A Simple Reason
"A being... of the World Tree's own stature... what business could you possibly have with the likes of me?"
The World Tree. By other names, the Divine Tree — or Yggdrasil.
The wellspring of life, the heart of the world, and the point from which all living things poured forth. A colossal tree bearing up the very heavens, and a passage joining the underworld to the surface and the sky. A single bead of dew caught on one of its leaves was a cure for every illness; a single fruit grown to ripeness became an elixir of immortality. A tree that struck down all things wicked, revered as the guardian god of every forest.
Why such a being should have to reveal herself to me — I could not even begin to imagine. Fortunately, the answer did not take long in coming. The trouble was that it was not the one I wanted.
"It is a test."
"...A... test, you say?"
I distinctly remembered hearing that word — right before I came to this place. But that alone was hardly enough to make sense of the situation. If it were merely a matter of a test, there was no reason on earth for a being of the World Tree's stature to appear in person.
"...For something as small as that, there was surely no need for you to come all this way yourself—"
"There was."
She, it seemed, did not see it my way. Cutting me off mid-sentence, she spoke with a resolve that brooked no argument, and in it I could glimpse her will: on this matter, at least, she would not retreat a single step.
Her attitude was so unshakable that my flustered heart must have shown plain on my face, for she soon swept a hand across her features in what looked like regret and continued.
"I am sorry. But truly... this is a matter of great importance to us as well."
"...Us?"
"Yes. To me... and to my children."
It did not take me long to work out who she meant by her children — they were even now giggling and flitting about her.
"Mama! Mama!"
"A human, is it?"
"A humin! It's a humin!!"
Fresh greens, deep, fathomless blues, blinding yellows, and hot, saturated reds wheeled about her. Lights of every hue, like a scattered rainbow, swelled and multiplied until they all but veiled her face.
"Yes, children — it is a human. Mirne, might I ask a favor of you for a moment?"
"Yes. I shall see to it."
Looking rather put-upon, she called Mirne's name and made her request; and Mirne, silent until that moment, ushered the young spirits away as though she had been waiting for exactly that. Only then could our conversation truly proceed.
"Forgive me. I'm afraid you've been shown an unseemly sight."
"...Not at all."
"You will want an explanation, I imagine?"
"If you would be so kind."
At my words, a careful smile touched the corners of her mouth, and then she began to speak. Of many, many things. And none of them, in the end, light.
"D...die! You son of a...!!"
"F...fuck!!"
"S...spare me!!"
Utter bedlam. That was the word Sylvia chose for the scene spread out before her eyes. No — anyone who witnessed such a sight could have summoned no other.
"Aa...aagh!!"
"You... pointy-eared bastards...!"
"My... my ear... i...it... aaagh!!"
Knights' blades punched through elven hearts, and their hands were steadily staining red. Someone chewed an elf's ear to shreds and spat it onto the floor with a wet retch.
"Humans... humans really are...!"
"Die... just die...!"
Elven arrows sought out human eyes, and all around, knights who had become little more than pincushions littered the ground. Magic that belonged to the elves alone blasted knightly arms and armor apart, and with all the skill befitting hunters of the forest, they were hunting men in their turn.
A fishy reek of blood hung in the air. Eyeballs popped loose and bounced across the floor, and the dead who had died with their eyes shut were hard to tell from the living. What had been, mere moments before, a quiet and dignified meal had become an hour of nothing but screams and slaughter.
"Y...Your Highness! You must get to safety!"
"We will hold this ground...!"
"Kgh... to think we let those human dogs in, trusting them—"
The elves still whole did their utmost to usher Sylvia into cover, but she was hardly the sort to follow meekly along.
"No. I'm staying here."
"Wh...what?!"
"Wh...what are you saying, Your Highness?!"
"Now is no time for jests...!"
"...Jests?"
Elf after elf raised their voices against her — because every one of them shared the same conviction: that Sylvia was the one who had to be protected.
Sylvia understood their hearts well enough. That was precisely what she could not stomach. She hated being regarded as nothing more than a fragile creature who needed sheltering — and it sounded, to her ears, as though her people's lives were a price gladly paid so long as she alone walked away unharmed.
She knew perfectly well that this was their duty. And yet, somehow, she found she could not accept it. So she put deliberate force into her voice — enough that they might feel even a sliver of what she felt.
"Do my words sound like a jest to you? Do I look so frail that I cannot survive unless you shield me? Or is it that you place no value on your own lives?"
"N...no, Your Highness! We feel nothing of the sort...!"
"We only meant... for Your Highness's sake...!"
She had worn a stern, unsmiling face throughout it all. Holding that frozen expression in place, she now stepped toward the elves standing before her. Her gaze had never once left what lay ahead, and so her back looked utterly unguarded — and it was from behind her that a woman came, knife in hand, closing the distance at a dead run.
The maidservant who, moments ago, had been carrying dishes through the main hall.
"You lucky... bitch... die...! I'm so jealouuuus!!!"
"Y...Your Highness...! You must move...!"
"You... you wretch—"
Moving faster than any servant had a right to move, she was on them before the elves in front of Sylvia could react — and then came the soft, wet sound of something bursting, and a fishy reek of blood curled into their nostrils.
Whether they lacked the courage to face the carnage before them or not, the elves all squeezed their eyes shut as one, as if by prior agreement.
"Hm? Open your eyes, all of you."
"Ah...huh?"
"Y...Your Highness...?!"
At that deeply familiar voice, their eyes flew open — and the scene spread before them was nothing like the one they had imagined.
"Guh...gack..."
"I ran her through the belly cleanly enough... though what manner of body she carries, I confess I can't quite say."
The knife-wielding maidservant hung in midair, skewered clean through by a tree root that had erupted from somewhere below, thrashing all the while.
"Wh...what in the world..."
"Wh...where did that come from?"
A few elves doubted their own eyes at the power she had displayed — but—
"Th...that was the power of spirits."
"To think Her Highness could wield spirits so deftly...!"
Most of the elves, realizing she had commanded the spirits, breathed sighs of relief and murmured their gratitude. Leaving their chorus of praise behind her, Sylvia plunged into the fray herself — into what was less a battlefield than a slaughterhouse.
Five-colored light was already swirling about her as she ran, and at a single gesture of her hand, the tide of battle began to turn. A mere crook of her fingers skyward, and the ground heaved up like a great boulder; a mere fanning of her palm, and a gale came howling from nowhere, strong enough to fling a man bodily. She held her hand out front, and sparks crackled to life across it; she swept one foot, and the earth beneath her began, slowly, to freeze.
"U...uaaagh!!"
"C...cold! It's cold!"
"Wh...what is this...? Kyaaah!!!"
Even so, it was no easy task. These were men chosen to stand guard for the Empire itself, and every last one of them fought like a veteran.
When she raised her gales, they drove their swords deep into the soil and held their ground; when she tried to bind them with tree roots, every root was hewn apart the moment it stirred.
"Do not fall back!!"
"Her Highness is fighting so valiantly to shield us!!"
"Shielding is our duty, not Her Highness's!!"
But that, too, could not last. Stemming Sylvia's assaults — and the elves whose morale had caught fire because of her — was more than they could bear.
"F...first we have to stop the vice-commander!"
"Hey...! Have you lost your minds?!"
And when the handful of knights still in possession of their senses — few though they were — waded in to restrain their own comrades, the whole affair was brought to a close faster than anyone expected.
"Let... let go of me!!"
"That bitch... do you have any idea what she said to me—"
"Hey... where'd that old hag go...?!"
Once they had been subdued, herded into one place, and bound, Sylvia moved swiftly to count the cost.
"...How many casualties?"
"The wounded elves—"
"...I asked how many casualties there were."
"Ah... yes! Twenty-six wounded in total, and thirteen confirmed dead."
"More than... I expected."
A thousand thoughts came crowding into Sylvia's head.
'...A scheme of the Empire's? Would they do something so easily exposed?'
"Your Highness...?"
"...One moment."
She cast about for the hand behind it all, but even her formidable mind found no thread to pull. And then, into that searching silence, another voice rang out inside her skull.
"You there. You are quite strong."
In a flash, a thought streaked through her mind — the certainty that this thing was the culprit. The instant the voice sounded, she snapped her head this way and that, scanning her surroundings, but nowhere could she see a suspicious figure.
"Ah, looking for me, are you...? Well... it hardly matters now. The work is already done."
The moment the voice fell silent in her head, the air behind her split open with a soft rush.
"Wh...what is that?!"
"Th...the air itself?!"
"Is... is that the enemy? Everyone, prepare—"
"Well, hello there?"
A human body popped out as though spat forth. A voice and a bearing, light and frivolous. At a glance, just an ordinary boy — orange-haired, dressed in black, unremarkable in every way. But Sylvia did not feel it so. No — she could not.
For the spirits gathered at her side had begun to shiver like aspen leaves.
"Mm... the trial version really is too weeeak..."
"...?"
Trial version or whatever else his babbling meant — incomprehensible as his muttering was, one fact registered with everyone present. That this boy was the one who had set the whole massacre in motion. Every soul there felt it in their bones.
"D...dieee!!"
"Hm?"
In the end, one knight, unable to swallow his rage any longer, hurled himself at the boy. The reason was simple enough: his comrade — his lover, a knight herself — had lost her life in the slaughter only moments before.
The furious knight, charging at full tilt... was simply devoured.
"U...urk... mmph!!"
"What... what is this?"
The meaning was literal. He was swallowed whole, as though sucked into a current of black energy — and then he came back out. Crushed beyond all recognition.
This time, too, the reason was simple.
"Ugh... way lamer than I thought..."
"...!"
He was disappointing. That was all there was to it.