"Ah...! Sorry, we were enjoying seeing your spells so much, we forgot to introduce ourselves...!"
The young adventurer trio hastily apologized. Since I was showing them more of my party-trick spells, like my Air Bubbles and Wind Reading, they didn't really got the chance to introduce themselves earlier. They were so into them that I simply can't stop.
After apologizing, they start to introduce themselves one after another.
First off, the black-haired boy. His name was Kai, and his class is Warrior. He only has his trusty sword, and he doesn't wear much armour; he only pads his elbows and knees with custom metal plates.
The other boy in their party is Harry, a sharp-looking boy with light-grey hair. He's smaller than Kai, but he looks more mature and well-presented. As for his class, he's an assassin. Unlike Kai, he's not wearing any armour at all, instead, he has more blades on him. Overall, I can count eight of them, including the ones he's hiding on his legs, feet, and back.
And the last one, Erika, the only female in their party, serves as another frontline fighter: a martial-artist. Erika appears to have a very out-going personality, she appears to be proud and confident as well. Although she acted shy on our first meeting, she easily got along with me in time, and she's now confident enough to sit right beside me. But I suppose since we're both women, it's only natural for us to be friendly with each other.
"Um... Eria... You only look a bit older than us, but you're actually much older, right?" Harry asked.
"Oh! That's right...! How old exactly are you?" Erika's voice sounded particularly loud, since she's sitting right beside me.
"116!?"
"Really!?"
Their voices became even louder when I answered their question.
"Wow... I can't even imagine myself living that long..."
"You're so old, Eria!"
While Kai was muttering in amazement, Harry exclaimed in surprise.
"Tha-that's rude!" Erika yelled at Harry and smacked his head with her full fist. Then, she apologizes in his place, "I'm sorry, Eria! He's just not careful with his words, he didn't mean to offend you."
"I-it's fine...! I'm not offended by it."
I don't hate being called old that much, but I understand why some women would feel sad or offended about it. Since I turned into a woman myself, I sometimes get the urge to beautify myself and preserve my beauty, specially when I suddenly go into heat, and start to seek men.... but I don't really want to talk about that, since it's an unrelated topic.
"I-Is that so...? Then I guess I don't need to punish him anymore?"
Mm? Did she really just wanted to hurt him after all?
"I'm sorry..." Harry scratches his head and apologized, then he explains with a sigh, "It's really hard to comprehend the ages of other races... they might look young sometimes, but they're actually old, or they are sometimes actually young, but look so old."
He must be talking about my race, the elves, and the ever so old-looking dwarves.
"Oh...! I heard there are some elves who likes to reset their age every decade... Like when they turned 101-years-old, they will introduce their age as 1 instead..." Erika said.
"Really? That kind of... weird, isn't it?" Harry comments.
I did hear that some elves likes to do that...
"So, if you do that as well, Eria... your age will be 16, intead of 116."
"16? Then you're really just a bit older than us after all," Kai mused.
Certainly, that age would fit my appearance very well.
"Fufu..." I chuckled, amused by the childish thoughts of the trio. "So you're saying I can't drink alchohol again? No thank you," I humored them.
"Wha..."
"Puff...! That's funny, Eria...!"
They all seem surprised by me, suddenly spitting out a joke out of nowhere, but they all nevertheless soon went on with it and laughed.
"You're a lot more approachable than I thought you were, Eria...!" Erika came close to my face and said, "I really like you! Can I call you my older sister?"
"Well, that's..."
To be honest, the kids who were in the same orphanage as I was all used to call me "Ane" or "elder sister". I'm actually fine with being called like that, but Erika was still just a stranger a while ago...
"Mrr... fine...! You can call me that..." I just can't refuse her when she's staring straight at me with such expectant eyes.
"Yey! I got myself an elf older sister!" she immediately cheered.
"You two really do seem to get along..."
"Umu..."
The two boys murmur as they watched Erika and I closely interact.