Holy, Blessed, and an Apostle - 3
When you go to visit an elder, it is only proper to arrive with both hands full. And when that elder happens to be your fiancée’s maternal grandmother—and the leader of an entire race—there is simply no room for debate.
The only problem was that I had no idea what to bring as a gift.
If I choose by human standards, all hell will break loose.
I let out a long sigh while rummaging through the jewelry and bolts of fabric stacked in the warehouse.
Grandmother had accepted me as her granddaughter’s husband-to-be, yet her lingering discomfort toward humans remained unchanged. After everything she had lived through, how many decent humans could she possibly have met compared to the bastards?
And those bastards had not been vague, faceless bastards—they had been the very concrete bastards known as the Apels. A nation that even other humans despised. An elf like Grandmother would carry wounds that ran deep and dark. Bringing something made by human hands as a “gift” was therefore out of the question.
Everything in her house was handmade, too.
The residence had been filled with handcrafted furniture. Whether that was merely a hobby or a firm resolve never to use anything humans had made, I could not say—but I decided to treat it as the latter. Safer that way.
Tea would be good.
After wracking my brains for quite some time, I arrived at a safe, inoffensive conclusion.
Grandmother enjoyed tea, so tea ought to be fine… right? Human hands touched the leaves during cultivation, of course, but the wall in her heart should still be lower for tea than for mass-produced goods.
“So this is what you chose?”
“Yeah.”
I proudly showed the gift to Trixie. She blinked at me with a distinctly dubious expression, opened and closed her mouth several times, then carefully spoke.
“This isn’t tea. It’s wine.”
“If you think of it as tea made from fruit, isn’t that fine?”
Trixie’s mouth shut again. Her eyes clearly asked whether the cold had finally driven me mad.
Yes, I know. What I am holding is not tea—it is alcohol. I am not so far gone that I point at a deer and call it a horse.
This is the best I can do.
Trixie’s gaze was sharp, but what choice did I have? Every decent tea leaf I could obtain on short notice was mass-produced through thoroughly human-friendly cultivation methods that had built a Great Wall between themselves and nature. The more I looked into it, the less courage I had to present any of it to Grandmother.
This wine, however, was different. It had been produced in the Cervez Grand Duchy and made in a reasonably nature-friendly manner.
If I call it a specialty of her granddaughter’s territory, she’ll be pleased.
Most importantly, it was connected to none other than her own granddaughter. She would smile and overlook a faint human scent.
Besides, people often call liquor “grain tea.” If I call this “fruit tea,” doesn’t it still fall somewhere under the broad category of tea?
“…Still, wine should be acceptable as a gift.”
At last Trixie seemed to come around. She gave a small nod and muttered the words under her breath.
I knew she would understand.
To a god, time is a light and faint concept. For a being that can live forever, what meaning does a single day hold? What feeling does a month bring? Only when years whip past in a blur does one think, Ah, the world has changed a little.
But not now. Never in my entire divine life had I waited so desperately for each day to end.
I even felt a twinge of regret that I was a sky god. If I had been a god of time, could I not simply have dragged the calendar forward to the weekend?
It would have been impossible, of course.
A futile fantasy. Accelerating or reversing the time of a living creature or a building is one thing; tampering with the time of the world itself is difficult even if you are prepared for your divinity to be snuffed out. Try it and the other gods would come running to thrash you for such madness.
Ah—right. The only other god left now is Enen.
That bastard.
No matter how many times I turned it over, my teeth ground together. The wicked creature who had drooled over my only true follower—my honorary high priest—after already possessing everything, and still coveted what belonged to someone else.
When I first set him straight he was a newborn divinity, so I had treated him with a measure of fondness. Even after he grew a proper head, he remained reasonably respectful and we never fought. I never imagined he would stab me in the back like this. To drive the most fatal dagger home at the very moment I was most vulnerable.
I raised a lion cub.
I felt tears coming on. I had taken him under my wing as the Sky God because he had been born the Sun God—and now the sun had swallowed the sky whole.
I knew the truth, of course. My honorary high priest being named Apostle or whatever was entirely the doing of the children who follow Enen. That fellow is not the sort to hand out neat titles and ranks to his own followers.
Still, I resented him. Rotten bastard. I hope you meet a newborn god exactly like yourself in your twilight years and suffer for it.
“Sky Auntie, Sky Auntie.”
“Are you crying? Crying?”
- I’m really going to cry, so be quiet.
Meanwhile the fairies, having sensed my gloom, fluttered around nearby.
How melancholy. They have sharp instincts but zero consideration. Constantina should have raised them properly—if only the World Tree had not burned.
Just the revival… as long as it revives…
I steeled myself while letting their endless chatter flow in one ear and out the other.
The moment the honorary high priest arrives, I need only transfer the energy dwelling in the sacred relic into this tree. Once it fully absorbs that power, the projected revival period of up to ten years can be shortened to a single year—and with luck, even less.
Then everything will be finished. When the World Tree revives, Constantina will be able to act upon the continent once more. When Constantina appears, the elves and fairies will look only to her, not to me.
“Oh! Auntie, Auntie. Tell us that story—that story!”
“Yes, yes! That story, that story!”
Then these chaotic days will finally end.
- That story?
“What happened with Mom! Mom’s old stories!”
“Tell us! Tell us!”
Faced with such bold and unambiguous demands, I could only sigh. When I first settled into this tree I had told them various tales of the old days, thinking of them as children who would now live alongside me. I never expected that kindness to come back and haunt me like this.
Yes, I had been a fool. Talking about that mother in front of children who missed their own mother.
When is the weekend going to get here…
I wish someone would just seal me until the weekend arrives.
I packed plenty of Cervez wine for Grandmother.
Permission from the Wise Duke, who oversees the Elf Sanctuary—I had contacted her directly yesterday and received leave to visit.
An outing to the western edge of the empire in the middle of my honeymoon period—I had asked my lovers for understanding, explaining that I was going to pay respects to Trixie’s maternal grandmother.
As a bonus, I carefully packed the sacred relic that would aid the World Tree’s revival.
Perfect. Every preparation was complete. All that remained was to visit Grandmother with a light heart and return.
- You’re he… re?
The instant I set foot in the Elf Sanctuary, the half-dead voice of the Eternal Blue Sky reached me.
What happened?
Confusion flooded me. When I had told her I would come with the sacred relic, the Eternal Blue Sky had been overjoyed. Yet in the span of only a few days that joyous voice had vanished, replaced by one steeped in despair and exhaustion.
What on earth had occurred? Had Enen struck the World Tree with lightning?
- I told the fairies… that if you came, the World Tree’s revival would speed up… so they kept tormenting me, asking when you would arrive…
Ah.
The moment I heard that, I promptly withdrew my concern. It was entirely of her own making.
Even I, who had only briefly met the fairies during the school trip, had decided I needed to watch my mouth around them. How could the Eternal Blue Sky, who had lived with them all this time, not have known? She must have grown excited herself as the weekend approached and let her tongue slip.
- I only told the elder that a precious guest would come to the World Tree… but I made a mistake at the very end…
Still, you came as promised, so all is well. It would have been a disaster if you were late.
- If you hadn’t come today, World Tree or no World Tree, I would have simply run away…
The sincerity in her voice was so absolute that a quiet laugh escaped me.
Once today’s work of transferring the relic’s energy was finished, the Eternal Blue Sky would no longer have any reason to moan and groan.
“Kids!”
From far off, a red-haired elf came sprinting toward us, waving both arms with wild energy.
A familiar face. Claris, if I remembered correctly—the elf who had guided us to Grandmother during the last school trip.
“It has been some time, Lady Claris.”
Trixie offered a polite bow as Claris approached.
No matter that she was a duke well over a hundred and twenty years old—the moment she stepped into this place she became a child again. Truly, the Elf Sanctuary was something else.
Once more we followed Claris’s guidance toward Grandmother’s residence. I had been there before and did not strictly need an escort, yet she seemed eager to talk with her friend’s daughter even a little, so I kept quiet—
“Oh right—I heard you got married recently?”
“Ah… yes.”
…and failed. Unfortunately, I was also included among the subjects of Claris’s interest.
For a split second I instinctively gauged her expression. The elves already knew I had multiple lovers, but even so, standing in front of an elf who held Trixie especially dear, I could hardly announce, “I married someone else first! Trixie is the second one!” I was not that far gone.
“Then you’ll be marrying Trixie soon, right?”
“…Yes. That’s right.”
Claris herself, however, seemed to place little weight on first or second. She simply beamed at the news that marriage to Trixie was imminent.
“Um… it’s a bit awkward for me to say this when I’m not even family, but… could you hold the wedding with Trixie here?”
Before long her bright smile turned a little sheepish, yet the request did not feel unpleasant at all.
She really does see her as kin.
I could feel how truly the elves of the sanctuary regarded Trixie as one of their own.
Of course she was the elder’s blood relative, and she was already chatting warmly with the other elves—still, I had worried that at the decisive moment her mixed heritage might become a shackle. Stories about pure-blooded elves alone receiving the World Tree’s protection and the fairies’ blessings appear often enough in novels, after all.
“If the elves find it difficult to leave the sanctuary, then of course we should hold it here.”
I answered firmly and with genuine pleasure. If that was what the elves wished, I would make it so.
I exchanged a quick glance with Trixie; she nodded with a soft smile of her own.
“Thank you. I never got to brighten my friend’s wedding, so I wanted to make her daughter’s wedding lively at least.”
At those words Trixie’s smile deepened even further.
It seemed the Second Mother-in-law I had never met had been a woman of considerable popularity.