The Sun Is Hot, the Sky Is High, and the Greenery Is Verdant - 8
The fury of the sky—which had, in a single breath, turned the goddess of greenery into a goddess of outright robbery—rose high and magnificent.
"…I know. My era is already over. I have neither the power nor the desire to raise the old host again. The continent belongs to settled folk now, not nomads."
Eternal Blue Sky’s voice trembled as she pressed on, the words themselves enough to wring pity from anyone who heard them.
"So I planned to just sit inside the World Tree and live like a complete freeloader. I helped revive it, so Constantina wouldn’t throw me out. Siphoning a little of the divine power that flows through the tree would be more than enough to keep me going as a goddess."
I already knew. She had said almost the same thing the first time I met her.
"I made that decision thinking there would still be people in the North who remembered me, even if I stayed quiet inside the World Tree."
A certain marquis’s face rose unbidden in my mind; I bit my lip hard.
Hold it together. If I laugh now, Eternal Blue Sky might actually fall into dark-god territory.
"But there isn’t a single child in the North who still worships me as a goddess…! Even a freeloader needs at least one believer! What kind of goddess has no followers?!"
It is pretty weird, I’ll give her that.
I answered the instant she screeched, not wanting her to ramp up further.
Honestly, even I found the situation awkward. A goddess without worshippers is just… someone who really wants to be a goddess. Even a cult leader has more disciples than that.
"You’re the only one I can call a follower! You believe I exist, you carry my stigma, you hold my sacred relic, and we can actually talk! You’re the only proof left that I’m a goddess at all!"
It was a tear-jerking speech. The heretic who had personally shattered her faith was now the sole evidence of her divinity.
Just listening made my chest tighten. How many wrong turns did it take for things to end up like this?
"And you’re going to take away the only believer of a freeloading goddess who has nothing left? The same believer who revived the World Tree for me? And you still call yourself Mother of Greenery after that?!"
I kept silent before her furious cry.
There was plenty I could have said. Strictly speaking I was closer to Enen’s follower than hers, and she was the one eyeing Enen’s property in the first place. Constantina had simply barged in as a new contender for the loot.
Though… was Constantina really a looter? She didn’t even treat me as her follower or honorary high priest. She had simply thanked me for reviving the World Tree.
Of course I kept that thought carefully hidden from Eternal Blue Sky. I had no intention of manufacturing a dark goddess today.
"You still sound as lively as ever."
While I was still hunting for a suitably comforting reply, Constantina’s voice rang through my skull.
What now? Why are you talking inside my head too? Do you think I’m some kind of divine switchboard?
"Hey! Get out of my follower’s head! He’s my honorary high priest!"
Eternal Blue Sky apparently shared the same sentiment, because her reaction was just as violent.
"Your honorary high priest? Not Enen’s Apostle?"
"Iiiiiik…!"
The solid fact landed square in her solar plexus and left her speechless.
"Besides, Enen seems to tolerate your clinging to this child because he owes you a great deal. In that case, why shouldn’t I be allowed the same courtesy? There isn’t a god on the continent closer to Enen than I am."
"Go play with the elves and the fairies! You’ve got plenty of your own children right over there!"
"And this child is the one who let me meet those children again. Expressing gratitude is only natural, don’t you think?"
Listening to a conversation that was less a fierce debate and more one-sided venting, I simply took Trixie’s hand.
Let the gods sort out the gods’ business. I was in the middle of one of the few truly happy occasions of my life.
"Karl?"
Trixie, who had been staring blankly at the World Tree, turned to me.
"This is going to be an unforgettable day, isn’t it?"
I answered her with a bright smile and a kiss. Most of the guests’ attention might have been locked on the World Tree’s revival and Constantina’s voice, but that did not change the fact that this was still our wedding.
And once enough time had passed, even this chaos would become one of the events that made our wedding shine. As long as the World Tree stood, as long as the elven race endured—this ceremony would remain forever in history.
"I—I’m a sky goddess! I used to be the one true god! So the least you could do is yield one person as a gesture of respect to your elder!"
"The sun embraces its followers with warmth, and greenery grows right beside them. But the sky is a lofty place that followers may yearn for yet never reach. Remaining alone and lofty without a single worshipper… is that not the most sky-like existence of all?"
"What kind of nonsense is that?!"
I did my best to ignore the thoroughly one-sided thrashing taking place above me.
"The more civilization advances, the greater the value of the sun becomes. A frail seed will, with time, become a sea of green. Yet the sky remains high and blue through all eternity. There is no need to struggle against the natural order and try to change."
Constantina’s gentle voice made even me, a third party, flinch.
The wording was polite, but the meaning was crystal clear: Your fall was destiny, so sit quietly and accept it. I might have been reading too much into it, but she had definitely just pointed out Eternal Blue Sky’s decline.
"……"
The words were so vicious that Eternal Blue Sky closed her mouth again—
"Hic…"
Ah.
"Ah."
She was crying.
The sorrow of the sky was desolate and heartbreaking.
"It’s not like I never did anything for you… When you were all newborn gods I never bullied you or anything… I treated you well…"
"Of course I remember. If not for you, many gods would have fallen before they ever had the chance to spread their will. Enen may never have said it aloud, but he respected you for it."
"R-really?"
"Yes. I respect you as well. I was simply so happy to see you again after so long that I teased you too carelessly."
At least the one who made her cry was working hard to soothe her. She would calm down soon enough.
More importantly, Eternal Blue Sky’s heyday had been far more glorious than I imagined. Piecing together the fragments, she had been something close to a primordial goddess, a one-true-god, the senior who sheltered every latecomer. Hearing a junior deity casually say “you fell” would make anyone’s chest seize up, no matter how well they understood it intellectually.
The fall of the sky is the natural order…
Thinking about it, the sun’s value never wavers, and greenery will eventually cover the earth given enough time.
The sky’s position, though, is a little awkward. In the past it was worshipped as an unreachable ideal, but once humans advance they end up conquering the sky—and even after conquering it, you can’t extract resources from it.
Yes. This wasn’t Eternal Blue Sky’s fault; it was a positioning problem. If she had been the goddess of outer space instead of the sky, she would still be thriving.
Or not. Whatever.
"Child."
"Ah—Grandmother."
While I was sorting my thoughts, my maternal grandmother, who had been praying before the World Tree, approached.
"I’m sorry. This was supposed to be your wedding, yet I let my mind wander elsewhere."
For someone who had been so excitedly bouncing earlier to now have her ears drooping so pitifully, she must have felt truly embarrassed and guilty.
"It’s fine. I know what the World Tree means to the elves, and even I can see that a goddess’s return is a miracle. If anything, watching good omens pile up one after another makes me think today really is an auspicious day, just as you said."
My easy answer finally brightened her expression a little.
Separately from her guilt, Trixie and I were genuinely fine. Half-elven as she was, Trixie had rejoiced at the World Tree’s revival, and I myself considered all this chaos just another element that would make our wedding legendary. It was pure gain, not loss.
"…Um, Grandmother. May I ask just one thing?"
"Of course, child."
The only thing that still bothered me was—
"What is that?"
—the crimson bird perched on my grandmother’s head, staring straight at me.
It looked roughly like a hawk, but a closer look revealed that everything I had taken for feathers was pure flame. That lunatic bird-brain was sitting on the head of my wife’s maternal grandmother and lighting it on fire.
Fortunately her hair was not actually burning. Still impressive, in its way.
"Ah, this one."
She answered my question with an honorific.
That was ominous. What kind of hawk required the leader of the elves to use honorifics—
"This is the Fire Elemental King."
"Pardon?"
King…? That hawk?
I stared at the red bird in pure disbelief. I had guessed the creatures that appeared the moment the World Tree revived were spirits or something similar, but I never imagined a king.
The hawk opened its beak under my gaze.
"▷§▥＠▣※◎"
?
What the hell. What language is that even supposed to be.
An existence I had never imagined spouting words I had never imagined left me blinking blankly. Was that the language of the spirits? Even a Spirit King ought to speak the local tongue when visiting the human world. Basic courtesy.
Noticing my reaction, the hawk closed its beak, then opened it again.
"Kwapdaetdaeppyuraepmyudeom?"
…
Is the translator broken?
What kind of creature was this?
After several more rounds of communication failure, something resembling actual language finally emerged from the hawk’s beak.
"Am I making sense now?"
"Ah… yes."
"Haa, sorry about that. It’s been ages since I last came to this world, so I got the languages mixed up. I half-forgot them because I never expected to return."
I nodded blankly at the words of the hawk—no, the Fire Elemental King.
Until a moment ago he had sounded like a mutant hawk spouting gibberish; hearing him speak like a person finally made the “Spirit King” title feel real.
"Anyway, from what Constantina said, you helped revive the World Tree?"
"It was a coincidence."
"Cause doesn’t matter; result does. Thanks. The spirit realm was so boring I thought I was going to lose my mind."
With a flap of wings he hopped onto my head and settled into a nesting posture, as if incubating an egg.
Warm. Despite being made entirely of flame, the heat was just the pleasant kind.
"The others will want to thank you t—"
"Kyaaaaaaak!"
Before the Fire Elemental King could finish, a desperate scream rang out.
I whipped my head around. Near the World Tree—more precisely, the snake-shaped spirit that had been circling it—had been seized by a swarm of fairies and was now being used as a living tug-of-war rope.
"That’s the Earth Elemental King."
"Oh dear."
How had such a lofty personage ended up in that state?