When the Flowers Bloom in Spring (2)
"Humans seem to fear that child and call it a monster, but the truth is, that child is closer to a fairy. It only looks so fallen because it belongs to the Underworld. Even so, it takes its work seriously, and now and then it grants our requests. It isn't the sort to harm a life for no reason, either. Not a bad child. Hehe."
"......"
The knights were at a loss. Was this a moment for sympathy, or for shock? Should they be stunned that the Dullahan was no monster but a fairy, or stunned by the Spring Fairy, who treated that Dullahan like a child and worked it as she pleased?
Lee Han, though, had felt a sliver of what such a fairy could do, and he could not keep the question down.
"...I don't quite understand. Why in the world was the Spring Fairy caught by some spell-slinger? With power like this, couldn't you have put them down before they ever laid hands on you?"
"Have you ever seen such an impious wretch!"
"H-he can ask, can't he..."
He could not see the reason, but the Spring Fairy seemed incapable of doing humans direct harm. She was still, beyond any doubt, a being who could defeat them in any number of other ways. As when she had first slipped the Seal, she might have turned the mages' mana into nourishment for the soil, or simply called the Dullahan standing over there, and most of those mages would have lost their heads. The spell-slinger who had been rotting for four hundred years would have been no exception.
So why had the fairy been taken without the slightest resistance?
"So that's what you wanted to know. It's nothing so grand. You needn't be so careful."
The Spring Fairy was easygoing about it. He had been treading with the utmost care, but to her it was plainly something she could answer as freely as she liked.
"Mm. To put it lightly, the way we use our power is rather particular."
"??"
"More simply: we must not carelessly exercise authority beyond the role we were given. Slip, and we could collapse the ecosystem of nature itself."
The fairy shrugged, light as anything, and went on.
"The gods also laid constraints and promises on us... Mm. Even setting those aside, we can't use our power easily. Use it carelessly, and something truly bad happens."
"......"
He did not dare ask what that bad thing was. He had the distinct feeling the answer would outrun his imagination and land somewhere worse.
"Even that child, the Dullahan, is bound by conditions and constraints before he can use his power in the world of the living. He can still use it on the dead. That's part of why he granted our request."
"Then you as well, Lady Fairy..."
"I told you. We are truly grateful to you. If you hadn't punished the mages, we still wouldn't have been able to use our power against them. In terms you'll understand: a chain of cause and effect was established, and that is what let us act!"
The Spring Fairy flicked her fingers and drew a circle.
Light flared. An aurora swept out into a perfect ring, as if she were explaining, in her own fashion, the cycle of the world and the laws that turned it.
It was complicated. Lee Han caught the shape of it anyway.
So because this fellow and I were already in the middle of punishing the spell-slingers, the fairies could step in as allies.
Looking back, the fairies had only nullified mana, or turned the remains of the dead into nourishment. Not once had they done direct harm. Those spell-slinging bastards must have been infuriating, and still the fairies had endured without striking. That patience, he suspected, came of knowing that if they ever did exercise their power, the mark it left on the world would be nothing short of horrific.
Terrifying. Genuinely.
A being whose power was great enough to overturn the laws of nature, and who was therefore bound all the more tightly against using it. The thought alone was enough to drain the color from a man's face.
And yet.
She's genuinely kind.
Gentleness, mercy, and nobility came off her of their own accord, and respect rose with them.
She could use that power whenever she wished.
As Lee Han felt it, the talk of constraints and promises was true enough, but she was not literally unable to act. Set her mind to it, and she could do humans direct harm. He was sure of that.
And yet the fairy did not. She knew that a careless use of their power might destroy the human world, and so she held her hand.
That was why the fairy was holy. She possessed a great Mystery, one it would not be too much to call a god, and still she did not wield it lightly. They might look as innocent as children, but in truth they were a people more thoughtful, and more merciful, than any other.
No wonder the ancients raised them up as gods.
So merciful, so noble — how could the humans of old have endured without praising them?
Even I find it worthy of respect...
For the first time in his life, Lee Han felt that someone was noble and sacred at once. A great fairy. Today he understood in his own flesh why that name existed.
"Incredible. Truly."
Lee Han murmured it, nodding to himself. And at his words—
"Eee, th-this is embarrassing. It's been so long since anyone praised me like this..."
"...?"
"You really are a decent human. Hehe!"
"...I'm only asking on the off chance, but do fairies read people's hearts as well?"
He asked because he truly was only asking on the off chance. He hadn't said a word of it, and still she had gone that shy.
The fairy—
"It's a secret."
"......"
She covered her mouth with one finger and winked. Lee Han's face soured.
...Why are there so many mind-reading women around me?
Her reaction alone was answer enough.
Clop. Clop.
The two knights' eyes stayed fixed, following the hoofbeats as they drew away.
"......"
He could not have said why, but a feeling settled on him that a day would come when they fought. An uncertain premonition, nothing that could be reasoned through.
And it was not his alone.
——.
Ghost-fire flared. As if to show they were not the only ones who had felt it, the Dullahan's eyes — blue flame burning in them — turned their way.
Heat lived in that fire. The presence rolling off the rider was enough to set the whole body prickling. The knights did not look away. Whether that thing was a harvester of death or something else entirely, if a day came when they had to fight, winning would be enough.
"See you again."
——.
At words from Lee Han that amounted to a challenge, the Dullahan seemed, just for a moment, to shift. As if it were laughing.
Clop. Clop.
Slowly, the Dullahan drew away, hundreds of harvested souls in its keeping. The knights only followed that figure with their eyes, drinking the sight in.
Clop. Clop...
And then it was gone. A mist no one could name the origin of closed around it, and it vanished as it was. Its presence disappeared completely.
Lee Han and Rak gave out.
Down they went.
"...I'm dead tired."
"You ignorant thug...! Why did you have to provoke it at the end?"
"Well, the— the mood seemed like I ought to?"
"...You insane thug."
"...Tsk."
They had dropped where they sat, too spent to do more than complain. The fight had already been brutal, and then they had tried to match presences with something that radiated a force like that. Of course their bodies were finished. Men already beaten to ruin had been ruined a little further. Sprawled on the ground, they wanted nothing so much as to pass out then and there.
"...Whoa. This is bad."
Derek, who had come up before they noticed, clicked his tongue.
Medical Skill — Diagnosis
That was what he said after activating Diagnosis and looking over the state of their bodies.
"Torn muscles. Snapped tendons. And the bones... No. How in the world were the two of you even moving?"
The more he looked, the less there was to say. These were injuries a man could die of on the spot, and no one would call it strange. The irony was that everything he had just named sat on the milder end.
"...Your insides are a wreck. Instructor, it's as if you set off gunpowder in your own gut, and Sir Duron looks as if he's been tortured for days. What even is this..."
Derek read them so exactly that, had he been a physician, word would already have gone round that a master had appeared. It was dire enough to call for surgery at once — surgery with only the thinnest chance they would live through it. To raise those odds at all, they would have to summon a priest and pour Holy Power over them for the whole of the operation, just to catch hold of their lifelines.
"...One night's sleep and I'll be fine."
"He's right."
"...It's more likely you won't wake up, you know."
For an ordinary human, yes, the wounds were fatal. That did not mean these two were going to die. Their vitality went past hardy into something downright stubborn. Natural recovery was possible, and half a year of proper convalescence would see them whole.
Derek knew better. These were not men who would obediently rest for half a year.
Every one of them is a workaholic. Leave them idle and thorns start growing in their mouths...
They wouldn't admit it. The instructor, least of all. Their instructor was a work addict all the same, and no mistake.
"Aah, I have to get moving. I've only got three days of leave left..."
A severe case of it, too.
"Please. Just rest."
Derek muttered it and meant to use a skill. First aid, if nothing else.
"You mustn't."
"......"
"You can't take the work that's mine. Hehe."
"...Y-yes. Yes, ma'am..."
When had she come up? The Spring Fairy stood quietly at his back and turned a meaningful look on him.
"...You were called here by her, weren't you?"
"!!?"
"Hehe. Don't worry. I don't go about spilling anyone's secrets. I'm only a little intrigued."
"......"
Derek swallowed, dry.
A fairy, after all.
I can feel her reading me clean through.
There was nothing he could hide. And perhaps not only him.
"Those two over there are interesting as well. Hehe. It seems she has been up to something very amusing. Well, this sort of thing does happen now and then."
"When you say now and then..."
Derek found the nerve to ask. He wanted to know what that now and then was supposed to mean.
"I mean cases like yours. They come around once every few centuries. To make this world richer, and more interesting. Yes — in human words, would you call it an event? A festival?"
"......"
A few centuries counted as now and then?
"Don't worry. The gods aren't manipulating your fates, or using them. If the gods stepped in, the world would stop being fun. So more often they simply watch, and let things flow as they will."
"......"
"Hehe."
"...I really can't tell whether I'm supposed to be pleased by this, or annoyed."
"The world is for enjoying. Otherwise you're the only one who loses. Cheer up!"
"......"
She lifted both hands in a cute little cheer, a beautiful smile on her face, and Derek lost all control of his expression. However adorable she looked, this fairy's age was—
"You're in trouble."
"...I'm sorry."
Derek dropped his head to the ground at once.
"...Please stop tormenting our kid."
"It's because he's cute. Because he's cute."
Lee Han grumbled, watching Taechang still taking a merciless shelling in the flower bed. The fairy only smiled, playful as ever.
So that was why people said fairies were tricksters from the cradle.
"Anyway. You don't have to treat us. This sort of thing, we'll handle our—"
"Your lifespan has shortened a little."
"......"
"It happened while you were saving us. Then I ought to repay you."
"No, this is—"
He had no shortage of objections. That he did not regret it. Or that he had not done it only to save her. As for his lifespan, cadge a few elixirs off the princess he called sister and he could make up the difference well enough, so really, he was fi—
A tap.
"You talk too much."
"W-wait— mmph!?"
Before he could so much as twitch, he was caught. The fairy had only put her arms around him, and he froze solid, unable to resist, unable even to raise a defense.
"Hah—!"
"Mmm."
"...Whoa."
His lips were taken, hot and thorough.
For thirty years the knight had saved his first experience. The one who claimed it was, ironically, not a human at all, but a fairy.