Hot Spot Sapling (4)
So the investigator was the real deal this time.
The self-proclaimed investigator before had been nothing but a hireling working for a slave merchant — but this one was a mage with unmistakable backing. The news about the mana stones must have already reached the lord's ears. Judging by his behavior, though, he wasn't certain of anything yet. Probably checking on the side while escorting some noble brat around.
I only wish he'd consider that even such a casual side-check could send the elf village into a panic. This village has no strength to defend greed-worthy resources, after all.
The mage's snake slithered through the underbrush, flicking its tongue against the bare soil. Come to think of it, the rabbit didn't exactly eat cleanly — was there mana stone powder scattered here and there around the forest where it dined? Apparently not quite that much. The snake, disliking the taste of dirt, settled for tasting empty air instead.
Come to think of it, I'd seen that pose somewhere before — in the village chief's study. Sifting through my memory of the bookshelves, I found it: a catalog of prey hunted by elves. It had humans listed in it too, hilariously enough, which was why I'd enjoyed reading it. I pulled the book out and skimmed the relevant passage.
Ah, right — snakes have no nose. They smell with their tongues. So it's tasting the air, searching for the scent of mana stones.
It didn't look easy. It would taste the air from one spot, decide the pickings were poor, move somewhere else, and repeat the whole process over again.
Still, I had time to prepare.
That snake might not know it, but within the domain visible to me, there is no open-pit mana stone mine. I can see up to four hundred meters underground right now, and I hadn't caught so much as the first syllable of "mana stone" down there. Their search method, it seemed, was smell — and word had apparently come down the grapevine that they should search on the assumption of an open-pit mine.
If the stones were buried deep, they wouldn't be so easy to find, would they?
"By any chance, can you bury minerals underground?"
I explained the situation to the Water Drop, who had been perched on my leaves pretending to be night dew. "You lift the soil from below to the surface and bury the mana stones down deep. Can you do it?"
After a moment's thought, the Water Drop transformed into her girl form and nodded readily.
"Then a few conditions. It has to be done precisely, so no sinkhole later on — nothing that collapses the ground and draws attention. It has to be silent, so quiet even the still night air carries nothing. And it has to be finished fast, before the snake finds anything."
Saying it out loud, I realized I'd piled on far too many demands.
The Water Drop Girl shook her head vigorously, side to side, then looked a little sorry about it. Branches wrapped snugly around both her arms.
"No, no. I'm the one who asked too much of you. I'm sorry."
Maybe instead of hiding this, I should be telling the village chief. I'd kept the mana stone open-pit mine secret on the logic that not knowing was safer — but letting them face a crisis in ignorance was worse than telling them the truth.
Just then, the Water Drop Girl waved at me, as if to say, look over here.
"What is it?"
Her small gesture pointed toward the grassy field.
The Pebble spirit was slowly shifting her form into one shape after another. She became a stone, swelled into something the size of a boulder, apparently decided that was too much and shrank back into a pebble, and then — mimicking the Water Drop — turned into a small girl.
Shading her mouth with one hand, the Pebble Girl let out a long, dragging yawn. Drowsiness settled over her face. A crown of woven grass was scooped up and placed on her head.
Whoa?
Rubbing her eyes, the girl shuffled off across the ground — in the direction where the mana-eating rabbit usually showed itself.
"Are you going to help?"
I asked, but the Pebble Girl just kept walking, rubbing her eyes.
Maybe she simply didn't care for conversation. Was a quiet atmosphere more her taste?
"Will you go help your sister?"
The Water Drop cheerfully fell in beside her, and the two of them vanished beyond the trees.
I was worried, but... I suppose they'd manage fine?
The mana stones lay buried beneath the brush-covered earth. Under ground where trees stood like mere ornaments, they existed as part of nature itself, untouched by the interference of the world.
That the digging rabbit had tunneled beneath a tree root and stumbled upon a bluish-green stone was pure coincidence. That it had bitten into the strange thing and swallowed a piece was an even greater coincidence. Through repeated excavations, the mana stones had gone into the rabbit's mouth one by one.
Whether a peddler visiting the village had chanced upon the powder left behind from its meals and sold the information to the lord's castle mattered not the least bit to the rabbit. It ate because the stones were edible and good for it — that was all.
At first, it had been to punish the strange sprout that had inflicted such a humiliating defeat upon it. After learning it had become a tree, it was to avoid being devoured by a terrifying wolf. And after the wolf died getting whacked by a mana shovel wielded by some blonde girl, the rabbit simply ate mana stones out of habit.
The habit, once routine, rewarded it well. The rabbit had grown tough enough to fell anyone who lunged at it with a headbutt, and quick enough to dodge even an arrow. But there were still opponents it couldn't beat.
Like the Water Drop Girl, who came to its burrow in the dead of night, seized it by the ears, and cackled with glee.
Pweee-!
Trusting in a strength greater than yesterday's, the rabbit twisted its body and kicked out with its hind legs — but the Water Drop simply burst apart like splashing water and reassembled itself, good as new.
Apparently entertained, the Water Drop Girl giggled, then — as if to say look at this, or perhaps your turn to try — showed the rabbit to the Pebble Girl walking up behind them.
The Pebble Girl, who had been yawning her way along, ignored them both and crawled into the rabbit's burrow. Her gaze swept over the mana stones embedded so casually in its walls. A small hand reached out — and principle remade the world. Mystery exerted its influence from the surface down to the deep earth.
As though settling into sediment, every mana stone sank below ground. As though the land itself surged upward, soil and rock rose to fill the empty spaces. This was merely a process that would have happened someday, happening sooner — and so it produced no grand commotion. As always, the earth changed in silence.
The Pebble Girl let out another long yawn.
The work was finished, no help required. The Water Drop Girl, whose entire mission had apparently just been rabbit-bullying, was dumbstruck.
Turning to leave, the Pebble Girl happened to notice the rabbit and froze. She seemed to think for a moment, then reached her hand to the ground once more.
A small tunnel, just the rabbit's size, opened up and ran down to the deep underground. Along its length, a single mana stone popped loose, floated up of its own accord, and lodged itself in the rabbit's mouth.
The Pebble Girl patted the rabbit on the head. She squished its cheeks, pressed its front paws a few times, rubbed her sleepy eyes — and simply walked away.
The Water Drop hurried after her. The rabbit was left standing there, all alone.
Desolate night air drifted into the burrow. The mana stones it could once eat so easily were gone, replaced by dirt and rock decorating the walls. All that remained was a tunnel far too deep to be called a rabbit burrow anymore.
What do you think you're doing in someone's home in the middle of the night? But there was no one anywhere to lodge a complaint with.
The Pebble Girl came back. "Did it go well?" — she gave no answer, simply walked up, laid her head on her hands atop one of my lower roots, and fell asleep.
Yeah. Figured you wouldn't answer.
I asked the Water Drop, who followed after her. After some thought, she nodded.
The mine burial had been a resounding success. The mage's snake flicked its tongue with great diligence, but never once managed to fix on a direction. Even as the old mage paced the area several times over, no mana stone revealed itself. He seemed to believe there had to be something here and wanted to keep searching, but when the days he'd promised ran out, he had no choice but to depart with the noble youth in tow.
Woohoo. Crisis averted.
Though I suppose mana stones really are a precious resource.
"It was the mage who visited back then. It seems he was impressed by our village's fine work! Why, he sent us a cart piled high with salt as a gift! Such a generous soul, truly!"
Thermia nodded to herself, deeply moved. "I do believe I frightened myself over nothing. A man so wealthy and openhearted — and here I was trembling at the mere word mage. Reflection, and reflection again upon it."
I did not tell the delighted Thermia that the porters driving that salt cart had all been additional investigators — that, though they had stirred up the forest night after night, they too had ultimately left empty-handed.
Of course, the investigation did not end with a single round.
"It seems that salt cart was no free gift after all. An order, half-command and half-invitation, came down from the lord's castle: should the need arise to subjugate the bandits in the region, our village would be granted the 'honor' of participating. I'm grateful for the salt, but I can't help feeling a touch deceived."
Thermia pouted her lips.
I did not tell her that this, too, had been a third wave of investigators. They hadn't found anything either, after all. After that, apparently concluding there was nothing to find, the investigators stopped coming altogether.
Well, well. So this is what they call a cursed resource. A greed-baiting resource that's worse than useless if you lack the strength to protect it — our elf village has no need for such a thing. Me, I think I prefer a quiet, modest life.
"Look, look. Haven't I gotten bigger since we first met?"
Thermia narrowed her eyes and peered upward. "I... suppose so? Or do I? You were always big to begin with."
"Look closely. I really did grow."
· Max Height
3,200cm → 3,840cm(MAX)
· Collection Rate
Avg. 200/d → Avg. 240/d
Woohoo. I'm a forty-meter sapling now.
"I know you don't think of me as some mysterious marvel — just a sapling on the back mountain of a village. But I have never once lied. My growth rate should tell you: I'm a young sapling, not even a year old."
Just a humble sapling that likes basking in the sun, is all.
Half-convinced, half-not, Thermia climbed up and down my trunk a few times. Then she looked out over the village below, and her eyes went round. "You really have grown. I can see so much farther than before."
"See? Don't overthink me. I'm just a young sapling."
Thermia's expression turned subtle. "Um... Lord Tree?"
"Yes?"
"I do understand that you are not some great ancient tree that gained sentience after spending eons communing with nature."
You even had an assumption like that?
"But wouldn't you say a young sapling that grew this much in under a single year is even stranger? However I look at it, you are plainly not just some sapling on the back mountain of a village."
Hmm. Really?
Now that she mentioned it... I supposed she had a point.
"Ah! That's what it was!" Thermia clapped her hands as something clicked. "I'd been wondering all this time why the chief so willingly gave you that enormously expensive lump of mana stone."
Whoa?
"I assumed I received such kindness because I came back from the brink of death. But the chief doesn't hold faith that deep. Plenty of villagers say they've been feeling better lately now that they've stopped eating meat and soup, mind you — but the mana stone gift came before all of that. And yet now I finally understand!"
Thermia snapped her fingers. "A colossal tree suddenly standing behind the village where none stood before — one that converses, no less, with water spirits flitting about its branches! Who could fail to show such a being respect!"
Whoaaaa?
So that was it?
No wonder she'd been using honorifics with me from the very first day we met.
The territory containing the elf village was a frontier holding of the human kingdom — the sort of place that would never have drawn attention in the old days. But its standing had since risen to that of one of the most closely watched territories in the capital, for it was here the king had exiled his excessively popular second son.
Whether the king's checkmate had actually worked remained a matter of divided opinion among the nobles. Cut off from the capital's political arena, the prince would struggle to gather factions to his banner — yet at the same time, an environment had been created in which he could raise private soldiers freely. There were gains and losses on both sides of the ledger.
But considered from the perspective of a butler serving that second son as his lord, the advantages looked far the greater. He was confident enough to believe that should time vacate the throne, his lord would be able to politely escort his inept elder brother to the afterlife.
"So there is no open-pit mine, then."
"Indeed there is not. I sent men to search several times over, yet they found nothing."
The old mage smacked his lips and sipped his herb tea. "Though the mine itself may well exist. It would draw the central government's eye, certainly — but do you intend to dispatch a survey force on a large scale?"
"That is a decision for my lord to make. For the present, my lord is hardly so idle a man as to personally develop a mine for his dear brother to inherit."
It was a pity it wasn't an open-pit mine, but in truth it hardly mattered. Such was the nature of a frontier territory that its leftover manpower was routinely spent on small, idle tasks; this mine survey, too, had been undertaken in the spirit of nice if we find something, no great loss if we don't.
And yet, an unexpected gain had emerged.
"There truly exists such a mysterious sacred tree?"
"The chief warned the villagers, so they concealed it as a matter of village policy. Fearing it might draw needless suspicion upon the sacred tree, my men did not even approach it. But we confirmed enough. It is fact."
Strictly speaking, surveying the open-pit mine had not been the investigators' primary objective. It had been, at first — but once the old mage discovered the existence of the mysterious tree, the main objective shifted to verifying the sacred tree.
"A tree capable of communication, and tall enough to serve as a watchtower. What finer existence for regional defense could one ask for?"
"From its look of it, it has grown since we first observed it. Accounting for its height and sight lines, the sacred tree must already overlook the entire village — and in due time, it will surpass all expectations."
"A finer prize than any open-pit mine."
The plan was to march on the capital, so there would be no military advantage to be had here. But during the decisive battle to come, when the speed of their advance would matter above all else, there could be no safer haven in which to hide the lord's family.
The only shortcoming was the village's size...
"We shall support the village and raise it up, then."
"I prepared the public justification, knowing you would say so."
From then on, wandering elves were continued to be sent, with great kindness, to the elf village. The official pretext: to replenish personnel in advance for the eventual subjugation of the local bandits.
Regrettably, however, just as the high and mighty tend to omit one field detail after another, this time proved no exception.
The elf village was in the middle of wintering.
With food supplies already stretched razor-thin, the semi-compulsory influx of new mouths put the entire village on high alert.
"They say we won't have enough dried jerky to last the winter! That human mage from before was clearly foul-tempered! Why must we suffer such ordeals!"
They did give us food, and generously at that — but of course it had to be flour. The one thing you can't exactly eat raw...