Land of the Elves
Land of the Elves
With the Seed of Elf Transformation in hand, they turned directly south.
They broke free of the thick, billowing snow and mist, and only when the faintest traces of human presence began to appear did they angle down toward Teveri.
In the forest, a thick red tail swayed gently at knee height, and the owner of that tail beamed as he rubbed his cheek against the bow-stave.
The sight of a hulking figure well over two and a half meters doing that was, in itself, an odd thing to witness.
Perhaps because this was the first time they'd seen Tiyamal so thoroughly delighted.
A woman with golden eyes spoke up.
"Creepy...."
The jab came out with no real bite behind it—more teasing, almost affectionate.
So Tiyamal, still rubbing his cheek against the bow-stave, laughed heartily as if his earlier gloom had been a lie.
"You'll have to forgive me! A warrior can hardly help himself when he's gotten his hands on a fine weapon! You must've had moments like that too, haven't you?"
"I dunno about that."
The woman—Angie—answered and quickened her steps, but the words lacked conviction.
After all, she was still wearing those dragon-leather boots she loved and fussed over.
She was just pretending otherwise for the sake of her pride. Tiyamal, aware of this, scratched the scales along his jaw and let out a low chuckle. Beside him, Rumel walked with a similarly knowing smile.
"I can understand it. I've been thrilled myself when I've managed to acquire a well-regarded but scarce book. Though I had to buy an entire stack of ancient imperial history I can't even read, just for that one volume...."
She spoke with a sigh, but the mood was warm.
Warm enough that Richard, who'd been skimming the trees a short distance away to check their path, found himself drawn in.
"I'm not sure I follow. I've never been particularly covetous. Unlike you nobles, I've never had the experience of delighting over some new possession."
But considering Richard was the heir to a ducal house, that wasn't really a lack of covetousness.
He'd simply always been able to get whatever he desired and thus formed little attachment to things.
Rumel must have realized this too, because she pointed at Richard's wrist with a soft, deflating laugh.
"For someone who says that, Lord Richard, your wrists are covered in quite a lot of trinkets. Are you truly allowed to claim you have no attachment to possessions while wearing such costly things?"
As she noted, Richard's wrists were laden with ornaments. An expensive-looking necklace hung around his neck, and several rings rode on his fingers.
"No, I—that is...."
Flustered by an accusation he couldn't refute, Richard scrambled for words. Tiyamal had been watching his companions with fondness and spoke up.
"In any case, this old-timer feels exactly the same! I can hardly wait to find an excuse to fire this thing."
He'd already grasped its power. He'd seen what Aslan's plasma shot into the sky could do, and Tiyamal had watched it while imagining the moment it would be loosed from his own hand.
Unfortunately, there was no immediate use for it.
"I doubt there will be. I'd like to settle this peacefully if possible."
At Aslan's response, spoken without breaking stride up ahead, Tiyamal answered in his distinctive laugh.
"A pity. If you change your mind, let me know."
"That's a menacing thing to say."
Aslan forced a chuckle. Beside him, Ereta continued walking in silence. Tiyamal glanced at the two of them and abruptly spoke.
"Now that I think about it, you and Ereta don't seem very covetous either."
Ereta, who had been quiet for lack of anything to contribute to the conversation, flinched and turned her rose-colored eyes wide.
"Me?"
Tiyamal nodded.
"Yes, I don't get the sense you particularly want things. I haven't known you long, but... I suppose the impression is that you have no treasured possessions."
"Huh, fair. She never really had much greed for things to start with. Didn't say a word when Aslan basically stole her axe...."
Angie chimed in with agreement. Aslan looked between the two of them and Ereta, and thought about it.
Wasn't that a product of her circumstances?
Back then, Ereta had suffered losses that no object could hope to fill.
Considering her past, pursued by the gaze of an actual living god, mere possessions could never have satisfied her.
If she'd had any experience as an ordinary human, she might have formed attachments to objects, but Ereta had shown every sign of having been a priest from the beginning.
"I'm not the only one like that. Fay... and Aslan too, aren't they?"
While Aslan was mulling that over, Ereta deflected toward him, and Tiyamal shot Aslan a sidelong glance.
"That one's always been the ascetic sort, so you just accept it. Honestly, things or no things, if anything lands in his hands he mostly looks like he'll break it. It'd be weirder if he got attached."
"I'm not that bad...."
Tiyamal scoffed at Aslan's awkward protest. Angie, who'd been watching them quietly, lifted her eyes toward the far side of the forest.
"Hm, I think Fay is stranger than Aslan."
A remark without much rationale—just tossed out there. Normally a claim like that would be hard to back with agreement, yet the party let a brief silence fall in concurrence.
Unlike the way she'd grumbled whenever Kel was taken from her or confiscated, Fay had shown hardly any reaction even when both of her beloved swords were broken.
Aslan had been wondering about that himself when something emerged ahead of the walking group without a single sign of movement.
Even before, she'd been elusive and swift as she roamed the forest, but now she'd become an elven girl who could barely be perceived at all.
Fay.
Fay touched down and, her blood-red hair scattering, stretched a finger toward the woods ahead.
"Like Aslan said, they've gathered up front! Straight ahead, you'll see them!"
Aslan had sent Fay to scout.
The girl's Agility had already passed 15, into the demi-god realm, so she could now survey even a vast host without a trace.
Aslan stroked Fay's hair.
"Good work. Thank you."
A stifled, happy laugh from the elven girl. A smile brimming with sincerity, not her usual put-on performance.
Aslan looked down at that smile and gave a pleased one of his own. Without warning, Fay spread her arms.
"If you're grateful, give me a ride on your shoulders!"
"Alright, alright."
A shoulder ride was no hardship. Aslan lifted the elven girl onto his shoulders and straightened up.
Once the group resumed walking, the conversation continued behind them. With that as a backdrop, Aslan walked and exchanged words with Fay.
Had her hair-tie snapped completely? Wasn't her hair uncomfortable hanging loose like that?
Were her burns okay?
Had she gotten used to the power?
Most of the answers that came back were that she was fine, but the elven girl seemed happy even from those simple exchanges, grinning quietly and rubbing her small hand over the crown of Aslan's head.
The talk flowed ahead and behind them, and at last Aslan voiced what he'd been curious about.
"With Kel broken, are you alright? You treasured them."
Dawn and Twilight. A pair of twin swords. Forged in the era of the ancient empire and preserved in the deepest part of the ruins, those blades combined solid durability and exceptional power into what players called a "carry-item."
They'd been with Fay practically from the start of her fighting career, so feeling their loss would have been natural. But her reaction had been strikingly flat.
"A little bit sad, but it's fine."
Her voice carried almost no emotion—flat and even. Aslan couldn't help but press.
"Why is it fine? You didn't actually like them?"
"Mm-mm, that's not it. I really loved those blades."
Then why was it fine? Even Aslan, not much for possessions, would feel genuine regret if any of his usable gear were destroyed.
He intended to ask again, but before he could, the feel of the elven girl on his shoulders shifted, and he closed his mouth.
Different from her usual act of the "innocent elf"—it felt like one layer of it had been stripped away.
Behind him, the others were making a lively noise, some animated conversation about their favorite foods. Amid that, a chill voice brushed against his ear.
"I have you instead, Aslan."
The words themselves were unremarkable.
The voice, too, was merely cool—nothing inherently wrong.
But something about the phrasing, the delivery, the sensation—it stood apart from normal speech.
A chill entirely deliberate, as if intended to unsettle. A coldness that made even Aslan, who'd endured every imaginable battlefield, go rigid for an instant.
He stayed silent for a moment.
"Isn't that right?"
Fay's soft follow-up snapped him back to attention.
"You'll stay with me forever, won't you?"
"...Yeah."
He told a lie.
Fay saw through it at once and let nothing show.
"Good."
She asked nothing further.
Just the silence, broken into fine fragments, drifting idly through the conversation drifting up from behind.
Aslan kept walking, carried along by that current, and then opened his mouth.
"...Those blades can be repaired. Well—more accurately, they can be merged and repaired into a single sword."
Dawn and Twilight had existed in the game too.
And they'd been fan-favorite weapons.
Not too far from Olpasbet, the game's starting point, obtainable early and usable from the start—Aslan himself had used them plenty.
There was even a special mechanic: whenever they broke, a repair sub-quest would always trigger. Aslan suspected the system still worked that way.
"Really? That's great!"
So Aslan had mentioned the repair as if it were nothing, and Fay wrapped herself back in her innocence and laughed brightly.
Seamless acting. The performance of the carefree, innocent elf. Aslan gazed at the elven girl above his head and gave a bitter smile.
He couldn't tell if he had made her this way, or if she'd always been this girl.
Prodded by that unease, Aslan hurried his feet. After walking for a long while, he stopped abruptly.
Up ahead, the woods grew thick. There were footsteps approaching.
Before Aslan could speak, Fay slipped down on her own and wordlessly wrapped a hand around the hilt of the Storm Sword on his back.
The others reacted similarly. The chatter cut off, but everyone moved. They each drew their weapons and fixed their gazes in the direction of the approaching presence.
Among them, Tiyamal aimed his bow with a hint of anticipation. Aslan noted them all and took a step forward.
A rustle.
The brush swayed, and beyond it, a cluster of figures emerged.
"...Hm."
Soldiers.
A man who looked like a knight or squire wearing a surcoat over his body, followed by roughly five soldiers.
The crest on their surcoats and shields was one Aslan knew well.
"Are you Lord Aslan, the Master of Combat?"
A sun crest rising over a hill. The sigil of the Meland royal house. As Aslan's eyes took in the crest, a breeze finally stirred the landscape beyond the underbrush into view.
Just as expected.
Behind those soldiers lay an encampment.
An encampment thick with King Gerald's banners and the crest of House Meland.
Gerald had precisely deduced one of the routes the party would descend, set up a camp, and waited.
A move designed to prevent them from slipping off without visiting Teveri.
A scheme born of certainty that they would eventually seek the Land of the Elves.
Aslan pieced it together from what his sweeping glance caught, then shifted his eyes past the knight about to question him again.
"No need to ask. I am Aslan."
Someone was approaching from behind the knight.
Lank platinum hair and greed-filled green eyes. An old man whose face showed the faint blemishes of age spots.
Gerald Mul Meland.
The king dragged his aging body forward to appear in person. The knight bowed before his master and withdrew.
With the knight's withdrawal, an empty space opened between Gerald and Aslan, but no one stepped forward to fill it.
Instead, another familiar figure moved into that gap.
The same platinum hair and green eyes, but far younger—and far more beautiful.
Richard's betrothed, Maria.
Richard flinched at the sight of his fiancée. Gerald took in the reaction and curved his lips into a sly smile, ripe with a lifetime's practiced cunning.