Harrington Village (2)

Ariel and Lou had left the village brimming with confidence, and now they were searching for the Patricia deep in the forest, along the cliffs.

Monsters denned thick in a place like that, but it hardly mattered. Every one they met, Ariel put down with ease. She was faithfully applying the lesson the troll had taught her: a monster's head must not be damaged. A monster's head was worth money, and damage it and you lost exactly that much. When she had sold the troll, the missing head had cost her a fair cut of the price. So she sprang high and brought the edge of her hand down on the crown of each monster's skull. The blow shocked the brain alone and left the body whole, and not a drop of blood so much as touched her.

This time she finished off three minotaurs just as simply and tucked the corpses into her Inventory. They were enormous beasts, but her Inventory knew no limit of volume or weight, and they slipped in without trouble. Watching her, Lou could only click her tongue. It was hard to call this a battle. It wasn't a hunt, either. It was a one-sided slaughter. Monsters that once would have set her trembling at the mere sight of them now struck her as faintly pitiful. The moment Ariel's afterimage seemed to blur, another monster was dead without fail. They never even appeared to grasp what had happened to them. They only cocked their heads in blank confusion, then keeled over.

"Sis... you said you were a mage, didn't you...?"

Of course, Lou already knew exactly how Ariel dealt with monsters. Ariel leapt high and brought the edge of her hand down on the crown of the head. That was the end of it. No magic—she beat them to death.

"So why do you keep... killing them by hitting them...?"

Ariel's answer was simple.

"Just because."

Humans lose their way in the forest often enough. Daylight makes it a little better, but once the sun goes down they haven't the faintest idea where they are. To a human, every tree is the same tree, and grass is only grass.

Fairies were different. A race of the forest, they never lost their way in the woods. They grasped a forest's layout by instinct and could find their direction from it, which was why, now and then, a fairy would appear to help a human lost among the trees at night. Follow that glittering little light, and a person could get safely clear of the woods. These days, of course, humans were so busy trying to catch any fairy they saw that such things hardly happened anymore. Even so, fairies were that at home in the forest. Even in woods they had never visited, they knew where things ought to be and found them readily.

Thanks to that, not long after they left the village, Lou found the Patricia.

"Sis! I found it!"

It was still little more than a weed, but it looked ready to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bloom at any moment. They could pick it then. The spot was a cliff, just as expected—a sheer, dizzying drop, high enough that any other living thing would fall to its death. Ariel waited on the ground below, while Lou fluttered about overhead, waiting for the flower to open.

"Hehe. This is going very easily."

Lou was in high spirits. The Patricia the villagers had wanted so badly, and failed in the end to obtain—and she and Ariel were about to bring it back without any trouble at all. How remarkable was that? They would show these people the dignity of the forest races, elf and fairy.

"Ooh."

A faint light rose from the weedy Patricia. It was blooming.

"Sis! Now!"

A moment later the flower unfurled its petals in full, beautiful display. Lou nearly drifted toward it in a daze and only just caught herself. Getting close was a bad idea. The Patricia spewed a deadly poison the instant it was pulled or snapped, and even while it simply sat in bloom it gave off a little toxin. Not enough to kill, but enough for a headache and a spell of dizziness.

Ariel kicked off the ground. The motion was light, yet her body rose several hundred meters in an instant. There was no need to search. The Patricia announced itself plainly, petals spread wide. She caught the stem and tore it free, and in that instant a murky green smoke burst outward and swallowed her whole.

Poison mist. A lethal toxin, fatal enough that any other living creature would have died on the spot. It did not apply to Ariel. She landed again as if nothing at all had happened, the Patricia in her hand.

"Wow, you did it, Sis!"

Lou flew in, plastered herself to Ariel's face, and rubbed against her furiously. Ariel looked down at the flower. It matched the picture exactly. This would do.

Just then a shadow fell across the ground where she stood. She lifted her gaze and saw something dropping fast out of the sky—a monster with wings. A wyvern. It closed the distance in the blink of an eye and raked its claws across her face.

Ariel was unhurt. Not so much as a scratch marked her.

"Aaaah!"

Lou was another matter. Stuck to Ariel's face as she was, she was caught in those claws and hauled away.

"S-Sis! Siiis!!"

Lou thrashed and shouted. Even a fairy was not without defenses. If some monster tried to eat her, she could beat her wings and scatter powder, and the one that actually worked was sleep powder. A monster struck by it dropped straight into slumber, and in that interval the fairy could flee. On any ordinary day Lou would have done exactly that, but now it was impossible. Scattering sleep powder over a wyvern while being dragged into the sky in its claws was no easy feat. She couldn't even move her wings.

Watching Lou being carried off, Ariel considered the problem. Saving her would be simple. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Leap higher than the wyvern was flying, then bring a hand down on the crown of its head. But she remembered what Lou had said a little while ago, that business about magic. Come to think of it, she had never used magic even once. Still, she was a mage. She might as well try it.

With that thought, she opened her hand. They called it magic, but strictly speaking it was a skill. She had two: Magic Missile and Shield. What she needed now was the offensive one, Magic Missile. It was a basic skill, but with infinite intelligence and infinite attack power she would have to hold the force in check. Just a little weaker.

A blue light launched from Ariel's hand. It shot like a bullet and punched clean through the wyvern's head. That was the end of it. The wyvern plummeted, scattering feathers, and Lou, suddenly free, darted back to Ariel.

"Haha, Sis! Thank you! That was so cool!"

Watching the wyvern fall in the distance, Ariel came to a quiet realization. The way she had been handling monsters until now was extremely inefficient. There was no need to strike them with the edge of her hand. She only had to use Magic Missile. That was simpler. Having picked up yet another lesson, she turned and started back toward the village. The Patricia was theirs. All that remained was to hand it over.

After Ariel and Lou had gone looking for the Patricia, the village chief paced at the entrance, waiting in a fret. There wasn't much time. His daughter, Daisy, was already frozen through every part of her body but her heart, and before long that would freeze as well. With ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the chief so anxious, the mood of the village was anything but bright. Even the tavern, usually rowdy, was quiet today.

"...Maybe they're not coming after all."

"They say the Patricia's an incredibly hard flower to get."

"Maybe they just up and left the village..."

The villagers murmured among themselves. They worried for Daisy too, but they could hardly pin too much hope on an elf and a fairy they had met for the first time that day. It would not have been strange if Ariel and Lou simply never came back.

"Oh!"

The sentry on the palisade cried out in surprise.

"Oh, they're coming! No—she's coming!"

The chief's head snapped up, and the villagers looked toward the forest as well. Something was rushing toward them out of the trees: a silver-haired elf, running with the sunset at her back. Ariel. She was in front of the chief in an instant. She had come at a fierce pace, yet her breathing was perfectly calm. Expression blank, she held something out, and the chief took it in trembling hands.

It was the Patricia he had wanted so badly.

"H-hah... Th-thank you...!"

He managed the words in a voice close to tears, then spun around and ran for his house. There was no time to hesitate. He had to get the Patricia's petals into Daisy as quickly as he could. The villagers followed him, and Ariel and Lou went that way as well.

People gathered around the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chief's house, every one of them holding their breath in the hope that Daisy would be all right. The sun sank, and the streets washed over in crimson, and still no one made a sound.

Then, after a while—

Creak.

The door of the chief's house opened, and someone stepped out. A girl, her face a little pale, smiling brightly all the same. The chief's daughter, Daisy.

That night, a festival was held in Harrington Village, a celebration of Daisy's recovery. The villagers gathered in the square and ate and drank to their hearts' content. The chief asked Ariel and Lou whether there was any reward they wanted. His dying daughter had been given back to him; he could have handed over his entire fortune.

What Ariel wanted, though, was nothing of the sort. For the price of a life, it was a very small thing.

"Cream bread..."

She wanted cream bread. The chief blinked at her, wondering for a moment if she was teasing him, but her face was perfectly serious. That really was all she wanted. As for money, she still had what remained from selling the troll, and her Inventory was full of monster corpses besides.

"Hmm... are you certain that's really all right...?"

He hesitated. Cream bread, and nothing more, for the benefactor who had saved his daughter's life—he didn't think he could rest easy with that.

"Hey, you old human! What do you take our Sis for!"

Lou burst out at him. She had been drinking fruit wine and was thoroughly drunk, her face flushed red.

"Our Sis isn't greedy like you humans... Don't you insult our Sis's pure heart...!"

She staggered, then flopped face-down across the table and did not move again. She had passed out drunk. In truth she had only been blurting whatever came into her head, but the chief received it as a profound revelation.

The pure hearts of the forest races, elf and fairy! He hadn't understood. He had been thinking by human measure. Elves and fairies were not greedy the way humans were. Hand them all the money in the world and it would not make them happy, because money meant nothing to them. They had never wanted a reward in the first place. They had simply helped, out of pure hearts, and he had misunderstood that. The chief reflected on it, then bowed his head to Ariel and Lou once more, deeply and politely.

"I'm sorry. I won't speak of a reward again... Instead, I'll carry the two of you in my heart for the rest of my life... Thank you. Truly..."

His eyes rimmed red, he turned away in a hurry. Tears, at his age, and so unbecoming—it was a sight a little too embarrassing to show anyone. Watching his retreating back, Ariel muttered under her breath.

"I said I want the cream bread..."