Damage Control
For the first time in what felt like an age, a blue sky and fresh green grass filled my eyes. There was no smell of blood anywhere — if anything, a fragrant scent of flowers seemed to seep into my very body.
Trees met my gaze; beneath my feet lay a single blade of grass. Before my eyes spread the Great Forest, flaunting the same beauty it had worn before that horrific scene had unfolded.
For a moment I even entertained the hypothesis that everything I had been through was a dream — but the weight still resting in my right hand told me otherwise. What I had endured was real.
Then where was this? A place without a single trace of that carnage. Had I been carried somewhere far away — while I lay in that place?
I was still surveying my surroundings when sounds of people began to stir around me. The squelch of grass trampled underfoot. The murmur of voices. Cloth brushing against branches. My senses, honed to a razor's edge by the battle just past, were telling me: something was coming for me. And that it was not alone.
Not good. This was in no way a good situation.
There were limits to how long Dragon Speech could force a body to move. My concentration, dragged up by force in the first place, was already spent — and now, at the worst possible timing, I was to cross paths with something of unknown identity, in a place I didn't even know? If ever there was a worst-case scenario, this was it — and by then those sounds had already closed in around me.
Nothing for it. Preparing for whatever might come, I forced a dagger into my grip. Only after slathering it thick with poison, that is.
"..A human?"
"....?"
I decided to strike first. The instant they came into view, I swung my arm, without a shred of intention to stop. When my own safety hung unguaranteed, such courtesy was a luxury.
But in that moment, something caught my eye. A human face built much like my own — and the pointed ears I had seen until I was sick of them.
"An elf..?"
"We.. we found him..! It's definitely that human. I'm certain!"
"What?! You found him?"
"Everyone, over here—"
'..Noisy.'
Relieved, I slid the blade back into its sheath. Judging by their reactions, these were no elves hostile to me — and for the me of right now, that was as good as having no reason to make enemies of them.
After that, as several more elves came bursting out of the forest, a status window unfolded before my eyes — and just like that, my body pitched forward.
≪ You have defeated Envy, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. ≫
≪ The countless souls of the departed offer you their gratitude. ≫
≪ You have overused Dragon Speech. Side effects are... ≫
≪ As a reward... ≫
...before I could finish reading even a fraction of the endlessly rising lines of text.
By the time roughly an hour had passed since Jenison had vanished along with that explosion, the situation outside was, to a degree, being brought under control.
Relief supplies flowed in to treat the wounded, and between mourning the countless lives caught up in the disaster and laying them to rest in the earth, the hours slipped away before anyone noticed.
Of course, the process was not without its friction.
"Because of those humans!! That's why my mother died!!"
"The problem was letting humans associate with us in the first place — how do you still not see that..!"
"What have we ever gained from those creatures, that we kept up this exchange all this time—"
The surviving elves had risen up in arms — young and old, men and women alike. Humans had been let into their land for nothing, and this was what came of it. Perhaps, some cried, it was a scheme the Empire had concocted to bleed away their strength. Even now, they insisted, they must count humans as enemies of their kin and take up arms against them.
It was a moment when elven hatred of humankind flared anew, and the knights' reactions to it ran every which way.
"No — how is this our fault?! We lost precious comrades of our own!!"
"..Calm yourself. From where those people stand, it's only natural they'd feel that way."
"No — how am I supposed to simply swallow this? Our vice-captain is dead, and our captain hangs between life and death.."
"..What we say here could sever the exchange between the Empire and the Great Forest entirely—"
Some raged hotly at the elves' accusations; others put the Empire's future first. Yet even they seemed to carry their anger and their sense of injustice untouched, and before long the words traded between the two sides grew fiercer, harsher.
Just as the discord between the two races threatened to boil over, Sylvia — the elven princess who alone had remained at that place — stepped forward.
"What do you all think you're doing?"
"P..Princess."
"Is there time to spare for bickering, when there isn't even enough to deal with the situation itself?"
"N..no, Your Highness!! At once—"
"Wait."
The moment her words ended, the elves hurrying toward the barracks turned back around at that single utterance.
"Let those people help as well."
"Ye..yes? You mean the humans?"
"Once they understand my position, they'll have no choice but to help us, whatever it takes."
"Ye..yes."
Her order sat awkwardly with them, but there was nothing to be done about it. She had entered that hellish battle herself and proven her strength; born different from them from the very root, royalty who had not fled her post but fought at their side. No one could dare raise a word of objection to her — no one should have.
But there is always, always someone who strays beyond the bounds of common sense.
"Ha! So the Princess does dote on the humans after all?!"
"H—hey, what's wrong with you?! Are you insane? That's the Princess..!"
"Hey, have I not calmed down?! Doesn't it strike you as odd? They were humans the Princess herself brought into the forest in the first place!!"
Sylvia's eyes turned sharp. Fixed on the young elf spewing nonsense with no sense of his place.
"How would I know whether she means to gather up the crumbs the humans drop?"
"Hey, watch your mouth..!"
"Honestly — of all things, such insolence toward the Princess—"
"My family and my girlfriend died!! After what happened today, do you think I can just calm down?!"
As the young elf's words and deeds grew coarser, even the onlookers winced, but his rampage did not stop. If anything, he flew into a greater fury, heaping insult upon insult upon her.
The Sylvia of old would have brushed it aside — the heedless tantrum of an immature child, nothing worth her notice — but.
"You there. Come here."
"Ha, what is it? Going to admit it at last—"
"You should know your place."
In an instant, the knees of the one who had raged like a crazed colt struck the earth. Not by his own will, but by the strength of hers.
"Wh..what..! L..look, everyone — so this is your true nature showing at last..khk!"
"Do you know how many have died and been wounded because of this incident?"
"Wh..what is this, all of a sudden.."
"With this many people to aid, to treat, to bury, to mourn — who knows how long that alone will take..!"
The young elf's head, pinned in its kneel, pressed lower and lower until at last it touched the ground. Struggle as he might, his body showed not the slightest sign of leaving the earth, and all he could do was grit his teeth and turn his eyes upward.
"It means I have no time to hear out your grievances one by one."
"H..how could you.. after how much our families..!"
As if to give shape to a heart ablaze with fury, resentment bloomed in his eyes. Like a single burning torch.
But it was soon smothered — by her eyes, cold as ice.
"So what would you have me do? Whatever I do, your family will never come back alive."
"Th..this..!"
"Enough. Face reality. Even at this very moment our kin are dying; there are wounded who must have limbs severed whether we will it or not. I am telling you that you are not the only one in pain."
The pressure that had been crushing him vanished without warning. And in that same instant, he lunged. Brimming over with resentment and rage.
Had he paid even the slightest heed to what the other elves were saying, to the looks they gave him, he would never have gone this far — but his mind, already flooded with delusion, rejected it all, and Sylvia judged that there was no longer any reasoning with this man.
"..No more time to waste on this."
"Wh— ughhaaak!!"
"You two there, carry this one away. Bind him so that nothing happens even if he wakes."
"Ye..yes!"
"At your command!"
Having quelled the uproar, she turned to the elves standing frozen in a daze.
"You there."
"Ye..yes? Do you mean me?"
"Yes. I have a separate order for you. Search for the human nearby — by any means necessary."
"A..a human, you say?"
"Yes. The black-haired one who came with us that time... Why that expression? Do you find the task distasteful?"
"N..no, Your Highness! How could I possibly.."
"You must find him. Even a trace will do."
In truth, the elf who received the order held no great fondness for humans either — but neither was he so great a fool as to defy a princess's command and be branded a madman.
Sylvia, for her part, would gladly have gone searching for him herself — but she could not. She could not abandon her wounded, dying kin for the sake of the man who had stirred her interest, and so she had no choice but to entrust the task to him as a stopgap.
And at last, some six hours after he had been sent out, word reached her ears: he had been found.
It was unmistakably him. The black hair, the black eyes. Even the affinity that drew the spirits to his side.
The wounded elves — and even the imperial knights — rejoiced at his return, every last one of them. Because no matter what anyone said, he was the one who had saved them in this incident.
Even the elves who still clung to their hatred of humankind were, in truth, glad he had come back. So he had lost consciousness — what of it? He was alive, and he had returned. That was what mattered.
When he woke, they would hold a festival. They would find some way to thank him. So there were people among humankind who could be trusted, after all.
And so the warm atmosphere endured, and the restoration of the Great Forest proceeded without a hitch. Everything seemed to be going well.
All but one thing — the news that he had yet to wake.
Even now — three days after that day.