My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

There was a hell.

For some time now, Amanda had been peering into the deepest depths of it. And what she saw, what she continues to see… can only be described as nothing but the barest, rawest manifestation of horror.

It haunted her, mocked her—endless hours of the most unrelenting torment imaginable. Her every waking moment was spent spiraling down a dark pit of despair without end. Hope was something she quickly abandoned. In this nightmare, there was no inkling, no foolish notions of salvation.

She typed. How many rewrites and revisions have there been already? Too many, surely. Amanda could feel the weight and strain of it all with every push of a key. Still, she typed, and typed, and typed.

A bowl of half-eaten cereal sat untouched by her desk since noon. In contrast, empty soda cans lined the edges of her keyboard strewn about the place in every skewed manner possible. The headphones sitting atop her head had just successfully made its fourth loop across the three-hour-long playlist of her favorite video game soundtracks.

"Please." That was a plea. A croaky, frail pathetic plea of an innocent soul betrothed to a suffering undeserving for far too long. "Please, God."

Amanda slowly dragged her mouse across the screen, her cursor sifting through an entire wall of, to normal human sensibilities, just plain nonsense. Words, numbers, and symbols—all assembled in a jumbled mess of strings and sequences. It may as well have been a pagan scripture; a prayer to some derelict God to deliver her from the evil that binds her evermore.

'Click'.

There's that sound. That awful sound; her finger weighing down on the left mouse button… that was it, her fate was sealed. Her breathing wavering, Amanda just as slowly hovered her cursor away from the option on the bottom read that just simply read, 'Compile'.

She knew better than to believe, knew better than to hope. But she couldn't help it, it was just habit to. It was just human to. That, perhaps, after all this time, a bright ethereal ray of light would appear from on high, and from its blinding radiance—success.

Then came another sound, a notification appearing in the numbing glow of her computer monitor. The heavens had heard her cries, and from the wills of their unearthly whims, they spoke.

<<Parsing the script failed. File "game/screen.tpy", line 677: expected 'comma or end of line' not found.>>

There was a hell indeed. And it was staring at her right in the face. In the tone of harsh beeps, the debilitating alarms of syntax errors, software crashes, and the utter frustration, the soul-crushing agony of a stray comma out of place.

Amanda was quiet. Not a scream, not a sigh, not a peep. Reacting would mean she still felt a smidgen of something. She slumped back into her chair, pulling her gaze to a broad overview of all her efforts and progress so far.

On one tab sat the 3D viewport of a half-finished object model still awaiting the rest of its texture mapping. Opened in a separate window stared the many rows of illustrations she'd drawn of various characters, all in just as varied stages of completion.

Adalia was very nearly done; all her poses and expressions in need of just small minute refinements here and there before it was done.

In stark contrast, Irene's figure remained starved of details—smiling lips, a face full of laughter, practically anything other than a scowl or a frown proved to be quite a predicament when it came to putting it to sketch. As creative a mind as Amanda's was, a cheery Irene demanded something beyond the scope of imagination.

Then there was Ash. The first she worked on, and the first she's seen swiftly to completion; all her smiles perfect, every outfit and pose unique and distinct. Even with a blindfold, Amanda felt it would've still been as easy as it had been. The little slant she'd made to her pointed ears, the slight sheen she'd coat onto her hair, she'd done it all far too many times to ever get it wrong.

Amanda sat there, deeply engrossed with the bright green of her eyes, peering back at her through the simple white canvas of drawing application. And with a sudden thump of her chest, she instantly reached for the phone on her desk.

"Crap," she muttered in realization, the white glare of her phone mere inches from the tip of her nose. "Almost forgot."

Three unread messages stared back at her in the face, each of which was separated by a timely fifteen-minute interval of one other.

<<Departing the house.>> read the first one.

The second one continued the conciseness and read, <<I have dismounted the bus. I shall be on foot for the rest of the way. Except me soon.>> promptly followed by a single walking emoji.

Finally the third, sent just seconds ago, read, <<I am in the elevator.>>

Then on cue to startle her soul back to a semblance of living and being, a firm but polite knock resounded from her apartment door. Amanda scrambled out of her seat with a swivel, quickly straightening the creases on her jumper and combing the split ends of her hair with her fingers. After confirming the person in a mirror nearby appeared human enough, she went over and opened the door.

"You know, when I texted 'as soon as you're free' I didn't expect you to be here right away," Amanda said.

There she was, the same subtle slant in her ears, the slight sheen in her snow-white locks. Ash stood on the otherside of the doorway, a smile on her lips more perfect than any trace of a pen.

"And here I am, with no other pressing obligations to tend to, as per the requisite of your invite," Ash replied, greeting her back with a diligent bow. "And you've also expressed my arriving here as a matter of great pertinence, have you not? I would've arrived here with haste regardless of how busy I would've been."

"I did?" Amanda glimpsed her phone again, taking a moment to rifle through their chat log. "Oh, well, I mean… when I said 'I need you for something big', I didn't mean like big-big, it's not really that big of a deal, honestly, nothing major—you know what I mean?"

"Not really."

"Well, in any case—" With a lean forward, Amanda pulled Ash in by the hand, nudging the door close with the side of her hip. "—You're here now. Which means that's one major milestone over and done with soon. Finally, something good."

Closer now and with the opportunity of a long, proper glance, Ash raised a mild look of concern, seeing the dark rings around Amanda's eyes and the weary sag in her smile.

"Have you not rested, Lady Amanda?" Ash inquired politely. "As in… properly?"

"I have. Here and there," Amanda said without an ounce of regard. "When I can. Busy, you know? What I'm planning. I'll take a proper break when I'm done. So the sooner we're done, the better."

Ash let her eyes explore the state of her apartment, and while Amanda had done her utmost to retain a prim and proper environment… admittedly, there were a few things she left slip. A few unwashed plates sitting in the basin, chip bags and chocolate wrappers teeming at the top of her wastebasket. That bowl of cereal. She'll get around to it eventually.

"Is that it over there?" With large, curious strides, Ash went over to her computer. Amanda followed her, catching up just in time to see the elf's expression in a mix of fascination and total confusion. "Hmm… these words… I'm unable to make sense of any of it."

"Yeah, I don't blame you," Amanda sighed defeatedly. "Sometimes neither can I."

"This is Master's surprise?" Ash turned to her, frowning. "Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but from what you've described, I was taken under the assumption your gift was supposed to be a game of some kind."

What a question. Filled with that endearing innocence that Amanda really liked about Ash. Every time she had to teach her something new, it was always such a delight. There was just nothing else like watching the earnest diligence of a very diligent elf.

"No, you're right, I am making him a game," Amanda affirmed. Still standing, she took her mouse and began browsing through her lines of code. "It's more a visual novel, actually. All this here is me making that game. It's called coding, and no, please don't ask me to explain it. Because I can't and I won't."

"A visual novel?" Ask said, the tone of her words conveying a clear unfamiliarity of the concept.

"Yep," with a click, Amanda loaded up a previous build that was in a semi-working state. "It's sort of like… a book you can interact with. It has words, pictures, sound, music, everything—see?"

She stepped back to give Ash a better view of the screen, flashing white for a brief moment, then came the gentle notes of piano keys, just some stock music she pulled from some copyright-free playlist.

After that, the menu appeared, which was just as bare, just as simple… placeholder borders displaying the options for a new game, settings, and everything else you'd find in a normal menu. The only thing of any significant change was the title. She didn't know what would make for a good title, so she simply put the first thing she thought of. Nothing poignant.

Just silly, honestly.

"My Servant is an Elf-Knight from Another World," Ash slowly read the words aloud. "This is… the game?"

"A dating game, to be precise," Amanda replied.

"Dating?"

Another one of those innocent questions.

"It's going to be a game where you can date different characters in the story," she explained. "The player makes some choices, builds their relationship, and that's how the game will be played."

"Different characters?"

"An elf… a vampire… a succubus… to name a few."

"And this player…" Ash cocked her head. "Master?"

"A player indeed," Amanda nodded, smiling. "And I don't suppose I need to tell you what the game is based on, do I?"

"I have a good notion of what to expect, yes," she replied, smiling right back in understanding. "And I presume this is where my involvement comes into play?"

"Well, can't have a dating game without its titular character, can we?" Amanda pulled open a drawer beside her desktop, and with a ruffle of a page, presented Ash with a sheet of paper filled with words. "So… ready to record your lines for him?"