Fate
Fate
It wasn't hard to guess what had happened.
Even if I didn't know the average in this other world, I could tell that my own actions were absolutely not normal. So I had expected that as soon as I brought up Ekaf's story, Asilie would notice something. Nevertheless, when it actually came to it, it was hard to look her straight in the eye.
I wasn't afraid because I'd done something wrong. I was afraid of seeing how she would react to what I had to say. I didn't want to face the possibility that she wouldn't be sad to part with me, and I didn't want to see her sad because she was.
"Yeah. He said he can't help me make sure nobody could ever mess with me, but he can help me take down that commander from the Demon King's Army."
So when Ragnis demanded that I accompany her to the capital under the pretext of instruction, I myself knew better than anyone that I had made the excuse of bringing up the King's Ten Swords as if it were just as impossible.
But this other world, which always transcended imagination, had once again pulled another otherworldly stunt.
The anger I'd spent years disguising as a mere conviction—half as a joke, half seriously—raged at me to stop clinging to happiness that had an expiration date and accept Ekaf's offer.
"I can't even help you with that."
Of course. She was just an elf adventurer who was only slightly removed from the ordinary. No matter how much she was the benefactor of my life, that fact didn't change.
"That will be the same even after the remaining two years pass. To achieve your goal, you must not miss this opportunity, just like when you first met me."
Even as she explained calmly in a voice that showed no emotion, it felt as if my whole body was being constricted. Even though I wanted to lift my eyes and face her with each step I took, I couldn't.
Except when anger at something unjust drove me forward, I was just an ordinary person. Nothing special—just someone terrified that a relationship with someone I cared about might fall apart.
"...But even so, Eldi, you're still agonizing over that offer."
Asilie approached slowly and gently pulled me into an embrace. I had already grown taller than her, so all I could see was her hair filling my vision, but the trembling of Asilie as she held me made it clear what she was feeling without having to look at her face.
"Elves don't have the concept of time passing quickly."
Asilie whispered, tightening her arms around me.
"It's not just elves. Most long-lived species are like that. Because time is what we have in abundance. To us, time is always nothing more than something leisurely. That's why more elves return to the World Tree because they have no lingering attachment to life than die of old age."
Her whisper was so fragile that there was no mistaking how hard she was trying to pretend she was composed.
"But once we become entangled with humans, we get swept along by lives that pass in an instant. Their years chase them in a way ours never do, and in that short span they run without rest, trying to live a life they can be satisfied with before death casts its net and drags them away. Watching them up close is like staring, spellbound, at a jewel made of dancing flame."
I had no choice but to lift my arms and embrace her in return. Her growing tremors, her voice choked with tears, told me that she too had come to not want this parting. And yet, the silence I maintained, unable to simply say I would refuse, spoke for the inner thoughts I had averted my eyes and failed to properly face.
"Even knowing that hundreds of years of burning pain and grief may be waiting at the end of that fleeting happiness, elves are still drawn to it... and most end up despairing. That's why elves who've lived through it always warn the young: be careful around humans, and always prepare your heart. Even then, it's never enough."
Eight years.
The eight-year period I'd proposed, thinking it was long for me but only an instant for an elf like her, had become painful not because it passed harmlessly fast, but because it passed far too fast.
"O-of course I knew that. I haven't forgotten that advice once in the sixty years I spent wandering outside the forest. Every time I felt my interest in Eldi turning into affection, I'd remind myself of it. Year after year, I kept preparing myself so that when the time came, I could face our parting calmly."
If it had simply been a matter of me going away for a while and returning stronger, she would have sent me off with a smile.
We would have confirmed through words that we regretted parting, and eventually I would have returned and we would have reunited with smiles.
"So I thought that even if Eldi decided he had nothing more to learn from me and ended our contract early, I could just laugh it off..."
Even if we couldn't confirm each other's feelings, I might have deliberately left open the possibility of meeting again through a sly deal of postponing the remaining two years. Even while laughing at how unreasonable it was, she would have played along and accepted it as if she were fooled.
"But now... I'm happy because I know Eldi doesn't want to part with me either, and at the same time I can't stop crying because I know I still can't hold you back... And the fact that this moment came two whole years early makes me feel like I'm going to die of sadness."
But she knew what I was pursuing.
Having watched from the side every moment that the Eldmia of those days—who thought his relationship with her would end lightly—had put into words and put into action, she knew better than anyone. She knew that the driving force keeping that life going right now, even while he joked around and laughed as if it were nothing, was his anger toward that day six years ago, so she couldn't even bring herself to say "don't go."
If I had met an ordinary death in my previous life. If I hadn't died right after deciding to live tenaciously, believing that even if I couldn't achieve real independence in my increasingly miserable life, as long as I didn't give up on my dreams and lived earnestly and kindly, good days would come.
At the very least, if that death hadn't been from being stabbed by the knife wielded by the robber who killed my parents. At least if, while reincarnated into this other world and living with the same resolve, the villagers and my parents hadn't been massacred. Of course, in that case I wouldn't have met Asilie, but if. If even so I had met Asilie and this same relationship had continued.
Only after making that assumption did the Eldmia in my imagination and assumption stop and stay by Asilie's side. Conversely, without assuming that much, the anger at the irrationalities layered since my previous life would stimulate my compulsion and wouldn't let me stop.
It was a clear trauma. The fact that a lifetime's will to live uprightly had collapsed twice without even being able to resist against violence that was simple, irrational, and utterly unjust.
No matter how much it had been diluted thanks to Asilie, it was an unhealed wound that would split open and bleed again the moment I faced something similar.
"Thank you, Asilie."
I didn't apologize, because this wasn't my fault. I hadn't brought it on myself by doing something stupid; I'd been minding my own business when violence hit me anyway. Apologizing to Asilie for the trauma that left behind would have made no sense. The ones who made me this way were the ones who owed an apology.
That was why I thanked her instead. She had watched over me and held me up while I kept living with one goal: overcoming that trauma.
That was all I could do at that moment.
◈
Asilie's crying continued for a long while after that.
She kept trying to calm down, only for the tears to start all over again every time she looked at my face. By the time that repeated itself enough, evening had arrived.
"Are you a bit calmer now?"
"As if that's possible..."
From her perspective, calm or whatever, in the end it must have felt like watching a sunfish that could die at any moment the second it left her sight. It was a really shameless question for me to ask, but I couldn't not ask it.
Eventually Asilie cried herself exhausted and hungry, and by the time the stew I'd started making was ready, she had finally stopped. I carefully seated her at the table and set everything out while watching her mood. She kept her head lowered, ears drooping, and said nothing until I sat across from her.
"Go. And come back."
"Huh?"
Asilie spoke with a haggard expression unlike anything I'd seen on her in a long time.
"I'm scared and worried, but it's also true that Eldi isn't ordinary. You can actually manipulate Magic Power, for one thing."
"......"
"If it's a goal you can't give up, then in the long run you'll have a better chance of surviving if you learn properly from the best. So go."
Asilie slowly raised her head to look at me. Her eyes were red as a rabbit's, but her gaze was perfectly clear.
"I'll be waiting here until you kill that bastard and return."
"...Yeah."
"Instead, when you come back, let's go on a trip together."
"...Yeah."
"Whether it takes months or years, Eldi is going to work incredibly hard and suffer for it. And if you become strong enough to kill someone like that, you'll be so strong that most people won't dare touch you anymore."
She slowly lifted her spoon and scooped up some stew, forcing a smile with difficulty.
"By then, you'll be able to afford the little luxury of traveling with me and enjoying yourself."
I was so grateful for those words that I ended up crying too.