Blinded without warning, I reflexively shut my eyes.
The sensation of the surrounding air shifting enveloped me, and when I opened my eyes again…
"Ugh, ugh, ahhh!!! Shit!!!"
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 the ground drew closer, childhood memories flashed through my mind like a sped-up video.
Is this what a life review is?
Even things I had forgotten resurfaced in the wave of passing memories.
The time I confessed to the girl next to me when I entered elementary school and got rejected, the time in eighth grade when I fell in love at first sight with a tenth-grade senior and got beaten up by his friends, even the time in high school when I asked a college girl I met in the library out on a date and got ghosted—it all came back.
'…Wait, why are only these kinds of things coming to mind?'
This isn't a life review; it's just a roast, isn't it?
"Gah!"
As I surrendered to gravity and enjoyed my parachuteless skydiving, something grabbed the back of my neck, and my falling body abruptly stopped in mid-air.
I looked around, wondering what was happening, but it wasn't easy to grasp the situation in a cave-like place with no light.
Before I could even process the series of inexplicable events, my body slowly descended towards the ground.
Finally, when my feet touched the hard floor, I realized I had survived.
As the saying goes, it's better to live, even in a dog pile.
"But where am I…"
"Um…"
"?!"
Just as I was rummaging through my pockets to turn on my phone's flashlight, a woman's voice came from the darkness.
"Who's there…?"
My voice was tense, given the location.
The woman's voice suddenly coming from the gloomy, dark place reminded me of the opening scene of a horror movie I had watched recently, making me even more nervous.
Thump, thump
With my wary attitude, the sound of the woman's footsteps hidden in the darkness grew closer.
As she got close enough to touch, I could finally see the woman's face with my own eyes.
"…Wow."
Her blonde hair, visible even in the darkness, and her green eyes staring at me gave her a strong foreign feel.
Besides, she was unbelievably beautiful.
However, her ears were a bit unique.
'Her ears are kind of long…?'
She looked like an elf straight out of a fantasy novel.
"…Elf?"
The woman's appearance was like she was cosplaying a game character.
But before long, her long ears were flapping vividly, showing that it wasn't cosplay.
She was a real elf.
"Hu, human…?"
Just as I was surprised to see an elf, the elf was also surprised to see me.
Fortunately, I didn't sense any hostility in her gaze towards me, so she probably wasn't a Dark Elf.
No, she was too pretty to be a Dark Elf.
"Hello…?"
I cautiously spoke.
"…You spoke?"
"Pardon?"
The elf woman looked at me with a somewhat vacant expression.
"Hello?"
"…You spoke again."
Something seemed wrong with her.
Kind of spacey, maybe?
'Either way, where am I?'
It was too dark to see properly.
"Excuse me, do you know where this is…"
"…A living person."
While I was distracted, the elf woman had come right up to me and was stroking my hand with eyes as if she were seeing something amazing.
Her touch was so soft, incomparable to my rough hands.
"Right? I'm only 21 years old…"
Before I could finish speaking, the elf woman suddenly rushed into my arms.
"Sniffle…!"
I was already dumbfounded that she had suddenly hugged me, but now she started crying.
I wondered if this was what it meant to be at a loss, but I quietly patted the elf woman's back as she trembled violently, waiting for her to calm down.
'What is going on…'
I was certain that today would be the most chaotic and absurd day of my last 21 years.
***
"Sniff, sob…"
"Are you calm now?"
"Ye, yes…"
"Have you finished crying?"
"N, no, I wasn't crying!"
"My clothes are wet, though?"
"Gasp! Oh, what should I do… I, I'll dry them for you!"
Warm air came out of the elf woman's palm as she touched my chest, which was soaked with her tears.
'Magic…?'
There were so few magicians that this was the first time I had seen magic so close.
Thanks to the air coming from the elf woman's palm, my clothes were soon clean as if they had never been wet.
"Thank you."
"Oh, it's nothing. I was the one who dirtied them…"
By my standards, the tears of an extremely beautiful elf weren't dirty at all.
'This is the first time my clothes have smelled so good.'
Why does her scent smell like flowers?
It was amazing.
Of course, there were countless things more amazing than that.
Starting with the existence of the elf woman in front of me, to how I was definitely in my room, and then I ended up parachuteless skydiving to get here.
No matter how much I thought about it, there was only one answer.
'This otherworld dating app.'
It was reasonable to think that this app on my phone was the cause.
Anyone who heard it would think I was crazy, but right now, there was no other way to explain this phenomenon.
Anyway, this wasn't Earth; there were no elves on Earth.
Of course, maybe there were elves on Earth that I, a regular person, didn't know about.
But at least not near my house.
"Excuse me…"
"Yes?"
While I was lost in thought, the elf woman was looking up at me.
With a very intense gaze.
I was a little nervous from the gaze of a beautiful woman for the first time in my life.
"A, are you human? You are human, right??"
"Uh… yeah? What, are there monsters wearing human skin around here?"
I had heard in Demonology class in high school that there were such demons.
"Oh, no! It's not that… It's just that you're the first person other than me I've seen here…"
"Here?"
I looked around.
It was still dark, but my eyes had slowly adjusted to the darkness, so I could make out the surrounding scenery.
It was a very large cave? Cavern? Something like that.
"How did you get here?"
"…I don't really know."
I didn't have the confidence to explain in a coherent way that I had come by dimensional travel because of a dating app I spun for fun.
'But then is she really 500 years old?'
The elf woman looked like she was my age, but I had set the age range to 500 years old when matching, so it was possible that she was around that age.
She was definitely an elf; she didn't even have wrinkles, let alone pores.
Did she always have a magic that rejected aging cast on her?
"Where is this place?"
The more time passed, the better I could see the surrounding scenery.
It echoed every time I spoke because it was so big, and there were strange ruins here and there that looked old.
What is this place?
"This is… a prison."
"A prison?"
The elf woman's complexion worsened slightly.
"It's a underground cavern in the deepest part of the holy ground where the World Tree took root. It's being used as a prison now, but…"
World Tree? The big tree that often appears in comics and anime?
'Then those sparsely growing tree roots are the roots of the World Tree?'
The thought of wanting to dig up a little and boil it grew vigorously. It seemed like it would be much more effective than any ordinary elixir on the market.
If the effect was proven, I could sell it at auction and make a lot of money.
Of course, if I did that, I would probably be torn to pieces by the elf woman, so I decided to just think about it in my head.
"By the way, I don't see any other prisoners for a prison?"
In the first place, this place didn't have any bars or guards to be called a prison.
"…Actually, even if it's called a prison, it would be more accurate to call it a solitary cell. If someone is so guilty that they need to be imprisoned here, it would be better to execute them."
I wondered why she was imprisoned alone in a prison where even those with such heinous crimes weren't imprisoned, but I didn't dare ask because of the elf woman's still pale complexion.
"Ahem, should we introduce ourselves first?"
"…Ah."
I lightly held out my hand to break the mood.
"I'm Kang Hyunwoo. As you can see, I'm human, and I'm 21 years old this year."
Fortunately, the elf woman immediately shook my hand.
"I, I'm! Iris Lemeria Baihirt Pelledia!"
"…Pardon?"
What is she? Royalty?
With a person's name exceeding 10 characters, I began to wonder about what to call her, as if my head would split in half.
"…Can I call you Iris?"
"Oh, yes!"
My memory wasn't good enough to memorize a name close to a sentence like that of a European nobleman's at once.
Fortunately, Iris seemed strangely happy.
The sight of a beauty smiling made me feel good too.
It was a pure and soft smile without any venom, unlike the girls' artificial smiles at school.
I was caught up in something unbelievable because of a suspicious app, but I thought it was okay, more or less.
Ding-
A familiar alarm sound came from my pocket.
'Isn't this a place where there's no Wi-Fi, let alone cell reception?'
I secretly took out my phone from Iris and checked it.
[Thank you for using this otherworld dating app]
[This app is offering a free love consulting curriculum for first-time customers only.]
[Do you agree?]
[Y/Y]
"What…?"
[If there is no response, it will be automatically accepted shortly.]
[3,2,1…]
[Y]
[Analyzing Iris Lemeria Baihirt Pelledia's tendencies]
[Analyzing…]
[Analysis completed]
[Name: Iris Lemeria Baihirt Pelledia
Age: 524 years old
Affiliation: EB-17
Occupation: Magician
Tendencies: Holy ruler, non-killing, dedication, vegetarian...]
The selection screen without even an option quickly passed, and Iris's information was displayed to me as if it were showing the information of an NPC in a game.
'…It's not that special, actually?'
I had already heard the name when she introduced herself.
The race and age were the same as what I wrote in the survey at the time of matching, and of course, it went up 24 years from 500 years old, but it wasn't a big deal.
"What is that?"
Before I knew it, Iris had come close and was showing interest in the phone with sparkling eyes.
I hurriedly returned to the home screen at the sight.
"Oh, this is…"
Ding-
Just as I was about to explain to Iris about the phone so that there would be no misunderstanding, a new screen popped up.
[Detected the past of Iris Lemeria Baihirt Pelledia]
[Intensive learning of the love consulting curriculum will be conducted]
[Past monologue will be conducted]
'...What?'
I immediately checked Iris's condition at the app's explanation, which I didn't know what it meant.
"H, hey Iris…? Iris??"
Iris didn't answer, even when I shook my hand or called her name.
She just stared blankly into the air.
The sight was like the female protagonist who had been hit by a hypnosis app that I often saw in H-doujins.
Suddenly, the genre seemed to change from an affectionate, innocent love with a beautiful elf to an isolated human raping the elf.
"I…"
Just as I was wondering what to do, Iris began to open her mouth in a low, heavy voice.
"I… was the queen of the Pelledia Kingdom."