The Flower Garden
Envy.
The feeling of begrudging another what one lacks — and the intense hostility and hatred into which that feeling swells. One of the seven deadly sins of humankind, and among the ugliest emotions a human heart can hold.
The orange-haired boy who bore that name gazed down at the elf pinned beneath him. Had it been anyone else, he would have simply killed them. Or perhaps he wouldn't even have bothered with that — merely left them alive. But her words from moments ago still echoed in his ears.
"..Haha, so ya're tellin' me to put in some effooort?"
"Khh.. ugh, right."
"What more do ya even want from me? More effort, is it? Have ya ever once imagined the effort of the people beneath ya?"
As he spoke, the boy tightened his grip. Cracks began to spider across the ground where the elf lay pinned, and with them her face contorted in pain. Yet her words did not change. Neither did her heart.
"On the contrary.. there has never been a time.. I did not think of it."
"..Have geniuses like ya ever once considered the effort of dullards? Of ordinary people?"
"Is that not obvious?"
With those words, she slowly rose. It was not that the strength had drained from the boy's grip — she was standing under her own power alone.
"H..how..?"
"Because eff..ort does not belong to the likes of you."
Her words rang out as the elf finally shook off even the hand that had pinned her head to the earth. And from somewhere behind her, now far away, a single stream of wind began to blow.
"If people hold a goal they desire, then it is only natural that a genius exists within that field."
"..Are ya braggin'?"
"No. I do not mean that those without talent should do nothing."
"...."
"They strive. Every time, without number."
"..Doesn't that go for every living thin—"
Before the boy could finish, the elf shook her head — her eyes brimming with pity for him, as though he had failed to grasp her meaning. Behind her, the wind still stirred, soft and unceasing.
"Of course, every last one of them makes an effort. But for most of them, it is an excuse."
"...?"
"I invested exactly this much time, and yet my result differed from those above me — that is what they strive in order to say. To blame not their own failings, but the difference in talent between themselves and the rest."
"...."
"And only a very few among them make an effort that is true, and see it bear fruit. Their effort is different from the root up."
As she continued speaking, flame bloomed to life in her right hand. From her left, one after another, cold crystals of ice dripped down.
"While those others eat their meals, they strive. While those others sleep, they do not stop striving. While they meet friends, hold women, fall in love, and taste happiness — they will be striving still."
"..And if all of that only runs them into a wall? Then their time turns out to have been meaningless aft—"
"It is not meaningless."
She cut off the boy's venom-laced objection without a moment's hesitation. Sparks were crackling and spitting beneath her feet by now, and tree vines writhed sluggishly around her. And still, the wind blew on at her back.
"It is true that effort may be an unbroken stretch of pain. One must temper oneself without rest, hammer oneself again and again. And even then, the process does not always arrive at a result. There are failures; there are times the outcome turns out poorly. To walk, steady and unrelenting, down a road whose far end no one can see — that is effort, and that is the life they chose. If so, then do those who never walk that road hold any right to deny them? I say this plainly: they hold no such right. No one in this world may deny the efforts of those who have lived that way. The result reached through effort may prove meaningless — but the act of striving never is. Anyone who has striven even once could never deny these words.. and so.."
"..And what is it ya're gettin' at?"
"As I thought, I knew you for a fool who never once made proper effort, and curses geniuses for it instead. Am I wrong? Dolt."
She got no further — the boy charged first. What rang out instead was an inhuman shriek, tearing from a boy whose eyes, unlike moments before, had turned utterly black.
"I ne■er.. put in.. eff■■?!"
"Can you no longer even mimic a human voice, monster?"
She did not yield ground either — she, too, had striven. She had never grown complacent. She had never trusted in her own power and let her growth languish. While others held her aloft as the finest talent alive, she had tempered her very self. Because she had wanted to stand unashamed before herself.
"Die, ya will..! No — I won't kill ya.. I'll keep ya breathin' somehow and throw ya to the troll!!"
"As expected — your character is every bit as pathetic as your thinking."
The boy charged. Darkness remained in every place he passed. Each time his footprints marked the earth, grass and soil screamed. Even the spirits would not draw near wherever his breath mingled with the air. And still, she did not flee. Instead she burned her flame fiercer still, and swelled her ice crystals ever larger.
The sparks that had bloomed at her feet swept up through her entire body in an instant. She accelerated — forward. The fine current governing her flesh stimulated her nervous system, pushing her reaction speed and dynamic vision to their limit, while the wind that had blown ceaselessly at her back coiled around her body and lent her still greater speed. Even so, the flame gripped in her right hand did not waver in the slightest. Rather, riding the wind, it only grew.
Along the path of her charge, tree roots surged up from the earth; every one of them wheeled in the direction she ran, then hurled itself straight ahead — like a single army on the march.
They met — darkness against the five colors. A single impact erupted, and the two of them were flung far apart.
By all rights, Sylvia should have fallen. So vast was the gap between her power and the boy's. But the spirits around her refused to permit it. Every spirit wove together to divide the impact dealt to her body evenly among themselves, forcibly keeping her fight alive.
Of course, even then, the gulf in their strength never closed. But they could not give up — at least, that was what she and the spirits believed.
"..What? How'd ya take that?"
"...."
"Ya should've blacked out, no question! Failing that, at the very least your limbs should've snapped!"
And it had not been without effect. At the very least, the boy was staring in undisguised shock at the girl who had not fallen in a single exchange. Had the enemy been an ordinary one, he might have concluded she possessed some hidden strength — for otherwise, she could never have withstood that clash. And had he concluded that, it would have worked in her favor. She could have bought time, however little. But her opponent was no ordinary boy. He was merely a boy twisted to the core.
"So.. it's that again, is it?"
"..What are you—"
"TALEEENT!!!!!"
Black liquid trickled from the boy's black eyes. Far too viscous to be tears, and neither their color nor their scent was that of blood. It was a liquid that stirred disgust at a mere glance, and whose smell alone was enough to make revulsion well up from the pit of the stomach. Whether or not he knew it was streaming from his eyes, the boy kept shrieking himself hoarse, over and over.
"Again.. again..! It's talent!! Agaaaiiin!!!!"
"..Have you gone mad?"
"It's always been this way!! What good's effort? What good's givin' it your time?!"
"...."
"You people.. always manage the impossible, like it's the most natural thing in the world."
Something bloomed behind the boy — in the places his footprints had left. Sprouts grew, stalks rose, and flowers opened. Only two things about them were deeply unsettling: every last petal was a rich, pitch black. And at the center of every flower, they bore teeth like a saw's edge.
"Have ya ever felt inferior? Ever looked up at someone? Or been to rock bottom and back, even once?"
"..What are you doing?"
"I'm consumed with jealousy, of the ones above me. So jealous, so envious, I feel I'll go mad."
The boy snapped his fingers. Black fingers. The instant two of them clicked together in a crisp snap, the flowers behind him smiled — a sinister smile, as though their mouths would split their faces open.
In the same instant, the stems stretched long, and the flowers' teeth turned toward some destination. No direction had been fixed — each of those countless blossoms faced its own way. But every place they finally stopped shared one thing in common: they were the places where the elves and the knights stood. Every single flower was aimed at them.
"That's why I'm gonna have it. If it can't be mine — I'll steal it."
"What..!"
The boy snapped his fingers again, and the flowers yawned their mouths wide open. And when they closed once more, what remained in their wake was a corpse.
A heap of spite, blooming from hatred —
Green with Envy
— Envy's Meadow —
"U..ghaaaah..!"
"M.. my neck — my neck's gon..!"
"The Vice-Commander's head — it got eaten.."
For all the horrific screaming that answered him, the boy's face looked so very, very happy.
"Now I can have some, too."
"...."
Wearing a pure smile that suited that face perfectly, he simply kept on laughing, as if he were happy. And unlike him, there was one woman who could not laugh at all.