The Reason I Love Them
“So, let me get this straight.”
Ronald Taylor vigorously massaged his temples as he listened to the report from Defense Secretary Neil Smith, who stood before him.
“…A squad of U.S. Army Rangers has gone missing. It’s already been a week. And you asked Miss Astria to recover the bodies? You told her you’d pay any price?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And I’m only hearing about this now?”
As if he didn’t already have enough of a headache trying to put a price on the magic Astria had cast on him—the spell that had freed him from addiction to psychotropic substances.
And now this man had gone and piled another request on top of that without permission?
Ronald fixed Neil Smith with a withering glare.
“Are you Chinese, by any chance?”
“…Sir?”
“Only a spy sent from China would pull something like this. Are you trying to ruin the country? Why the hell would you decide something like that without even reporting it?”
“…A soldier has the right to assess a situation on the ground and take the initiative.”
“You also have an obligation to civilian control! Did you never learn about civilian oversight?”
It was an unspeakable thought, but Ronald found himself hoping Astria would simply fail to find so much as a single body. Of course, the fact that the Secretary of Defense had asked her at all would still remain, so some price would have to be paid either way.
But at least that would be better than actually recovering the bodies and having to hand over a success bonus on top of everything else, wouldn’t it?
What truly terrified him was that this was the first request they had ever made of her. Until now, she had always been the one to offer—volunteering, of her own accord, to grant this or that favor (and even those offers had been of a scale no ordinary person could accept).
This time, they had come to her first. And they had promised to pay any price. Just imagining what that price might be was enough to make his blood run cold.
A few hours after the meeting with the Secretary of Defense…
Astria returned to Earth with living American soldiers in tow.
“…Uh. Um. Miss Astria. And… she is…?”
“King of America. Greet her.”
Standing face-to-face with her, Ronald blinked furiously at the young girl peeking out from behind Astria’s back.
“From this day forward, she will be staying with me. Call her the Great Sky King.”
“W-what do you mean by that…?”
“You said you would grant any request, did you not? I intend to spend that right on granting her entry into Earth.”
Ronald had braced himself for whatever terrible demand she might make. The actual request she brought, however…
“Ha… haha. Ahahaha.”
…was more terrible and terrifying than anything he had imagined.
But he could not set the precedent of breaking a promise.
In the end…
“—Welcome. I am the King of America. Ronald Taylor…”
…Ronald had no choice but to permit the two of them entry into Earth.
“Oh… ooooh—”
Steel birds soaring through the sky.
Steel horses crawling across the earth.
And colossal towers that rose without end.
Having crossed over to Earth, Aiteru let out gasps of wonder at everything that met her eyes. The way she sparkled and poured out one exclamation after another made her look for all the world like a pure-hearted child.
And since her outward appearance was, in fact, nothing more than an adorable little girl, the passersby who watched her gawking and marveling could not help but smile and lift the corners of their mouths.
…What would they do if they knew that, inside that tiny frame, were wings larger than anything else in As?
“Astria, what’s that?”
“…That’s an airplane. Something humans invented so they could fly through the sky.”
“I can’t feel anything from it. But it’s high. And fast. How?”
Aiteru had spotted the airplane flying tens of thousands of feet overhead with her naked eyes and asked. True to the legendary eyesight of birds, she had apparently seen right through the clouds to the craft beyond.
Astria tilted her head back as well and explained why Aiteru could sense nothing from the machine soaring through the high heavens.
“There is no mana on Earth. Likewise, there is no magic. That is pure technology.”
“It’s not magic? Even though it’s flying that high?”
“That is what is so remarkable about humans. Without any transcendent power or outside aid… they built greatness with their own hands.”
Honestly, even now it was hard to believe. It was a little embarrassing to say as someone who had once been human, but a hairless ape—by nothing more than accumulating knowledge and passing it to its descendants—had crossed the deep seas and the summit of Everest, and had even left its birth planet to set foot on the moon?
Any single human might be unremarkable, but as a species—as humanity—she could feel a genuine transcendence. Something that rivaled her own or Aiteru’s.
After all, the very reason she had been able to escape the stifling world of As and come to Earth was because humanity had invented the technology known as the Gate. Of course, they called it a fluke and still could not reproduce it…
But whether it was chance or not, once they had succeeded even once, it was only a matter of time before they made that technology their own as well. She knew it. She believed it.
“That is why they are so lovable.”
“…I’m jealous.”
“Touch them and I will kill you. Understood?”
Astria issued the warning to Aiteru, who was puffing out her cheeks and glaring at the people around them. Even with the warning, Aiteru was still, at her core, a beast. There was every chance she might fail to restrain her instincts and go on a rampage.
She needed a contingency for that. Fortunately, she already had a method in mind.
Astria bought several ice creams from a passing ice-cream truck and held them out to Aiteru. The girl accepted them, tilted her head, and looked up at Astria as if to ask what on earth they were.
“This is…?”
“Food. Try it.”
“Hmmm… It looks weird.”
Aiteru stared at the ice cream she had never seen in her life, then cautiously stuck out her tongue and began licking the surface. It was true that ice cream did not, at first glance, look like something edible. Cold, sticky liquid—if you went by appearance alone, it looked closer to poison than food.
But.
Once you tasted it even once—once you melted that frigid surface with the heat of your body and let the sweetness fill your mouth—that impression flipped one hundred and eighty degrees. It was a flavor powerful enough to awaken the souls and selves of elves who had been stagnant for thousands of years.
Sure enough, after only a few licks Aiteru stuffed the entire thing into her mouth at once and was already eyeing the remaining ice cream in her other hand with greedy intent.
“More, pwease!”
“Well? This is the taste of the civilization humans built… Are you even listening?”
“Wha’ ish this?”
Enthralled by a sweetness she could never have tasted in As—sweeter even than her staple food of dragons—Aiteru stared at the ice-cream truck in disbelief, smacking her lips.
More precisely, she was staring at the giant ice-cream model mounted on top of the truck and smacking her lips. Astria foresaw exactly what was about to happen and lunged.
“Wai—”
“Aaaahn—”
Crunch.
A moment later, the model ice cream that had sat atop the truck vanished, leaving only a gouged-out shell riddled with tooth marks.
Perhaps because it had happened so quickly, even though sparks were now spitting from the ruined model, not a single person present had any idea what had just occurred.
In that brief instant Aiteru had bitten the model ice cream clean off. She chewed the thing in her mouth for a few seconds, then screwed up her face and spat out a mouthful of metal chunks with a loud bleh.
“Wha’ ish this? Tashte bad…”
“…I told you to wait. That was a model. A fake. Tsk. Look here.”
Leaving Aiteru behind as she tearfully spat out hunks of metal, Astria glanced around. The agents who had been watching the situation carefully approached.
Astria asked them to clean up the mess, then took Aiteru and left the scene. As the black-suited, sunglass-wearing agents surrounded the ice-cream truck, the owner’s flustered face came into view.
In a park a short distance away, Astria bought Aiteru more snacks and sat with her on a bench to talk.
“Well? Is it good?”
“Yeah. Ish yummy.”
“Do you understand now? Why I told you not to touch the humans. Why I said they are lovable.”
“I think I get it.”
“Then shall we watch over them together? Two is better than one, don’t you think?”
At those words Aiteru paused even in her candy-licking, as if sunk in thought. Then, before long, she went back to licking the candy with abandon and nodded.
“I like Astria. And… I wanna like the things Astria likes, too.”
“Good. That’s good.”
With this, even if something unexpected happened, there was little chance Aiteru would go on a rampage on Earth. Reassured by the thought, Astria let out a breath and looked up at the sky.
A cloudless blue filled her vision. Weather every bit as bright as her heart in that moment.