Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume SS - Chapter 11

Short Story:

Elinalise Wants to Be There

IT WAS A LITTLE AFTER Cliff and Elinalise first began dating.

I was walking down the corridor at the University of Magic, when Cliff called out from behind me.

“Hey, Rudeus. You have a minute?”

I turned, but there was no one there. Cliff, it seemed, had succeeded in turning himself invisible. Dating Elinalise must have been one of the requirements for unlocking a new skill.

Okay, I’m kidding. He was just standing in the shadow of a pillar and beckoning me over.

“What’s up?” I asked. If it had been Linia and Pursena, I would have been wary. With them, it could have been an invitation to some illicit activity, so you had to be cautious. But there was no need for caution with straight-laced Cliff.

“I don’t quite know how to put this…” He said that, but there was no way Cliff would say anything really spicy. “I have a request. I want to get Lise a present, but I realized I don’t know what she likes or wants.”

There you go, just plain old lovestruck couple stuff. Good old Cliff. He didn’t have to lurk in the shadows to ask me that. Even if anyone overheard us, it wouldn’t… Ah, he didn’t want Elinalise to overhear us. Or any dogs and cats who might spread the rumor around…

“I know just the thing,” I said.

“You do?!”

“Yeah, if you get naked, wrap yourself up in a bow, then say, ‘Tonight you get to do whatever you want to me,’ you’ll have Elinalise drooling all over you.”

“Rudeus.”

“I’m kidding.”

Though not about the part where Elinalise would love it. If Cliff really surprised her like that, she’d probably get so excited she’d keep him all to herself for days. Then poor Cliff would end up dead in the saddle. I’d stand in front of his gravestone and sob about how I could have made such a stupid suggestion… So it was probably better to call it a joke.

“I feel like you’d be better off asking her directly,” I said.

“Yes, I suppose. It’s just that the other day Lise was saying how attractive it is when guys casually give their partners nice gifts.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to be popular with the ladies, Cliff.”

“What I want is for Lise to think I’m a good guy. I might be a genius, but this is unfamiliar territory for me.”

Now it made sense. For all his self-confidence, Cliff thought that if he took a catch like Elinalise for granted, he wouldn’t be able to hang on to her. His ulterior motive here was to show her what a good guy he was now to earn points with her. Of course, I was pretty sure Elinalise was smitten with him, so he needn’t have gone to the trouble… No other guy was about to outdo him, not after the passion with which he’d courted her, curse and all. Cliff would waste away and die from too much sex long, long before Elinalise ever came to dislike him.

But then, that was one of Cliff’s good points. The guy was a hard worker—so much so that, even with Elinalise wringing him out every night, he kept his grades up and never gave himself up to pleasure. If I had a hottie like that in my bed every night, I probably wouldn’t even come to school anymore. Not that I was only here because I couldn’t get a girl into bed, mind you. 

In any case, this was just another sort of communication. I’d lend Cliff a hand.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll try and ask her, casual-like.”

“I’m in your debt.”

After that, I went to find Elinalise. With my conversational skills, I’d find out what she liked in no time flat.

***

“It’s your fifteenth birthday soon, right, Elinalise? Anything you want for your birthday?”

“This is for Cliff, isn’t it?”

She was on to me in a second. I thought I’d been so smooth… Except no, ‘fifteen’ hadn’t been smooth. It had been a big flashing arrow. 

“I suppose he wants to show me what a good guy he is by getting me a surprise present, but he doesn’t know what to give me, and so he sent you. Or something like that.”

That was too spot on. Was she an esper? I guess to a woman who’d spent hundreds of years toying with men’s hearts, the mind of a newbie lover was like an open book. Anyway, if she already had it figured out that far, there was no point in me trying to deceive her.

“That’s…more or less it, yeah,” I admitted. “How did you know?”

“When we had lunch together the other day, I brought it up. I said that the best way to get a girl to like you is a present.”

So the preparations had already been in place. Elinalise knew all about placing hints—she had Cliff in the palm of her hand.

“That Cliff. He could have just asked me himself. He didn’t need to go to the trouble of asking you to do it. I would have told him I was happy so long as he was there beside me.”

“That’s unexpectedly chaste of you.”

“It isn’t the same for everyone, but most men don’t like women with strong desires. I want the man I love to think I’m a nice girl.”

Was that really how it was? I guess it was in Cliff’s case. The followers of Millis approved of purity and unselfishness. 

“I was so sure that you’d want Cliff to come to you wearing nothing but a ribbon and say, ‘Your present is me.’” Elinalise didn’t say anything, but her face told me she thought I was a genius. So she was into that sort of thing. She blinked a few times to snap out of her fantasies, then turned to me again.

“What I want is for Cliff to put all of his energy into choosing something just for me. I would appreciate it if you could find a way to indirectly communicate that to him.”

“Understood.”

In the end, it wasn’t the present itself but the feeling that mattered. The important thing was that you showed you’d thought of them when you chose it, that you’d used your time and mental resources for their sake. I’d bear that in mind for when I had a son who stayed shut up in his room and wouldn’t come out.

***

I told Cliff exactly what Elinalise had said. I could see the scales fall from his eyes.

“Of course!” he exclaimed. “If I secretly found out what she wanted, then even if she liked it, it wouldn’t mean anything! You have opened my eyes. Thank you, Rudeus!” Then he went running out of the school. Mission complete. Cliff would go and find a special something to give to Elinalise. Whatever it was, Elinalise would shower him in a flood of gratitude, then give him a passionate kiss as a thank you. Then the two of them would head to a room somewhere and spend a wild, passionate night together. Everyone lives happily ever after.

I was disappointed not to get paid for the errand quest, but Cliff and Elinalise were good about obligations, so they’d get me back another time.

But then, all of a sudden, a shadow passed over my heart. What if Elinalise didn’t like the present Cliff gave her…? It was impossible. Elinalise was a veteran when it came to seducing guys, and she was madly in love with Cliff. No matter what he got her, she’d be happy with him. Whether that happiness was real or an act might depend on the content of the gift, though… But that wasn’t the important part anyway. 

What if, though—what if Cliff got Elinalise a present so bad that she couldn’t restrain herself? Say, to give an extreme example, Cliff gave her a dog turd he’d picked up off the street. Elinalise wouldn’t be able to keep up her smile then. Even if he used really pretty wrapping paper.

Needless to say, Cliff would never do a thing like that. But he didn’t know anything about love. He’d lost his virginity, and by now, he’d probably racked up more experience points than I could dream of, but he had hardly any romance experience points when it came to the basics of Elinalise. He was out of school, but didn’t have enough experience—a fresh grad, in other words. That was a scary thing to be. He might lose his head and do something bizarre. Dog poop aside, what if he ended up getting her something seriously un-special?!

Even as the worry passed through my mind, I was already moving.

I ended up glued to Cliff’s side as we went around the market.

“Hmm.” Cliff had been only too happy to have me accompany him. Now, he was looking at some creepy ornament at a street stall. It looked really ethnic, the sort of thing that Zanoba would know all kinds of useless facts about. That wasn’t to say it looked well-made, though. Zanoba, for all that, liked high-quality workmanship, so he probably wouldn’t have wanted this. Elinalise probably wouldn’t know what to do with it either, but Elinalise was a battle-hardened super slut. Even if he gave her something like this, which would just be a nuisance, she’d shower Cliff with praise like he’d brought her the holy grail, then put it on the shrine in her room.

When you thought about it like that, maybe I hadn’t needed to come. 

“But then, Lise is probably used to this sort of thing. I want something that’s more what she likes, something we’ll remember…”

Look at Cliff’s face in profile there as he put all his energy into choosing a gift for Elinalise. He wouldn’t choose anything too weird, not when he was thinking that carefully about it.

I’d been stupid. Cliff would choose something great, something Elinalise would accept without a hint of dissatisfaction even though it wouldn’t be quite to her taste. 

Sorry? You think he could give her something that would make her genuinely happy? Ha ha. As if that would ever happen. All that made Elinalise genuinely happy were dates with Cliff and the inns she took him to on the way home—not objects.

And even if there was such an object, this was Elinalise. She’d have Cliff stop by the market with her on a date, then guide him into choosing it for her. Either way, the moment Cliff came here without her, he was doomed. I mean, it was possible that he’d pick out the right thing by coincidence, but that would be all right too.

Anyway, Cliff seemed fine, so it seemed like it was time for me to head home. I wasn’t going to get made to feel inferior by seeing Cliff and Elinalise being all lovey-dovey up close. 

“Um, Cliff? I just remembered I had to…” I began, but then I noticed something. On the other side of the crowd behind Cliff, someone had ducked in to hide in the shadow of a stall three along from where we were now. 

“What is it?” Cliff asked.

“Well… It looks like we’re being watched.”

“Say what?!” Cliff gasped. “Someone’s tailing us?!”

I mean, there was only one person who’d be tailing us here.

“Elinalise probably wanted to see your face as you think hard about what to buy her.”

She’d really thought this through. She wanted to see Cliff doing his very best to choose something for her on his own. If she tailed him, she got to enjoy it. After she’d satisfied herself watching over Cliff’s first errand, the memory would serve as a side dish to the evening’s enjoyments. Elinalise would get what she wanted, and Cliff would be satisfied. It was a perfect win-win.

“Rudeus,” Cliff said in disbelief. “Lise wouldn’t do a thing like that…”

“Really?”

“No… But it might be an assassin.”

“Say what?”

“My grandfather is very high up in the Millis Church. He sent me here so that I wouldn’t get mixed up in any political struggles, but if my grandfather lost, his enemies would go after me, his blood relative…”

I pulled myself together. I was pretty sure he was overthinking it, but back when I’d been an adventurer, it was always the situations that no one had anticipated that ended with people dead. Cliff was from a complicated family, so I couldn’t just reject the possibility out of hand.

If this really was someone sent from Millis to murder Cliff, the way he was getting carried away here for Elinalise’s sake was putting him at serious risk. I was not keen to make trouble with the Millis Church…but he was my friend, and the idea of making Elinalise a widow left a bitter taste in my mouth.

In any case, what was I supposed to do now? Right now, it was just the two of us, Cliff and I. We were outside the university and extremely vulnerable to attack. I could guard Cliff and use the Eye of Foresight to prevent any surprise attacks… But this outing hadn’t been planned, so perhaps our enemy hadn’t expected to find Cliff this defenseless and was hesitating. If so, it seemed that rather than let them find the perfect moment to strike, I should act first. Only, I couldn’t be sure that our enemy was acting alone, so I didn’t want to leave Cliff by himself…

“Understood. Cliff, you should get back to the safety of the university as fast as possible.”

“Ah, hey, Rudeus!” I set off at a run, leaving Cliff behind me.

***

The chase went on for a while. The shadowy figure with their hood pulled down over their eyes fled into the industrial district of Sharia, weaving their way through the narrow tangle of alleys.

They were in better shape than I was, but I had the Eye of Foresight, and silently casting Sonic Wave gave a massive boost to my cornering performance and acceleration, so I managed not to lose them. What I couldn’t manage, though, was to catch them. Maybe they were used to running away, or maybe they were cleverly choosing their path through the alleys. It was possible that this whole chase was just a way to buy time and that even now Cliff was under attack. Just as that fear crossed my mind, the figure stopped. It was a dead end.

“Whew… I finally caught you,” I said. The hooded figure’s shoulders jerked. Then, as though resigned, they turned around and lowered the hood to reveal long ears and gorgeously styled hair. I knew both well.

“For goodness’ sake, did you really have to chase me all the way in here?”

In the end, it was Elinalise after all. 

All right, who was the one who brought up Millis assassins again? Not that I’d put it past her, but she’s more the type to get stabbed. If you know what I mean.

“Why were you tailing us?” I asked.

“You know, don’t you?”

“Nope, no idea… Don’t tell me your plan was to enjoy yourself watching Cliff thinking hard about what to get for you, then save up the memory for tonight when the two of you spend a passionate night together?”

“My goodness, do you read minds?”

After checking my answers, I’d gotten a perfect score. I still hadn’t known Elinalise that long, but this side of her was easy to work out. She basically thought the same way as a dirty old man.

“I see,” I said.

“Would you mind not telling Cliff? He’ll think I don’t trust him and be upset.”

“Of course, I wasn’t going to…” All of a sudden, I was exhausted. How had I ended up running around all over the place, sprinting down alleys and chasing people for the sake of this farce?

“Oh, but the look on Cliff’s face as he was thinking hard about what to choose…” Elinalise sighed. “I could come three times just watching him.”

With a deep sigh, I headed back to find Cliff. I told him they’d been tailing me, not him, then went back to the dormitory. I don’t know what the two of them did after that, but, well, I’m sure they had a good time.

***

“So that’s what happened,” I finished. It was the next day, and I was complaining to Fitz about what had transpired. “If they want to be all lovey-dovey, that’s fine. I just wish they wouldn’t drag me into it.”

“Hahaha. You’re one to talk after you stuck your head in,” Fitz said, grinning.

“Even so.”

After I finished my story, Fitz let out a sigh, then looked up out of the window. “Elinalise really is an adult woman, isn’t she?”

“You think?” Well, her mind worked like a dirty old man’s, so she was an adult, at any rate. 

“I kind of admire her.”

“Oho! Is she your type, then, Fitz?”

“N-no way! Not like that! It’s just, I don’t know, I just thought, a woman like that, she’s so cool.”

“Well, if you say so.”

Setting aside the finer details, it was true that Elinalise’s ­philosophy of loving her man and accepting him with all his flaws was pretty cool. 

It was also true that I kind of liked seeing Fitz get flustered, when he was usually so cool. Just getting to see that, I thought, meant something good had come out of all this.