The Expanding Young Tree (3)

"The fruit... it's glowing."

Thermia, who had been inspecting the blessed dried fruit, froze in alarm.

It did look awfully suspicious to eat, I'll admit.

―Just leave it be. The glow will fade on its own.

The appearance would stay perfectly clean, though.

"How in the world did this happen?" the Teacher asked.

―I placed a blessing on them, so let the knights know to eat one before battle. They could eat it right before a fight, technically, but I imagine ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the meal just before an engagement would work best.

All they had to do was tuck them into a pouch and eat them when the time came—remarkably convenient.

The elves were utterly flustered by this sudden blessing, but they knew full well that the Young Tree tended to act on a whim like this.

Calmly tidying the sacks of blessed dried fruit, the Teacher sat down to draft an additional letter to the Crown Prince explaining how the fruit was to be eaten.

"What difference does a blessing make to dried fruit?"

―Whoever eats one will fight better. I poured my hope into the blessing that the knights who eat my fruit will fight well.

"Wow!"

Thermia clapped her hands in delight—then abruptly turned to the village elves and put on an expression of solemn piety.

"The Young Tree has blessed our victory in war. Let us send this communion to the capital with reverent hearts."

The village elves bowed their heads before the sacks of dried fruit. The village chief and the Teacher made no move to stop them, and bowed along as well.

Uh... you really don't have to do that, you know.

He blessed a fruit destined for the King as well—once for its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deliciousness, and again with the wish that it taste even better—then loaded the fruit onto horses and sent them off to the capital.

Being so compact, they were wonderfully easy to ship.

Phew. With that, everything the village prepared over the winter is done.

He could breathe a little easier—but according to the Teacher, there were countless matters that needed preparing in advance from here on out.

The Queen had cracked down hard on anyone touching the western elf village, which was the only reason they'd been spared from noble pressure until now.

But once fruit sales began in earnest, they would need genuine bureaucratic manpower to stand up to nobles and merchant guilds alike.

After all, when high-ranking nobles of the capital sent people demanding to buy the fruit that His Highness the Crown Prince himself ate, those emissaries would be true-blooded aristocrats.

The village had spent this whole time raising its literacy rate across the board, with him personally teaching mathematics as well—all that groundwork was finally about to pay off, harvest by careful harvest.

Of course, since a Young Tree's job was essentially sunbathing, he himself would just sit back and rest.

According to the letter that arrived later, the King had taken a bite of the tribute fruit—blessed purely for flavor—and fainted halfway from how delicious it was, throwing the court into an uproar. But that hardly seemed like important news.

When spring comes, many things change.

Or perhaps nothing changed at all—perhaps the world, sleeping through winter, simply returned.

Like the Pebble Girl, who with spring's arrival had stopped sleeping and now sat perched upright on her bed.

Whoa, that's the longest I've ever seen her awake.

The Water Drop Girl had been extremely busy lately—mass-producing and maintaining the study ink for the village, which was fast approaching true city status, and stationing her water spirits throughout the Four Seasons Orchard to manage it.

And in whatever spare time remained, she insisted on maintaining her identity as the Rabbit Knight, spiriting away the poor rabbit from his naps and bounding him all over the forest. She was dreadfully busy indeed.

Perhaps because of it, the thicket clearing had grown quiet—and in that stillness, the Pebble Girl had given up sleep and begun to enjoy serene contemplation instead.

He'd been dying to know what she was contemplating for days now. Shall I ask?

―What are you thinking about?

The Pebble Girl glanced at him, thought for a moment, then patted the wooden bed she sat on. Tap, tap.

I have no idea what that means.

After a pause, the Pebble Girl began kneading the soil, sculpting clay letters one by one.

The wooden bed the Water Drop Girl had made with her own hands and gifted to her was, frankly, a shoddy piece of work. Objectively speaking, it was not something a person could comfortably sleep on.

―Honestly, I can't argue with that.

It was her first attempt, so it couldn't be helped.

And really, gifting a bed on furniture legs to someone who loved being pressed flat against the earth? That struck him as utterly nonsensical.

A little consideration for her sister's tastes would have been nice.

The Pebble Girl, who still treasured her leafy crown enough to wear it, had endured the wooden bed for several months out of affection for the gift—but apparently even her patience had limits.

She propped her chin on her hands with a sullen look.

The sentiment written across her face was unmistakable: Why on earth would you give me such an uncomfortable bed?

Endure a few months of discomfort, and your sister's flaws inevitably start to outweigh her love. All that remained in the Pebble Girl's mind was the image of a sister who kept pestering her at bedtime.

An undeniable fact, really. A sister who stacks coin towers on her sleeping sibling's body is not a good sister.

With the money from selling study ink steadily growing, the coin towers were climbing higher by the day. A shame, truly.

―If you feel too bad to just abandon the gift, want me to tell her for you? Honestly, the Water Drop Girl cares far less about what happens to that bed than you think.

The Pebble Girl shook her head—though she did agree that the Water Drop Girl wouldn't care one whit about her own gift.

Knowing her, even if the bed crumbled to pieces right in front of her, she'd just go Huh? It broke! and giggle her head off.

Still, the Pebble Girl apparently hated the idea of giving up on the bed she'd been given, and sank back into contemplation.

―In that case, how about burying just the legs in the ground? If sleeping raised off the earth is what bothers you, let's bury everything below where you lie and plant the bed right into the soil.

The Pebble Girl pictured it for a moment, seemed satisfied, flashed him a crisp thumbs-up, and moved straight into action.

The base of the wooden bed vanished into the earth.

She lay down to test it, gave a contented nod, and promptly fell asleep right there.

Yoo-hoo. One problem solved.

In the early days, the village's official religious organization had barely any work to do beyond managing the property of an elf who'd somehow become rich.

But once they began gathering the loose precepts of the Divine Domain Zone into orderly, codified rules, spreading that written order throughout the whole village, and meddling in village affairs one matter at a time, they became tremendously busy.

Most of the work consisted of visiting villagers who had violated a precept, lost their miracle, and were struggling under the resulting lethargy—explaining which precept they'd happened to break, pressing offerings into their hands, and telling them to wash away the filth of the secular world.

My property on paper just keeps inflating. I'm honestly not sure this is fine.

I'll have to think slowly and carefully about ways to spend it for the village.

In any case, Thermia, as head of the religious organization, was just as swamped.

She would grumble—The Water Drop Girl gets to romp around the forest as the Rabbit Knight, so why am I the only one buried in work?—while wringing dry the near-identical water spirits, but at her core she was diligent.

Lately, Thermia had been compiling the precepts—which had grown fairly clear after months of accumulated case studies—into a book.

It was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no easy task.

Since the precepts of miracles reflected his own subconscious and moral sensibilities, some of them contained perspectives difficult to grasp in this era, which meant she had to come ask him directly to understand.

And when she hit a precept even he could only answer vaguely about, she would agonize over it right alongside him, working out an interpretation suitably compromising for the times. The problems piled up without end.

Beyond that, thanks to the Four Seasons Orchard, they were pushing a plan to unify the elves' diet around fruit.

They were even holding a village-wide contest for raw-diet dishes made from fruit—the kind of thing that made him think, thank goodness we built an official organization.

If Thermia hadn't delegated the actual labor of processing the Four Seasons Orchard's fruit to the Teacher—handling only the oversight herself—she wouldn't have had even enough time to sleep.

······Although, trusting in miracles, she already barely slept.

And so today, Thermia had a rather different kind of meeting.

"You say you're a priest of the Holy Kingdom?"

Priest Dahlia, seated across from her, smiled gently.

"I serve as a formally ordained priest, humble though my abilities may be."

Thermia tensed. The girl's eyes shifted to the wary look one reserves for a rival faith.

"And what business brings someone of your standing to a place like this...?"

Priest Dahlia smiled warmly. "I've come to broaden my horizons."

"Your horizons...?"

The conversation, unexpectedly, proceeded in the warmest of spirits.

It was less that Thermia steered it well, and more that Priest Dahlia's seasoned tact eased the atmosphere along.

So being a priest isn't a job for just anyone.

Give it time and Thermia would grow into it, no doubt—but for now, both her experience and her years still fell short.

"It's all thanks to the Young Tree's care! Every elf in our village owes the Young Tree everything, and we live each day never forgetting that love."

"How wonderful."

"Isn't it just! Heehee."

With an audience responding so enthusiastically, Thermia fluttered and chattered on. Hard to resist bragging about your achievements to an ordained priest when you're the head of a faith, I suppose.

"They said elves live long only if they shun fire. For so long, the courts claimed that nations built on humans alone tormented the other races—and now it's been proven before our very eyes."

Priest Dahlia looked wistful.

"Now that we know the truth, I believe we simply change things starting today. Please join us, Priest Dahlia. Our village will manage well enough on its own, but the other elves are still living short lives."

"I shall lend what small strength I have."

The two clasped hands across the table, united in purpose.

Wow, religion really is a wonderful thing.

Religion exists to serve people and care for their hearts—so if everyone harmonized and guided the world forward together, what could possibly be better?

His sentimental mood did not last long.

An elf came sprinting in and whispered something to Thermia.

"A priest of the Holy Kingdom?"

Startled, Thermia turned to look at Priest Dahlia.

Dahlia herself merely looked bewildered.

What priest of the Holy Kingdom?

He cast his sight outward.

The familiar Thief Trio caught his eye.

Big Brother Thief—who had hung up his farming tools and joined the religious organization in proud, official capacity—was eyeing a group of unfamiliar humans.

"And what sort of folk might you be, then?"

"Now, now! What manner of manners are those!"

An attendant stepped forward. He gestured respectfully toward a stout, well-fed male priest—a physique deeply puzzling in an age when food was scarce.

"This man is an esteemed priest, formally appointed by the Holy Kingdom and stationed in this fief! Mind your courtesies!"

"'Esteemed priest,' you say?"

Big Brother Thief looked baffled. Then the trio huddled together, whispering.

"'Esteemed' just means famous, don't it?"

"That'd be right."

"Never heard of the bloke, though?"

"Aw, c'mon, Boss. Just 'cause you don't know him don't mean he ain't famous. Probably some priest who's been feathering a nest of power somewhere or other."

"Oh-ho."

Big Brother Thief turned to face the human priest.

"I never had no book learnin', so I'm afraid I didn't recognize a man of your standing. So then—what business brings you here?"

The young male priest seemed genuinely uncertain whether that had been polite or not. His plump cheeks wobbled with displeasure.

Still, apparently deeming it beneath his dignity as a priest to quibble over trifles, he spoke in a lofty, arrogant voice.

"I have come because this village blasphemously distorts the miracles our Sun God bestows. Bring me whoever is in charge."

Whoa?

"'Distorts'? What's with all the fancy talk?"

"······All things beneath heaven that the sunlight touches are, by their very nature, under the Sun God's dominion. Miracles born of that light have covered this fief—yet these people blasphemously spread word of them as their own. I have come to hold them accountable for that sin."

Whoa, whoa? Is this a serious problem?

He rifled through his memories.

If he recalled correctly, their kingdom had never designated an official state religion.

Had they done so, it would have had to be the Sun Religion—the faith holding religious supremacy—but relations between their kingdom and the Holy Kingdom had never been anything but sour.

Which meant the Holy Kingdom couldn't throw its weight around freely here.

Yoo-hoo. Not a serious problem after all.

He's literally just come to argue that in his view we're guilty of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠something and ought to atone, that's all.

"What kinda nonsense is that? Them's miracles the Young Tree granted us—why's he swiping what belongs to others? You a thief, mister? Maybe I oughta be learnin' a trick or two from you?"

Big Brother Thief scowled deeply.

"A thief? You're the ones who blasphemously stole a miracle!"

The male priest sneered.

"What tree in all the world can work miracles! To put your faith in some common tree off the roadside—there are limits even to primitive superstition!"

Big Brother Thief answered only with a silent, stony stare.

Then, without a word, he raised a hand and pointed to the far edge of the sky.

The male priest and his retinue turned their heads.

A colossal tree blotted out the heavens.

The tree's shadow spread across the land like embroidery.

The male priest was left speechless.