Ch.174The Road to Amarantin (2)

“By the way. Where did you learn your swordsmanship?”

On the way to Amarantin, Simon asked me where I had learned my swordsmanship.

“Haven’t I told you several times? I learned at Parcival’s Swordsmanship Guild. It wasn’t decades of persistent training, just a few months of intensive courses… but it was enough to survive on the streets.”

“I see… As a mage, I find it fascinating. That just a few months of short-term training could have such significant meaning…”

Well, mages like Simon sometimes suffer for a year just to learn one spell, so they probably wouldn’t relate to flyers advertising “Complete footwork training in just one month!” or “Want to be a sword master in just one year? The best choice to earn your Sword Master certification!”

“It’s different for everyone. Those desperate like me would practice even in their dreams—how to move their feet, how to extend their arms, how to maintain posture. We achieved much more than those who were just killing time.”

“So it’s about the difference in desperation…”

“Street life in the city requires learning how to be a thug, doesn’t it? It’s the way of the world that waving around some pathetic club won’t even let you beat a knife-wielding housewife. You need at least a rusty sword at your hip to pull off any decent cons.”

There were many such people wandering the streets.

Having grown up in a port city, I don’t know much about the ecology of cities with less floating population, but the thugs of Parcival were powerful enough to teach swordsmanship among themselves.

I killed them all, of course, but similar types are probably doing similar things by now. People may disappear, but customs don’t.

“Come to think of it… Raisha. Where did you learn your spear techniques?”

“Ah… I learned from my father.”

“From your father?”

“Yes. Actually, I wanted to learn swordsmanship… but as you know, swords are expensive, right? And my father was concerned about me getting hurt, so I ended up learning spear techniques instead.”

“I see…”

Naturally, swords are more expensive than spears. The basic amount of metal required is different.

Of course, if you deliberately make an expensive spear, you could use mythril or orichalcon for the blade, and branches from the World Tree for the shaft, making it as expensive as you want.

“After my father passed away… I had to earn my living with spear skills. I was too young to work as a prostitute… and my chest got in the way of doing needlework for hire…”

“Hmm….”

It might be hard to understand how a chest that interferes with needlework doesn’t interfere with spear techniques, but while you can’t sew from behind your back, you can certainly thrust a spear from there.

Until her body was healed from the side effects of the Fungyuhwan, Raisha had developed her skills to overcome her physical disadvantages.

“Then… what about you elves?”

“Us? Well… it’s more like basic education, I suppose?”

“Basic education?”

“There’s this image that elves must use bows, right? It takes a long time to master archery… but we elves have plenty of time to spare. And we happened to have plenty of money too.”

“I see.”

For some reason I don’t understand, the strange preconception that elves equal archers has covered the world since the days of the Empire.

In truth, while the elven race is specialized in time-consuming skills like archery, the same could be said for other martial arts like swordsmanship or spear techniques.

“Why specifically bows? Swords and spears can be quite appealing too.”

When I muttered that, Lucia explained the reason with a hint of pride.

“Because archery allows you to attack one-sidedly. I’ve lived an eventful life, so I know—no matter how careful you are, it’s inevitable to get stabbed in the back or side during close-quarters combat when you lose focus for a moment.”

“And archery avoids that?”

“Of course. You need to be careful in indoor or urban combat, but in normal situations, there are frontliners like you, right? We elves generally start with at least 10 years of proficiency, so there’s less risk of friendly fire. And even if the enemy is armored, you can aim for vulnerable spots like the eyes or joints, so armor isn’t much of an obstacle.”

“Hooh…”

It was a highly convincing opinion.

Certainly, swordsmen and spearmen are forced to endure continuous damage at close range, but ranged support like archers can kill enemies indefinitely as long as they have arrows.

The fact that they could passively achieve the ridiculous feat of killing someone with a single shot through the eye slit of full plate armor made my knees weak.

“With all that money, wasn’t learning to use guns an option?”

“Guns leave you smelling of gunpowder! Nothing is uglier than a smelly elf. Got it?”

“Yeah… I got it. But I guess smelly dwarves are fine?”

“Well… they’re dwarves, so…”

I want to say “you fucking racist,” but sadly, there were reasons why dwarves received such treatment.

First, the vast majority of dwarves worked in jobs that had nothing to do with hygiene, like mining or tanning. Add to that their love of alcohol and their racial characteristic of focusing on work regardless of sweat or blood.

The strong chemicals needed for leather dyeing + the smell of alcohol + the stench of sweat—it’s no wonder prejudices developed.

In Parcival, some pretentious fellows would swagger around saying that if a dwarf didn’t smell, they weren’t a real dwarf, though I don’t know if that perception actually exists.

“But I’m suddenly curious. Are there people that elves dislike? Like… ‘I absolutely never want to meet this kind of person.'”

“Ah… yes. But do you really need to hear it? Since you’re human, it might be a bit… ‘offensive.'”

“Don’t worry. My fist is holding the reins right now.”

When I raised my fist holding the reins, Lucia relaxed and began to speak.

“Well… first, we tend to avoid orphans on principle.”

“…”

“Long-lived races don’t have much to talk about when they meet. We usually end up asking about each other’s families… but orphans don’t have that in common… so it’s hard to build rapport…”

“I see… what else?”

“We also dislike the poor. The vast majority of elves hold high social positions… so killing someone just to survive? That’s unimaginable.”

“…”

“But… adventurers are generally more understood.”

“….Continue.”

“We also tend to dislike frontliners…? I don’t know about other elves, but we high elves consider ourselves particularly precious among elves. There’s a certain arrogance about not wanting to associate with lowly frontliners.”

“…I see.”

Somehow each point strikes right at my core.

Lucia seems aware of this and keeps watching my reactions nervously, but I have no intention of harming her.

She clearly didn’t want to bring this up in the first place, and I had promised not to hurt her.

Besides, elves treat anyone under 1000 years old as a baby, so whatever I do wouldn’t suit their temperament anyway.

No matter how hard I try, they’d just see it as a baby playing cute.

Occasionally in taverns, you hear stories of human men who tried to win the favor of elf women, repeatedly failed, and finally exploded in rage and killed an elf. When I was younger, I thought this was normal, but now I see there’s nothing more pitiful.

Humans cannot read others’ inner thoughts.

Except mages, of course.

Therefore, they judge others by appearance, and for humans with such habits, elves who maintain their youthful appearance are the most desirable sexual partners or lovers.

However, the root of all problems is that elves enter society at an age that far exceeds the average human lifespan.

For example, if a 3-year-old baby put on makeup and said they wanted to marry me, would I go through with the ceremony?

At most, I’d pinch their cheek once and call them a precocious child.

That’s the fundamental gap between elves and humans.

If they were the same age, it might be different. Elves don’t age, but humans do.

Even elves and humans who grew up together grow apart as time passes and they recognize their differences. Crudely put, men who just want to “get a whiff between the legs” will never truly receive the love of an elf woman.

As I said before, no one wants to marry a 3-year-old baby, and anyone who does is insane and should be isolated from society.

“What are you thinking about so intently?”

“Just… thinking about half-elves.”

“Ah… that’s a very sensitive issue.”

And because such miserable realities exist, love between different races clearly has its own value.