The Day You Came to Be, the Entire Continent Whispered of Your Existence - 3
The recruitment notice for the Katoban ducal household had finally been closed.
Of course it had. The household retainers had gone over every application with fire in their eyes, and even the veteran nanny who had raised Erich and me had lent her expert gaze to help them. Passion and competence together made the selection itself quick work. The only real delay came from drafting the polite rejections and consoling replies to everyone who had not made the cut.
In any case, half of those chosen were middle-aged women freshly retired from nanny posts, while the other half were old grandmothers who had trained any number of successors. It seemed a sensible balance; I trusted there would be no trouble with the children’s education.
“They are honored guests who will help us rebuild a broken tradition. Once they gather at the estate, we ought to hold at least a modest banquet.”
“A most proper suggestion, my lord. Considering the guests’ ages, I shall arrange an atmosphere of quiet grandeur rather than ostentation.”
I found myself nodding at the steward’s reply. I had only tossed him the topic, and he was already filling in every detail. Looking at the man always felt like running an excellent auto-hunt AI. Far too convenient.
“We shall attend the banquet ourselves. Bear that in mind.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
With the steward’s respectful bow still in my mind’s eye, I slipped the communication orb back into my coat.
I felt a little guilty toward that ever-diligent, impeccably polite steward, but he was not the important matter right now.
“Karl.”
Trixie’s voice, trembling ever so slightly, broke the silence.
“Ah—right. Let’s go. Grandmother will be waiting.”
What mattered now was only this: we had to face Grandmother, whose reason and instincts were surely locked in fierce combat.
We arrived at the entrance to the Elf Sanctuary.
A teleport would have dropped us straight at Grandmother’s residence, but I deliberately chose a distant landing point so we could steel ourselves a little longer.
It was the wrong choice.
“Good heavens… good heavens.”
“It’s true—oh, how wonderful!”
Every step we took through the Elf Sanctuary carried the unfiltered whispers of nearby elves.
In hindsight it was only natural. We had told Grandmother alone among the elves of the pregnancy, yet this place was a tourist destination—the non-human sanctuary. News of Trixie’s pregnancy had already spread across the continent, so the other elves had almost certainly learned of it through visitors.
“Truly three? The last twins were born in the Apels era, and now suddenly triplets?”
“Lady Constantina descended at the wedding, didn’t she? They must have received a blessing then.”
And decisively, elves were a race specialized in magic. One glance at Trixie’s body was enough for them to sense the new mana that had taken root within her.
I had been a fool. In trying to avoid one lion named Grandmother, I had thrown myself into a pack of hyenas.
“But is this really all right? That child is barely past one hundred twenty, isn’t she?”
“By elven standards it’s a problem, but she was raised in human society. And she’s a half-blood, not pure.”
“W-well… I suppose so?”
Even in that mortifying, shame-soaked moment I kept my ears wide open. Listening to the elves would tell me their present mood—and, by extension, Grandmother’s likely state of mind.
Not bad.
Fortunately the public opinion was friendly neutrality. No one actively championed or fully accepted us, yet neither did anyone point fingers or click their tongues. It was more a resigned “It’s a bit much, but by human standards…”
Most elves these days, I had heard, were young blood born after the founding of the Empire; that likely explained their relatively open minds. Truly a relief.
“Our children will not have to endure cold stares.”
Trixie must have reached the same conclusion; she whispered softly against my ear.
“Everyone here is kind. They’ll only dote on them—nothing worse.”
I took her hand gently as I answered.
I thought I understood what she feared. Thanks to the elven blood in her veins she had lived walled off from humans, yet she had never truly belonged among elves either—a hundred years of isolation. She must have dreaded that our children might suffer the same for their entire lives.
It was not an excessive worry. Our having children was so far outside elven common sense that the sheer dissonance could easily have made them treat the little ones coldly. Thankfully, as Trixie said, that seemed unlikely now.
“…Let’s hurry. If we linger any longer we’ll be surrounded.”
Relief aside, bearing the gaze of every elf was more oppressive than expected. Their eyes held an intensity that suggested mere whispering would soon turn into direct approaches if we delayed.
Had I known, I would have teleported straight to Grandmother’s house from the start.
Mortals with finite lifespans seem to live in such complicated ways.
“Congratulations. Three children arriving all at once—if that isn’t a divine blessing, what is?”
“Th-thank you, Grandmother.”
The elder offered congratulations with an awkward smile; her granddaughter stammered her thanks, fidgeting. And the benefactor stood a little apart, head quietly bowed toward the floor.
Why are they acting like that?
I could not understand. When a new spirit is born in the spirit realm, everyone rejoices. Immortal beings may fall into a sleep like death and eventually wake again, but the chance of a truly new spirit appearing is vanishingly rare.
Yet the elder’s granddaughter carried not one but three new lives. For mortals whose days are numbered, is it not better to have children sooner and more often?
—Hard to grasp.
—That’s precisely the charm of this world.
At my murmur the Fire Elemental King flitted over and settled atop my shell.
“Fire Uncle! Hot! Get off!”
“Yeah! Fire Uncle is hot! Water Uncle is cool!”
—Ah, my apologies.
But the fairies who had already claimed my shell raised such a fuss that he discreetly withdrew.
—Come to think of it, Earth Auntie said she wanted to play with you lot.
“Earth Auntie? Really? Really?”
“Yay! I want to play tug-of-war!”
At the Fire Elemental King’s lie the fairies went fluttering off toward the World Tree in a cheerful swarm.
I was certain the Earth Elemental King was enjoying a nap among the World Tree’s branches. I offered a silent prayer of condolence for the humiliation that was about to befall her in her sleep.
—Now we can talk among ourselves a little.
—Is it something important?
—Not especially, but those children are pure as pure can be. Better we speak alone whenever possible.
I nodded. Fairies were pure children who knew nothing of lies. Say anything in front of them and, without my even realizing it, my words would scatter in every direction.
There was no malice or mischief in it. To them secrecy simply did not exist; they had no concept of needing to hide anything.
—Anyway. Did you notice as well?
At the Fire Elemental King’s next words our gazes both turned toward the elder’s granddaughter—more precisely, toward her belly.
—It would be stranger not to notice. The mana is one thing, but the natural energy is considerable. At least one of the three has been born with the talent of a spirit contractor.
At my words the flames coating the Fire Elemental King’s body flared with sudden passion.
This damn fellow. If he agrees he should just say so—why set a fire in the middle of summer?
—Yes. At minimum an Upper Spirit contractor. If she already shows this much while still in the womb, once she is born—and if she receives proper training—she could even form contracts with us.
Yet I held my tongue because I heard the faint excitement in his voice. In truth I felt much the same.
As long as the World Tree stands, spirits can cross from the spirit realm into this world at any time. That rule covers everyone from the lowest spirits to the Highest Spirits—and even the Spirit Kings themselves.
But leaving the vicinity of the World Tree requires a contractor. Even the mightiest Spirit King becomes nothing more than a ghost circling the tree if no contract binds them.
A pitiful situation.
To escape the tedious spirit realm only to be confined near the World Tree—any spirit would scream at the thought.
That was why the Fire Elemental King could not hide his excitement. Our last contracts with spirit users had been roughly six hundred years ago. Even allowing for the blank centuries after the World Tree burned, three hundred years had passed without a single contractor of ours. Even the elder herself could manage only Highest Spirits at best—truly a lamentable state of affairs.
Therefore the elder’s granddaughter carrying a child overflowing with spirit-user talent was cause for joy. Yes, it was certainly joyful, and yet—
—Will that child choose the path of a spirit user?
—……
At the fundamental question the Fire Elemental King fell silent.
Even in the past, elves had preferred the mage’s path over the spirit user’s. There was no special reason; elves with spirit talent had simply been rare, so spirit users naturally became a minority.
But once they became a minority, even those elves who possessed the talent began choosing magic instead. Elves were born with magical gifts—why force themselves down a new road? Occasionally a rare eccentric walked both paths, but they were true oddities.
And now the World Tree had burned and the lineage of spirit users had been severed. True, the elder had contracted spirits before the burning, yet even she had been unable to wield them for three hundred years. Spirit arts were, for all practical purposes, a lost tradition.
Would anyone willingly choose the spirit user’s path amid such hardship?
They wouldn’t.
Moreover the elder’s granddaughter stood at the very pinnacle of magic, and the benefactor had reached the pinnacle of the sword. To abandon those sure roads for spirits would require no ordinary courage—or madness.
—…So we must persuade them diligently.
After a long silence the Fire Elemental King finally spoke again.
—If necessary, we open the spirit realm’s treasure vault.
—Are you in—
A rough oath nearly escaped me, but I swallowed it. Certainly that would make the spirit user’s path attractive enough. The vault held everything we had gathered across the continent over thousands of years.
And in my heart the Fire Elemental King’s proposal tugged at me. If unused treasures could buy free travel across the continent, no better bargain existed.
—Of course we must also hear Wind and Earth’s opinions—
—Kyaaaaaaaaaaah!
Just as the Fire Elemental King tried to finish, a blood-curdling scream rang out from the direction of the World Tree.
It seemed the Spirit Kings’ consensus would have to wait for another day.
I heard a strangely familiar scream in the distance and ignored it. Fairies and spirits were everywhere nearby; if anything happened they would handle it themselves.
“—Therefore take Claris with you. She is well-versed in elven history and traditional culture; she will be a great help to the children soon to be born.”
“As long as you feed me and give me a bed, I’ll work hard!”
What mattered now was politely accepting the special-forces personnel Grandmother was personally embedding with us.
“Even after her duties end, we shall care for her so well she will never want to leave.”
“Ahaha, that would be a problem!”
Claris laughed brightly at Trixie’s words, yet after several years of the ducal household’s sincere hospitality she might truly find herself reluctant to return.
…Still, from an elf’s perspective, just how far back did “history and tradition” reach? The Muno Empire era?
Incredible.
The empire that preceded Apels itself. Merely thinking of it filled my chest with a sense of grandeur.