Setting Up the Young Tree (3)

Things went smoothly from there.

The Steward already knew that the Crown Prince had defeated the King with the Sacred Tree's sword, and that in the eastern theater, a band of knights shrouded in light had swept away the rebel forces.

Apparently, though, he'd arrived at the perfectly reasonable conclusion that the royal family, wary of the Theocracy's influence, had spread exaggerated tales to check the Church the moment the Sun God's miracle descended upon this territory.

He seemed to have dismissed the notion that the Sacred Tree itself had performed miracles as mere royal propaganda, too. When you're focused on a complicated big picture, it's easy to miss the small truths right in front of you.

It really does seem like the smarter people are, the more easily they get swept up in conspiracy theories.

At any rate, once the Steward had his misunderstandings cleared up, negotiations proceeded without a hitch.

Since I was clearly the source of the miracles, it was decided that authority to sort out the faith-related confusion across the territory would be granted to our village.

And it wasn't just authority, either.

Because we could now legally request territory troops, we could manage the faith of the entire region without operating a self-defense force.

Wow. Legitimate enforcement power. Better than I expected.

I could also glimpse, at a glance, the intent to use the Sacred Tree's miracles to check the Theocracy. Even though Priest Borlidon had floated the possibility of me being an Apostle of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Sun God, the Sacred Tree sat outside the Theocracy's sphere of influence, which actually made things easier.

However, selling the priority rights and installing shrines throughout the territory didn't move forward in a single step.

Because the Steward wanted to hear the underlying principles in detail.

"If one offers wealth to the Sacred Tree through the offering box, does the miracle return?"

It's not quite that simple a mechanism.

It might sound that way, but the wealth itself is actually meaningless.

Most sins arise from worldly desire. When a sinner empties out their treasured possessions, they temper their excessive greed and become a better person — that's why the miracle returns.

The miracle doesn't come back because they gave me something.

What matters is the heart and the promise — the resolve to let go of excessive desire and become a better person.

Objectively speaking, donating to those around you could accomplish the same thing.

But since this world doesn't exactly have charitable organizations, we just set up offering boxes for convenience.

Honestly, since what really matters is repenting for the past and resolving to become better, they didn't even need to part with their wealth.

Devote yourself to serving those around you, or apologize and reconcile with anyone you've wronged, and the miracle returns all the same.

But putting repentance into practice turned out to be far harder than it sounds.

So we streamlined the process: reflect on your own, let go of the worldly, and steady your heart through an act of offering — a promise to do better next time. That alone could restore the miracle.

Making an offering to the box is essentially the same as steadying one's resolve before the Young Tree.

By giving up even your treasured possessions, you've made a promise to yourself — never again.

Of course, thorough repentance backed by concrete action would be ideal.

But for people who are nothing but bundles of desire, I think that's setting the bar far too high. How many could genuinely manage it?

Unless someone's committed some great evil, they can simply reflect and do better next time. That's how people grow, by nature.

"My observations show that when someone donates while grumbling over the loss, the miracle does not return. The notion of profiting — 'I can afford this much restitution for this much wrongdoing' — is simply useless, in other words."

To be honest, I suspect plenty of people will have exactly that mindset once shrines go up.

Our village sees very little of that irreverent cost-benefit thinking, since I'm right there in front of them — but I can't expect the same everywhere else.

I'm not sure how to solve it, honestly.

Is it even something that needs solving?

If they can't manage to reflect on their own, they can just go on living without miracles. Doesn't seem like they need looking after from me.

Once the Steward had grasped the general situation, he purchased the priority rights at a price far higher than I'd anticipated, funding the shrine installations — and then drew up all the various authorizations the shrines would require and handed the documents over.

"Should you need anything further, simply request it. The lord's castle will provide."

Wow, thank you.

The support I needed came to mind at once.

Then — could you perhaps launch a sweeping crackdown on the people committing fraud with miracles? It's supposed to be our job now that we have the authority, but we're simply swamped at the moment.

"Understood."

Frauds across the territory began getting rounded up, one after another.

At one point, an entire trading company was seized for peddling so-called magic water that could supposedly channel miracles.

Thermia strolled down the prison corridor.

"That self-proclaimed holy man treats the spirits better than we do?"

Yeah, I didn't know either — turns out water spirits love massages.

The way they usually bounced around everywhere... maybe that was because they liked the sensation of bumping into things.

Thermia's eyes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠went round.

"You mean, like this?"

She mimed scrubbing a water spirit against a dish. Since it involved grinding their bodies against the tableware, it was a massage — technically.

"How surprising! I assumed they hated that!"

Well, they probably do hate that. The massage I mean is the kind where you tap their bodies — pomm, pomm, pomm — with a wooden mallet.

"Ah. Like drumming on someone's shoulders with a closed fist?"

Exactly.

More fraudsters were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠locked up along either side of the corridor than I'd expected.

Apparently the story of the trading company's arrest was only one instance among many.

Thermia flipped through the paperwork as she walked.

"Crimes: impersonating a holy man to fleece a remote mountain village. Impersonating a saint — that's a hanging offense! Let us rescue our spirits from these greedy humans at once!"

Rescue the spirits who left the village and are now living extremely happy, comfortable ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lives... I wasn't sure that counted as a rescue.

We arrived at a lonely cell at the end of the row.

The self-proclaimed holy man lay asleep in a wretched state. The water spirits had huddled around him, leaning against his body as if to comfort him.

"Oh! Kids."

Thermia whispered to them.

"It's time to come back to the village. Come here. While you've been gone, we've built a plain-water swimming pool, and so much has changed. You'll have a wonderful time."

Even at her beckoning, the spirits didn't come.

Thermia tilted her head.

"Should I have brought plain water?"

Seems they just got attached to him while they were being treated well.

Welfare really does matter, I suppose.

By the way — is impersonating a saint the extent of his crimes?

"Yes. He apparently knew that posing as a holy man was dangerous, so he deliberately targeted a single village with little outside contact and planned to flee. He was caught before he could."

Was the wealth he extracted from the village returned to its owners?

"It was, I'm told."

Then let's learn a few of his trade secrets, in exchange for sparing his life.

"Is that all it takes?"

He was, without question, ahead of us when it came to spirit welfare.

I stirred the holy man awake with gaseous mana.

The man, who'd been murmuring to the spirits not to wake him, realized something was off, jolted upright in fright.

"Who — who might you be?"

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know."

Cutting a legal deal with a man whose execution date had already been set wasn't difficult.

Sparring the self-proclaimed holy man's life while dodging the Theocracy's gaze was a touch more convoluted, but the authority stamped with the lord's official seal settled it.

"You're not acquitted, mind you. As a prisoner with specialized skills, you'll serve thirty years of labor at a location designated by the lord's castle. You may refuse to work, of course — in which case your execution date will be scheduled. How does that sound?"

"I shall labor faithfully for thirty years!"

The moment the holy man escaped the gallows, the water spirits bounced up and down with delight.

"My thanks. I owe it to you all."

The water spirits squirted jets of water in celebration.

Um. Do you kids realize you just aided and abetted a criminal?

I might actually need to gather the spirits for some separate instruction in social conduct.

The trouble they caused outside the forest too — they really did seem to need an education. I could just fold them into the lessons I give Water Drop Girl.

We brought the self-proclaimed holy man back to the village.

The results were immediate.

"What is this?"

"The plain-water swimming pool."

The pride and joy of our village's spirit welfare program.

"How often is the water changed?"

"About once a day, I'd say."

"Isn't that cycle far too long?"

"I'm sorry — what?"

Sure enough, when I checked, utilization of the plain-water pool was dropping.

Some of the water spirits were sitting against the building's wall sunning themselves, even with the plain-water pool right beside them.

"When water spirits swim, the existing water mixes with the water from their own bodies. To keep them from being disappointed, it must be changed regularly."

So that was it. Water the spirits made themselves doesn't count as plain water in their eyes. And they weren't terribly fond of the mixed water after a group soak, either.

The plain-water pool was far more finicky to maintain than I'd realized.

"And from time to time, one must grind in a mana stone to give the water a fresh feel. Just as nobles add fragrance to their bathwater."

So they had tastes like that, too.

"A mana stone..."

Thermia groaned.

The moment she realized the plain-water pool — fed by collected rainwater — cost money to run properly, she looked torn.

Granted, with an open-pit mana stone mine right on our doorstep, mana stones were hardly a worry.

Still, revealing that over something like this seemed a bit risky. Or did it? I honestly couldn't tell. I'd have to think it over.

"Watch closely."

The holy man ground in a mana stone as a demonstration. An exceedingly fine dust drifted across the plain-water pool.

The water spirits who'd been sunbathing hovered around curiously, then gradually drifted over to use it — and before long they were bobbing about the pool, floating here and there. They looked absolutely blissful.

So it really does work.

"They love it. I'll push for it."

The self-proclaimed holy man didn't stop at the plain-water pool, either.

"And this one is an earth spirit."

He pointed at the round little pebble sitting on the inn's windowsill.

"Remarkable. So water spirits aren't the only ones here."

"I've been trying to make requests of her, but we can't communicate. We still haven't found a way, and it's been a real struggle."

Thanks to that, the Pebble Girl had been getting hauled out every single time the buildings needed improving.

"What are her preferences?"

"She likes sleeping."

"Her preferences in sleeping places, then?"

"If it's flat, she'll sleep just about anywhere."

"What are her preferences in soil?"

"Huh. I never thought to check that far."

"Then let us verify her tastes."

The self-proclaimed holy man began his preference assessment in earnest.

He alternated laying out soft soil and hard soil while watching the pebble's condition; he draped a handkerchief over her like a blanket.

A white handkerchief was laid gently over the Pebble Girl. He patted her soothingly, and then the two of them observed her with the gravest of expressions.

How should I put this — well. It was ridiculous, but they were taking it seriously.

They really did intend to nail down her preferences properly.

With the holy man's expertise lending a hand, we'd surely see results. The notion of massaging a spirit with a wooden mallet isn't something just anyone dreams up, after all.

But setting the preference assessment aside, another thought had occurred to me.

Why did the spirits obey the self-proclaimed holy man's words so readily?

He himself seemed to believe it was simply because he treated them well and grew close to them. A reasonable conclusion. Judging by how fondly they reacted, it didn't seem wrong.

And yet my impression was a little different.

Treating nature by personifying it may well be a good thing.

Using a spirit as a tool to scrub dishes is genuinely going too far. But by contrast, thanking a water spirit for granting a request and massaging her one by one is a truly beautiful sight.

And yet, for all that, nature is not a person.

Treating something like a person and treating something like nature are two different things.

Pruning branches from a tree, if you personified it, would be an act of terrible cruelty by human standards. Isn't it the same as severing limbs?

And yet thinning out the branches that grow too lush and shade one another from the sunlight is an act that helps the tree grow up healthy.

It simply accelerates, by human hands, what would otherwise take long years — certain branches, overburdened by competition within the tree, slowly rotting and falling away.

In my view, the water spirits loved the holy man because he treated them like people, yes — but I think they loved him more because he treated them like nature, too.

What does it mean to treat something like nature?

The mana stone powder was my clue.

The water spirits are beings born of nature given a will.

They were, in principle, an impossible, artificial outcome. Their very existence carries, to some degree, an unnatural artifice.

Natural, yet artificial.

What if their existence itself was a burden to them?

And in that state, what if giving them mana stone powder replenished a naturalness they'd been feeling the lack of all along?

As if refueling them.

It needed testing.

"Sleep well, our little pebble. Sleep well in the soil, our little pebble, deep beneath the earth too."

As the two of them launched into a lullaby, I spoke up.

Um — could you stop with the lullaby and just try giving her mana stone powder?

Mana stone dust was ground and scattered over the handkerchief-covered pebble.

"I'd like to ask a favor of you. I'll give you this powder — can you sprout this seed here for me?"

I pressed a seed up against the pebble.

After a moment, the pebble gave a shiver.

The mana stone powder was absorbed into the pebble, and the seed put out a sprout.

"Yes! It's working! It worked!"

Just as I thought. Naturalness matters.

Then, quite suddenly, a message window appeared.

Yu-hu. Discovered the Standard Spirit Contract.