The Punishing Sapling (4)
The education building went up in no time at all.
We didn't call it a school outright yet, mostly because it served adult elves too busy with work to attend regularly — classes ran on irregular schedules at odd hours.
Frankly, that sounds like a night school to me, but the name hardly matters.
"I designed it with an open wall structure to reduce the closed-off feeling and encourage free participation. The ceiling can be opened and closed with ease — on bright moonlit nights we open it, and on rainy days we shut it."
—Mm, I like it.
Even if it was a building that shamelessly incorporated my regrettable plan to jar the water spirits and use them as erasers, the work itself was clean and well done.
What pleased me most of all was that the village library had been built right alongside it.
The books the village chief and Teacher had owned, plus books from the other elves — everything was gathered in one place, and the collection turned out to be far larger than I'd imagined. It lived up to the name "village library" and then some.
Elves who had roughly learned their letters were multiplying the collection by copying books as practice, so the scale would only keep growing.
A truly wonderful thing.
Thermia had finally stopped stealing books.
She smacked her lips in unmistakable disappointment, whispering with an equally disappointed water droplet, but I'm choosing to believe nothing will come of it.
"Here is the education schedule I've prepared for the prospective officials. If there are any parts that would be difficult for you to attend, Great Tree, I will adjust them."
—I'm nothing but free time, so any time works for me. But where are you going, Teacher? Your schedule's booked out for quite a stretch.
"It's a shame I couldn't push the literacy drive while the fervor was at its peak, but there's a great deal to attend to, so I intend to make a trip to the Lord's Castle."
Wow. Teacher really is a busy man.
—Understood. I'll handle my part according to the schedule, then.
"Thank you."
Thermia, sneaking a glance at Teacher Paelian as he gave his report, drifted over to my trunk and whispered.
"The way I see it, this mandatory education push has a second purpose. Teacher's an immigrant, you see, so he keeps losing ground in the village assemblies. I'd wager he wants to train up officials of his own and build a faction."
—That does sound about right.
I whispered along with her.
—This is straight-up elite power struggle. How terrifying.
"Right? Exactly?"
The village's rising literacy rate was the official goal, but I doubted the intentions were purely innocent.
"I'll grant that Teacher is a very learned man. But it wouldn't be good if every newly trained official ended up in his faction, would it?"
She had a point.
"So, since we're involved in education anyway — how about we cultivate officials loyal to you, Lord Tree? Talents personally instructed by the Sacred Tree Himself! That sort of thing."
Now that was an interesting idea.
—Leaving a record that they studied under me wouldn't be difficult.
Factions, after all, tend to form over the flimsiest of common denominators.
—Though wouldn't that be to your benefit, not mine? You're the one who'd get to command them directly.
To put it bluntly — wasn't this just the Thermia faction?
"Heehee."
The girl beamed without a shred of guilt.
"You caught me."
—Oh, you.
I gave her a knuckle rap with my gaseous mana.
"Ow! But come on — Teacher said it himself, didn't he? That religious power can't beat secular power. After hearing that, how could I just sit still?"
Thermia clenched her fist.
"I'm going to wedge my way into Teacher's faction plans and claim my slice of the pie!"
—Best of luck.
Though judging by Teacher sighing with his arms crossed in the background, the pie seemed to be half-approved already.
The village assembly was bustling again.
Ordinarily, after attending a few times, people realized that only the senior figures did the talking while everyone else stood around spacing out, and attendance would dwindle.
But with the eastern elf village having immigrated here, plenty of newcomers had no such experience — so the hall had filled up again.
Today especially, there wasn't a single empty seat in the terraced rows, and elves were standing here and there to listen besides.
I found this bustle rather pleasant.
Teacher and the village elders disliked it as needlessly rowdy, but from where I stood — someone who'd lived in a democracy — this was the enjoyable part.
Of course, even in a crowd, the usual people did the talking and most just listened.
Still, there's a world of difference between participating with the right to speak at any moment, and giving up the very opportunity to speak.
As it happened, even Thermia didn't entirely share my democratic sensibilities.
—You don't much care for all this commotion?
I asked as we watched the assembly proceed, noisier than usual.
Thermia, seated beside the village chief and observing the proceedings, tilted her head with an odd look on her face.
"I wouldn't say I dislike it..."
She did dislike it, but because I'd phrased my question as though I loved the bustle, she seemed unable to voice her own opinion.
"Isn't it just so disorderly with this many people? Even right now."
An immigrant elf had blurted that out, standing up without requesting the floor. The village chief reined her in and made her go through the proper procedure before speaking again, but the assembly looked tremendously chaotic all the same.
—It's the unavoidable friction that comes from inexperience with participation. It'll fade as everyone takes part more often.
"Well, I did it right from my very first assembly. After it ended, the village chief even complimented me — said I followed procedure beautifully."
That might be setting the bar a touch high for yourself.
Comparing Thermia, who'd earned her seat through the wolf hunt, to immigrants who simply showed up and attended by virtue of age, seemed a bit unfair to me.
Noticing that my preferences were firmly on display, Thermia stole a cautious glance my way.
"...Now that I look again, I suppose I do like it."
—No, no. I only asked once. There's no need to change your mind for me.
I soothed her, but my own greedy nature couldn't be helped.
If this were merely my own sentiment, out of step with the times, that would be one thing — but Chief Eldrin seemed to feel much the same as I did.
The way he'd crushed Teacher's proposal to replace the village assembly with a council of elders, and stoically endured the chaotic atmosphere, showed the chief held a firm conviction.
Naturally he did.
After all, it was the village assembly that had brought us all this far.
The beginning of everything was the tradition and institution that allowed a grieving orphan girl's plea to be heard in earnest.
Someday, when practical problems like population pressed in, the assembly would become impossible to maintain. Tradition would become the past, and history would be nothing but ink on a page.
But carrying the legacy of the past into the future, and discarding the past as worthless — those were hardly the same thing, were they?
Just then, someone won the floor and rose from their seat.
It was the Younger Brother Thief — the one who'd reunited with his mother.
"I propose that we rescue those who went missing or were abducted during the fighting against the slave trader alliance."
Beside him, his mother clasped her hands together in desperate prayer.
The restless immigrant elves fell silent all at once, every eye fixed forward.
Ah.
Now I understood why so many had gathered.
"Many of those who came to this village lost family and kin along the way. The cities and slave markets where they're being traded are known, and all of it is illegal. We ask that they be rescued. That is all."
The restless, crowded atmosphere vanished as though it had never been, and the assembly hall went still. I could vividly hear the sound of swallowed breaths.
The pleading eyes of the immigrant elves turned toward the village elders.
But...
"Denied."
This one wouldn't pass.
Teacher rose at once to rebut.
"The village is currently devoting its full strength to transitioning from a hunting economy to a production economy. Raising the literacy rate to build a corps of scribes, and preparing copied books as a trade good — these are all part of that effort."
Running a village was no simple matter. This was not an issue for rank amateurs to chime in on.
"Moreover, thanks to the successful training of blacksmiths and miners, we have accumulated farm tools and iron ore ready for external sale. We're in contact with surrounding villages and cities on every front, and transport will begin the moment buyers are found. Part of the self-defense force stands ready as escorts."
He continued.
"Autumn is also approaching, and every capable guardsman is a capable hunter. A large-scale hunting plan has already been laid at the village level — pulling them outside the village would be a loss in itself."
Teacher spoke decisively.
"Do you have alternatives to address these concerns?"
The Younger Brother Thief's hands trembled. Cold sweat rolled down his jaw and dripped.
"That is..."
His gaze dropped to a crumpled note. He had already read every word — there was nothing on it that could help him now.
"That is..."
Teacher repeated himself.
"Do you have alternatives to address these concerns? If not, take your seat."
The walls of the village assembly were high. It was not so lenient a place that an untested man could push his case through.
The immigrant elves fell into despair.
Some slumped into their seats; some staggered out of the hall.
"My father..."
His hands clenched around the note.
"My father is missing. I have to go find him. I have to save him. Please. Please..."
The powerless voice echoed through the hall.
I honestly don't know.
Whether clever, cold judgment is always right.
Whether crisp, airtight logic might cost us a different future — a better one.
I honestly don't know.
But I, too, am a being made of logic, and so what I had to do was already decided.
—Teacher.
A sacred will filled the assembly hall.
Every gaze turned to my boughs.
—For the sake of constructive deliberation, stop hoarding knowledge and information. Share it.
Teacher flinched.
—The greatest obstacle to rescuing enslaved kin isn't any of the reasons you listed, is it? The real problem is that you'd have to wrest slaves back from city officials in bed with the trade and from slave traders with every arrangement already in place — all within perfectly legal markets. Why leave that part out?
Mentioning only that much would have let the matter pass without great conflict. If the argument were, "This country, its laws and institutions leave us no choice — we must give up," the immigrants would have despaired, but they wouldn't have fought over it.
And yet the clever Teacher was delivering his speech with precisely that piece omitted. As though it were an inconvenient topic.
Sweat beaded on Teacher's brow.
—Leaving out information unfavorable to your own plans, I can understand — that's how passionate you are about the village's growth. But you've been caught, so out with it.
With trembling hands, Teacher produced a handkerchief and dabbed the sweat away.
"I assure you, Great Tree, I meant no deceit. I intended to set aside a separate occasion to explain that very matter. Truly — please believe me."
—I do. I believe you.
Teacher looked around at the assembled elves.
He sighed, and began.
"The rescue itself is feasible."
Whaaaat?
"Explaining it fully would be long and complicated, but among the neighboring territories there is a Count who stands firmly for the abolition of slavery. With his backing, we could walk into the slave markets and free slaves outright without fear of grave reprisal."
Laws and institutions really are powerless before power.
"The problem with this approach, however, is that our village would be crossing a river of no return with the pro-slavery faction."
Teacher spoke at length.
"The nobles prize their honor, so they would hardly send troops to crush a mere village. But this alone would cost the village countless opportunities for growth."
—Such as?
"One immediate issue: territories friendly to slavery tend to fall under strong Holy Kingdom influence, which means heavy demand for religious texts. Selling our copied books there would become difficult. Considering the high demand for religious works and their attractive prices, the loss would be enormous."
He really had considered everything, hadn't he.
I could scarcely imagine the anguish and effort that had gone into developing a village with no market value beyond hunting.
So Teacher would do Teacher's work, and I would do mine.
I steeled myself.
I hesitated, wondering whether I had any right to make a decision like this.
But I am the Sacred Tree — I was asked to be this people's spiritual pillar.
—I will raise a volunteer corps under my own banner.
The self-defense force had no place in this.
—Let those who do not fear death come to me. Those who have not lost their courage, those who have not abandoned hope — let them all come.
The corps was called.