Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I Installed a Dating App and Girls from Another World Became Obsessed with Me.

Episode 2: Matching (2).

Blinded without warning, I reflexively closed my eyes.

In that instant, a sensation of the surrounding air changing enveloped me, and when I opened my eyes again.

“Ugh, ugh, ugh!!! Damn it!!!”

I was falling from the sky.

Naturally, there was no parachute, and the more I struggled, the faster I fell.

‘Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy…!!’

As I got closer to the ground, memories of my childhood flashed through my mind like a fast-forwarded video.

Was this what a dying person saw?

Even things I had forgotten resurfaced in the wave of passing memories.

Being rejected by the girl next to me when I confessed in elementary school, being beaten up by third-year seniors when I confessed to one I fell in love with at first sight in middle school, and even being dumped by the college student I asked out on a date in the library in high school—all of it came flooding back.

‘…Wait, why are only these kinds of things popping up?’

This wasn’t a dying vision, it was just a straight-up execution, wasn’t it?

“Gah!”

Just as I was entrusting myself to gravity and enjoying parachute-less skydiving, my falling body suddenly stopped in mid-air, as if something had grabbed my neck.

I looked around, wondering what was happening, but it wasn’t easy to figure out the situation in a cave-like place with no light.

Barely catching my breath from the series of inexplicable events, my body slowly descended towards the ground.

When my feet finally touched the hard floor, I realized I had survived.

As expected, life was better even in a dog-shit field.

“But where is this…”

“Um…”

“?!”

As I fumbled in my pocket to turn on my phone’s flashlight, a woman’s voice came from the darkness.

“Who are you…?”

My voice tensed up, given the location.

The sudden woman’s voice in a gloomy, dark place reminded me of the beginning of a horror movie I had seen the other day, so I couldn’t help but be nervous.

Thump thump

My guarded demeanor made the woman’s footsteps, hidden in the darkness, grow closer.

When she was close enough to touch, I finally saw her clearly.

“…Wow.”

Her golden hair, visible even in the darkness, and the green eyes staring at me had a strong exotic feel.

And she was unbelievably beautiful.

However, her ears were a bit unique.

‘Her ears are kinda long…?’

She looked like an elf from a fantasy novel.

“…An elf?”

The woman’s appearance was like she was cosplaying a game character.

But soon, her long ears were moving vividly, proving she wasn’t cosplaying.

She was a real elf.

“A, a person…?”

Just as I was surprised to see an elf, she was surprised to see me.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to be an arrogant type, and I didn’t sense any hostility in her gaze.

No, she was too beautiful to be one of those stuck-up types.

“Hello…?”

I cautiously spoke to her.

“…You spoke?”

“Huh?”

The elf girl looked at me with a somewhat dazed expression.

“Excuse me?”

“…You spoke again.”

She seemed to be in a bad state.

She seemed a bit out of it, or something.

‘By the way, where is this place?’

It was too dark to see anything properly.

“Excuse me, do you know where this is…”

“…A living person.”

While I was distracted, the elf girl suddenly came close and rubbed my hand as if looking at something fascinating.

Her touch was incredibly soft, incomparable to my rough hands.

“Right? I’m only 21 years old…”

Before I could finish speaking, the elf girl suddenly rushed into my arms.

“Hwaaah…!”

It was absurd that she suddenly hugged me, and now she was crying.

I wondered if this was what being perplexed felt like, but as I felt her shoulders trembling violently, I quietly patted her back and waited for her to calm down.

‘What is going on…’

I was sure that today would be the most chaotic and absurd day of my 21 years of life.

“Sniff, sniff…”

“Are you calm now?”

“Ye, yes…”

“Are you done crying?”

“N, no I wasn’t crying!”

“My clothes are wet, though?”

“Oh my! Wh, what should I do… I, I’ll dry them for you!”

Warm air came out of the elf girl’s palm as she patted my chest, which was wet with her tears.

‘Magic…?’

Since wizards were so rare, this was my first time seeing magic up close.

Thanks to the wind from the elf girl’s palm, my clothes quickly dried as if they had never been wet.

“Thank you.”

“No, it’s my fault for getting them dirty…”

But her tears, from my perspective, were from an ultra-beautiful elf, so they were definitely not dirty.

‘This is the first time my clothes have smelled this good.’

What kind of flowery smell was coming from my clothes?

It was just amazing.

Of course, there were countless things more amazing than that.

Starting with the existence of the elf girl in front of me, to how I, who was clearly in my room, ended up here doing a parachute-less skydive.

No matter how much I racked my brain, there was only one answer.

‘Other World Dating App.’

It was reasonable to assume that this app on my phone was the cause.

Anyone who heard it would call me crazy, but right now, there was no other way to explain this phenomenon.

First of all, this probably wasn’t Earth, since there were no elves on Earth.

Of course, just because I, an ordinary person, didn’t know about it, didn’t mean there couldn’t be elves on Earth.

But it was unlikely they’d be near my house.

“Excuse me…”

“Yes?”

While I was lost in thought, the elf girl was looking up at me.

With a very burdensome look.

I was a little nervous from the gaze of a beautiful woman, which was a first for me.

“Y, you’re a person, right? You’re a human, right?”

“Uh… yeah? What, are there monsters disguised as humans here or something?”

I had heard about such monsters in my monster studies class in school.

“N, no! It’s not that… it’s just that you’re the first other person I’ve seen here…”

“Here?”

I looked around.

It was still dark, but my eyes were getting used to the darkness, so I could at least make out the surrounding scenery.

It was a very large cave? Cavity? Something like that.

“How did you come here?”

“…I’m not really sure either.”

I didn’t have the confidence to explain coherently how I had come here through dimensional travel because of a dating app I had turned on for fun.

‘But is she really 500 years old?’

The elf girl looked like she was my age, but since I had put 500 as the age range when I did the matching survey, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that she was around that age.

She definitely looked like an elf, without a single wrinkle or visible pore.

Did she constantly use some kind of anti-aging magic?

“Where is this place?”

As time passed, the surrounding scenery became more visible.

It was so vast that every time I spoke, my voice echoed, and there were strange, ancient ruins scattered around.

What kind of place is this?

“This is… a prison.”

“A prison?”

The elf girl’s complexion turned slightly pale.

“It’s an underground cavity in the deepest part of the holy site where the World Tree took root. It’s used as a prison now, but…”

World Tree? Did she mean that big tree that often appeared in comics and anime?

‘So those scattered tree roots are the roots of the World Tree?’

I had a growing desire to dig some up and boil it. It seemed like it would be much more effective than any medicinal herb on the market.

If its effects were proven, I could sell it at an auction for a decent amount of money.

Of course, I decided to just think about it in my head, since I would probably be dismembered by the elf girl if I tried.

“By the way, I don’t see any other prisoners for a prison?”

To begin with, there were no iron bars or guards here, so it didn’t really look like a prison.

“…Actually, even though it’s called a prison, it’s more like solitary confinement. If someone’s crime is bad enough to be imprisoned here, it’s better to just execute them.”

I was curious why she was imprisoned alone in a prison where even the worst criminals weren’t kept, but I didn’t dare ask because of her still pale complexion.

“Ahem, shall we introduce ourselves first?”

“…Ah.”

I lightly extended my hand to break the ice.

“I’m Kang Hyeon-u. My race is human, as you can see, and I’m 21 years old this year.”

Fortunately, the elf girl immediately shook my hand.

“I, I’m! Iris Remeria Bayart Pelledia!”

“…Huh?”

What was she? A noble?

With a name over 10 syllables long, I started to worry about how to address her.

“…Can I call you Iris?”

“Ah, yes!”

My memory wasn’t good enough to memorize a name close to a sentence, like a European noble’s name.

Fortunately, Iris seemed strangely happy.

Her smiling face made me feel good too.

It was a pure and gentle smile without any venom, unlike the fake smiles of the girls at school.

I was caught up in an unbelievable situation because of a suspicious app, but I was starting to think it wasn’t so bad.

Ding-

A familiar alarm sound came from my pocket.

‘Isn’t this a place without Wi-Fi or reception?’

I secretly took out my phone and checked it.

[Thank you for using this Other World Dating App]

[We are offering a free dating consulting curriculum for first-time customers]

[Do you agree?]

[Y/Y]

“What…?”

[If there is no response, it will be automatically accepted shortly]

[3, 2, 1…]

[Y]

[Analyzing Iris Remeria Bayart Pelledia’s tendencies]

[Analyzing…]

[Analysis complete]

[Name: Iris Remeria Bayart Pelledia

Age: 524

Affiliation: EB-17

Occupation: Magician

Tendencies: Benevolent Ruler, Pacifist, Devoted, Vegetarian…]

The selection screen, without any choice, quickly passed, and then it showed me Iris’s information, as if showing the information of an NPC in a game.

‘…It’s not that special, is it?’

I had already heard her name when she introduced herself.

Her race and age were exactly as I had put in the survey when I matched, and although she was 24 years older than 500, it wasn’t a big deal.

“What is that?”

Iris, who had come close at some point, showed interest in my phone with sparkling eyes.

I quickly returned to the home screen.

“Ah, this is…”

Ding-

Just as I was about to explain about the phone to Iris to avoid any misunderstanding, a new screen appeared.

[Detected Iris Remeria Bayart Pelledia’s past]

[Advanced dating consulting curriculum will proceed]

[Past monologue will begin]

‘……What?’

I immediately checked Iris’s condition at the app’s incomprehensible explanation.

“E, excuse me, Iris…? Iris?”

Iris didn’t answer, no matter how much I waved my hand or called her name.

She just stared blankly into the air.

She looked like the female protagonist who had been hypnotized by a hypnosis app I often saw on Hixmi.

Suddenly, the genre seemed to be changing from a sweet romance with a beautiful elf to a story of a human defiling an elf.

“I…”

As I was wondering what to do, Iris began to speak in a low, heavy voice.

“I was… the queen of the Kingdom of Pelledia.”