The white room the barfing on the room, then some more barfing on a rock and finally I was ready to start a new adventure on another world. This time the system manager confirmed it was the correct world and I scanned my surroundings looking for the elvish queen, but she was nowhere to be seen.
"Loraina?" I asked, then puked some more.
"It seems you're still not used to the summoning sickness." The system manager said.
"You don't say." I grumble as I start wandering around.
"This world is... hold on," The system manager took a long pause that didn't bode well for me or the mission. "there's something wrong with this world."
"Another mistake?" I sit on an hollow trunk thinking I was going to be evacuated again, but that wasn't the case.
"According to the file this world is clean, but the readings I'm getting say both water and food are tainted. But that's not all, the queen should have appeared close to you but she seems to be still in transit. Her arrival will be in about one week from today's time." So it wasn't that the queen I was supposed to protect was nowhere to be found, but rather nowhen to be found.
"What does this mean for the mission?"
"It means you'll have to go without food and water for a week until you can secure the queen. Do you think you can handle it?"
"No problem." Like any other world I've been to, my top priority was finding safety. Be it from the weather or hostiles. Thankfully, it wasn't long until I spotted a village at a distance and I made my way over there. The following priorities were securing water and food, but those were off the table for the time being.
The village was on the small side and nothing seemed off about it. There were people working the fields like in the countryside, some animals grazing in the vicinity and it gave off the peaceful vibe of a world that was far behind us in the technology level. I was spotted as soon as I abandoned the cover of the forest and a woman ran towards me brandishing a sickle.
"I come in peace!" I shout at the woman who came to a full stop.
"You're alive?"
"Yes?"
"But you came from the forest of no return."
"The what now?" I rake my head trying to think of an cover identity, but it turned out to be impossible without knowing what the circumstances were. The woman invited me over to her home where she lived with her two sons, no husband. She said I was free to eat and drink whatever before leaving the house in a rush, not that I was going to. The fact that she trusted a stranger with her little children was already weird, but even more strange was the fact that despite being poor she offered her hospitality freely.
"I am the village elder, Marion. This is the village of...," Wish there was a skip button for these sort of interactions. The old woman introduced herself and talked way slower than I would have liked, though I couldn't really complain since I had to stay in this place for a week until the elf queen arrived. Most people think of fantasy worlds like they're these perfect scenarios where everything is fun; where evil is incarnate in a person that can be defeated; where everything is possible so long as you believe. Nothing could be further from the truth as I found out after listening to the three hour rant of a granny that didn't make sense until the last sentence she spoke. "and ever since then, the dead rise from the grave and kill the living."
Of course things had to be this way. I couldn't just appear at the feet of the elf queen's castle along with her. Whatever could go wrong had to go wrong and now I wouldn't be able to eat or drink for a week. At least I won't have to worry about toilets.
"What about the elves?" I ask.
"You don't know?" Elder Marion tilted her head, but she seemed thrilled to tell the story of this world in such detail I regret asking. "long ago, a human hero fell in love with a star. His love was so sincere the star returned his love. She descended upon humanity, but although she looked like a human her long ears told that she was not one of us. Nevertheless, she was as eternal and beautiful as she used to be while floating in the skies and she and the hero got married."
I try to keep myself from cutting off the lady despite her story not making any sense at all. For starters, stars are not eternal. They're just cosmic hot plasma spheres. There's also the fact that I had no interest on a romance story, but she seemed so thrilled to have someone to speak to I didn't have the heart to stop her.
"I see." I interjected from time to time as the sun went down.
"And then the war with the elves broke out and it lasted for generations...," She went on a rant about human genealogy. Kings and heroes, knights and queens. All waging war against elves under the same woman whose love for the hero turned into hate for all humans. By now, only an idiot would miss the fact that the elf queen was Loraina. "the evil queen took over the lands and spread her influence far beyond the kingdom of elves. She swallowed the world yet her lust for vengeance was not sated."
"I see, so elves and humans are enemies." I let out a sigh. At least I understand what's going on.
"No! You see, despite all the blood she spilled some humans and elves chose to live in peace. And now that the dead rise from the grave, the war is now between the living and the dead." The old woman continued speaking, but I couldn't make much of it. I politely kept nodding to her for about an hour until I realized she was actually asleep and was sleep talking.
"She lost her lover! That is why she went bananas!" I say to the system manager while patrolling the village, but received no reply. I tried several times, but the result was the same. It took me a while, but I understood what happened. The system manager had clocked off while the granny told the story which meant I was all by myself. Not that it bothered me as the night was peaceful and warm. More than patrolling I was just taking a nice little stroll while making sense of things.
If the story passed on from generations was correct, then Loraina was the first elf to appear in this world. Her love story was happy and long lasting for a human, but to her was but a drop of water in the ocean of time which meant she spent more time waging war than married. This led me to believe that she was the 'evil' the summoned hero vanquished, though in reality he kidnapped her. I'm not going to judge him for what he did here, all travelers are free to pursue their own agendas once they make it to other worlds and it's out of the bureau's jurisdiction.
However, by bringing such a dangerous person into our world his charges climbed from elf trafficking to terrorism. Just thinking of what an evil elf queen could do in our world gave me the shivers. Or so I thought, what gave me the shivers was actually the cold fog that appeared out of the blue. Thankfully, I wasn't far from the village and I could still see the dim light of the torches at a distance. I made my way there as the fog became more dense, then I bumped into someone.
"Excuse me, I wasn't paying attention." I apologize casually then try to walk past the man, but he clung to my cotton shirt, the one I was forced to wear before coming into this world to pass as a local. I tugged on my shirt and went back to the house of the woman who invited me to stay the night. I don't know what kind of greeting I expected, but it certainly wasn't the shrill scream that came out of her mouth. She pointed behind me and I turned to see, but there was nothing there. Now the kids started crying and the woman completely lost it. I tried to came closer to calm her down, but she took distance.
"On your sleeve!" She finally spoke and then I noticed it. The hand that pulled on my cotton shirt remained there, still clinging to the fabric. A disembodied hand was holding onto me... a hand... just the hand.
"It's alive!" I felt the tickling of its weird fingers climbing up across my arm. I grabbed the slimy appendage and threw it away then stomped it over and over. I then opened the system app which still functioned despite the manager being offline only to find it wasn't working. I couldn't access the vault and only then did the memory came to mind.
Sub spaces don't exist in this world.