“If I win, you’ll let me go?”

Surely, Arpia thought, she must have misheard.

Despite clearly hearing Karamir’s proposal, she still found it hard to believe and asked again.

But Karamir’s response remained unchanged.

“Yes, I’ll let you go.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Isn’t this an opportunity for you?”

“Well, that’s true…”

It was something she had wished for, but now that she was hearing it, Arpia was taken aback. She hadn’t expected to gain her freedom just by winning a drinking contest.

But she couldn’t just accept the offer without caution. Even an elf unfamiliar with human society knew better than that.

“And if I lose? What will you wager?”

“I won’t wager anything.”

“…What?”

Karamir’s eyes curved into an elegant arc.

“It wouldn’t be a bet if I already knew the outcome—it would be a scam.”

The way he spoke, as if his victory was already certain, provoked Arpia. Her eyebrows twitched in irritation, and though Karamir smiled, no one would have thought it was genuine.

It was as if the temperature in the room had dropped, as if an ice spirit had suddenly appeared.

“Fine. Let’s do it. I didn’t think freedom would come this easily~”

Arpia, who had been forced into drinking by circumstance, now prided herself on being a connoisseur. When it came to drinking, she was confident she could outlast anyone.

Especially with Karamir’s taunt. Backing down now would bring shame upon not just herself but her entire elven race.

This was no longer just a contest between herself and Karamir.

It was a contest between elves and humans.

“So how will we do this? Take turns drinking a glass each?” she asked.

“Let’s do it that way. But before we begin, allow me to take a quick trip to the restroom.”

“Do as you please.”

Karamir excused himself and returned shortly after, taking his seat once more.

“I’ll leave the role of referee to the master. When one of us can no longer continue, please call it.”

“Very well,” Victor agreed.

Karamir filled both of their glasses to the brim.

“Shall we start with a light toast?”

“If you insist.”

The two exchanged forced smiles as they clinked their glasses.

Clink.

The clear sound of glass meeting glass echoed through the room.

After downing their first drinks in one go, Karamir and Arpia began exchanging questions along with each new glass.

“Come to think of it, we haven’t introduced ourselves. I’m Arpia Liliand,” she said.

“A playful flower, perhaps. A beautiful name.”

“Spare me the sweet talk. You said your name was Karamir? What exactly do you do?”

“I’m a slave trader. I also bear the unfortunate nickname ‘Slave Reaper.’”

“Slave Reaper? What’s that?”

“It’s a title I earned because I’m said to kill slaves. A rather unfortunate misunderstanding, considering I treat my slaves better than anyone else.”

Arpia, unfamiliar with human society, couldn’t quite grasp the full meaning of his words, but she could tell something was off.

And hearing the word “Reaper”… Arpia asked again, her voice filled with unease.

“Have you enslaved other elves before?”

“Of course. While elves can be expensive to maintain at first, once they’re properly trained, they’re highly valuable. Some elves can even make potions, and just one of them can earn a fortune.”

“……”

So it’s true, then.

Arpia could faintly sense the energy of the forest from Karamir, and it wasn’t weak by any means. Even if he had spent time in the woods, it wouldn’t explain the level of that energy.

It had to be connected to The World Tree.

The first tree of the world, the spiritual foundation of all elves. Karamir’s exposure to other elves must have left their aura imprinted on him.

There was no other way Karamir could carry the energy of the World Tree on his body.

“What happened to all those elves?” she asked.

“I returned them to the embrace of nature,” Karamir replied.

Arpia repeated his words in her mind.

To an elf, “the embrace of nature” meant returning to their homeland, the great forest. Given how knowledgeable Karamir seemed to be about elven culture, it could have been what he meant.

But Karamir was the Slave Reaper. And if he was talking about the embrace of nature…

Arpia stopped herself from thinking further. The weight in her chest was too much to bear. All she could focus on was winning this contest.

One drink. Then another.

The cups were filled and emptied, again and again, like an endless Möbius strip. Before long, nine empty bottles lay scattered around.

Each bottle of alcohol cost dozens of gold coins, and as the pile of empty bottles grew, Victor’s expression became one of joy.

Usually, Karamir would drink for free by using Emily as an excuse, but tonight, for some reason, he had offered to pay.

Whoever won didn’t matter to Victor. As long as they kept drinking, it was a win for him.

On the other hand, Arpia’s pale face had turned a deep shade of red, and inside, her spirit was beginning to blacken with frustration.

Elves generally had excellent resistance to alcohol. Arpia, being among the stronger of her kin, had every reason to feel confident. But even she was beginning to get drunk.

While the alcohol flowing through her body had dulled her pain, the prospect of freedom seemed to be drifting further and further away. Karamir, meanwhile, showed no signs of fatigue, his complexion unchanged from the start of the contest.

“You… you’re really good at this,” Arpia slurred.

“I wouldn’t say I’m good, just that I enjoy it in moderation. But Arpia, you don’t look so well. Perhaps you should give up?”

“G-give up? No way! I’m perfectly fine!” Arpia declared boldly.

“I’m… fine. I’m perfectly fine…”

The contest finally came to an end when they opened the eleventh bottle.

Arpia, who had been showing signs of struggle for a while, swayed unsteadily before finally collapsing onto the table with a thud, her forehead slamming against the wood.

She didn’t get back up.

With that one move, the balance of the contest tipped, and the scales of victory shattered.

“It seems you’ve won,” Victor remarked.

“Indeed, it seems that way,” Karamir sighed, slumping into his chair like a limp snail. As he gazed at Arpia’s unconscious figure, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of exhaustion.

‘Is this really an elf? She drinks like an elephant.’

An elephant with long ears instead of a trunk.

In any case…

The problem wasn’t that he was drunk, but that he was so full he could barely keep drinking. He had expected her to be a heavy drinker, but not to this extent.

One was like a squirrel eating fried slime. The other, an elephant guzzling alcohol.

They were truly unique slaves. But then again, with vampires who drank milk instead of blood, it wasn’t all that surprising.

‘How much did all this cost?’

Karamir glanced at the empty bottles scattered around him.

All of that was his own alcohol, paid for with his own money.

Arpia was still wary of him, and raising her favorability was key to controlling her. Alcohol was an effective way to do that. But if she drank for free, it wouldn’t feel like Karamir had given it to her, but rather Victor.

So, he had no choice but to buy the drinks himself.

“You’re quite the drinker, Karamir. Have you always been this good?” Victor asked.

“It’s a basic skill for a slave trader.”

That was a lie.

In truth, Karamir was a terrible drinker. Even in his original life, he had never been able to hold his liquor. The same was true for Karamir. So how had he beaten this elephant of a drinker?

Ding.

The system’s notification chimed.

[The effect of the Elixir of Invulnerability has worn off.]

What else could it have been? Of course, it was an item.

A ridiculously overpowered item that granted immunity to poison and all debuffs. Its duration was only one hour, with a cooldown of an entire week, and it cost 5,000 points.

He had used it just for a drinking contest.

Thanks to the elixir, he had barely felt the effects of the alcohol. To him, it had been no more than drinking a pleasant beverage. If Arpia had been able to keep drinking for just a little longer, he would have been the one collapsing onto the table.

A benevolent master who gave his slave a chance to escape. And he even raised her favorability, if only slightly. At least the alcohol had numbed her pain.

It all worked out in the end.

“Come on, you silly elephant. You’ll hurt your neck if you sleep like that,” Karamir said, standing up and slinging Arpia’s unconscious body over his back.

“Ugh… I’m not silly… I’m really pretty…” she mumbled in her sleep.

“Sure, you’re a pretty little elephant.”

“Hehehe… pretty…”

Carrying the mumbling Arpia on his back, Karamir turned to Victor.

“Thank you for your help tonight, master.”

“Haha, help? What help? This is the kind of help I’d welcome any day. I think I made more money tonight than I do from most contracts! I can finally buy Emily some nice clothes.”

As Victor beamed at the bag of gold coins, Karamir carried Arpia back to her room and gently laid her on the bed.

The smell of alcohol mixed with the scent of the forest as she exhaled in her sleep. Her fair face, now flushed red, looked annoyingly beautiful, as one might expect from an elf.

Watching her sleep, looking far more at peace than before, Karamir found himself staring.

[Arpia, the Forever Suffering Elf]

In truth, their first encounter hadn’t been in the mercenary camp.

There was no such scenario where Karamir rescued her.

In the original storyline, Arpia would have been captured by the mercenaries and sold to Loperemang, the head of the Desert Rose caravan and a collector of rare items.

At first, Loperemang would treat her with great care, but once he discovered her significant flaw, his attitude would change drastically.

Arpia would endure all kinds of unbearable torment at Loperemang’s hands, unable to drown her pain in alcohol. Eventually, she would be sold at the slave market for a pittance, and that’s where Karamir would have met her for the first time.

That was the original story.

A main character of a nerdy game, completely ruined by some creep, subjected to terrible humiliation.

‘Do you think the unicorn fanbase would stand for that? They’d be spitting blood.’

Of course, the community had exploded, and the outrage from players had forced the game developers to revise the story.

‘Ta-da! Turns out Loperemang is impotent, and instead of sexual abuse, he gets his kicks from physical violence. So while Arpia suffers from abuse, she’s never sexually violated!’

That’s how they had “fixed” it.

So, if the player waited a bit, they could buy Arpia for cheap, nurse her back to health, and quickly raise her favorability.

Since Karamir knew the story inside and out, he could have easily followed the usual route to free her. He could have done that, but…

Wait for her to be broken? ‘No way.’

Twisting the story would make things more difficult. It would make the future harder to predict.

But who was Karamir, after all? He wasn’t some casual slave trader—he was a lover of slaves.

If there was hardship to endure, it was his burden to bear. He couldn’t stand the thought of watching them suffer.

Karamir brushed aside Arpia’s sweat-dampened golden bangs.

“Just wait a little longer. I’ll make sure your body no longer suffers, and I’ll return you to the embrace of nature.”