about the surprise too?

"Though I would be remiss not to also suggest a better safekeeping spot going forth," Ash went on to say. "To that end, I propose perhaps leaving them in my hands, after all. Rest assured, I shall have them ready for you whenever the time comes for you and Lady Amanda to depart."

"Depart? What?" I blinked at her. "What are you talking about, Ash?"

"Those tickets. They're for a special commemoration of sorts, are they not?"

"They are, but…" I scoffed. Okay, now it was making a little bit more sense. "Wait, did you think the second ticket was for Amanda?"

"Is it not?" Ash inquired back, frowning. "Oh, then… who else could it be for?"