## Chapter 2 – 02. Matching (2)
#02. Matching (2)
Blinded without any warning, I reflexively had to close my eyes.
In that instant, a sensation that the surrounding air had changed enveloped me, and when I opened my eyes again.
“Ugh, ughaa!!! Shiiiiit!!!”
I was falling from the sky.
Of course, there was no parachute or anything, and the more I struggled, the faster I fell.
‘Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy…!!’
As I got closer to the ground, childhood memories flashed through my head like a fast-forwarded video.
Is this what they call a panoramic flashback?
In the wave of passing memories, even things I had forgotten came back to me as if being replayed.
Being rejected by the girl next to me when I confessed my feelings upon entering elementary school, falling in love at first sight with a senior in the second grade of middle school only to be collectively beaten up by the seniors after confessing, and even being cut off after asking a college student I met at the library on a date all came back to me.
‘…No, why are only things like this coming to mind?’
This isn’t a panoramic flashback; isn’t this just a beatdown?
“Cough!”
Entrusting my body to gravity and enjoying skydiving without a parachute, something grabbed my neck, and my falling body suddenly stopped in mid-air.
Wondering what was going on, I looked around, but it wasn’t easy to figure out the situation in a cave-like place without any lighting.
Barely over being surprised by the series of inexplicable events, my body was slowly descending towards the ground.
Finally, when my feet touched the hard floor, I realized I had survived.
As they say, even rolling in a pile of dog poop is better than the afterlife.
“But where is this…”
“Um…”
“?!”
As I was rummaging through my pockets to turn on my phone’s flashlight, a woman’s voice came from the darkness.
“Who are you…?”
Because of the location, my voice was strained.
The woman’s voice suddenly coming from a gloomy and dark place felt like the introduction to a horror movie I had watched the other day, so I couldn’t help but be nervous.
Step, step
In response to my wary attitude, the sound of the woman’s footsteps hidden in the darkness grew closer.
As she got close enough to touch if I reached out, I could finally visually identify the woman’s identity.
“…Wow.”
Her blonde hair, easily visible even in the darkness, and her green eyes staring intently at me gave off a strong exotic feeling.
Moreover, she was unbelievably pretty.
However, her ears were a bit unique.
‘Her ears are a bit long…?’
She looked like an elf from 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, as if to say it wasn’t a cosplay.
She was a real elf.
“A, a person…?”
Just as I was surprised to see the elf, the elf was also surprised to see me.
Fortunately, she didn’t seem to be an evil elf, as I didn’t feel any hostility in her gaze towards me.
No, she was too pretty to be an evil elf.
“Hello…?”
I cautiously spoke to her.
“…Did you speak?”
“Pardon?”
The elf girl was looking at me with a somewhat dazed look.
“Hello?”
“…You spoke again.”
Something seemed off with her condition.
Like she was a bit out of it?
‘Anyway, where is this?’
It’s too dark to see the surroundings properly.
“Excuse me, do you know where this is…”
“…A living person.”
While I was distracted, the elf girl, who had somehow come right up to me, was stroking my hand with eyes as if she were looking at something wondrous.
It was a touch so soft it couldn’t compare to my rough hands.
“Right? I’m only 21 years old…”
Before I could finish speaking, the elf girl suddenly rushed into my arms.
“Huuu…”
I was dumbfounded that she suddenly hugged me, and now she started crying.
I wondered if this was what it meant to be in a predicament, but quietly patted the elf girl’s trembling shoulders, waiting for her to calm down.
‘What is going on…’
I was sure that today would be the most chaotic and absurd day of my past 21 years of life.
***
“Sniff, sob…”
“Are you calm now?”
“Yes, yes…”
“Have you finished crying?”
“N, no, I wasn’t crying!”
“My clothes are wet, though?”
“Gasp! Wh, what should I do… I, I’ll dry them for you!”
A warm breeze emanated from the elf girl’s palms as she touched my chest, which was soaked with her tears.
‘Magic…?’
Since there were so few wizards, this was the first time I had seen magic this close.
Thanks to the wind from the elf girl’s palms, my clothes were soon dry as if they had never been wet.
“Thank you.”
“Oh, no. I was the one who dirtied them…”
To say she dirtied them, the tears of an ultra-pretty elf girl were definitely not dirty in my book.
‘It’s the first time my clothes have smelled this good.’
What kind of scent makes my clothes smell like flowers?
It’s amazing.
Of course, there were countless things more amazing than that.
Starting with the existence of the elf girl in front of me, and how I, who was clearly in my room, ended up here after skydiving without a parachute.
No matter how much I racked my brain, there was only one answer.
‘This otherworld dating app.’
It was reasonable to think that this app installed on my phone was the cause.
Anyone who heard it would think I was crazy, but for now, there was no other way to explain this phenomenon.
First of all, this probably isn’t Earth; there are no elves on Earth.
Of course, there could be elves on Earth that I, as an ordinary person, don’t know about.
But at least they wouldn’t be near my house.
“Um…”
“Yes?”
While I was lost in thought, the elf girl was looking up at me.
With a very intense gaze, too.
I was slightly nervous about receiving a beautiful woman’s gaze for the first time in my life.
“Y, you’re a person, right? You’re a person, right??”
“Uh… I guess? What, do monsters in human skin come out here?”
I had heard in my monster studies class during school days that there were such monsters.
“Oh, no! It’s not that… It’s just that I’ve never seen another person come here besides me…”
“Here?”
I looked around.
It was still dark, but my eyes had gradually adjusted to the darkness, so I could at least make out the surrounding scenery.
It was a very large cave? Cavern? Something like that.
“How on earth did you get here?”
“…I don’t really know.”
I didn’t have the confidence to coherently explain to her that I had come here by dimension-hopping because of a dating app I had turned on for fun, so that she could understand.
‘But then is she really 500 years old?’
The elf girl looked like she was my age, but since I had set the age range to 500 years old when matching, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that she was around that age.
She definitely looked like an elf, without a single wrinkle or even a visible pore.
Did she have a magic spell that rejected aging cast on her at all times?
“Where is this?”
As time passed, I could see the surrounding scenery better and better.
It was so large that it echoed every time I spoke, and there were strange, ancient ruins scattered here and there.
What kind of place is this?
“This is… a prison.”
“A prison?”
The elf girl’s complexion turned slightly worse.
“It’s an underground cavern in the deepest part of the sacred ground where the World Tree has taken root. It’s currently being used as a prison, but…”
World Tree? Is she talking about that huge tree that often appears in manga and anime?
‘So those tree roots sparsely growing there are the roots of the World Tree?’
The thought of digging up a little and boiling it to drink grew stronger. It seemed like it would be much more effective than any elixir on the market.
If the effect was proven, I could sell it at an auction and make quite a bit of money.
Of course, if I did that, I would probably be torn apart by the elf girl, 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 didn’t have any iron bars or guards to be called a prison.
“…Actually, even though it’s called a prison, it’s more like solitary confinement. If someone committed a crime bad enough to be imprisoned here, it would be better to just execute them.”
I was curious why she was imprisoned alone in a prison where even those with serious crimes weren’t imprisoned, but I didn’t dare to ask because of the elf girl’s still pale complexion.
“Ahem, shall we introduce ourselves first?”
“…Ah.”
I lightly extended my hand to change the atmosphere.
“I’m Kang Hyun-woo. My race is human, as you can see, and I’m 21 years old this year.”
Fortunately, the elf girl immediately took my hand.
“I, I’m! Iris Lemeria Biart Pelledia!”
“…Pardon?”
What is she? A noble?
With a person’s name exceeding 10 letters, I started to worry about what to call her.
“…Can I call you Iris-ssi?”
“Ah, yes!”
My memory wasn’t good enough to memorize a name that was almost a sentence, like the name of a European noble.
Fortunately, Iris seemed strangely pleased.
The sight of a beautiful woman smiling made me feel good too.
It was a pure and soft smile without the venom that was different from the fake smiles of the girls at school.
I was caught up in an unbelievable event because of a suspicious app, but I was starting to think it wasn’t so bad.
Ding-
A familiar alarm sounded from my pocket.
‘Isn’t this a place where there’s no Wi-Fi or even a signal?’
I secretly took out my phone and checked it.
[Thank you very much for using this otherworld dating app]
[This app is offering a free dating 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 Biart Pelledia’s tendencies]
[Analyzing···]
[Analysis complete]
[Name: Iris Lemeria Biart Pelledia
Age: 524 years old
Affiliation: EB-17
Occupation: Magician
Tendencies: Saintly ruler, non-killing, devoted, vegetarian······]
The selection screen without any options quickly passed, and then it showed me Iris’s information as if it were showing the information of an NPC in a game.
‘…It’s not that special, is it?’
I had already heard her name when she introduced herself.
Her race and age were the same as what I wrote in the survey when matching, and of course, she was 24 years older than 500 years old, but that wasn’t a big deal.
“What is that?”
Iris, who had somehow come close, was showing interest in the phone with sparkling eyes.
At that sight, I hurriedly returned to the home screen.
“Ah, this is…”
Ding-
Just as I was about to explain the phone to Iris so that there would be no misunderstandings, a new screen popped up.
[Detected Iris Lemeria Biart Pelledia’s past]
[Advanced learning of the dating consulting curriculum will proceed]
[Proceeding with past monologue]
‘……What?’
I immediately checked Iris’s condition at the app’s explanation, which I didn’t know what it meant.
“E, excuse me, Iris-ssi…? Iris-ssi??”
Even if I waved my hand or called her name, Iris didn’t answer.
She was just staring blankly into the air with a dazed look.
The sight of her was like the female protagonist who had been hit by a hypnosis app that I often saw in H-sites.
Suddenly, the genre seemed to change from a sweet romance with a beautiful elf to an elf humiliation by a horny human.
“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.”
