The Witch Who Lives in the Forest (3)
"Heh. Looks like this child followed along without knowing a thing?"
"I was just about to explain. But who is that girl?"
"Lily is my daughter."
The baron's eyes went wide.
Roy could not make sense of the situation—what the exchange between the witch and the baron meant, or what their reactions implied. The uncertainty left him thoroughly frustrated.
"So don't hold back. Feel free to say everything right here."
"...Very well."
The baron kept glancing at the girl called Lily as he began his explanation to Roy.
"The witch here has a contract with our house. Under its terms, we grant her free use of this forest within Greenhilt territory, and in return we receive the thing you already know about."
"It isn't quite that absolute, though, is it? There are always exceptions."
At the witch's follow-up, the baron's face seemed to flush deeper red by degrees.
"True. We don't simply hand it over on demand. It is limited strictly to fine talents who will succeed our house."
"Heh... If you bring some worthless fellow as the heir, it puts me in a bind. If the territory collapses overnight, I might have to abandon the land I've settled and move elsewhere."
Listening this far, Roy was thoroughly astonished.
Just how old is this woman?
The witch's words just now sounded as if she had watched over the Greenhilt heirs across several generations—and intended to keep doing so.
To Roy, whose eyes had gone wide as a rabbit's, the witch said,
"You're quick on the uptake. But careful, little one. Carelessly bringing up a woman's age to her face can get you in serious trouble."
Roy thought to himself that this witch had lived longer than he had. Longer, even, than the nearly seventy years he had accumulated across his past life and this one. In those eyes that seemed to read people's hearts, he sensed an inscrutable depth of years—though her face, and her entire appearance, were those of a fresh woman in her twenties.
That witch. She might not even be human.
The baron spoke again.
"Exactly. If the child brought forward as heir proves to be nothing special, they will never obtain the Dragon's Breath. The means of making that standard clear is this."
From his luggage the baron drew something and handed it to the witch. Wrapped in fine cloth, it was none other than a dried ogre's heart. Every drop of blood and moisture had been driven out of it; the thing lay flattened and folded several times over like cheap leather.
Now it was the witch's turn to be surprised.
"I'd heard the rumors, but... in all my life I've never seen an ogre heart this large."
"Taking it down was quite a struggle."
Ilia gazed at the baron's face with a complex expression—half wonder, half nostalgia. The baron looked somewhat flustered. It was not her gaze itself that unsettled him so much as the fact that the girl Lily and his own son were watching from the side.
"...It was an ogre twice the size of the ones we used to hunt."
"You managed to bring something like that down? I take it the thing I gave you worked?"
"...Its effects were beyond description—but I was not the one who felled the ogre."
"I'd heard that rumor too. So it was this boy? And years ago already."
The baron nodded toward Ilia. Her gaze returned to Roy.
"Did you truly bring it down yourself?"
This time Roy answered without false modesty.
"Yes."
"You really do take after Clive—adorable. Though that woman's face is mixed in there too, which is unpleasant."
"......"
The baron made no reply. Hearing the witch casually call his mother Anna "that woman," Roy became certain there had been something suspicious between the witch and the baron.
Surely this man wasn't... involved with the witch like that?
"Still, it's a relief. Thanks to that woman bearing a fairly talented child, I got to see your face again before I forgot it entirely."
"I'm sorry about that. But my circumstances have changed since then. I now carry the enormous duty of leading this territory in Father's place. Freeing up time is not easy."
"Hmph. Excuses."
Roy simply listened in silence to the conversation between the witch and the baron, trying to parse the nuances buried within it. Recalling Anna's overreaction when they left the manor, it was clear the past relationship between the baron and the witch had been anything but ordinary. Adding the dialogue just now and their subtle glances, suspicion hardened into certainty. The two of them had been more than comrades, closer than friends. Perhaps they had even been lovers.
They didn't actually... sleep together, right?
Suspicion, once planted, had a way of growing tail after tail.
Wait a second. Then maybe...?
His eyes fell at once on one conspicuous figure. Looking at the girl called Lily, a strange thought began to form.
Surely that girl isn't the baron's child by another mother? No way... Wait, her age somehow fits the period when the wolves were active, doesn't it...?
The sudden prospect of gaining a half-sister made Roy glance toward the baron. The face that had been flushing for some time was now bright scarlet, and he even seemed to be watching his son's reaction. Their eyes met. After a moment, having confirmed the expression, Roy gave a slight shrug, heaved a long sigh, and shook his head from side to side.
Seeing that, the baron's face went pale.
That damnably sharp-eyed brat...
So much for the devoted husband. All lies.
In a single stroke the baron had been found out by his young son for a history of poorly controlled lower half. Roy decided to pretend he knew nothing. The witch and the baron might be fine, but the girl Lily could take it hard. Or rather—wouldn't Anna, back at the house, be the one more shocked?
Once the greetings and private talk had roughly run their course, Roy spent a long while answering the witch's question about how he had brought down the ogre. At last the conversation moved to the main point.
"Remarkable. If that story is true, then the one who felled the ogre was certainly you. Clive. What will you do? Is it truly all right to test this child?"
"Of course."
Test?
At the word "test," Roy had the sinking feeling that yet another troublesome ordeal was about to unfold.
They never just hand anything over easily, do they?
"What is the test?"
"From this point on, you will go into the forest and gather the things the witch instructs you to find. But there is no need to worry. You should be more than capable."
"Clive. You stay quiet. Explaining this has always been my role. Little one, from now on you will bring back the ingredients that go into brewing the liquor. I will tell you what they are. The finer the materials you bring, the finer the liquor that will be made."
Roy swallowed hard.
Liquor!
If it was liquor, it could only mean the Dragon's Breath. In other words, a test that required him to gather the ingredients himself. From Roy's perspective, there was nothing bad about it at all. He had been wondering how to obtain the recipe; this was effectively an offer to teach him everything from the raw materials onward. And the better the materials, the better the finished product—meaning that depending on how he performed the test, he might create something far more potent than what he had drunk before.
"I'll set out at once. Just give me the list."
"But Clive. Are you truly all right with this? This is the same test you took when you were nearly twenty."
"There is nothing to worry about. That boy... may already surpass what I was back then."
Ilia looked the boy over again, this time more slowly, with surprise on her face. That he had felled a giant ogre at such a young age was astonishing, of course—but that had been a special case relying on quick thinking, and only possible because the soaring wolves had been with him. The test she set, however, had to be solved alone. No monster as powerful as an ogre would appear, yet it was still nothing a small child could be expected to manage.
In a forest where monsters prowl, can that young child truly endure alone?
The one fretting over Roy was not the baron but the witch herself.
"Don't come crying to me. This is on you, Clive. If something happens to your son, I wash my hands of it. I don't care what becomes of Anna's child—but he is still yours as well."
"Of course."
With a serious face the baron addressed Roy.
"Roy, listen carefully. This test will not end in a single day. At longest it may take several. You will have to endure hunger, and you will have to spend nights alone in a forest where monsters appear. Thanks to the witch here, no truly powerful monsters will show themselves—but a single moment of carelessness can still cost you your life."
"I will be fine. My preparations are already complete."
Before leaving the manor the baron had told Roy to prepare for this journey as if he were entering a dungeon. Roy had done so properly. Even if he failed to forage in the wild, the pack on his back held enough snacks and supplies to last about a week.
"Here. Bring back the things written on this."
In the end the witch handed Roy a scroll listing the materials.
This may not be as easy as I thought.
Scanning the list, Roy felt a measure of surprise. It began with a unicorn's horn and continued through various body parts of spirit beasts and monsters, plus fantastical plants whose very names seemed to drip with mana. Collection methods were explained, and simple drawings were included. More than ten materials in total; his head spun a little.
Well, what it produces is no ordinary thing.
These were the ingredients for brewing the miracle liquor he had searched for so desperately in his previous life and never found. This much was only right if it was to live up to the name. If the Dragon's Breath could be completed with cheap materials, that would be the truly absurd outcome.
"Then I'll tell you the one thing you must take care with. Do whatever you like with the monsters, but you must not kill the spirit beasts. The quality of the materials will drop at once. The same goes for the phantom herbs. If greed wipes out a colony, you will never find the same thing again—and then of course no more liquor can be brewed."
"Understood. But does that mean all of these live nearby? Unicorns, fairy berries, and the rest?"
"Yes. Head into the deep forest to the east and you should find them. A rough map is drawn on that paper—use it. And one more firm warning: even if you discover a dungeon, do not enter it. I have sealed them with barrier magic, so the creatures inside cannot come out—but going in from outside is easy. If you want to get yourself killed, that's your affair."
"I'll keep it in mind."
Finally the witch handed Roy something else.
An amulet?
"Keep that close against your chest. Lose it and the mist will make it hard to return here."
Ah—so it's for passing the barrier.
The same amulet had helped the baron pierce the mist and find the witch's house. After a few further explanations, Roy left the witch's dwelling at once. If he was going to spend the night in the forest anyway, there was no point in lingering any longer.