Love Letter From The Future

Chapter 352: Bread and Dagger (50)

Venetta had told me to remember the bread and the dagger.

Elves repay bread with bread, and daggers with daggers. There were no exceptions to that rule—not even when it came to the humans they despised.

There was even living proof of this.

The cult’s leader, Leoric.

I didn’t know why someone who had once been a military priest in the Yurdina Army ended up among the elves—or what had led him to join the cult.

But one thing was certain: he had long been accepted as a member of elven society.

Simply because, despite being human, he saved the life of a young elf girl.

I intended to recreate that story for myself.

Of course, there would be small differences.

It was for the sake of authenticity. It only would raise suspicion if too many details matched..

So, I tailored a few parts to better fit both Aviang and me.

First off, she was presented as a spy sent to infiltrate human society. This was something that could be easily proven by showing the ‘blessing’ embedded in her body.

From there, gaining their trust was simple.

Because a spy bestowed with a ‘blessing’ wouldn’t go so far as to lie just to defend a human man.

That complacent assumption quelled their doubts—along with Aviang’s vivid tales of the hardships she’d faced, almost getting caught.

By the time she was done, the two elves who interrogated us wore solemn expressions.

Though, naturally, I was the perpetrator behind most of those hardships.

I was neither particularly smart, nor was I skilled at acting.

So, I intentionally added the setting of ‘amnesia.’

Through this, I could present myself as a harmless weakling. Plus, it wouldn’t seem strange if I knew nothing at all.

And they’d have no reason to interrogate me for information about human society.

At the end of this long process, the two elves finally surrendered.

They decided to believe our story.

That left just one problem.

I could hear them whispering in a corner.

They tried to be secretive, lowering their voices as much as possible, but they couldn’t fool my keen hearing.

“Hey, hey, what are we supposed to do now? We were obviously going to get rid of that man or send him to headquarters.”

“What do you mean, what do we do! Of course we kill him!”

“You want to kill a guy who crossed the continent just to save a young elf?”

Roughly speaking, the man seemed to be on my side while the woman insisted on taking a hardline stance.

The woman fell silent, apparently at a loss for words in response to the man’s argument.

The man shook his head, looking exasperated.

“No matter if he’s human, we can’t mistreat a benefactor... Besides, there’s no way an elf who has a ‘blessing’ could be a traitor.”

At a loss for words once more, the elf woman kept her mouth shut. She remained silent for a long time before timidly making one last attempt at protest,

“Even so, Elder Poff will be really upset about this...”

“The village entrusted us with full authority.”

Of course, her resistance was futile.

Wearing a bitter expression, the man patted the woman on the shoulder.

The woman couldn’t meet his eyes.

g

“So it’s our call to make, Isha. You know that, right? Bread for bread...”

“And a dagger for a dagger... Fine, I get it.”

Aviang, who seemed unable to hear their conversation, looked slightly uneasy.

And when the man came back holding a dagger, her face went noticeably pale.

If I died, so would she.

To her, that dagger must have looked like a blade poised to take her own life.

I deliberately kept my mouth firmly shut.

“W-Wait a second! You can’t do this! This man has done so much for me...!”

Right then, with a snap, the rope binding me was cut.

Finally freed, I flexed and relaxed my fists. The male elf then proceeded to release Aviang’s restraints as well.

Realizing her frantic plea had been pointless, Aviang’s face flushed bright red.

Watching that, the male elf chuckled faintly.

“Miss, you seem to really care about that guy? Are you two lovers by any chance?”

“N-No, absolutely not!”

Aviang vehemently denied it, but her protest fell on deaf ears.

Instead, the man nudged the woman’s arm with his elbow, jokingly saying something like, ‘See, what if we’d killed him?’

It was a relief.

They didn’t seem intent on harming me for now and, with the excuse of ‘amnesia,’ I could stay in the village for a while, familiarize myself with the layout and eventually leave.

According to Aviang, there were several elven villages.

There was a ‘headquarters,’ so to speak—the main base where Leoric resided—but much like the Yurdina Army’s camps, most villages were scattered..

This was a precaution to prevent the extinction of their entire race in one fell swoop.

If they all died, then there would be no ‘elves’ left on this continent.

The only remaining descendants would be the elven slaves secretly traded in the Southern Kingdom and in that case, they would forever be branded as a ‘slave race.’

It was a reasonable precaution.

Unlike the cold expression on the woman’s face, the male elf showed a rather hearty disposition. Even his easygoing smile suggested he was a decent fellow.

“My name’s Ruget, and the one with the grumpy face over there is Isha.... Come to think of it, we never got your name.”

“Um, I don’t even remember my own name...”

I couldn’t risk saying the name ‘Ian’—who knows what kind of rumors that might spread?

It was fortunate that no one seemed to know my identity here. I already confirmed this fact during the previous battle, when none of the elves recognized me.

Had they known who I was, they never would have tried to use such flimsy knots to restrain me.

So, I decided to claim I had forgotten even my own name.

For the record, we set it up as even Aviang supposedly didn’t know my name. The story was that I kept it hidden out of fear that being branded a traitor to humanity would bring harm to my family.

For a hastily concocted lie, it wasn’t too full of holes, was it?

While I was feeling secretly proud of myself, Ruget paused to think for a moment.

“A name, huh... What should we call you? Hey, Isha, do you have any ideas?”

“Just call him ‘human.’ What else?”

Her voice dripped with dissatisfaction.

She still refused to even glance in my direction, her expression making it clear that it was unpleasant even being near me.

It was understandable.

I was human, and she was an elf. After all, humans had a history of capturing female elves and subjecting them to unspeakable acts.

If anything, Isha’s attitude was normal—Ruget was the unusual one.

Ruget also seemed to be well aware of that fact.

With an awkward smile, he smoothly changed the subject.

“Right, that works! There’s only one human in our village anyway... Haha, it must feel overwhelming, representing your whole race by yourself.”

“Not at all. In fact, I kind of like it—‘human’... it has a nice ring to it.”

Aviang gave me a weary, fed-up look.

She seemed surprised at how casually I bantered with Ruget. In truth, I was just as nervous as she was, but thinking of this place as enemy territory strangely didn’t feel all that bad.

The taut string of tension always sharpened my focus.

As our cautious conversation continued, I eventually found myself stepping into a small shed outside the warehouse.

“Um, we gathered all your belongings here. Honestly, we were planning to keep them, but I suppose we should give them back, shouldn’t we?”

My sword, my hatchet, and even the expandable spatial pouch that had safely been tucked away in my coat were all there.

The expandable spatial pouch, in particular, was clearly a high-end item even at a glance—it even bore the emblem of the Imperial Familyon it.

But, perhaps because these elves had isolated themselves so much from civilization, they didn’t even seem to recognize its worth.

That was fortunate for me.

When I reached for my hatchet first, Isha suddenly raised her voice.

“I-I’ve got a bad feeling about this...!”

Her words made me pause. Both Ruget and Aviang turned to stare at her with puzzled expressions, as did I.

Her voice trembled as she continued.

“I-I’ve heard rumours... about a crazy human who smash through demonic humans and mythical monsters alike with a hatchet! What if he’s that person? Won’t we all die?”

“Isha...”

As though he couldn’t stand it anymore, Ruget let out a deep sigh.

Then, he tried to calm her down in a serious tone.

“That’s just a ridiculous rumor. Someone at headquarters probably exaggerated the story, and it probably got blown out of proportion. I mean, think about it—could a person like that even exist?”

“W-Well, that’s true, but...”

Isha’s shoulders drooped and she lowered her head. It seemed she couldn’t help but admit that Ruget’s words made sense.

Meanwhile, I—the very subject of that ‘ridiculous rumor’, was breaking out in cold sweat behind them.

So the rumors really spread all the way here. Then again, Aviang couldn’t have been the only elf spy out there.

Resolving to be even more cautious, I carefully gathered my belongings.

Aviang did the same.

The state of my pouch was what I was most curious about.

I was worried it might have been ransacked in the meantime, but surprisingly, everything inside was intact. Had they perhaps not even touched my belongings?

As I was carefully examining the contents of my pouch, Isha suddenly snapped at me in a sharp voice.

“Hey, you human! We’ll spare you for now, but watch yourself. If you so much as try anything suspicious, I’ll lodge an arrow straight into your forehead...!”

At that moment, I casually pulled out a piece of food I had stored in the pouch.

It was bread.

Thanks to preservation magic, it was still soft and moist. There wasn’t any steam rising from it, but the fact that it was still in such perfect condition after several weeks...

It was an impressive feat.

While I was once more mulling over my gratitude to the princess, a strange feeling of deja vu crept over me.

The surroundings had gone quiet.

I couldn’t hear a single sound. However, I was sure Isha had been saying something to me just moments ago.

When I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye, I found the woman staring at the bread in my hand as though she was spellbound.

Gulp. I could even hear the faint sound of her swallowing her saliva.

Isha asked me timidly,

“B-By any chance... is that bread?”

“Yes, it’s bread.”

It was kind of obvious just by looking, wasn’t it?

I could only tilt my head in confusion at this point.

“Haven’t you looked inside the pouch?”

“No, we wanted to, but... for some reason, whenever we tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge.”

It was Ruget who offered the explanation.

Who would have thought it had a feature like that? I couldn’t help but mentally estimate the value of such a pouch and the result was a sum far beyond what someone like me could ever afford.

But it seemed neither Ruget nor Isha cared about the pouch itself one bit. Their attention was entirely focused on the loaf of bread in my hand.

Now that I think about it, didn’t the elves have poor food supplies?

Anyone could see it just by looking at Isha’s desperate gaze. She clearly wanted to eat that bread.

So, out of pure goodwill, I offered it to her.

“Would you like some?”

“U-Uhm... Uht! N-no! I won’t accept something from a human! And besides, you only have one loaf, so how could I possibly ask...”

Isha instinctively nodded at first but quickly panicked and shook her head. The way she awkwardly tried to preserve her pride made her quite an enigmatic figure.

She didn’t like me because I was human, yet she also didn’t want to take the bread, because that’s the only piece I had.

What a complicated woman.

So, I decided to explain things to her in a more straightforward manner.

I gave my pouch a shake, and another loaf of bread fell out with a thud.

Ruget and Isha’s eyes widened. From the pouch’s small size, they never imagined it could hold two loaves of bread.

It appeared that these elves, so removed from civilization as they were, had no idea what an expandable spatial pouch was.

“A-Another loaf of bread...?”

Hearing Isha’s dazed murmur, I handed her both loaves.

She hesitated at first, unsure of what to do.

However, unable to resist the smell of the bread, she squeezed her eyes shut and took it. Then, as if not to lose to the temptation, she hastily passed one piece to Ruget.

The two of them seemed to get along exceptionally well.

Not that there was any need for that,

But still, under their watchful eyes, I shook the pouch again.

Each time, another loaf of bread fell out.

“O-One, two, three... t-there are eight loaves in total!”

“How much do you have in there, huh? C-Could you share more?!”

Ruget and Isha’s responses to the scene were nothing short of dramatical.

Their enthusiasm was akin to monks encountering a God descending to earth.

All I could do was suppress a wry laugh.

More bread?

Of course I had more. Not just bread, but biscuits, meat, and various other provisions were stashed inside the pouch.

After all, the quality of one’s meals could make a huge difference when sleeping outdoors.

I used a good portion of the reward money I received last time to stock up on food, and plenty still remained.

It felt like a development I’d seen somewhere before.

Have I somehow stumbled into another world?

The fact that simple bread and an expandable spatial pouch could spark such enthusiasm...

And yet, even this didn’t seem to mark the height of their astonishment.

“A-At this rate, maybe everyone in the village can have a loaf...!”

“That’s incredible...”

Moved by Ruget’s guess, Isha sank to the ground in awe. Covering her mouth with faint tears glimmering at the corners of her eyes.

Are all elves like this?

Dumbfounded, I looked over to Aviang, who scratched her cheek with a faint blush on her face.

“Well, you see, the elves have it really hard when it comes to food supplies... And bread, in particular, holds a special significance for us.”

I was still wondering if all of this wasn’t just a little too much when Aviang suddenly sidled up to me. Clearing her throat with an ahem-ahem, she cast a sneaky glance at my pouch and asked,

“S-So, how much can fit in that pouch?”

It seemed Aviang was just as intrigued by the expandable spatial pouch as the others.

At that moment, I realized something.

The elves were living much harsher lives than I could have imagined.

In that moment, my worldview—shaped by a lifetime spent as an imperial noble—began to waver.

***Meanwhile, at that very moment, with her heart full of anticipation, Seria arrived in Yurdina City.