In the Land of the Elves
"Where should I put this? Wait, no—is it all right if I move it?"
"You needn't fuss over how you speak. If casual speech is more comfortable, please go ahead and use it."
"O-oh? Sorry. I'm not used to this kind of thing."
"That should go over there, but with that one hand of yours currently..."
"Whew. Over there, right?"
Olivia hoisted the logs in one hand as if they weighed nothing at all and strolled along at an easy pace.
The people of Half Village did not appear to know that Olivia was the Hero. Their impression of her was simply that of a strong woman with a habit of sticking her nose into other people's business. They weren't about to go poking into the affairs of the person who had saved them, and so the villagers were, on the whole, well-disposed toward her.
Revealing that she was the Hero would not necessarily make enemies of them—but depending on the circumstances, it could drag them into something dangerous. A fair amount of time had passed since the incident at East Port. The Royal Capital might well have grasped the situation by now and dispatched people toward the Eastern Continent.
The one mercy was that Half Village was neither widely known nor particularly accessible. It seemed unlikely anyone would come all the way out here to ask questions. They would far more likely stop at one of the larger towns on the Eastern Continent and gather information there—or, failing that, make use of a port town.
Either way, their destination of Elvenheim had almost certainly already been discovered, which meant someone might already have set some scheme in motion on that end.
Rayna, especially.
Rayna Forest.
Rayna is Titania's own child. Given how much weight her word carries, the worst case isn't that we fail to reach the World Tree—it's that we never set foot in Elvenheim at all.
A barrier lay over the forest. If Titania refused to receive them, they would not be able to enter in the first place. They could smash the barrier by force, of course—but if it came to that, there would be no brushing it off with a laugh, and no peaceful conversation waiting on the other side.
Olivia had time enough left to live now, but pursuers and other such interference remained a genuine threat. If Rayna had openly stirred the elves against them, deceived even Titania, and turned the whole nation hostile, things could become thoroughly unpleasant.
And yet.
In a game of cards, there was always a card that could turn the tide. A single card that could overturn everything by itself—a joker, so to speak.
And in this Half Village, there was someone who was as good as a joker. To be precise, someone who might well be the joker.
"Sylphy."
"Yes!"
"Why so tense? Did I say I was going to eat you?"
"No! That's not it... Ahem. Thank you, truly, for saving our village. Half Village isn't well-off, but we've prepared at least a token of our gratitude!"
"Put the money away for now. Taking anything from a village that's already struggling to get by doesn't sit right with me. I was thinking I might accept something else instead."
"Something else, you say?"
He was pretending not to know, and it showed. He wasn't any good at lying. There were people like that, from time to time—people who grew so nervous at the mere fact of hiding something that a tremor ran through their pupils. Sylphy was exactly that type, a man unsuited to politics or to any seat that required a poker face.
"Information."
"Information...? Haha, what information could a half-elf who grew up in Half Village possibly have? I'm no different from a civilian who's simply lived a long time! Haha, hahahaha... haha."
Even through that strained laughter, I said nothing and simply looked at him. Sylphy trembled under my gaze, then let out a small sigh. He seemed to have given up on hiding it at last—though I suspected the point at which he could have hidden it had already come and gone.
"You really do know a great deal about elves."
"I don't pick and choose when it comes to books. There happened to be some about elves among them, that's all."
Sylphy had no answer for that.
"You drew a bow during the attack, didn't you? A bow formed of mana. Quite a rare thing."
Even in the present age—one that might fairly be called a world of high magic, where every manner of spell was being developed—there remained things that demanded a particular bloodline, or a particular gift. Giving mana a form of its own was one of them.
You could turn mana into flame. You could enhance the body with it. You could even produce matter from it. All of that was possible. What had been impossible was the shaping of mana itself.
"Making a bow out of mana isn't impossible, no. If you have a basic knowledge of shaping magic and the technique to match, you can construct a bow from mana."
"Yes, that's right."
"But that's making a bow from mana. It isn't mana becoming a bow. The ability for mana itself to take the shape of a bow exists only among the elves—and not just any elf. Only the chosen ones can use it."
Mana was a truly mysterious thing. You could create a sword out of mana, but you could not make mana itself into a sword. The same had been true of bows. And yet there were beings for whom it was possible.
"Those chosen elves..."
"Hah."
Sylphy sighed more heavily than before.
"High Elves. In other words, unless the blood of the High Elves—a lineage rare even among elves—runs through your body, you cannot form a bow and arrows from mana alone. Yes. It's exactly as you said."
It was a privilege unique to High Elves, and the same power manifested in the descendants who inherited that blood. Which meant that Sylphy, standing right beside me, was an elf of high enough station that if he raised his head and spoke out of turn, it would not have been strange for him to be held legally accountable. And yet, because he was not a pureblood elf but a half-elf, he lived here in Half Village.
"A half-blood of an already vanishingly rare High Elf line. Rarer still, then."
I wasn't joking. You could count them on your fingers. Moreover, in Sylphy's case, he was almost certainly a first-generation half-blood born of a High Elf and a human, which meant the blood ran quite thick. A half High Elf of that concentration might well exist in the person of Sylphy alone.
"Well, people say I have rather noble blood, but I've never been treated as anything noble, so I wouldn't really know. This is a genuine secret, but... you and Olivia are the ones who saved this village. Keeping it from you wouldn't feel right."
I waited.
"You put your lives on the line for us. ...I should say this in advance: I don't have a family name. My mother hated half-bloods, you see."
"...A High Elf who hates half-bloods. ...Wait a moment. Then your mother is—"
"The current Titania's daughter. I'm Titania's grandson."
I closed my mouth.
No history book had ever recorded such a thing. Had the current Titania been a human's slave?
"Hmm. Titania married twice, and was said to have lost her first husband during the war. That husband had had a child—and that child would be your mother."
"That's correct."
"This is the first I've heard of it."
I had known that Titania's former husband had left a child, but the records mentioned only that she had fallen ill and died young. There had been no details. And now that child of Titania's had had a child of her own—and that child was Sylphy.
In other words, it was not Titania who had been a human's slave. It was Titania's daughter. Whether she had died weakened by wounds taken at the time, or whether she had been unable to endure the trauma and taken her own life, I could not say. But it had almost certainly not been a proper death.
"Her own daughter was raped by humans, left broken, and died young even by elven standards."
Sylphy fidgeted with his fingers as he spoke.
"I can understand why she wouldn't look kindly on me—the child that came of that."
"I hold a different view, but if the person concerned is the one saying so, I have nothing to add."
Sylphy awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.
"Still, whether out of the barest sense of decency or not, she taught me a little archery and then banished me. I like to think she at least didn't want me dying to low-grade monsters."
I said nothing.
"So I don't think she hates me outright. She just... doesn't know what to do when she sees me, because I remind her of her dead daughter. I don't like admitting it, but I have a feminine face, don't I? I'm sure that only makes the resemblance worse."
"And yet she discriminates against other half-elves as well, not only you."
"I think that's worthy of criticism. I can let it pass because I understand Grandmother's pain, but I have no right to stop other half-elves if they hate her or resent her for it."
I see.
I smiled.
"You've got a large heart."
"Suddenly?"
"I can't say I'm convinced."
"Wah! O-Olivia! How long have you been there?"
"The whole time?"
Apparently she had finished her work quickly, come back, and been listening to the entire conversation.
"So what do you intend to do?"
"About what?"
"Titania may not be entirely without feeling toward Sylphy, but he was banished under the same one-sided hatred as any other half-elf."
"Yes, that's right. If I go with you, Grandmother might show a little flexibility... or she might shut her heart even tighter, precisely because I'm a half-elf."
"Hmm."
Taking Sylphy along would be a gamble. If they were lucky, and some lingering tangle of love and resentment toward him still remained in Titania, he might become the key that solved everything with ease. He might equally become the lock that sealed the door shut.
"To be frank, I think the risk of bringing him outweighs the benefit."
"I see."
It wasn't so much my personal feeling as an objective assessment. In terms of probability, Titania was more likely to be thrown into still greater turmoil by Sylphy's presence than she was to make a flexible decision because of him.
"What about you, Sylphy? Do you want to see Titania?"
"Grandmother is... well, she's a soft-hearted person. I don't think she ever wanted to be Titania in the first place. She always looks so indifferent, but it feels like she's screaming on the inside, and I want to help her—but when I'm beside her, it only seems to make her scream louder."
"That's not what I asked."
Olivia tilted her head, looking at him.
"Pardon?"
"I asked if you wanted to see her."
"...If it's a matter of wanting to talk, then yes. Separate from any pity I feel for Grandmother, there's a conversation I have to have. But I never had the courage, so I've just been letting the time pass like this."
"Then let's go."
"Pardon? Wait—hold on!"
"If you're stuck on whether to do it or not, then do it! Life goes on either way, and no matter what you pick when the moment comes, people regret it. They say there's no such thing as a choice without regret. So at the very least, let's do it—and regret it after."
She was so tough I couldn't even find a response.
Sylphy gave an awkward laugh.
"You really are the Hero. Incredibly tough."
"I'm far too green to have that name on anyone's lips... Wait. Huh!? You knew!?"
"Ah... I'm sorry. I already had a feeling when I heard the name Olivia. I just thought it might be better not to let on that I knew."
"Ugh."
So he had noticed after all. At first I had wondered if he was as oblivious as Olivia about that sort of thing, but the more we talked, the less he seemed like that type at all. He had a sharp eye—or rather, he was good at reading a room, and so good at it that other people rarely noticed he was doing it. I had thought he would be well suited to reconnaissance or eavesdropping. Once I'd thought that far, I'd figured he would have seen through Olivia's identity with room to spare.
"A-anyway! Lois!"
"Yes."
"I want to apologize to Titania. Honestly, I don't particularly want to, but we're the ones asking a favor, so."
"That's fair enough."
"If it looks like I'm about to cross a line, will you stop me?"
So she wasn't confident in herself either, then.
Well.
I would be there beside her, at any rate.