The Living Young Tree (5)

"Everyone is adjusting smoothly to life with the spirits. I had my concerns, but they're adapting far better than I expected."

Teacher had come to report.

Consider this for a moment—from a certain angle, that very worry shares the same roots as the thinking of the humans who defend slavery. Teacher did pick up a few tendencies during his time in the capital.

"Yes, my lord."

The water spirits perched in a pyramid atop Teacher's head as he answered swayed all at once. Water came cascading down in a group effort.

"······."

A waterfall poured over his face.

Teacher pulled out a handkerchief and wiped himself, but the waterfall kept gushing without mercy, so he gave up and wrung the handkerchief out instead. Water dripped in a steady stream.

Ever since the negotiations ended, the spirits had taken up collective residence on Teacher's head. He could peel them off by hand, but they'd only cling right back and keep leaking, so they'd stayed like that all day.

Well, one of them earned it.

Looking at Teacher's daily routine these days: ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠while everyone else got to hop around carrying documents on the heads of their helpful spirits, Teacher alone remained in the water spirits' bad graces, so he hauled his papers around himself.

He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had to do his own laundry like an ordinary person, too—villagers often caught him squatting alone by the riverside, scrubbing away.

He insists it's his own responsibility to bear and says nothing about it, but watching him is a sorry sight. All he'd have to do is compromise a little and get along gently with everyone, yet he's the type to seek out hardship all on his own.

Having thoroughly tapped his wet handkerchief dry, Teacher looked off to one side.

There lay the Water Drop Girl, face-down and defeated after being ganged up on by the water spirits. The spirits had piled themselves on her back in the shape of a tower, swaying triumphantly.

Beside her, the rabbit squeaked—ppiok-ppiok—in mockery.

The Water Drop Girl flailed her hands with theatrical exaggeration. She stretched one toward the rabbit, pleading to be rescued.

The rabbit squeaked once more, then mercilessly stepped on her outstretched hand with its forepaw.

Ppi-o-yok.

The Water Drop Girl descended into exaggerated despair and flopped over, playing dead. The water spirits stacked into their tower trembled with delight.

Maybe it's time to start teaching Bang-ul-i her letters, too.

Even when she earned money, the Water Drop Girl would simply stack it into a coin tower and leave it lying around—her grasp of human society was that shallow. This very time, she'd nearly signed a contract without the slightest sense of how frightening contracts could be.

Strictly speaking, weren't the Water Drop Girl and the water spirits essentially parent and child? Now that she had a family to take responsibility for, it seemed she needed at least some common sense instilled in her.

"The village restoration is progressing well and overall the situation is excellent, but there is one point of concern. From now on, must we ask the surrounding trees whenever we wish to build something?"

Is this about earthquakes?

"Yes, my lord. If humans can no longer raise buildings by our own hands, the village will gradually lose its architectural craft. The forest has plenty of room, so it won't impede our daily lives—but once a skill is lost, it becomes exceedingly difficult to recover. That is what worries me."

He has a point.

The builders would all have to worry about their livelihoods. Whether talent drained away or they took up other trades, the related skills would fade.

In a few decades, this might become a strange city where no one could raise a building without a tree's help.

You needn't worry about earthquakes. When I created the Holy Land, all the intent I'd poured out until then exerted itself at once—the ground has no reason to shake anymore.

I couldn't claim absolute certainty, but a forest wracked by constant tremors would be strange in the first place.

I'd made it so the neighboring plants could live comfortably; if earthquakes kept coming, it would betray the entire purpose.

Besides, living trees now make up the buildings across the whole village. Adding a few human hands to the mix won't change the scenery much. Feel free to build as you please, within reason.

"Within... reason, you say."

Yes. As long as nobody suddenly starts erecting stone structures the size of me, the landscape will be fine.

"That would indeed be an impossible structure."

That's what I'm saying.

And then—

Since we can speak with plants, why not specialize in that direction and train a new class of builders?

It wasn't as if we possessed any brilliant architectural mastery to begin with. As long as we managed jobs so the construction industry didn't die out entirely, keeping the skill alive would be more than enough.

"I will have to discuss that with Thermia. You may not feel it, my lord, but villagers capable of speaking with plants are currently exceedingly few. For ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the record, I am not one of them."

Really?

In that case, the specialists would simply become rarer and more valuable. No need to worry about construction jobs after all.

"The recipe is wonderfully simple, you see."

The Younger Brother Thief's mother taught us how to make the fertilizer we would offer the trees as a bribe.

It was instruction from a genuine expert—who, rather un-elflike, had actually worked in agriculture.

"Put dead leaves or withered grass into the jar. Go ahead, put them in."

"Yes, ma'am."

Thermia did as instructed. Dead leaves piled high in the large jar—gathered from the overflowing drifts that had begun blanketing the forest as autumn crept in.

"Pour in enough water to soak them thoroughly, and stir."

"Bang-ul-i."

The Water Drop Girl conjured water and poured it in.

These days, the Water Drop Girl was raking in a tidy profit selling her plain water.

Originally, the water spirits had supplied water to the whole village.

But the elves, faced with the absurd arrangement of receiving water while paying for it in plain water, had—with a few exceptions—decided to get their supply from the Water Drop Girl instead.

The structure of things was this: the Water Drop Girl handed over her plain water, and the elves used it to commission this and that from the water spirits.

Truthfully, they could just scoop it from the river like the old days—but having tasted the convenience of life without river-scooping, no one could bring themselves to return to that inconvenient past.

Now and then, elves caught trying a perpetual-motion scheme—having one water spirit's water palmed off to another as "plain water"—were exposed, but the vast majority simply traded with the Water Drop Girl. Or collected rainwater.

Deception was too much hassle anyway: the water spirits did not consider the water they themselves produced to be plain water.

Fooled well enough, they'd accept it happily enough—but the preference remained firmly fixed.

Even I doubt I'd be pleased to receive my own spit as payment.

The Water Drop Girl, on the other hand, stood on an entirely different tier from the water spirits, despite both being "water drops." She didn't expel water from her body—she gathered it pure from the surrounding atmosphere.

It was, in effect, pristine rainwater—quality that satisfied even the most discerning water spirit.

"Is this enough stirring?"

"Very well done. Now, grate in a mana stone—the terribly expensive kind that ordinary farmers could never afford."

The eternally youthful elf woman scraped a mana stone lightly against an iron plate. An exquisitely fine dusting of mana stone powder settled over the damp mound of leaves.

"Mix it well, half-cover the jar with a lid, and set it somewhere shaded—and it's finished. Like this one here."

A thick, dark fertilizer sat inside a jar already completed.

"It's not so hard, once you use a mana stone."

Thermia recorded every detail meticulously in her notes.

"Lord Tree, would you care to be the first to taste it?"

Mmm.

Looking at the fertilizer stirred up complicated feelings in me.

What exactly was the sentiment behind handing a tree fertilizer made from the tree's own fallen leaves?

By human standards, there was no problem at all.

They were leaves destined to rot anyway—no reason for a guilty conscience. Most people fell trees with axes hafted in wood and feel nothing much about it.

And by a tree's standards, no problem either.

The nutrients of the earth have always been made of dead, decaying animals and plants. I'd grown feeding on exactly such things since long before this, so there was no reason for special feelings now.

When leaves fall and rot where they lie, the roots simply eat them again on the spot. If you personify it, that arrangement is even more ironic than fertilizer.

Striving to understand nature through personification is a beautiful impulse—but nature is not a person.

And yet, standing as I do between person and tree, the sight genuinely does leave my feelings tangled.

"Lord Tree?"

I'll try it after the other trees have eaten first. It all feels a little strange to me.

"Understood. I'll have it ready and waiting."

With the bribe fertilizer prepared, Thermia went out to inspect the construction complaints. She'd sent the Water Drop Girl off and carried the Pebble Girl perched on her shoulders instead.

"Ah, you've come. I'd like the second-floor corridor reinforced with stone. Being all timber, the sound of footsteps carries straight down to the first floor."

It was a good thing that buildings were being completed in living wood. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠They maintained themselves, after all.

But being entirely wooden in composition, a few shortcomings did show themselves.

The wood was absurdly sturdy and resilient thanks to the mystery invested in it—but now and then, its very nature as wood posed a problem.

The miracle did discriminate by case, so I hadn't touched the smithy, where wood would never do, or the mine, where an earthquake would spell disaster—but even my own subconscious couldn't account for every fine detail. Those needed handling separately.

"Yes, understood."

Thermia pressed her forehead against the Inn Tree.

Having secured its goodwill with the bribe fertilizer, she turned to the Pebble Girl.

"Pebble, I need your help."

The Pebble Girl's face settled into an expression of profound annoyance.

This much couldn't be helped, really.

Because the buildings were living trees, modifying them smoothly with other materials required a delicacy of mystery that surpassed human hands.

The Pebble Girl reinforced the underside of the inn's corridor with stone, then lapsed into a sulk. She was clever enough to have realized that this meant more work waiting for her in the future.

The little girl's gaze drifted to the water bottle sitting on the inn's table.

A water spirit bobbed about inside it.

Having been paid in the Water Drop Girl's special-recipe plain water, this spirit had spent the day filling water bottles as its chore.

The spirit, rolling in the water, sent a thin stream spouting out. The bottle sloshed full.

What the Water Drop Girl would once have had to handle one by one, the many spirits were now handling in her place.

The Pebble Girl, who only wanted to sleep, sank into deep thought.

That she spoke to me the moment she returned from being run off her feet all day was perhaps the most natural result in the world.

Do you want to make spirits of your own, too?

The little girl nodded.

I see.

But I don't know how that works either.

Water Drop had agonized over whether to envy her gifted younger sister, overcome it on her own, and grown through the struggle.

Pebble, by contrast, wasn't the type to agonize over such things. Not everyone lives through life the same way, after all.

Still, our clever Pebble Girl had apparently spent the whole day thinking of a method. She explained it to me through written words and pictures.

First make a spirit, and understand it afterward?

An amusing idea.

But how would you make a spirit without your rank having risen?

The Pebble Girl seemed to have a plan, yet when it came to it, she hesitated without saying anything.

After a truly considerable hesitation, the little girl glanced around to check whether her sister was watching, then crept close to the base of my roots.

She spread both arms and hugged the root tight. Her cheek rubbed against it.

The surrounding soil shaped itself into words.

The nuance was pure, wheedling aegyo.

Aww, aww.

Utterly embarrassed, the Pebble Girl buried her face against the root.

Heh heh. Well, there's no way I can refuse that, is there?

All right. I'll help you with everything I've got.

Hearing my answer of yes, the Pebble Girl kept her face buried in the root for a truly long while.

Then she pulled back looking entirely composed, and—as if the last few minutes had never happened—scooped up some soil and began kneading it.

The soil compressed; the excess crumbled away; bit by bit it became a stone. Once it had taken the shape of a smooth, round pebble, the girl offered it to me.

I received the pebble with gaseous mana.

Right. Let's do this.

I poured my intent into the pebble that would be the raw material.

A future in which you become a spirit.

A destiny in which you become a spirit.

A fate in which you become a spirit.

Light flashed.

When it faded, a beautifully hued pebble was complete.

Here you go.

The little girl took the pebble. She rolled it gently in her palms, lavishing it with careful affection.

Gradually, a heart took root within the stone.

At some point the girl had raised a small earthen spire, and she set the pebble atop it. The pebble came to rest precariously at the very tip of the spire.

It was a scene I'd seen somewhere before.

We waited, and the pebble trembled of its own accord, then rolled once. It left the unstable spire and touched down onto the steady earth.

The Pebble Girl watched, then set it atop the spire again.

The pebble fell once more and landed.

Aww. Nature is moving with a will of its own.

Having tasted it once, the Pebble Girl began shaping more pebbles from the soil.

Pebbles endowed with will stacked up one upon another.

Then a message appeared.

Heh heh. We have new spirits now.