The Only One (3)

‘It’s real. A real elf.’

No deception was possible. This atmosphere, this pressure, this mystique.

These were truths that Ethan could never create, no matter how much he tried. Ernst, convinced of this, trembled his eyes without realizing it.

“Is it really just one token? Is that all?”

“That’s right. If you just give that to me. As you know, this is not something I can handle anyway. It should go to someone qualified.”

Ethan and Isilia had prepared their story together, but Ernst didn’t even ask where or how this elf was found.

Ernst, desperate to have her right away, showed the token he pulled out from his chest at Ethan’s words, who smiled slightly.

That thing with a string was like a necklace. The branch leader who receives the most of these tokens from the commanders becomes the new commander. That was the organization’s rule.

“Take it. I acknowledge it. Indeed, it’s a treasure unique in this world.”

Ernst, who handed over the token to Ethan as if throwing it, touched Isilia’s hair with trembling hands. Isilia frowned as if annoyed, but for now, she didn’t resist as there was something she had to receive.

‘Arrogant but knowing your place, you possess all the good weapons. To get your hands on an elf, and such a special and young one at that. It’s a treasure to be passed down through the family for hundreds of years until its lifespan ends.’

And that appearance further fanned Ernst’s heart, just as Isilia intended.

Since he didn’t even ask, Ethan and Isilia didn’t bother to reveal her identity. Ernst, already entranced and his thoughts stopped, merely thought of Isilia as an ordinary elf with a ‘special color’. The usual Ernst wouldn’t think so easily, but right now, he was too entranced by the overwhelming treasure before his eyes to think deeply.

“Very well. Now it’s yours, Commander. How you use it is up to you.”

Ethan, having received the token, raised the corner of his mouth seeing Ernst like this. He said to handle her as he pleased, but how dare he actually do so.

From the position of already being caught by Isilia in a moment of carelessness, Ernst was just another victim who would suffer the same fate as himself.

“I’m looking forward to today’s banquet. And even more to what’s to come.”

As Ethan left the room without a trace of lingering, Ernst laughed heartily in front of Isilia.

His mind was already full of the enormous benefits that she would bring as an obedient possession of his family.

“Father…”

“Ah.”

At that moment, a voice that brought him back to his senses was heard from behind. Ernst, who had momentarily forgotten even his beloved daughter while immersed in greed, turned around with cold sweat.

* * *

‘The same reaction as expected.’

When Ernst finally arrived here after the boring time of waiting quietly in the chair had passed. I smiled slightly at his reaction, which was in some ways exactly as expected.

The reaction shown by a person stained with greed, unable to overcome it and devoured by it, was interesting and worth watching, but I thought it lacked freshness.

“L-Laila. This is…”

But this reaction was quite fresh. His daughter Laila, who had followed him in. She, whom I had seen once from afar before, couldn’t take her widened eyes off me in surprise, and when her father’s eyes rolled back, she came to her senses and called him.

“This is, well, that…”

Ernst, his characteristic eloquence gone, stuttered and sweated in front of his daughter.

Clearly, in the eyes looking at me, it was blatantly revealed that he was contemplating how to use me, how to make me completely his, but he didn’t want to open that to his daughter.

“What are you planning to do with that child?”

“Uh… Uh!?”

When Laila asked outright, he began to be cornered even more. It seemed he wasn’t having such honorable thoughts after all.

“Let’s talk about this later. Now, go out. You out there! Come and take this child away! We need to prepare for the banquet too.”

At a loss for what to do, he glanced at me and finally sent his daughter out of the room. Laila tried to resist, but when he called his subordinates outside to take her away, she had no choice but to leave.

“…What’s your name?”

And finally, I was left alone in the room with him.

As soon as his daughter disappeared from sight, greed surging instantly overflowed in his eyes. It was so blatant that it was impossible to hide.

The thought of breaking his neck right here and running away crossed my mind, but it hadn’t even been a day, let alone a few hours, since I was handed over to him from Ethan.

I judged that I needed to spend more time to avoid unnecessary suspicion.

“Isilia.”

“Good, Isilia. What did that Ethan teach you? Did you learn about your position? How to obey your master?”

As Ethan had predicted, Ernst, not content with simply possessing me, wanted me to obey him.

He was trying to use me for his own advancement and wealth.

‘Should I play along?’

It was a much simpler and more primitive desire than I thought. I hesitated for a moment in the atmosphere that didn’t seem likely to go as far as the worst-case scenario of violent conflict that I had considered.

It’s not good if the commotion grows. If it can be handled quietly, that’s the best. Above all, his daughter Laila, whom I had just directly encountered.

Having seen her eyes, I was confident that if handled well, I could sway them without the expected violent conflict.

“Jensen! I’m postponing the banquet for a day. Tell the guests to stay in the annex. And summon Rosalyn.”

“It’s possible to postpone since there’s a flexible schedule, but Rosalyn? Why on earth that woman…”

“It’s not for me that I’m calling her. I want to teach her something, even if just a little, over the next two days to show off.”

Ernst, who had left the room, began to give various instructions after summoning the butler.

When the butler was surprised at the name Rosalyn that came up in the process, Ernst, who had brought me out covered in a hooded cloak, bristled, saying it wasn’t for him but for me that he was calling her.

From what I gathered, this Rosalyn woman clearly works in a brothel.

Before leaving the room, he had seriously asked me if I knew how to do anything, and when I answered that I hadn’t really done anything except fighting, he sighed deeply. It seemed he was planning to teach me dancing or something.

Good-looking food tastes good too. My packaging work wasn’t over yet.

“And seal off this place. No one except me is to enter.”

Going further, Ernst turned this entire annex into a new cage for me. At this point, it would be normal for his subordinates to feel something strange, but his eyes were so bright that everyone was just watching the situation.

‘I guess I don’t have to do anything.’

I didn’t show any reaction and obediently followed his words. It wasn’t that I was doing this without thinking.

“Father will probably never show it to me. I have to see for myself.”

“But miss, the master ordered us to guard this place tightly…”

I heard the sound of conversation transmitted by the wind spirits. This voice, which I had heard before, was the voice of Laila whispering secretly with someone who seemed to be her maid outside the annex.

The young lady of the organization, who had lost her mind like her father when she saw me, seemed to be trying to meet me somehow, disobeying her father’s orders.

‘Being such a doting father, he probably can’t do anything about his daughter moving directly.’

I went to the window and smiled slightly as I looked down at Laila. Thanks to her showing such interest in me, I already had a plan on how to escape this place without any trouble.

“He seems richer than Ethan, but still not an uncle I like.”

Waiting for Laila to come on her own, I flopped down on the bed and raised the corner of my mouth as I looked at the spirits hovering around me.

Although he has a weakness in his daughter, Ernst was already too big and had too much, so even if I revealed my identity, he didn’t seem likely to move as I wanted.

Judging that there was no bat as good as Ethan, I wiggled my ankle with a thin chain attached. The reward for being obedient was this light restraint.

Eventually, this organization will be taken over by Ethan with my help, and naturally, I’ll be able to use that power as much as I want. That’s why I’m doing this.

“She’s here?”

And the next day, before dawn broke. The spirits woke me up as I was sleeping comfortably.

Laila had seized the opportunity to sneak past the guards and hide in the annex.