Harrington Village (1)
"Ha! Now this is the stuff!"
Lou shouted, tipping his cup back until it was empty.
The cup in his hand was tiny. He had brought it from the fairy village when he left, and it was made for fairies alone. He filled it with fruit wine again. He had already gone through several cups, yet the wine in the bottle hardly seemed to drop. Of course it didn't. A fairy drank so little that each sip barely made a dent.
"I really do like this wine."
The fruit wine Lou was drinking was the most expensive in Harrington Village. Ariel would be the one paying, but it was no burden. The money from selling the troll's corpse had turned out to be more than either of them expected.
After the sale, Ariel and Lou had come to eat. The place was the inn run by Canna's parents, and the locals said it was the only inn in Harrington Village. The two of them had decided to take both their meals and their beds there. Neither was particularly tired, but since they had come all the way into a village, spending one leisurely day before moving on hardly seemed like a bad idea.
The inn was bustling. Everyone kept stealing glances at Ariel and Lou, as if they were something marvelous. To the people of the village, an elf and a fairy were that unfamiliar.
"What are they all staring at?"
Lou grumbled, displeased, but Ariel gave no particular reaction. She never did. She was simple by nature, and other people's gazes had never interested her. Besides, just now she had no attention to spare for anything but the bread on the table.
It sat on a round plate, browned to a perfect gold, thin threads of steam curling off it and a sweet, fragrant smell rising with the heat. Canna had recommended it. There was cream inside, she had said, and merely imagining the taste set Ariel's heart beating faster.
She seized the bread and bit off a huge mouthful. Her eyelids trembled.
Soft, sweet cream melted across her tongue. It was a taste worth being moved by. Ariel devoured the cream bread in a rush, cream smearing the corner of her mouth without her noticing in the slightest. It was that delicious.
"Sis..."
Lou let out a small sigh, fetched a tissue, and wiped her mouth. Then he held out a glass of milk.
Ariel took it and drank in long gulps. Lou watched with a deeply satisfied look. Say what you like, she's still a kid. Imagine enjoying bread and milk that much. He knocked back another cup of fruit wine. His face had already flushed a deep red.
Once the cream bread was gone and the milk with it, Ariel felt a faint pang of regret. She wanted more, but her stomach was already packed full.
"Um..."
Someone came over and spoke. Ariel and Lou looked at the newcomer at the same time.
Standing beside them was an old man, his hair gone white.
"What do you want, old human?"
Lou barked, on his guard. The old man bowed with careful courtesy.
"I am the chief of this village. I heard that distinguished guests had come to us, and I wished to offer my greetings."
"Hmph."
The chief's words puffed Lou up a little. Distinguished guests—that had to mean him and Ariel. A village chief was the highest person in the place, and here he was, coming in person to greet them. No wonder Lou's shoulders crept upward. He folded his arms with a lordly air.
"So. You're the chief of this village?"
"I am."
"Well, no need to be so tense. My sis and I only mean to stay quietly for the day and then be on our way."
"I... I see. But..."
The chief hesitated a moment, then asked.
"Before that, might I make just one request?"
The chief's request was that they find a flower called Patricia. It was exceedingly rare, and not easy to obtain. There was no information on where it grew, and no one sold it. Lloyd, the merchant who traveled to and from the cities, had also tried to get a Patricia and failed. It was less a matter of price than of there being nothing on the market at all.
"But if anyone could find a Patricia for us, I thought it might be an elf and a fairy—people of the forest..."
The chief bowed his head, desperation plain on his face.
"Please. The two of you are our last hope now."
"And what do you want a Patricia for?"
At Lou's question, the chief explained.
"To cure my daughter, Daisy. Daisy has the Freezing Sickness. They say she can only recover if she eats the petals of a Patricia."
"Freezing Sickness?"
Lou tilted his head. He had never heard of such a thing.
A bitter smile touched the chief's lips.
"You may not know it. Like the Patricia, it is an exceedingly rare illness. Once it takes hold, the body freezes from the hands and feet inward, until the victim dies."
The chief's daughter, Daisy, was already frozen everywhere but her heart. She could not move, and she was not conscious. Left like this, she would not last long before death took her.
"We brought a priest from the city, and we tried high-grade potions said to heal well, but none of it was much help. The symptoms can be slowed a little, but to cure her completely, in the end, we need a Patricia..."
Tears slid down the chief's cheeks.
"I am an old man with little time left. I have no regrets for my own life. But I want to give Daisy a chance to live. If the two of you can find a Patricia, I will give you everything I own. So please. I beg you."
It was not only the chief. Before long the villagers had gathered around them, bowing their heads to Ariel and Lou.
"Please, Lady Elf. Sir Fairy."
"Daisy is a kind, lovely child. Save her. She must not be left to die like this."
By this point, even Lou had no choice but to shrink a little.
He glanced at Ariel. Whatever else was said, the decision belonged to her in the end.
And yet...
"Sis...?"
Ariel sat with the glass still in her hand and her eyes closed. Her head had tipped a little to one side, and her shoulders rose and fell in a steady rhythm. A soft, whistling breath escaped her.
She was asleep.
From the moment the chief had offered his greeting, Ariel had felt the symptoms coming on.
Once the cream bread and milk had filled her stomach, the strength had drained out of her little by little, and a pleasant languor had settled in. Her eyes kept sliding shut. It was the drowsiness that always followed a meal.
She had suffered from it long before she transmigrated into the game. It was so severe that she had to take medicine after lunch, without fail, or she could not work through the afternoon. To think it applied even after she had been pulled into the game. Was the drowsiness an illness of the mind? Or only a habit?
Either way, Ariel had fallen asleep while listening to the chief, and when an hour passed without her waking, Lou finally roused her.
"Sis..."
At the careful pat of his hand against her cheek, Ariel blinked her eyes open, groggy. The glass she had been holding was long gone. Lou had taken it and set it on the table.
She straightened, feigning that she had never been asleep at all. It was far too late for that.
The chief and the villagers, at a complete loss when they saw her sleeping, had been waiting outside the inn for the whole hour.
Lou let out a small sigh and explained the situation to her. It was exactly what he had heard from the chief. Once he had finished the explanation, quickly, he shrugged.
"You were asleep, so you didn't see it, but the villagers came pouring in all at once. You have no idea how heavy that felt. I may not look it, but I'm a soft-hearted fairy. Anyway, Sis, what are you going to do? Shall we grant the chief's request? I don't care what happens to humans, personally, but he did say he'd give us his entire fortune. I don't know exactly what kind of flower a Patricia is, but if a fairy like me goes looking, finding it will be easy as anything."
No race was more knowledgeable about flowers than the fairies. The name might differ, but the Patricia was surely a flower Lou knew.
"And, well, thinking about it, it is a little pitiful. If everyone in the village wants her saved, the chief's daughter must be a child with a good heart."
If he could manage it, Lou wanted to grant the request. He had never been good at refusing one.
He asked Ariel in a tone that was just a shade pleading.
"Shall we find that flower?"
"Yeah."
Ariel agreed at once. Their purpose was adventure, after all, and finding a Patricia would be part of it. If they could help someone in trouble along the way and receive a reward besides, there was no reason to refuse.
Ariel and Lou left the inn and met the chief again. The moment Lou declared, brimming with confidence, that he would bring back a Patricia, the chief and the villagers bowed their heads in earnest gratitude.
"Thank you. Truly, Sir Fairy!"
"Thank you!"
Lou's cheeks colored. He cleared his throat.
"Ahem. Ahem. Thank her, not me. If Sis hadn't given her permission, I wouldn't have lifted a finger."
"Thank you. Truly, Lady Elf!"
The villagers bowed to Ariel once more. She gave them a short nod.
Lou spoke to the chief.
"Anyway, I want a detailed look at what a Patricia looks like. You can tell me the human name all you like. I still won't know it."
"Ah, yes. I'll show you."
The chief drew a sheet of paper from inside his coat. It was a drawing of a flower, the petals rendered in careful detail and colored in full.
Lou studied the picture, and a slightly dark look came over his face.
The chief asked, uneasy.
"W-what is it?"
"You call this flower a Patricia?"
"Yes... is it not?"
"We fairies don't call it that."
"Then..."
"We call it something else."
Lou went on, looking distinctly reluctant.
A hush settled over everyone around them.
The flower in the drawing was exceedingly beautiful—so beautiful that it did not suit the name in the slightest.
"If it really is a corpse flower, then it certainly won't be easy to get..."
Lou muttered it with a serious face. There was none of his usual swagger, none of his usual bounce.
"Corpse flowers bloom only on cliffs. If that were all, it wouldn't matter. I'd just fly over and pick one. The problem is when they bloom. A corpse flower spends most of its time looking like a weed, and then, at some moment, it suddenly opens."
He pointed at the drawing in the chief's hands.
"It blooms wide into something this beautiful... but it holds that shape for only three minutes. Let even three minutes pass, and it withers on the spot."
In short, a Patricia bloomed only on cliffs, its flowering time was never fixed, and it lasted a mere three minutes. It made sense that the flower was rare.
"Hmm..."
The faces of the chief and the villagers darkened. If even a fairy, knowledgeable as fairies were about flowers, said it was not easy to obtain, it felt as though their last hope had vanished.
As if to shake off that mood, Lou clapped his hands once.
"Well, don't be too disappointed. It's difficult, but it isn't impossible. We fairies can sense, instinctively, when a flower is about to bloom. Corpse flowers are no exception. If I go around the cliffs and watch, I'll be able to find one that's about to open. It's a nuisance, but up to that point it's simple. The problem is..."
Why that beautiful Patricia was called a corpse flower among the fairies. That was the problem.
"The moment a corpse flower is cut or pulled up, it breathes out an extreme poison. A poison fatal enough to kill even a troll on the spot. Get drunk on how beautiful it looks and pick it, and you go straight to your grave. A fairy who's been properly taught would never touch a corpse flower... but the world has plenty of fairies who never learned."
The fairies who had died picking corpse flowers were beyond counting. So wherever a corpse flower bloomed, fairy corpses were plentiful as well. That was precisely why it was called a corpse flower.
"But it'll be fine, won't it? We've got our Sis. If it's Sis, she'll pick a corpse flower without any trouble. She looks fragile on the outside, but this is someone who finished off a troll with her bare fists."
"Ohh..."
Color began to return to the faces of the chief and the villagers.
Getting a little carried away himself, Lou shot up into the sky and shouted.
"Just watch. Sis and I will have a Patricia before the day is out. And the chief's daughter—we'll save her, no matter what!"
At Lou's words, the people erupted in a great cheer.
"Hooray!"