Elementary School Mom
“Ugh, hyaaah! It finally came out!”
“Wh-what is this lewd, vulgar, and utterly bizarre voice you are making!”
“That’s not the important part right now!”
Something inside me was trying to force its way out.
No—more precisely, it wasn’t my body.
Something is being born in the forest of my mindscape!
Warm life force coursed through every inch of me. At its center, a new existence pounded with fierce intensity.
“Ahh, so that is how it is. You too are undergoing the same process I once did.”
The World Tree finally spoke as though she had grasped the entire situation. She must have read the thoughts that had slipped out of me unconsciously.
The longer time dragged on, the worse the pain in my belly grew. I didn’t have much time left.
“Th-then use that time to explain what’s going on instead!”
“To put it in the language of humans, you are presently giving birth to offspring with my body.”
“What?!”
Did I hear that right just now?
I was giving birth to a child?
I mean… it’s a little embarrassing to say out loud, but I don’t exactly have any… experience with that sort of thing. I’m a perfect virgin—so pure a unicorn would stand up and give me a standing ovation if it saw me.
I’m not the Virgin Mary. Was virgin conception actually possible in real life?
“Have you truly taken leave of your senses and stuffed a demon into your skull?! Of course that is not what I meant. I am saying it is no different from the way I once brought the elves into being.”
“So it’s not like a pretty little daughter who looks like me is going to pop out or anything?”
“That’s right, you little brat. At best, a seed will simply emerge from your hand.”
Phew, I was fretting over nothing.
If that was all, she could have just explained it as the process of creating a seed. Instead she twisted her words into knots and scared me half to death. I almost started wondering whether I needed to go on some elementary-school-parent variety show.
With the misunderstanding cleared up, problem solved!
…Or so I wanted to say, except something still felt off.
“My stomach still hurts, though? It really feels like I’m actually giving birth…”
“This body has never experienced such a thing, yet I understand the reason well enough.”
“Stop putting on airs like earlier and just explain already!”
Cold sweat had soaked through my dress until it clung damply to my skin. I was already dying from the pain, and her roundabout way of talking felt exactly like dealing with an elven elder. Then again, the elders themselves had originally split off from the World Tree, so of course they would sound the same.
Should I just shut the World Tree’s power off and teach her some discipline?
In the end she couldn’t withstand my threat and launched straight into the explanation.
“Your abdominal pain is likewise a matter of the mindscape. Because you regarded the act of forging new life force as a mother’s childbirth, you yourself are experiencing labor pains.”
“What did you just say?”
“In other words, from this moment on you must endure the exact same agony a pregnant woman feels when delivering a child. Of course, this body was nothing more than a vast tree, so it is a pain I have never once known in all my existence.”
Emergency!!! The thing I’m going through right now is labor?!
I seemed to recall that labor lasted at least ten hours. My belly already hurt so badly I was groaning, which meant this pain hadn’t even properly begun yet.
Suddenly I remembered a drama scene of childbirth—the contorted face of a screaming mother yanking her husband’s hair out by the roots. Even at a glance it had looked excruciating.
Should I call Sol-i over right now and ask her to donate some hair?
I opened the chat window and was seriously considering it when a thought struck me.
“Wait a second. Now that I think about it, I don’t actually have to give birth myself.”
Complaining that the mindscape had manifested in reality was the mark of an amateur. The seed had already formed inside the forest of my mindscape—what was I supposed to do about that?
From the very first moment I pictured the forest as a mother’s embrace, this outcome had been inevitable. The idea that life is born from a mother was simply too natural a proposition to change now.
So what was the correct answer?
As the saying goes, the darkest place is under the lamp—the solution was right nearby. Or rather, it was already inside me.
Within my mindscape there was something that could take my place. Even now it was holding my staff for me.
“Help me, statue! Give birth to my child in my stead!”
The answer to escaping this labor was simply to transfer the role of delivering the seed onto that statue.
The instant I entrusted the duty of childbirth to it, my pain vanished as if by magic.
At the same time the statue’s belly began to swell. At first it only poked out a little, as though it had overeaten. Then it grew until it looked like a small watermelon had been stuffed inside. In the blink of an eye it transformed into a belly nearly full-term.
Would my own stomach have ballooned like that if I’d just left it alone?
Nah. The mental image of childbirth itself couldn’t have that direct an effect on reality. There was a huge gap between the pain I felt and the actual phenomenon taking place. More likely, because I had pictured a pregnant statue, my mindscape simply followed that image.
I was still marveling at how far a belly could swell when the World Tree urgently addressed me.
“This is no time to stand about at leisure! Imbue the seed that is about to be born with your will!”
“Huh? Will?”
“Did the elves I crafted all appear identical to you? The will you place within it will shape the path that seed walks from this day forward, so choose with care.”
What kind of will would be good…
Maternal love was probably out of the question. Setting aside the fact that I’d never felt maternal love myself, handing the birth off to a statue because it was too hard already made maternal love a stretch.
A sudden question occurred to me, so I asked the World Tree.
“The seed doesn’t necessarily have to be born as an elf, right?”
“Correct. My true energy already flows through your body as well. That power, too, can be said to originate from a seed.”
True energy… does she mean that stuff?
The mysterious liquid Ivelin had given me during our physical training sessions. I’d thought it was just a drink at first and downed it without a care, but it must have been even more remarkable than I’d realized.
Hearing the World Tree’s words, I finally decided what will to place in the new seed.
The reason I never backed down against the Elder.
I had any number of escape routes. I could have left the elves to dance in the Elder’s palm and simply cleared the tower. But I didn’t run.
Because I didn’t want to abandon the elves.
Rune, Syleia, every other elf—each of them, to greater or lesser degrees, had placed their trust in me. I couldn’t turn my eyes away from that warmth.
“That’s it! I’ll put faith into this seed!”
The moment I settled on the will, brilliant light burst from the statue within my mindscape.
And something rested in my hand.
Even though the glare made it hard to see properly, I knew exactly what it was.
“So this is the seed I gave birth to…”
I marveled as I felt the seed resting on my palm with my heart, only for the World Tree to pick a fight.
“Strictly speaking, you did not give birth to it. After dodging the most sacred agony a living being can face through underhanded means, how dare you claim such a thing? For this body that is nothing more than a vast tree, it is a sensation I shall never experience in all my life.”
“….”
Is she actually surprisingly petty?
She kept hammering the phrase “vast tree.” I had made Ivelin sign a statement that “the World Tree is just a big tree,” so maybe she was still sulking about that.
Bang bang bang—
A sudden, frantic knocking shattered my thoughts. Whoever it was sounded so urgent they hammered the door over and over.
“Seha! What’s going on? If something’s wrong, say something!”
Sol-i’s voice—now thoroughly familiar to my ears. I understood she wanted to see me, but did she have to be this frantic?
The reason was right there in the chat window I had left open and neglected.
“Ah…”
Earlier, when the labor hit, I had hastily opened the chat with Sol-i. I’d been planning to ask permission to yank her hair. Unfortunately the contractions had intensified right while I was typing, so random gibberish had been sent instead.
This isn’t the time for that.
Sol-i was worried, so I needed to open the door right away!
“Seha, what’s going on! There’s this weirdly sweet scent coming from your room?”
“Uh… nothing much happened, really.”
I answered while carefully avoiding Sol-i’s gaze. No matter how close we’d grown, recounting what had just occurred was still too embarrassing.
But true to her sharp instincts, she immediately noticed the change in me.
“Why are you sweating so much! Are you sick or something? Should I go find some porridge and cook it for you?”
“….”
I was hurting right up until a moment ago. Of course I’m fine now.
By the way, was the “scent of the room” she mentioned actually the smell of my sweat? I’d poured out so much cold sweat from the labor that the room felt humid.
“You’re sure you’re okay? You look like you’ve got a fever…”
Sol-i pressed a hand to my forehead to check my temperature. Lying to someone who worried about me this much pricked my conscience. In the end I had no choice but to come clean.
“I, uh… I gave birth…”
“?!”
Huh? Was that the wrong way to put it?
Sol-i simply stood there making incoherent noises, her face more flustered than I had ever seen it.