Chapter 1: Sasha and Her Fiancé
The afternoon sunlight dappled through the trees onto an attractive elf couple who were sitting across from each other at a porcelain-white table on the lawn. With a maid waiting on the elves, the two took sips from their teacups in a refined manner and engaged in conversation that was every bit as pleasing to their palates as the tea.
“And Light looked absolutely crushed when he found out we’d tricked him all along,” Sasha said to her companion. “He tried to run away, but one of my arrows stopped him in his tracks. Then he started bawling ‘You’re fakes! You must be fakes!’ Oh, darling, the expression on that inferior’s face was the most disgustingly pained one I’ve ever seen, yet at the same time, I couldn’t help but clutch my sides from the hilarity of it. I wish you could have been there with me to see it, Sir Mikhael.”
“Miss Sasha, it’s always such a gas hearing that story, no matter how many times you retell it,” Mikhael said with a heartfelt smile on his face. “I wish I’d had the opportunity to see the face of that foolish inferior once he realized all of you had deceived him. My fellow knights and I occasionally go around razing inferior villages to the ground, killing all inferior travelers we meet on the way, as well as any other inferiors who witness us in the act and make a run for it. You are quite right when you say thosecreatures look uglier than normal when they are begging for their lives in the moments before we slaughter them. But they look so clownishly ugly, they make us laugh rather than cringe.”
“I know! I can almost see the faces of those inferiors now!” said Sasha. “Light looked downright ghastly the moment before we killed him, yet I couldn’t contain my laughter!”
Mikhael—Sasha’s fiancé—was a member of the Elven Queendom’s royal family, though he was also the vice-commander of the White Knights, the nation’s most elite order. He kept his blond hair neatly trimmed and wore glasses that gave him a rather gentle, handsome look. Although Mikhael had the aura of an intellectual, he also had broad shoulders and a solid build befitting a White Knight officer. Put simply, he was a warrior-scholar of sorts.
Sasha and Mikhael shared a deeply held bond when it came to discussing how hilariously repulsive humans looked when on the brink of being slain, and they talked about it in much the same way as people exchanging thoughts on a comedy revue they’d enjoyed. Although the elves certainly made a beautiful couple to look at, their topic of conversation was unequivocally hideous. Yet Sasha and Mikhael both shared such a giddy appreciation for human suffering, the subject was always broached whenever they met for tea like this.
This “Light” Sasha mentioned was the same human boy her former adventuring party—the Concord of the Tribes—had dup
