Chapter 208: Elven Ear-Muffs

As Luca held Leona’s hand, he realized that this was a perfect moment for a kiss!

But not just any kiss like they’d shared before. A proper kiss on the lips.

Before this, Leona had been carefully avoiding any kiss on the lips. That seemed too intimate for her, something she couldn’t handle yet, so they hadn’t had that moment.

But right now felt perfect—they were lying beneath the stars, side by side, their hands intertwined. He couldn’t think of a better moment than this.

So Luca slowly turned over and approached Leona with the full intention of kissing her straight on the lips. He knew no woman could resist a moment like this.

He puckered his lips and leaned forward—

But just as he was about to make contact, Leona suddenly sat up excitedly.

“Oh my God! I totally forgot—we still have one more task to do!”

Luca, caught mid-lean, fell forward right where she’d been lying and ended up kissing the a rock on the ground instead!

He groaned in utter dismay.

Leona, completely oblivious to his misfortune, kept talking as if nothing had happened.

“This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while now.” She said eagerly, brushing grass off her clothes. “It would be such a huge help to every villager, especially during the colder nights.”

“I’ve tried to solve it on my own so many times, but no matter how much I searched or experimented, I just couldn’t find a good solution. But you’re my lucky charm, Luca!”

She turned to him with a radiant smile, clearly expecting the same enthusiasm.

“I feel like you can do anything right now, so I just know you can fix this too!”

But when she finally looked back at him, her expression faltered.

Luca was curled up on his side like a sulky caterpillar in a cocoon, knees drawn to his chest, arms wrapped around himself, and his face turned stubbornly away from her.

He looked every bit like a teenager who had just been denied his favorite treat.

“Luca?” She blinked in confusion. “What’s wrong?”

He mumbled something into the grass.

“….What was that?”

“You’re…You’re only after my body, Leona!”

He complained without looking at her.

“You only care about my body and nothing else!”

This completely caught Leona off guard.

“W-What? What are you talking about?”

“The whole day…” Luca said dramatically, still not looking at her. “…I’ve sold my body for you. I’ve done all the tasks you’ve asked for without question.”

“And just when I thought I’d finally get some rest, you immediately want to make me work again—like I’m your slave or something!”

He shifted position, turning further away.

“This is too much, even for a Hero. I need breaks too, you know. If not, I’m going to complain to the labor union!”

Leona stared at him for a heartbeat, then her lips twitched into an amused smile.

He looked so ridiculously cute like this—pouting and curled up—that she couldn’t help but find it endearing. She quickly crawled over on her hands and knees, gently shaking his shoulder.

“Come on, Luca…Come on.” She coaxed, voice soft and playful. “It’s just one more task, I promise you. After this, we don’t have to do anything at all. It’s just one final thing on the list!”

Luca ignored her completely, burying his face deeper into his arms like a stubborn child.

Leona crawled even closer, hovering over him now.

“Please, please, just one more. And this one isn’t even physical! We don’t need you to work your muscles at all. It’s a little tricky, but we’ll find a way through it together.”

“I need your help, Luca…please?”

He still refused to look at her, muttering sulkily.

“Just go away, Leona. I’m just gonna sleep right here.”

Leona let out a soft, wry little laugh at his teenage-level moodiness.

But she didn’t give up and instead, shifted until she was directly above his head, then gently grabbed his face and tried to turn it toward her.

“Look at me, Luca. Look at me.” She insisted, voice warm but insistent.

He resisted for a second, but she kept coaxing.

“Just look at me for one second.”

Finally he gave in and slowly turned his head. The moment he did, he froze.

Leona’s face was right there above his—ravishing and close, her beautiful blue eyes twinkling brighter than the stars overhead, her tender lips curled into the softest, most hopeful smile.

The moonlight caught in her hair, and for a heartbeat Luca felt genuinely charmed.

While he was mesmerized, she said playful determination,

“We’re going to do this, Luca. You and me…”

She pointed at him, then at herself.

“We’re going to do this together!”

She was already dead set on it like she knew Luca wouldn’t disagree with her.

And the worst part was—Luca honestly couldn’t.

After seeing her ask for a favor while looking straight at him with those beautiful eyes, he found it impossible to resist.

It was rather surprising, actually. After all the years Luca had lived, he’d become largely impartial to someone’s appearance.

Beauty didn’t really affect him anymore.

What he truly cared about was a person’s soul, what they were truly like inside. Appearance had stopped mattering to him long ago.

But right now, he had to admit—even he was charmed.

She was the Matriarch of the Elf Race for a reason. She was utterly gorgeous, and even he couldn’t help but feel his heart race in this moment. A small blush appeared on his cheeks.

Unable to resist, he finally gave in with a sigh.

“Okay, fine. I’ll do it.”

This immediately made Leona beam with happiness.

She leaned down and gave him a kiss on the forehead.

“That’s my Luca! I knew you’d never let me down!”

Then she pulled back and grabbed onto his hand.

“Now get up, get up! The faster we get this over with, the faster we can rest!” She pulled him to a sitting position.

Now they were both sitting across from each other in the grass.

Luca pressed a hand to his chin, now genuinely curious despite himself.

“So…what exactly is this task that you found so tricky?” He asked.

Leona’s eyes sparkled with excitement, as if she had been waiting for the question. She quickly rummaged through the small pouch at her waist, searching for something with eager fingers.

Finally she pulled it out and held it up like a sacred relic.

“It’s this, Luca!” She said in a bright, proud tone. “This is what we have to figure out!”

Luca leaned in to look. What she was holding was a simple piece of fabric shaped roughly like a cone—nothing particularly impressive or special about it at first glance.

He couldn’t help but look at her in confusion.

“Wait…what is that? I honestly have no idea what I’m supposed to be looking at.” He squinted at it. “Is it maybe a scrap of cloth? Did you accidentally tear it while pulling something else out? Or is it tinder used to light a fire?”

Leona looked positively offended.

“What?! Of course not, Luca! Are you blind? Can you not obviously see what this is?!” She pushed it toward his face.

Luca just shook his head.

This made Leona even more indignant. She looked at him like he was some kind of unsophisticated peasant.

“Fine, fine.” She said in a haughty manner. “Since you don’t even know something as simple as this, let me explain.”

She held up the fabric proudly.

“This amazing creation is clearly a Elven ear-muff!”

Luca blinked. “A what now?”

“An Elven ear-muff!” She repeated.

He was still confused.

So she demonstrated.

“Just look—it’s something you put on your elf ears like this.”

She took the so-called earmuff and placed it over one of her pointed ears. The fabric completely covered the outer ear, except for the lower portion and the ear canal itself.

Then she took out another one and placed it on her other ear as well, with both ears now covered in the cone-shaped fabric.

She turned her head this way and that, showing it off.

“It’s cute, right? It looks really nice on me, right?”

Luca nodded absentmindedly.

“Yeah, it is cute. But what’s its purpose?”

Leona took on a lecturing tone and went on to explain.

“You see, Luca, as you may already know, elves have really sensitive ears—not only to touch itself, but to the weather around us.”

“Whenever it gets really cold at night, elves’ ears suffer a lot. They become all red and painful because of how cold it is.”

She adjusted the earmuffs as she spoke.

“In the past, whenever that problem occurred, we could just use magic to solve it—heat our ears up with warming spells, or insulate the area around the ears with certain enchantments.”

“It wasn’t a big deal at all.”

Then she frowned.

“But now that mana doesn’t exist anymore, we can’t do that. All the elves in the village have been suffering from this problem. Many of them have tried to find solutions—like covering their ears with scarves or hats or something—but unfortunately, elves’ ears are very sensitive.”

“Nothing can touch them or put too much pressure on them, or else it becomes extremely uncomfortable.”

Luca nodded his head, understanding what she was talking about.

Leona then said enthusiastically, “And that’s why I made and invented these!”

She pointed at them in a proud manner, like a professor presenting a wonderful creation.

“These ea-rmuffs are designed in a way that they fit perfectly around your ear without any extra obstruction. And even if you turn your head or move around—”

She demonstrated by moving her head side to side

“—they won’t fall off, and you won’t feel them pushing against you too much. It’s a simple but clever design that elegantly solves the problem!”

She had a look on her face that clearly said, ’Praise me, praise me!’

Luca clapped his hands. “Wow. Amazing, amazing, Leona. You’re the best.” He said in a rather monotone voice.

But Leona didn’t care at all. She puffed out her chest in a proud manner, clearly delighted by the praise.

But then she suddenly frowned.

“Unfortunately, even though the design itself is absolutely amazing and stellar…” She hyped herself up even more “…the fabric itself is a problem.”

She gently caressed the material of the earmuffs.

“Even though this is the softest fabric the village could produce, it still feels kind of weird and prickly on the ear. For an hour, it’s okay, but after that, it starts feeling really uncomfortable.”

She sighed.

“No matter how much I’ve searched for different fabrics, researched here and there, even asked for silk from Arachnid weavers—nothing has really solved the problem. It still feels weird and stuffy around the ear.”

“And that’s the problem right now.” She said decisively.

“I need a fabric—a fabric that’s extremely light and soft. So soft that you can barely even feel it against your skin. But it also has to warm up your ear as well, to fulfill the purpose.”

She looked at Luca with hope again, fidgeting with her hands nervously.

“And that’s where you come in, Luca. I know this task isn’t like the other ones where you can just brute force it. It’s much trickier. But I hope you can solve this problem too.”

She looked at him with those bright, hopeful eyes, clearly believing with all her heart that her lucky charm could fix even this.

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