Kang Hyunwoo didn't realize it, but from the moment Iris met him, she had been in a state of unbearable anxiety.
She tried to appear cheerful by feigning interest in her cell phone, but the growing unease in her heart was not something she could control.
Two hundred years, no less.
No matter how eternally long-lived a high elf might be, spending that long in a dark, lightless prison, completely isolated from any contact with others, could only be a succession of unimaginable loneliness and torment.
Living for a long time didn't make one immune to emotions.
On the contrary, they were pitiful beings who mourned the deaths of their acquaintances more than anyone else and longed for the traces of the fleeting years.
Suffering in endless time, they often ended up either suppressing their emotions or stubbornly reaching the realm of transcendence and attaining enlightenment.
Even elves, revered as descendants of gods, were ultimately part of humanity in the broad sense. And humanity was merely an aggregate formed by social animals who couldn't live alone.
Why would a high elf, directly created by the World Tree, create villages and run cities with other elves?
Why do people live among people, get married, and have children?
No matter how tough society is, it's not easy to shut oneself up in the mountains.
Dying alone in a room without any contact or connection to anyone is one of the worst deaths in modern times.
For Iris, who had grown up receiving love and attention from so many people, the past 200 years had been too cruel.
Kang Hyunwoo appeared before her, at a point when she was so cornered that she was even contemplating the extreme choice of suicide.
It was warmth, conversation, and contact after 200 years.
At first, she was wary of being alone with a strange man, but that changed quickly when she realized how weak he was.
All that remained afterward was curiosity and a little bit of fondness.
She was so happy that she committed the outrageous act of grabbing his hand first, but thankfully, he didn't seem to mind much.
The hand of the man she held for the first time was rough, but also warm and reassuring.
'Could it be that my tension was relieved without me realizing it…?'
She even told a complete stranger about her past, something she shouldn't have done.
She knew she should stop even as she spoke, but the more she revealed her past and let go of her emotions, the more relieved she felt, as if a lump in her chest was dissolving, and she couldn't stop talking.
Besides, he listened to her story until the end, even though it must have been annoying. The stale, foolish end of a woman.
She felt really refreshed after telling him about her past.
-Don't you want revenge?
She couldn't answer easily.
There were definitely moments when she wanted to take revenge on Resillia and those behind her.
But perhaps it was because her emotions had faded over the 200 years. Feelings like burning revenge had long turned to ashes and died out.
All that remained was the lingering feeling that she could no longer harbor the will to do anything or the hope that she could.
She doubted if she could even get out of here in the first place.
She looked at the stone door that would never open, even if she killed herself.
Even if she could get out, would there still be a place for her in the kingdom?
-Who can I blame now? It's a monarch's virtue to see through the essence of others… I just didn't have an eye for people.
Even if she had committed corruption, Resillia's ascension was clearly done with the World Tree's approval.
There was no way that she, a mere creation, would be allowed to go against the World Tree's will.
-But you don't want to stay here forever, do you?
It had been the same days for 200 years.
-Hey, it's different now than it was then.
-I'm here now.
He, who had come to this place without any notice, where no one had ever visited, was strangely kind to her.
She was wary of a strange man, especially a human, for only a moment. The more they talked, the more questions she had about him.
'Why is he being so kind to me? I don't have anything? Why to me, who has nothing to give you?'
In her long life of hundreds of years, Iris knew that there was no such thing as unconditional kindness in this world.
The commoners, the court ladies, and the officials respected and loved her because she was the queen chosen by the World Tree, not a criminal who had been abandoned and deposed by the World Tree.
She had no value without the premise that she was chosen by the World Tree.
Realizing this, Iris was unable to understand Kang Hyunwoo's unrequited kindness, but at the same time, she was very happy.
From some point on, her heart raced whenever she looked at him.
Iris, who was called a great wizard because of her superior intelligence, was confused by the strange emotions she was feeling for the first time in her life.
But she was sure of one thing.
That it wasn't a bad feeling.
-I came from another world called Earth.
It was a hard story to believe.
But the evidence he showed was clear enough to dispel any doubt in an instant.
'I've never seen a magical artifact of this level even in Magnolia.'
The more she looked at the magical artifact called a cell phone, the more everything was a series of surprises.
It was amazing that this small magical artifact could be used for functions such as communication, maps, location tracking, entertainment, photography, and recording, but it was also unbelievably amazing that anyone could access knowledge by connecting to a huge library called the Internet.
It was a shame that she couldn't do it now, but how many years would it take for the magical engineering of this world to develop to this level?
Elves weren't a race that was friendly with magical engineering, but Iris was different.
She was more convinced than anyone else among the elves that magical engineering was the field that would lead the world in the future, so she had been researching it with great interest for a long time.
Of course, research support at the national level was difficult due to the opposition of some high-ranking noble elders, but if you only counted the time she spent researching alone, there were few people on the continent who were as well-versed in magical engineering as she was.
That's why Iris knew.
The development of civilization doesn't just happen over hundreds of years. The birth of a genius who will change the era and the flow of the world must be in sync for civilization to develop radically.
In that sense, this cell phone was truly revolutionary.
'So you really came from another world…'
Apart from the cell phone, the combination of dark black hair and dark black eyes was hard to find on the Aquilon continent.
It was just like the fairy tale she had read as a child.
In one kingdom, there was a princess who was loved by everyone. The princess was kind-hearted and gentle, and she always grieved for the hard lives of her people and never hesitated to help them.
One day, as peaceful days continued, a witch who was jealous of the beautiful princess who was loved by everyone cast a very evil curse on her.
-You will not be loved by anyone.
The princess came to be hated by everyone as a result of the curse, and eventually she was banished from the kingdom.
All the attention and love she had received throughout her life turned into hatred and contempt, and even in the last moment of leaving the kingdom, what was thrown at her was rotten eggs and tomatoes, not tears and sadness.
The princess, who had fallen into deep despair and was heading aimlessly with empty eyes, reached a deserted forest.
In the dark forest where even sunlight couldn't reach, only the fierce cries of beasts could be heard.
The princess sensed it.
-This is… my grave.
Unlike the words that came out casually, her whole body was trembling slightly.
As fear dominated her whole body, pearl-like tears flowed uncontrollably from her jewel-like eyes.
The beasts, sensing prey that was sure to be unable to resist, gathered one by one, and the princess, who was quickly surrounded, turned pale and couldn't escape.
Then, the beasts rushed at the princess.
-Aaaaaah!!
A mournful scream echoed in the forest.
The princess, trembling at the impending death, cautiously opened her tightly closed eyes, wondering why she didn't feel any pain even after a long time.
And there, a man was standing.
He was a man with dark black hair and obsidian-like eyes.
He was holding a sword and had knocked down all the beasts.
He knelt down in front of the princess, who was staring blankly at the scene, and said this.
-Are you hurt anywhere?
The princess, who was hated by everyone due to the curse, was saved by meeting a black-haired warrior from another world in a forest she happened to visit.
Perhaps because he was from another world? The warrior was not affected by the witch's curse, and soon fell in love with the princess.
The warrior fought a life-threatening battle with the witch with the single thought of helping the princess. After a grueling battle that left him covered in blood and his vision blurred, the warrior finally succeeded in defeating the witch, and the princess was able to be freed from the terrible curse.
The princess was able to return to the kingdom and regain her position, but ironically, the ending of the fairy tale was that the warrior looked at the princess, who was loved by everyone, and then returned to his own world.
After that, the story ended with the princess grieving for the warrior who had disappeared without a word, soaking every night with tears.
The princess looked up at the darkened night sky and agonized and grieved.
Why did you leave me and go back?
Did you not like me?
Were all the words of love you whispered in my ear lies?
The pain of not having anyone to answer her continued forever and became another curse.
The ending was sad and unsettling for innocent children to watch with a smile, so it wasn't a very popular fairy tale, but Iris felt that her current situation was somehow overlapping with the ending of the fairy tale.
Kang Hyunwoo came from another world, just like the warrior in the fairy tale, and there was no big difference from saying that no one knew when he would return.
What if he, like the warrior, returned to his own world without saying anything?
What about me?
Do I have to be trapped here alone forever again?
The end of the past 200 years, which had been so painful that it was impossible to express in words, was an attempted suicide.
It was such a painful and scary moment.
Would her hand, which was trembling more than ever, have succeeded in stabbing the stone into her neck?
The answer was she didn't know.
She couldn't be sure, but she couldn't deny it either.
That's how much she didn't want to experience the past 200 years again.
That's why she finally hoped that he wouldn't return to his world.
She wanted him to stay by her side forever.
But how?
She had nothing.
She couldn't ask him to give up even his world and stay by her side because there was nothing she could do for him.
She pretended to be looking at her cell phone, but in reality, Iris was so exhausted that her whole body was soaked with cold sweat.
Just imagining him disappearing and being left here alone again made her choke up and feel like crying.
Iris was determined. She would give anything if he would just stay here, no matter what it took.
It was a thought that she would never have had in the past, or rather, it was a choice that she wouldn't have even thought of a year ago.
And then, a light of hope that shouldn't have been there seemed to come down to her. She went into an app called Gallery, and there were several pictures there.
As she expected, it was a picture. There are quite a few magical artifacts in this world that have the function of a camera.
When he explained the cell phone to her, he said that it also had a shooting function, so she thought that this was a kind of storage place for storing shot photos. It was true that the picture quality was different even if it was the same picture. She was surprised because the picture was so high quality.
'T, this is…??'
As she was looking at the pictures and flipping through them, what appeared in front of her was a picture of a naked woman. The women were in very suggestive poses.
The sight of women wearing something like underwear that made you wonder if it even functioned as clothes, exposing their breasts and even spreading their legs wide open, was indescribably shocking.
Moreover, there were even pictures of women exposing their private parts, which should be cherished, in a way that she couldn't even put into words.
The moment Iris saw the picture, her brain went into overload for a moment.
Born as the daughter of a high-ranking nobleman, she had learned various etiquettes as well as the integrity and dignity that a woman should have as an instinct. Chastity was a woman's treasure to be kept for her most beloved, and exposing skin more than necessary was nothing short of a sin.
The clothes she was wearing now were also clothes that kept that trend.
Thanks to the fact that she had been repairing and cleaning her clothes with magic every day for the past 200 years, the clothes Iris was wearing were always neat, elegant, and tidy like new clothes.
Of course, Kang Hyunwoo had made the decision to help her without a moment's hesitation because Iris was the owner of a voluptuous body that could even see through the characteristics of those clothes.
'T, such a shameless…!'
No matter who a woman is, she shouldn't be like this.
Regardless of status and position, if you're a woman! There is always a line that you must keep.
Iris doubted her eyes and flipped through the pictures as if she didn't want to see them anymore.
But what was waiting for her was a series of even more dizzying pictures. At that sight, Iris felt her mind go blank.
'W, why does Hyunwoo have such things…!'
She couldn't believe it at all.
She definitely thought he was a good person, and she still did. But the more she looked at the pictures in the place called the gallery, the more she had to doubt her judgment.
The doubts that were bubbling up were gradually blooming into flowers, but on the other hand, there was even an unknown joy sprouting in her heart that these pictures were in his cell phone.
'Everyone… is a woman with very big breasts…'
There were short women and tall women.
There were some people who were a little plain and some who were outstanding.
But there wasn't a single person who had small breasts.
And she also had very big breasts. It was her own breasts that she had been looking at for hundreds of years, but they were so big that she often thought they were unnecessarily big.
It wasn't just once or twice that she had trouble and was uncomfortable tightening her corset, and besides, the moment she took off her corset, she looked bloated and even fat no matter what she wore.
She often felt stiff in her shoulders, and she thought it was a body part that was unnecessarily heavy and that she wished she could make it smaller with magic.
'…Hyunwoo must like big breasts?'
But now, she could do anything to keep him from leaving. She wanted him to stay here without returning to his world.
It was a thought that she would never have had if it was her past self, or rather, a choice that she wouldn't have even thought of a year ago.
"I, if you don't mind, would you like to touch my breasts…?"
She would do anything if only she could keep him here.