The World Tree
The World Tree
To me, impersonators were one of the worst possible obstacles to achieving my goals.
The dead fake Eldmia was a prime example. Even without knowing what the bastard's purpose had been in impersonating me, hadn't he scattered nuisance in every direction by ignoring the guards' legitimate demands and trying to throw his nonexistent weight around? The city guards couldn't even make a proper judgment after he simply dropped my name; they'd just panicked. And this was a city of decent size—in a small town, they would have cowered and opened the gates without question.
What if this kept spreading, and later bastards started using my name to extort goods and swindle nobles? What if someone like that idiot I'd met at the Adventurers' Guild got their meager savings squeezed dry and ended up resenting me? Was I supposed to just tolerate that?
"I'll split the skull of every last one I meet, for real."
Even if it caused me zero personal harm, it was an obstacle. They were bastards with crimes as vile as demons. There wasn't a single reason to leave even one of them alive.
"Uh, e-excuse me, are you the real Eldmia Ega?"
In the sudden silence after a man had been killed, one knight summoned his courage to ask. I pulled out the Margrave of Kelbast's identity guarantee and the duel certificate from the Mekelin territory and held them out. The knight hesitantly approached, took them, and checked them, and his buttonhole-sized eyes flew wide open.
"D-don't tell me our city too?!"
"Bullshi... haah, I'm just passing through."
Right, rumors about me couldn't possibly be pleasant, so that reaction was probably normal.
Still, it wasn't an entirely bad situation. I'd expected them to give everything a quick look and make us line up again for a proper check later, but instead the guards made various excuses and waved us straight through.
"Even so, cutting in line is a bit..."
"Cutting in line? You dealt with a fraudster who was about to bring chaos and threat to the city, making our work easier. This much is only natural."
The knight's face was extremely stiff as he smiled, having impromptu looted the fake Eldmia's pockets and placed every last coin and valuable into my hand. But since it meant I could rest sooner and had gained some money, I couldn't have cared less. Even the other people behind us nodded along in agreement with his opinion, so declining further would have felt like rudeness.
Ultimately, thanks to the fake Eldmia's noble sacrifice, we made a swift entry, entering the city with every gaze fixed upon us. Glancing back once at the gate fading into the distance, Cellevian murmured as if marveling at it.
"They say rumors among humans travel fast, but... tales concerning you seem to travel quite a bit faster."
"I thought the same until just now, but it seems they pulled some strings over in Kelbast."
Even a simplified inspection was still an inspection, so I took the opportunity to ask the knight a few things. He said he wasn't sure about the Mekelin territory affair, but the knight-halving incident in Kelbast had already spread far and wide. Even he had heard a heavily glorified version, so the rumor campaign the Margrave of Kelbast had mentioned was clearly moving with astonishing speed.
"Now that I think about it, you came from the Great Grassland, so you must have passed through Kelbast... don't tell me you beheaded the count there too?"
"No, that count was a very reasonable intellectual."
Truthfully, Count Mekelin probably would have been reasonable too if we'd had a chance to talk... but he'd trusted his own power far too much. In that respect, the Margrave of Kelbast was an exceedingly gentlemanly man despite wielding considerable power as a count. If he lived to a ripe old age, wouldn't he become someone like old man Lesrom?
"...That sounded very much like you would have beheaded him if he hadn't been reasonable."
"If he'd kept poking at me telling me to hand this over, I suspect I might have."
I answered while tapping the axe slung on my back. Cellevian stroked his chin and continued.
"Kakula's Axe, was it? I distinctly heard that a human knight used that weapon a long time ago, and that the bastard seized it and began using it as his main. I hadn't expected he'd still be using it."
For an elf who had claimed with his own mouth that he never left the forest, his knowledge was remarkably precise, so I couldn't help but show a slightly surprised reaction.
"You're spot on. It's quite a distance from the north, so that's unexpected."
"Back then, there were some forests near that area too. Was it about seventy years ago?"
...What? Seventy? I flinched at the unexpected answer, and the elf beside him quietly corrected Cellevian's statement.
"It was 61 years ago, Squad Leader."
"Ah, right. Maybe it's age, but I keep having trouble remembering recent events lately."
Unlike the elves laughing heartily and creating a congenial atmosphere, I had to force a smile and think hard. The insane time perception of long-lived species that dismissed over sixty years as a recent event was a problem, but the fact that Kakula had lived that long was a shockingly novel revelation.
Were orcs monsters capable of living that long? Since they were monsters anyway, I'd never paid much attention to their average lifespan, so it simply wasn't something I knew.
Hm? Come to think of it again, did that mean orcs were indeed orcs...?
Orcs reach maturity faster than humans, so it wasn't certain, but there was no way he'd killed Dubert, the knight of Kelbast, and taken his weapon as a trophy when he was fresh out of the womb. At the very least, it would have been after he'd been through the wringer of tribal warfare. Even if I assumed that was around my age, it meant the bastard had been pushing eighty by the time I fought him.
In my past life, that would have been elder abuse plain and simple, but some long-lived species like beastmen and monsters like orcs experienced a remarkably low decline in physical ability due to aging. Ultimately, it meant that even though Kakula had spent his entire life in combat, his skill had capped out at Aura Expert.
"Kakula's shamanism was renowned even among the elves. Since he's dead, the grasslands should be quiet for a while."
Ah, right. He was a shaman-warrior. That changed things. He really was an outlier even among orcs.
And the same went for this axe. An orc had used it for sixty-one years and it was still this pristine? At this point, it had to be an artifact with some serious enchantment on it.
"Anyway, since the city is favorably disposed this time, it seems we'll be able to get some proper rest and depart."
"Mm, traveling with you, there hasn't been a single quiet day, so frankly, I'm not fully convinced."
Although he said that, everyone was so accustomed to it that they took it as a joke, shaking their heads with hollow laughter.
◈
Contrary to Cellevian's worries, we didn't get caught up in any trouble during our overnight stay in the city. The city put in quite decent effort to maintain public order, and it was a good enough place that the usual bar brawls were the extent of it.
Using the money fleeced from criminals to book an inn with good facilities probably played a part too, but anyway, we woke up refreshed at dawn, paid the innkeeper extra to secure a slightly early breakfast and boxed lunches for midday, and left the city.
This time, a real winter vacation... ah, fuck, let's not even say it.
Given everything so far, good things hadn't followed when I said that.
I just moved my feet, thoughtlessly as possible, and around the time the belatedly rising morning sun came into view, Cellevian pointed at a forest visible in the distance and spoke to me with a voice more animated than usual.
"Winter has come later than expected. I thought we'd need to go deeper in, but it seems we can move right away."
"Are we there already?"
"If you're asking whether we've arrived at the entrance to go to the World Tree, then yes."
Watching the other elves relax with the feeling of finally going home, it seemed it was true. Since I couldn't discern any difference from my own perspective, I just felt appropriately glad and moved my feet along with theirs.
"As I told you when we first met, not all elves will welcome you. However, we will stay by your side as much as possible, so don't fret too much."
"Thank you for your consideration."
"It's not free. You see, there are quite a lot of people curious about how Asilie has been."
Whether traveling with me had been really hard on them, or whether he was purely just happy to return home, Cellevian didn't hide his excitement either and chattered away. Watching their reactions, a belated change stirred in my own heart, which had been completely thoughtless on the way here.
Come to think of it, this was the World Tree, one of the staples of fantasy stories, wasn't it?
"I've suddenly grown curious. Is it permissible for a human to carelessly step where the World Tree is?"
"Naturally, one cannot do so carelessly. You have been... as you people say, your identity has been guaranteed through that earring."
"This earring served that kind of role as well?"
Was that why the elf in Siegfried's party had been horrified? Surprised anew, I stroked the earring that had become all too familiar now. Cellevian and the other elves' expressions began to turn strange, as if they were even more surprised and seeing something bizarre.
"...Did you receive that earring without knowing its meaning?"
"I understood it to be something like a protective charm."
And their expressions turned even stranger at my answer.
Did it have another meaning?