The Adorable Sylph
—Yummy! Yummy!
“...That’s ‘that,’ right…?”
“Has to be… The description matches the original perfectly.”
“Whoa, it’s so cute.”
The three of them stared blankly at the tiny creature that had suddenly appeared and was now devouring their packed lunches—fruit, apparently—before exchanging glances and speaking up.
Spirits.
In a world with magic and elves, of course spirits existed as well.
Born from the attributes of nature’s mana, spirits normally lived as one with the natural world. Every so often, however, they would form contracts with those born with an aptitude for spirit arts and lend them their power. That was how the original novel had explained it.
A faintly translucent body whose surface rippled like water, lower half gathered into a swirling little tornado that looked just like a skirt.
The being that had appeared before their eyes was a wind spirit—a Sylph.
“They say the elves’ Great Forest is full of spirits. Looks like that was true.”
“Well, elves do have that whole ‘masters of spirits’ image, right?”
The sudden appearance of a spirit had startled the two of them, but after thinking it over they decided it wasn’t all that strange.
Even in the original, spirits were said to live in the Great Forest, and a spirit arts user had even appeared as a supporting lead.
“...Do spirits normally eat food, though?”
“Uhh… no idea. The original never even mentioned a setting like that.”
“Why’d it show up in front of us out of nowhere in the first place?”
“...Don’t tell me! Could this magnificent me possess talent not only for magic, but for spirit arts as well?!”
“Self-praise that thick is a disease.”
While the two of them were locked in a heated debate over the identity of the suddenly appeared spirit—
“If I poke its cheek, will it get mad?”
Poke—poke—
—Heehee! Ticklish…
“Haaah…! Isn’t she just too cute?! She really looks like a doll!!”
Completely captivated by the adorable Sylph’s appearance, Tene carefully stretched out a finger and pressed it against the cheek that had puffed out from chewing on fruit.
Even with that unhesitating touch, the Sylph only giggled and rubbed its cheek right against Tene’s finger. For a moment Tene felt as if her great dragon heart had stopped cold.
“Hey, hey! You don’t even know what it is—how can you just go touching it like that?!”
“But it’s cute!”
“Wait a second. Tene’s a dragon, right? Is it even normal for a spirit to act this friendly toward a dragon?”
“...You’re right?”
“Why? Do dragons and spirits not get along?”
While Rosaria was scolding Tene’s behavior, Felix, standing behind her and lost in thought for a moment, muttered something under his breath as if puzzled.
“Basically, dragon mana and spirit mana are completely different dimensions—like the north and south poles of a magnet. On top of that, Tene’s that ferocious Black Dragon. Spirits are extremely sensitive to mana, so it just feels way too casual for one to approach her like this.”
“I think I vaguely remember reading something like that too.”
“...Was that a thing? I skimmed so much I don’t even know if that part was in there.”
Spirits lived fused with nature, while dragons themselves decided the rise and fall of the world—the original had said the two didn’t mix well. To Felix, the spirit in front of them was something alien, outside everything he knew.
“Still, though… it is pretty cute.”
—Fuhii! Hehehe!
Whether she knew about the original or not, Rosaria didn’t particularly care. Looking unimpressed, she stretched out a finger of her own. Once again the Sylph didn’t refuse the touch; it simply smiled as if thoroughly enjoying having its head stroked.
Aside from the size difference and the fact that it looked humanoid, the spirit was basically a friendly, adorable golden retriever.
—Feels good! Good human!
“Huh? Wha—?”
After basking in Rosaria’s petting, the Sylph soon floated lightly up into the air, then hopped straight onto the shoulder where it had first appeared and opened its mouth in pure delight.
“Looks like she’s taken a liking to you, big bro.”
“Come to think of it, when she first showed up she was perched on Hyung’s shoulder too, right?”
“Was… she?”
At their words, Rosaria tilted her head slightly, remembering that the spirit had indeed first appeared on her shoulder.
—Uuung?
Watching her, the Sylph tilted its own little head in perfect imitation.
“Well… she’s cute, so whatever, right?”
Original novel or not, as long as it was cute, it was fine, wasn’t it?
That was how Rosaria and the spirit first met.
“You’re all here.”
A little time had passed.
At Estel’s summons, the family members who had been scattered about gathered together.
At first she had used the elders’ council chamber as a temporary office, but now Estel had brazenly claimed the royal office once used by the Elf King himself. She sat triumphantly in the king’s chair and looked them over.
Even so, was it really all right for a princess to occupy the king’s seat without permission? The king himself was asleep, however, and Estel’s support had already pierced the heavens, so no one raised a single objection.
“Take a look at this for a moment.”
“W-Wait a second… This—this is…! That’s it, isn’t it?!”
Estel, speaking first, set a small pouch on the table before them, untied the string sealing its mouth, and pulled out the contents. Felix nearly jumped out of his skin.
“...Leaves? What’s the big deal?”
“What… are we supposed to brew tea or something?”
To Rosaria and Darian, however, they looked like nothing more than ordinary green leaves, so the two of them only tilted their heads in confusion.
“It’s not something that trivial! These are leaves from the World Tree!!”
“World… Tree?”
“You mean that ridiculously huge tree standing waaaaay over there?”
The World Tree.
One of the five remaining racial gods of this world, and the creator of the elves.
In elven myth, its roots had sunk into barren earth, and the first fruit that grew from it had transformed into the first elves.
“Are they really that amazing?”
“Of course they are! Just drop a single leaf into plain water and it shows incredible fatigue-recovery effects. Process it into medicine or brew it into a potion and you get stamina recovery, mana recovery, increased mana sensitivity, increased magical power—you name it. You can literally make an elixir with these.”
And because they were leaves of the World Tree, their effects were far too extraordinary to be dismissed as merely “nice tea fragrance.”
“Obtaining even one is harder than plucking a star from the sky. Walk out with a single leaf and people will name any price you ask—that’s how insanely valuable they are!”
“Whoa… that valuable?”
“Literally one leaf is worth an entire mansion…”
“Holy shit—wait, I was just touching them a second ago… They’re not gonna tear or anything, right?”
At Felix’s explanation, Darian, who had been unconsciously fiddling with a World Tree leaf, jerked his hand away in alarm.
“The shocking part is that the elves here treat this precious thing like common chewing gum.”
“...They chew a whole mansion like gum?”
As precious as World Tree leaves were, to the elves they were nothing more than an everyday item.
Born and raised within the World Tree’s domain, their bodies were already saturated with its energy, so eating the leaves produced no special change.
At best, chewing one cleared the mind a little, so they used them when their mouths were bored or when they were tired.
On top of that the World Tree was absurdly huge, and its leaves were just as absurdly numerous and large. Even if every elf chewed one leaf a day all year round, more leaves would grow than they could pick—so the elves had never known the leaves were precious.
“Exactly… This is why I keep saying this place is hopeless. These fools are just throwing money straight into the dirt!!”
And because they failed to recognize the value of such a treasure and were tossing it away, Estel’s chest felt ready to burst with frustration yet again.
That was one of the core problems of the elves, who had shut themselves inside their own little world and lived on without the slightest progress.
“So I plan to process these and gradually supply them to your territory.”
“That’s right. Our territory has managed to escape the immediate crisis, but we still don’t have anything special to drive further growth. We thought this product could become our new specialty.”
While Estel and Freya had been talking, the biggest issue that kept surfacing was the Evergarden Territory.
Estel wanted to expand her influence into the human world. The Evergarden Territory had barely weathered a major crisis, yet still had mountains of hurdles left to clear.
And so Estel and Freya had hit upon a single clever solution.
Turn the World Tree leaves into the territory’s specialty product.
The Evergarden Territory was geographically distant from other fiefs, its roads poorly maintained, and it had never possessed any real specialty goods—leaving it quite poor.
Meanwhile the Great Forest wanted to project influence into the human realm but still lacked any proper foothold.
For both groups, this was a perfect win-win.
The Evergarden Territory would gain a specialty and the profits that came with it. The Great Forest would take its first, smoother step into the human world.
“A textbook win-win deal, wouldn’t you say?”
“Indeed. We haven’t finished discussing the commission rates yet, but we can work that out as we go.”
“...Even in a situation like this, Dad and Grandpa’s business instincts just won’t disappear.”
“Leave ’em be. It’s a family trait.”
“Uh… we are family, right…? Right?”
The two of them smiled as they spoke, business spirit running bone-deep.
Even after reuniting under such bizarre circumstances, they still calculated money and profit with ruthless precision—leaving the rest of the family and Tene with a faint chill running down their spines.
“Before we begin full-scale trade, I intend to cross over to the territory myself and live there for a while to observe the situation.”
“Grandpa’s coming to our territory?”
“Grandpa’s a princess! Can you just leave your post like that?”
At Estel’s declaration that she would first stay in the Evergarden Territory and watch how things developed, the brother and sister both jumped in surprise.
Of course they did.
Right now the only remaining royal of the elven kingdom was Estel (the king had entered his slumber, the first prince had renounced the throne, and the second princess had left the Great Forest). If that royal left the Great Forest, not a single member of the royal family would remain.
“It’s fine. These fellows have managed perfectly well without royals until now, and although the distance is far, if we ride Tene we can be back in less than an hour.”
“That’s true…”
“Then I guess it’s okay?”
“Now I’m just being treated like a taxi…”
Still, with Tene around, the distance between the territory and the Great Forest shrank to almost nothing, so the siblings accepted Estel’s reasoning. Tene, meanwhile, felt a little bitter at having become something like a convenient Doraemon gadget.
“So for now, it’ll just be me and maybe one or two elves.”
—Nom nom
“You’re bringing elves too?”
—Nom
“...Of course. In the end we’ll be producing the specialty goods in the Evergarden Territory. It’ll be good to survey the site, and having a few elves already somewhat used to human society will help.”
—Nom nom
“I see… Then when do we leave? Tomorrow?”
—Mmph nom nom
“Probably… But…”
As the conversation continued, Estel caught a sound mid-sentence, noticed something, and opened her mouth.
“Where did this little one come from? Isn’t that a Sylph?”
“Ah, right.”
—Heehee. This is yummy!
In Estel’s line of sight, the Sylph had somehow climbed onto the table, picked up a World Tree leaf with its tiny fern-like hands, and was now chewing away with a bright, silly grin.