The Witch's Trial (1)
Though he had pushed deep into the forest, Roy encountered far fewer monsters than he had expected.
The first to greet him was that most ordinary of ordinary monsters: a forest goblin.
Roy drew his sword and swung without even bothering to use mana. It was the first time he had ever cut down a living creature with a blade, yet the boy felt not the slightest hesitation.
The sword had been a birthday gift from the baron on his seventh birthday. Dodging the stone the goblin flung at him with ease, he closed the distance in an instant and ended its life with a single strike.
What concerned the boy was not How should I fight this?
It was How do I finish this without getting blood on my clothes?
Blood called monsters and wild beasts. He might well have to sleep in this forest, and a strong scent would carry farther, drawing creatures from even greater distances. Besides, Roy had no desire to spend the entire day breathing that foul stench.
"Too easy."
He flicked the blade through the air. The blood clinging to the edge vanished cleanly. It could not match Triumph, the baron's heirloom blade, but the magic imbued in this one was superior.
Still, there's no telling what I'll run into from here on. Better to conserve my mana.
Roy moved with care. Using his Gold Eyes burned through mana at an extreme rate; he could never keep them active all day. A mistake in how he rationed his power could leave him helpless at a critical moment, so caution was essential.
One thing, however, left him deeply satisfied: the fact that he had trained in swordsmanship. Being able to deal with monsters lightly while still conserving mana felt like a reward for the past four years of effort.
"About here, I think?"
Before he knew it, Roy had reached the heart of the Great Forest. The trees around him were of an entirely different thickness from those farther out. They had almost certainly grown thick with mana.
He activated his Gold Eyes at once.
There!
Like finding pearls on the floor of a deep sea, Roy sensed dense concentrations of mana all around him. Wherever he approached, the plants drawn on the scroll had formed colonies, as if it were only natural.
So this is the Supulle flower? She said to take only the petals, right?
This has to be Fairy Fruit. It's hanging in clusters—wouldn't it be all right if I took a little extra?
Oh! This one's root really does look like a woman's backside.
In moments, Roy had found a variety of phantasm herbs and successfully gathered what he needed. It was almost effortless. Even so, he handled everything with more care than ever, gently wrapping the plants in fine cloth and nestling them carefully into his pack.
That's right, that's right. All of this is going to become the liquor I drink and the mana I use.
His body felt unusually light that day. Humming under his breath, Roy wove between the trees.
"Hmm… night already?"
The day had been overcast to begin with, and deep in the forest the darkness fell like a black curtain. I got so absorbed in gathering that I forgot about this.
Even with Lighting magic, moving through the woods at night was something to avoid. There were limits to how well one could fight while maintaining a spell, and a mere Lighting charm could never reveal every monster's movements in a pitch-black forest. That was the sort of thing one did only in an emergency—after being ambushed, for instance. Rest mattered, too: recovering stamina and mana, and of course filling his stomach.
This spot will do.
Before the light failed completely, Roy hurried to gather dry branches. It was winter. Nothing was more important for a proper rest than a campfire.
Crack. Pop.
He got the fire going without trouble—Flame magic made it simple enough. He would have liked to hunt some wild game and throw a proper meat feast, but it was already too late for that. Fortunately, his pack was stuffed with food. After years of the lavish meals at the manor, this fare would not taste like much, yet what Roy most wanted right now was not some grand banquet.
"Ah. A night that makes you crave a drink. Uhehehe."
The first day of the witch's trial slipped away in a blink.
Ilia Eastwood was not human.
She was of the elf race—the so-called fairies of the forest—and nearly the last pureblood survivor. At least, so far as she knew. She had already lived two hundred and thirty years. Elves enjoyed far longer lives than humans, yet she had already spent nearly half of hers. In all that time she had never met another of her kind, and so Ilia had believed herself the only elf left in the world.
Until about fifteen years ago.
She now had a daughter who had only just turned fifteen—not a pureblood elf, but a child born of mixed blood with a human. And the man who had contributed that human blood stood before her now.
Cliv Greenhilt. Head of the lordly house that claimed this land as its own.
"I'm sorry."
"That's cold."
"I am not the man I was then. I have two wives now, and five children beneath them."
"……"
"And I am lord of this land. The boy who once moved on fleeting, selfish feelings is nothing but a distant memory."
"You come back after fifteen years and you're this heartless?"
Ilia hesitated over whether to tell the man before her about their daughter. But he had already seen Lily; perhaps he had already guessed. Even so, speaking the truth aloud somehow frightened her. Though she had lived six times longer than the baron, in this moment she was nothing more than a woman standing before a man.
Seeing the uncertainty on her face, the baron spoke first.
"That girl, Lily. Is she an elf like you?"
He had already suspected as much from the way the child kept her hair and ears covered.
"Yes. My only disciple."
"A half-blood?"
"……"
"My child, then."
"…What, do you regret it?"
"No. I do not regret calling you into my party, nor any of what passed between us. Those things made me who I am now, and this territory what it is."
"……"
The faint smile on Ilia's face slowly grew wet at the corners of her eyes.
"Why didn't you introduce her earlier?"
"I was afraid… that you would hate it."
"Why would I hate having a lovely daughter?"
"Hearing you say that… even if it's only words, thank you."
"Was it hard, raising her alone?"
"No. She's a clever child. And elves are tough enough to survive even if left alone in the forest."
There was a contradiction in her words. If they were truly that strong, she could not have been the only elf left in the world.
"I'm glad to hear it."
As if the years had fallen away, the baron stroked Ilia's hair. She closed her eyes and quietly accepted the touch. The tears gathered in her eyes slipped silently down her cheeks.
"Her name is Lily, you said? A charming name. I would like to meet the child again soon."
Riding the black wolf, Lily cut through the forest like the wind and caught up to the boy called Roy in no time. The speed was not her own, but the black wolf's.
From a distance so great she could barely make him out, she borrowed the power of her contracted spirit and blended into the forest. The black wolf was a spirit of shadow; this sort of thing was its specialty. Even if the boy somehow knew he was being watched from here, he would never find them—not unless he used some truly exceptional magic.
Lily carried out the witch's orders. She tailed the boy in silence. Her purpose was not to prevent danger before it struck, but to rescue him after something had already gone wrong. So even when she saw monsters turn toward him, she stayed quiet.
He handles them better than I expected.
The boy's movements were a surprise. It seemed he at least had the qualifications to pass through the mist. And so Lily's rather dull assignment began.
Huh? What's he doing now?
From time to time the boy stopped dead in the middle of the forest and simply stood there. The distance was too great for her to read his expression or anything finer.
"Shady. What do you think that guy's doing?"
The black wolf only tilted its head without answering. Even a spirit could not tell what the boy was up to from this far away.
"Hmm… this is a lot more boring than I thought…"
Lily yawned again and again. Shady's thick, fluffy fur was warm enough to make her forget it was winter, and sleepiness kept tugging at her.
"Hwaaah. Shady, go after him."
The boy who had been standing in a daze set off again. Then he stopped once more, bent toward the ground, and looked for all the world as if he had started gathering something. Move, gather, move, gather again. After he had repeated the cycle several times, Lily finally checked the spots he had left behind—and was thoroughly shocked.
"Whoa, here too? Did some herb-hunting ghost possess him? How does he find them this well? I spent days searching for these."
Lily herself had not received the witch's liquor for free. She had only been allowed to drink it after passing every trial. Seeing a boy who looked far younger than her perform so much better was a little startling—and a little jealousy-inducing.
And that was not the end of her surprises.
"No way…"
As naturally as a hunter who spent every day in the woods, the boy lit a campfire and finished his meal. He even used magic to dig a pit and raise simple walls, and in the end completed a small house and fell asleep inside it.
Does he have mana to spare? Sure, that would be safer…
Lily watched the strange boy with open curiosity—until at some point she drifted off herself. With the black wolf Shady wrapped around her, the cold never woke her.
Morning arrived in a blink. The black wolf's signal told her the boy was awake.
Huh?
The boy stretched, then moved at once. Having finished gathering plants the day before, he would be hunting monsters and magical beasts today.
He's surprisingly diligent.
Without even a proper breakfast, Lily set off after him again, planning to eat water and jerky whenever he stopped. But that plan fell apart.
"That idiot!"
The place the boy headed the moment he opened his eyes was somewhere he must never enter: a dungeon the witch herself had sealed.
Lily spurred the black wolf after him at the speed of the wind. If he went even a little deeper, rescue would be the least of their problems—it would be a true disaster. She plunged into the cave between the massive rocks where the boy had gone.
"Shady. Can you tell where he went?"
The black wolf's ears pricked. It sniffed at once. Then it stopped moving entirely.
"Shady, what are you doing? If we don't hurry—"
"Well now? What do we have here? My double Concealment magic, broken that easily?"
The boy's voice came from right behind Lily's back.