Coming of Age
"I'm ba—"
"...Back, are you."
"Welcome home."
Leonard and Robin greeted Jun with grim faces the moment he returned to the cabin after rejecting the offer of persuasion.
"...I'm ho— ugh, forget it!"
Creeeak. Click.
In a sudden foul mood, Jun stepped back out of the doorway he'd just crossed and shut the front door—leaving Fortuna still inside the cabin.
"I'm home."
"Welcome back! Our Juni!"
Smack! Smack! Smack!
When he opened the door again, it wasn't the two men's gloomy faces that met him—it was a lovely angel's greeting, overflowing with love.
Jun smiled in satisfaction and savored her barrage of kisses.
Yeah. This is how a welcome home should feel. This is why you come home.
"Ahem! Ahem!"
"...Tch."
"For, that's enough."
"Mwah. Whyyy∼. I still haven't loved our Juni nearly enough."
"Does that ever actually end?"
"Nope∼. Mwah♡"
She denied it cutely and went right back to raining kisses on his face. Jun thought, not for the first time, that he was truly glad to be alive.
Left to his own wishes, he would have let her keep going until she was satisfied—but he had no choice but to stop her. The looks from the two bachelor uncles were getting dangerous.
"Hehe. Our Juni. My beloved Juni."
Once Fortuna got going, even after she returned to fairy form she stayed plastered to Jun's face and refused to peel off. He couldn't bring himself to stop that much, so he put on a thick face and approached the two bachelor uncles sharing drinks on the sofa.
"Why are you both looking so miserable? You always say alcohol is the root of all evil and won't touch a drop except on special occasions."
"Ahem. You think we only drink on special occasions?"
"You don't?"
"That's right!"
Leonard drained his glass for show. Well—if he said so, there wasn't much to argue. But why did he keep glancing this way? Creepy.
The moment Jun's brow twitched faintly at Leonard, Robin—who had been watching Leonard's attitude with a bitter smile—turned to Jun and spoke.
"The ones waiting for you. They really were the First Prince's men?"
"Yes."
Jun nodded and gave a brief account of who had been waiting for him, why they had been waiting, and what answer he had given them.
He wasn't Leon's subordinate, so he didn't strictly need to explain—but if he stayed silent, it would only invite unnecessary suspicion. There was barely a week left until the coming-of-age ceremony. The enemy would almost certainly launch an all-out offensive in that time, and the last thing they needed was division among allies instead of unity.
"Hoo∼. Thank goodness. I'm sorry for not trusting you—but I was worried you might have fallen for their recruitment."
"..."
Robin's face brightened at once. Leonard's, by contrast, darkened. Jun was still trying to figure out the oddly abrupt reaction when Leonard carefully asked him,
"Why did you refuse? From the sound of it, the terms were truly extraordinary."
"What? Boss, are you seriously doubting our Juni? Huh?"
"N-no, that's not—"
Fortuna flared up and lunged; Leonard flailed and shot desperate looks for help. Jun sighed, calmed Fortuna before she could actually pounce, and answered the question.
"If something comes your way, something has to go out in return. And since I didn't earn any of it with my own strength, it could be taken away whenever they felt like it."
Nothing in the world was free. There was no way the First Prince had offered such outrageous conditions out of pure generosity. He would have dangled those terms specifically to bind Jun and use him. If Jun got caught in that web, he would end up moving like a puppet according to the prince's will, regardless of his own. And if he tried to break free, every means available would be used to stop him.
That future was one he refused, absolutely. Even if life was a little poorer for it, Jun wanted to live with peace of mind.
"...Hoo∼. You're serious."
"Yes. I'm serious. So please give it up already. No matter what conditions you put in front of me, I will never follow Leon."
Leonard flinched as if struck dead center. So it really had been about recruitment.
"Easy to say. Will it go the way you want? I've watched everything you've done with my own two eyes."
"Hard or not, that's what you'll have to do. You were managing just fine until recently. Why stop all of a sudden?"
Instead of answering, Leonard only gave a bitter smile. If he told the truth, he was afraid he would only load Jun with needless guilt.
How am I supposed to say it? That the future looks too uncertain.
Until not long ago, Leonard had been confident. If he, his old friends, those who followed his old friends, and the loyal retainers who fretted over the Empire's future all joined forces, they could put Leon on the throne. But a few days earlier, the discreet messages he had circulated had returned nothing satisfactory—and his anxiety had spiked.
At this rate, far from seating Leon on the throne, they might not even be able to keep Leon's life safe. Once that thought took hold, he couldn't help reconsidering the recruitment of Jun he had abandoned four years ago. Honestly, he wanted to cling to it.
Through four years of real combat, Jun had become a fighter even Leonard himself could no longer take lightly. A terrifying rate of growth! Even now—look. Before the battle, his presence had been just short of Green rank; within a few hours it had risen to a full, solid Green. If he kept growing like this, Leonard was certain Jun would surpass him before he even turned twenty.
And if that happened...
There would be almost no one in the Empire who could stand against Jun.
Uncanny movement. Fast, precise weapon technique. Output forged by a top-tier triple core. A body trained to a startling degree. Formidable traits. And the extraordinary mind that underpinned all of it. Leonard would stake his word on it: even an Orange-rank fighter would struggle against a Yellow-rank Jun.
Haa∼. What a waste. A real waste.
If they could only recruit him, a thousand armies and ten thousand warhorses would be nothing to envy. Jun alone could fill the role of a thousand soldiers and cover in a blink the distance ten thousand warhorses would travel. But no matter how he turned it over, Leonard could see no way to bring him in.
Gulp. Gulp.
"Hoo∼."
Leonard soothed his frustrated gut with liquor. Maybe it was the alcohol, but for a moment the idea of dropping to his knees and begging crossed his mind—then he shook his head at once. Jun was a warm-hearted kid, but he had a hard line drawn. If Leon abandoned the throne and fled, Jun would help even while fretting over it. The reverse? He would never help. Not for anything.
"Looks like it's hard to say. Then you don't have to. Anything else?"
Reading the tangled feelings in the way Leonard kept draining his cup, Jun decided to leave this uncomfortable gathering. Staying longer would only end badly.
"...No. Nothing. Sorry for holding you. You must be exhausted."
"It's fine. I'll head to bed, then."
"Do that. Ah—starting tomorrow we'll be practicing the song for the coming-of-age ceremony, so come to the church in the morning."
"Do I really have to do that too?"
"It's a ceremony you only get once in a lifetime. Join in if you can."
The way Leonard said it reminded Jun of his father in his previous life insisting he attend his university graduation, and he found himself nodding before he knew it. Then he hurried to his room. His heart had gone soft all of a sudden; if he stayed any longer, he was afraid he would ask the reason he hadn't pressed for—and in his current state, he wasn't sure he could coldly dismiss it as none of his business.
Click.
"Hoo∼. Was that on purpose or what."
"The boss? No way."
"Probably was. I was just saying it."
Jun snorted a laugh at Fortuna's words, opened his subspace, and took out the sprout, setting it on the windowsill by the bed.
Twitch! Twitch!
The sprout threw a tantrum, demanding to be put back into the subspace. Fortuna soothed it, filling a watering can she'd somehow produced with holy water and sprinkling it over the little plant.
"Baby, that's enough for today. No sulking."
Droop.
"Looking pitiful won't change it. Once you can make mana on your own, I'll put you in as much as you want. For now, drink your milk and grow big and strong."
Twitch! Twitch!
At Fortuna's words, the sprout gathered its leaf-lips and mimed drinking the holy water. It wasn't actually drinking, but the gesture was so endearing that warm smiles rose on both Jun's and Fortuna's faces.
"For, how long are you going to keep calling it 'baby'?"
"Now that you mention it. Hmm... then let's nickname it Sprout. We don't even know what kind of tree seed it is, so giving it a real name feels a little off."
"Good idea. Our For is smart."
"Heh-heh! Of course. I'm an angel. Right, Sprout?"
Heh-heh∼ Sprout (twitch!) Heh-heh∼ Sprout (twitch!)
Fortuna sang and swayed; Sprout twitched its leaf-lips in time with her rhythm. The scene felt like something that absolutely had to be preserved forever. Jun hurriedly opened his subspace to pull out a recording orb—
—and then noticed, with a wry smile, the shrinkage of the subspace he had missed earlier.
There was a reason Sprout kept trying to get back inside, and a reason the subspace it had occupied had shrunk.
According to Fortuna, a world was born when a god planted the seed of a Divine Tree in a pocket of the cosmos. As the Divine Tree sprouted and grew, a world that had been empty and unstable gained earth, gained sky, gained a universe of its own.
Why bring that up now? Because both of the phenomena above had arisen from that very process.
Whether from the influence of his spatial specialization or something else, Jun's subspace was remarkably similar to the kind of space where a god would plant a Divine Tree's seed. So Sprout, by instinct, had been trying to transform Jun's subspace into a world. For a Divine Tree like Sprout, that act was the very meaning of its existence—which was why it hated being taken out.
But he couldn't just leave it in there. The process demanded enormous energy, and Sprout had been constantly drawing on the mana that composed the subspace itself. If he left Sprout inside indefinitely, the subspace might shatter—or shrink past any useful size—before it ever finished becoming a world.
It would be ideal if he could enter the space himself, the way a god would, and supply the energy directly. Unfortunately, that was impossible. Similar to a god's space or not, his was still terribly fragile. It couldn't yet withstand a living being.
How long to restore it to normal?
A few days, probably. No—Sprout might start drawing on the subspace's mana again in the meantime, so longer than that.
Daunting. But it was a cost he would gladly bear.
The master of a world was a god.
Which meant that to possess a world... was to become a god.