The Great Forest (4)
Looking back on it now, being in the Great Forest was not such a good thing. The Elf King was a man who valued practical gains above all else. If Shariel was here, he would no doubt try to use her to keep relations between me and the elves alive.
After all, with no way of knowing how the Demon King's Four Heavenly Kings would move, and with Ella's Hero Party stationed in the Empire's Ashtar, getting close to me—the princess of Ashtar—was pure profit for the elves.
And yet Shariel still bothered me.
"Hmm. Shariel, is it."
She wasn't a bad woman. She wasn't a stupid one either. If you really looked at it, the fact that she'd gotten tangled up with that useless prince showed she had a tendency to get swept along, but compared to Ella she was honestly one of the better elves.
"If it's Shariel, that's Ella's little sister, right? Of all times to run into her—what a coincidence."
"I know. Hmm. I'm getting that weird feeling again."
A bad premonition, more like. It wasn't the woman herself. It just didn't feel like this kind of coincidence would end with everyone laughing and going their separate ways.
Judging by how quietly she'd been staying put, she didn't seem to hold any grudge over what happened back then. Even so, something involving Shariel felt like it was about to blow up.
"What?"
"She's definitely a different breed from Ella. But she still feels like the type who drags bad luck in after her."
I had a clear gut feeling that something was going to happen.
"Come on, don't say things like that. It really does sound ominous."
No, the feeling really was off. The kind of feeling that something was about to go wrong.
Everything else was fine. I just didn't want another mess like the one with Pector.
Looking back, that hadn't exactly been a good time either. The Elf King seemed to want me and Shariel to get close as representatives of the Empire and the elves.
"Do we really have to get mixed up over something like that?"
"No. We don't. It's just the feeling I get."
"But still, this is the Great Forest."
"That's why I'm trying to relax a little. It's not like there are Dark Elves around."
The bad feeling lingered, but I figured there wouldn't be any Dark Elves.
"Dark Elves?"
"Those who betrayed the elves' creed, who betrayed their own kin, who betrayed the World Tree. People like that can become Dark Elves."
It was a strange phenomenon.
"Can you tell if someone's become a Dark Elf?"
"Their skin turns brown. Hmm. Think of them as the Mains version of elves."
They could still handle mana, but they started channeling demonic energy instead and lost the ability to command spirits.
There were ancient records of them using demon spirits that supposedly existed in the Demon Realm, but those were ancient records. No one knew what they were actually like.
Celia was smart enough to understand from that much.
"Ah. That makes sense."
"Well, I don't sense anything different right now, and I didn't see any signs of Dark Elves the last time I came either. So there probably aren't any."
"Hold on—'probably'? That just makes me more nervous."
The feeling was ugly. The kind of feeling that something else was about to happen. I could feel it clearly. That was why I'd said "probably."
"Nothing we can do about it. For now we just have to play along."
I did feel a little bad about it, after all.
"By the way, what's a Great Forest priestess?"
"A Great Forest priestess? Exactly what it sounds like. It's just the office of serving and upholding the World Tree."
If you had to put a finer point on it, they were beings who had to protect the World Tree.
Beings who could converse with the World Tree. They meant a lot of things.
I'd heard somewhere that Shariel was going to become a Great Forest priestess. If that happened, Erin would fall behind her own younger sister if she failed to marry the Hero.
The priestess seat itself was only open to elves with outstanding potential.
Even if I'd beaten her black and blue, that was only because the matchup had been bad for her. I still thought Shariel was plenty strong.
That was probably why the Elf King had decided it that way.
It wasn't that he had no thoughts of his own. At the very least, she was stronger than Erin. That was my take.
"Aww, boring. Still, an elven banquet—I'm honestly looking forward to it. Like you said, Olivia, as long as nothing weird happens, it'll be nice."
"Tell me about it. The elves sell a liquor called Elf's Dew that's supposed to be incredible. It might even show up at the banquet."
Shariel was a priestess candidate, and I was the Empire's Taesa. There was no way that damn pointy-eared king would just let the occasion pass.
I didn't know the details, but the banquet would definitely be loaded with elven dishes, and among them there would almost certainly be Elf's Dew.
"Have you tried it?"
"Yeah. They call it Elf's Dew, but it's really just dew collected from the World Tree."
Just imagining it made my mouth water.
"So dew forms on the World Tree."
"If you break it down, rainwater just turns into dew on the World Tree. It's incredibly sweet, and it doesn't taste like anything else in the world—literally its own independent flavor of dew."
It was a taste that words couldn't really capture.
Extremely sweet. If you forced a comparison it was a bit like sugar water, and yet it wasn't. There was a sharp bite to it, and then a mellow sweetness that spread through your mouth.
It clearly had alcohol in it, yet it never got you drunk, so you just wanted to keep drinking—that kind of addictive taste.
I remembered that ages ago, a bottle of Elf's Dew that hit the black market had gone for a ridiculous sum in imperial gold coins.
Except it had been sugar water. The scammers who'd put it up got thoroughly beaten by the nobles who'd joined the auction.
"How strange."
"It's a liquor that barely gets you drunk, yet the elves claim it does get them drunk."
I'd seen it once before.
"Ohh. Really? Those elves getting drunk on liquor. I'd love to see that."
"There's not much to see. They're just like humans. Watching those prideful bastards do it is pretty funny, though."
That Fairy King bastard had been a little funny himself.
"You piece of trash! How dare the likes of you pick a fight with the Fairy King!"
"I can pick a fight if I want. Beat me if it bothers you so much."
"Fine! Today we settle this for real, with the World Tree as our stake!"
"You made excuses that you couldn't go all out because of the World Tree, and now you want to go all out? Fine by me."
We'd almost fought then. Erin had stopped us.
I'd been ready to go all the way. Doing that would have sent the elders into a frothing rage, so she'd absolutely forbidden it.
From that day on, the elves had treated Noah like a complete maniac.
And yet now that I was Olivia, the elven elders seemed to pay me quite a bit of careful attention—probably because of the Taesa title.
"But if that's the reason, isn't Elf's Dew incredibly expensive?"
"You can't even put a price on it in the first place. It shows up on the Empire's black market once in a while, and every time you open the bottle it's just sugar water."
"Mmm. I still want to try it once."
"You're secretly a glutton, aren't you."
We'd probably get the chance to taste it.
"It's rare to find a girl who doesn't like sweet things, you know."
"True enough."
The first Olivia had liked that sort of thing too.
Eating something sweet snapped the mind wide awake. That hadn't changed at all since the Noah days. So of course I'd guzzled Elf's Dew by the gallon.
The Elf King, already drunk himself, had suggested a contest to see who would pass out first. Thanks to that I'd been able to drink as much Elf's Dew as I wanted.
The idiot had completely forgotten that humans didn't get drunk and said something that stupid after he was already wasted.
Knock knock.
That was when it happened. A knock came from outside the door.
Hmm. Who could it be. By now it was obvious they'd come to say the banquet was ready and fetch us.
I cracked the door open. An elf I'd seen before stood there wearing an unnatural expression.
Hmm. Shariel.
Had she really come to escort us in person?
"Taesa. The banquet is ready. His Majesty has asked that you come."
They'd prepared surprisingly quickly.
"Shariel. It's been a while."
"Yes. It has been a while. Ha. Haha. His Majesty has summoned you, so please follow me."
But this woman was pouring cold sweat. I couldn't put my finger on it, but she seemed downright terrified of me.
"Are you all right? You look like you're suddenly in pain."
"Ah. No. Absolutely not. I'm just a little tired!"
Anyone could see she was scared stiff.
Hmm. So she did remember. Remembered me beating her senseless.
Judging by this reaction, it was certain. Did she also remember me catching Pector back then?
No. Even if she knew, she probably wouldn't say anything. Looking at how hard she was trembling, she seemed armored head to toe in sheer terror of me. Even if she told the Elf King, he'd just tell her to keep it to herself.
That pointy-eared bastard wasn't going to make an enemy of me.
So the right move now was to apologize. Judging by her reaction, I wasn't imagining things either.
"It doesn't really matter either way, but I don't hold anything against you."
"Pardon?"
"It's because of the beating back then, right? That was my fault. I apologize."
I bowed my head.
That should be enough. Shariel's face was doing something complicated—I seriously wondered what she was thinking.
For now, getting to the banquet came first.
That pointy-eared bastard hated lateness like the plague. Even if I wanted to arrive late, as long as I held the seat of the Empire's Taesa, I couldn't afford to.
The banquet was held before the World Tree.
The World Tree. What kind of existence was that? To the elves it was their pride and something close to a god.
Insult the World Tree and the elves would foam at the mouth and charge you.
Even so, that World Tree was so immense it fully deserved the reverence of those lofty elves.
Seen from the sky, the trees of the Great Forest in the middle of it would look like a bird's tiny drop of blood next to its sheer size.
What it looked like, how long it had stood—I didn't know. But a tree that had lived for at least several thousand years still overflowed with life, every single leaf holding light inside it.
And beneath its roots a river spread out; you had to cross a bridge to reach the World Tree itself.
We were called to the banquet held before it.
"They really went and threw a banquet in a place like this."
"How does it feel seeing the World Tree up close?"
The World Tree was enormous, yes. Just the size of it was enough to feel overwhelming.
"That one tree alone could outclass the Imperial Palace, couldn't it?"
"Probably."
The Imperial Palace was grand, but not on that scale. And the palace was a place people lived in, after all.
No. Come to think of it, was the palace bigger? The underground parts of it, to be precise.
It was structured like the tip of an iceberg. If you considered the size of the palace archives, it might actually be enormous.
How would that compare to this?
I hadn't seen it properly, but the archives had looked so vast the ceiling seemed impossibly far away.
The World Tree, whose end you could at least see, was probably a little smaller.
"The World Tree is amazing, isn't it?"
"It really is. Truly amazing."
At some point Shariel and Celia seemed to have opened the door to conversation with each other.
And before long we were heading toward the center of a gathering of high elves, with the elders of the elven kingdom at their core.
Hmm. Sure enough, the Elf King was there.
"Oh. So you've come."
"Yes. We've come."
"Shall we try a wager again this time?"
Well. Should we? It didn't seem necessary. He already knew humans didn't get drunk.
"You already know perfectly well that humans don't get drunk, don't you?"
"Still, I want to try. You're not just a regular human right now, are you."
The Elf King said it with a wink.
Hey. This bastard. Had he already seen right through me?