The Installing Young Tree (5)
Having heard the whole story, Thermia let out an exaggeratedly theatrical sigh.
"To think you lived as a human all this time, even though you're an elf."
What a truly tragic tale.
"I'll help you adjust to life as an elf. Unlike humans, we never abandon our own kind."
"Oh, thank you so much."
There was still one great hurdle left before a true elven life could begin.
It wasn't appearance.
There was nothing to be done about that. And honestly, the idea that every elf is a peerless beauty is just a prejudice. Some elves simply aren't, and that's that.
What mattered wasn't looks but life itself.
Life itself, truly.
"From now on, you'll need to eat only fruit."
"I... beg your pardon?"
The former saint went blank.
Thermia declared with pride.
"At the last village meeting, a motion to reduce jerky consumption was passed. And since you never kept a jerky stockpile, there's none in storage for you to eat. Which means you'll have to make do with vegetables or fruit — but our fields are gone now, so there's hardly a vegetable to be found."
"I... beg your pardon?"
"So from now on, you'll simply eat fruit."
Her voice was resolute.
Unable to offer a single rebuttal, the former saint turned pale.
Thermia smiled as if to say, don't worry.
"I know exactly how you feel right now. Having to give up delicious meat — you must think it's unthinkable, don't you? But an elf who doesn't want a short life must eat a natural diet. There's no way around it."
She patted the former saint's shoulder.
"Every immigrant elf goes through this, so let's adjust together! Being healthy is a good thing! It's finally time to end the short-lived elven existence!"
The former saint seemed suddenly to have a great deal to say.
But I'm a human — why do I have to...? Eat only fruit from now on? Has she lost her mind?
And so on.
He was clearly having thoughts an elf ought not to be having.
From behind, Elder Eldrin, who had been observing with his arms crossed, fixed him with a narrowed glare.
The former saint flinched and hastily cried out.
"You're absolutely right! All this time, I grieved — why must I, born an elf, die sooner than a human? But now this suffering is being resolved! Joy overflows within me until tears come to my eyes!"
His eyes really were glistening.
I suppose a bright future can move a man to tears.
"Why, tears, even."
Thermia perked up with delight.
"Follow me! Eating only fruit must feel like a daunting task, but it's not at all. Let me share my secret for how I've stopped grilling meat so much lately."
The girl hummed a tune as she led the way.
The village's food culture was in the midst of a great transformation.
After heated debate at the village meeting, a consensus had finally formed: the diet must shift toward fruit.
Going beyond even a natural diet and switching to fruit alone was no small undertaking. It amounted to abandoning even the jerky they had relied on and committing to pure vegetarianism.
But the necessity only grew with time.
The incident where the Sacred Young Tree forcibly repurposed the farm fields had been decisive, certainly — but that wasn't the whole of it.
The aftereffects of a near-city-sized population hunting on a massive scale were slowly making themselves felt. The animals in the surrounding forest had thinned out dramatically. Hunting trips nearby more often than not came back empty-handed.
How bad was it? Bad enough that elves who spotted a rabbit placidly munching grass, shot an arrow at it in thoughtless joy, got soundly defeated, and took to their beds were becoming legion. They didn't even have the presence of mind to notice the rabbit was suspicious.
Jerky consumption was simply no longer sustainable.
Those who wanted to eat could eat, but this was the time for the village as a whole to work on changing its food culture.
It was a matter everyone could agree on.
Besides, with the Forest of Serenity declared a Holy Land, things had taken a strange turn.
When walking through the forest, there were many overgrown paths choked with brush. The forest didn't exist for people's convenience, after all. Normally you'd have to hack a way through with a knife or painfully push the branches aside by hand.
But once the forest became a Holy Land, everything changed.
When an elf approached, the brush would twist its leaves with apparent intent. No knife, no hands needed. The undergrowth opened a path of its own, helping the elf pass through.
In the Forest of Serenity, one could communicate with the flora and fauna.
Full telepathic conversation was still beyond everyone but Thermia, but simple communication was something anyone could experience just by strolling through the woods.
These days the village watch would simply call down a bird in flight and ask whether any suspicious humans were prowling about. Telepathy was tricky, but animals could manage communication through gestures.
And this produced a profoundly uncomfortable realization.
Could you really eat something you could talk to?
Of course you could. Livestock had always been exactly that. Conversation aside, people could overlook that much for the sake of a good meal.
But livestock with a clear owner and free-roaming wildlife were very different matters.
The squirrel you'd just shot dead might, in fact, be the very squirrel some elf had asked to deliver a surprise engagement ring to their beloved.
Imagine catching it and finding an ownerless ring tucked in its paws — you'd break out in a cold sweat on the spot.
And if Thermia stepped in to solve the mystery of the missing ring by going tree to tree, asking each one in turn, the culprit would be identified in no time at all.
After a few of these civil disputes made it all the way to the village meeting, hunting activity plummeted.
With jerky production shrinking and the farm fields gone, the village's food culture was shifting toward fruit.
Not that it mattered — the miraculous fruit of the Holy Land was brimming with every nutrient one could need.
"And this is the fruit skewer that took third place at the Fruit Cooking Contest!"
Thermia held up the fruit skewer with pride.
It was a lavish skewer loaded with fruits from the Four Seasons Orchard, wild berries skewered in among them.
It's just a fruit skewer, yes.
"This took third place...?"
The former saint sank into gloom.
"I beg your pardon? What did you say?"
Thermia, who had been happily nibbling away at it one piece at a time, turned around mid-chew.
"Nothing! I think it's a magnificent dish!"
"Right? Right?"
Thermia finished the last of one skewer and set it down, then moved to the next station, where she pointed proudly at a jar.
"This is the second-place dish!"
She peeled back the cloth covering the jar, revealing a liquid inside.
"Fruit wine!"
"Fruit wine!"
The former saint's face lit up.
His expression said it all: what is life but drowning your sorrows in drink?
"I haven't tried it myself, since the Young Tree told me it's not for me yet. But everyone who has can't stop singing its praises."
Thermia peered down at the jar dubiously.
"Though I'm not sure it even counts as a dish. The more I think about it, isn't this against the rules? I suspect Teacher lobbied behind the scenes, saying it'd be a promising commercial product if developed further."
"No! It is a dish! Second place is more than it deserves!"
"Oh, is that so?"
Thermia didn't seem particularly convinced.
"Just what does it taste like to earn that kind of devotion? Well, anyway — that was second place. And now, the grand first place! You were worried about eating only fruit, weren't you? Well, I have the ultimate dish to dispel that worry! Eat this and this alone, and you'll never have a concern in the world!"
"It's that good?"
"Of course, of course!"
The former saint brimmed with anticipation. If second place was fruit wine, what on earth could first be?
"Dun-dun-du-dun, dun-dun-du-dun."
Thermia lifted the cloth from the first-place station.
"And the first-place dish is!"
There sat a pile of raw fruit, utterly unadorned.
"Raw fruit! The finest dish the Young Tree has ever bestowed!"
The former saint's mouth hung open.
With trembling eyes, he stared hard at the raw fruit.
"I can live without a single worry, as long as I eat... this...?"
"Yes!"
The answer was absolute.
The former saint's eyes grew moist.
"Might I... take the fruit wine with me?"
"By all means."
"Thank you..."
The village watch held their training.
sprinting through the surrounding forest to build endurance. Volley-fire drills that turned wooden boards into pincushions. Sparring matches to sharpen their close-combat skills.
All of it carried out with steady routine.
The members of the former slave-rescue squad had joined my religious organization, but since they trained alongside the village watch, the affiliations of the trainees had gotten a bit muddled — apart from that, everything was remarkably well organized.
If the village chief hadn't been a mercenary of legendary reputation, even running the watch would have been a struggle.
Elf immigrants who'd heard word of the village kept trickling in. Squabbles and disturbances grew more frequent, and the watch kept expanding to manage it all. Without the chief, the village would have descended into chaos.
―So it's bows for long range, spirits for mid-range, and swords for close quarters?
"That's right. The Water Arrows are powerful, but their range falls short. They can't fully replace bows. Still, many of our watch members always lamented their poor swordsmanship — thanks to the spirits, we expect close-combat casualties to drop dramatically."
―Ooh, that does make sense.
"And there's also a rather unusual tactic that should be difficult for enemies to counter."
Village chief Eldrin answered my curiosity as he watched over the trainees.
Each of them had brought along a water spirit they were friendly with.
"You are hereby enlisted in the village watch. Bear in mind that from this day forward, you are to serve the village."
A crouching watch member tied a cord bearing a name tag around his household's water spirit. The spirit puffed itself up with pride.
Wow, how impressive. You're a watch member now.
Sensing all the gazes upon it, the water spirit swelled even larger. It truly did look proud.
Then the cord snapped, and the name tag fell to the ground. The watch member froze for a moment, smacked the water spirit flat, and tied the tag back on.
The deflated spirit sulked and sat perfectly still.
Aw, poor thing.
The newly enlisted water spirits were stacked neatly, one by one, in a wicker basket.
The spirit basket was to be carried off to a clearing in the brush. I had decided to personally give the spirits a civic education.
I intended to do this for all the spirits eventually, but the ones who'd joined the watch were the most urgent, so they came first.
Still, these ones were astonishingly orderly and well-behaved. Perhaps because only the elite spirits who communicated well with elves had been selected, they were a cut above your average water spirit.
In that case, should Bang-ul-i join the lessons today too?
I'd left her out today, fearing the session would turn into a kindergarten free-for-all. But she could probably come along.
Now, where might she be?
I checked Thermia's office first — a space established as the religious organization had grown.
Neither the Water Drop Girl nor Thermia was there.
On the desk lay a sheet of paper bearing nothing but a jaunty doodle: Done for today!
Thermia had been busy poring over where in the territory to install each shrine, so it seemed the first round of site selection was finally finished.
The second round would require sending people out to inspect the buildings and grounds in person, so Thermia had nothing pressing to do at the moment.
Once I found her, I could bring Bang-ul-i along too.
It wasn't hard to find her.
They were together in the woods at the village's edge.
"The Tree Lord's busy right now and can't see us, right?"
Thermia glanced around at the sky.
The Water Drop Girl nodded.
"Perfect! Then today, we're going to try this!"
Out of her pouch came a wooden bottle, its contents sloshing.
"Fruit wine!"
The girl's cheeks flushed pink with excitement.
The Water Drop Girl clapped her hands and giggled.
Um, excuse me? You two?
"It must be that delicious! If it beat the fruit skewers, just how good can it possibly be?"
The girl poured fruit wine into a wooden cup.
"And I'll pour a little for you here."
She let a single drop of wine fall onto a blade of grass. The droplet swayed there like a bead of dew.
The Water Drop Girl settled herself onto the blade of grass, taking her seat.
Sneaking a drink looks like tremendous fun for you two.
If you're that curious, why don't you try some yourself?
"One, two!"
The girl downed her cup in one gulp.
She tried to swallow it — then froze, and shuddered violently.
"Bleeeugh."
Wine dribbled out of her mouth.
She doubled over, spitting and sputtering.
"It tastes awful..."
Well, yes, dear. That's because it's alcohol.