Ruru's Day
On the day her new Master left, Ruru sat on the roof of the shabby cottage and wiped at her tears while the stars burned bright overhead.
Sniff. Sniff.
She never said it aloud, but Ruru had lived a very long time alone. As one of the ancient fairy race, the purpose of her existence was singular: to wait until a master appeared who could normalize the energy of the Rift Dimension and tend it, then serve that master well and give what help she could.
The Rift Dimension was the highest of all dimensions, the only rift ever to form on its own. In truth it was also the wellspring where the energy of life was born, and for that very reason chaotic energy flooded in through the rift in equal measure. Neutralize that chaos, let the energy of life grow greater, and every dimension would turn in stable order. The knowledge sat in her head. The truth, though, was that Ruru did not really understand the principle of it, or how any of it worked. All she knew for certain was that it was bad for chaotic energy—thick with monsters, as it was now—to hold the upper hand, and that a master was needed to cultivate the dimension.
Memories rose of the human who had been her first master, the Previous Master. After that, for a stretch of time she could not begin to measure, she had sunk into a sleep close to hibernation in the gap between dimensions, outside the Rift Dimension itself, all to keep from fading away. This time, at last, she had opened her eyes thanks to her new Master. She did not want to sleep through another near-eternity. Ruru knew how good it was to live and breathe, and so she had vowed to serve her new Master with everything she had.
The beginning had been promising. The new Master seemed remarkably well-versed in the Rift Dimension. The Previous Master had known a fair amount too, but how to put it... she had been a little sentimental. In Ruru's eyes, purifying this dimension, exploring it, cultivating it, and refining it was impossible with anything short of extraordinary effort. She had thought the Previous Master's temperament would make the work difficult, and in the end that master—capable though she had been—had died with an apology to Ruru still on her lips. Set beside that, this time the feeling was good. He was prickly, and he treated her roughly, but when she watched that cold-blooded composure and those swift judgments, a thought stirred. Maybe, if it's this Master...
The new Master had gathered the Previous Master's legacy and a few other things and gone back to his own planet. The fragile hope that it might actually be possible had wavered a little at that childish plan of his—converting resources that wouldn't even cover a farm into the currency of a lower dimension. But what could she do? Ruru had no power to stop him. She was a helper.
Sob...
Tears blurred everything in front of her. Can I do this well? I'm supposed to guide Master down the right path. These were not tears born of that heavy responsibility.
"It's spicy..."
The food called ramen, brought from her Master's dimension, was a whole new world to Ruru. A spicy broth and chewy noodles. To think a complete food existed that cooked to perfection if you simply boiled water, poured it in, and waited three minutes. That something like it had been invented in a lower dimension was, to Ruru, beyond belief. It was also the reason she hadn't been able to talk him out of those childish choices—choices more pitiful than the Previous Master's—even with a single word.
"Please make lots of money and buy ramen, Master..."
Even as she wondered whether this was really all right, the fact that fewer than three packs of ramen remained in the cottage made her cheer his every step with desperate sincerity. Every food he had brought struck her as shockingly, aggressively delicious. The snacks came in all sorts of flavors, and that crisp seasoning that stirred up the inside of her mouth held a rough allure a fairy whose staple had been fruit could not possibly resist.
Lulululu.
While Master was here, she had watched his face and asked permission, afraid that she—hardly any help at all—might be stealing his food. Now there was no need. Before he left, she had gotten his leave. Of course, it had not been free.
"Master. While you're away... would it be all right if I ate a little of your food?"
"You little glutton. What do you even do that earns you that? Just finish off the leftover meat."
"I-I can water things while you're gone... and once they're grown, I can harvest them too!"
"Yeah? You can? It's not exactly difficult, I'll give you that."
"Yes! Yes! I'll water the orchard too!"
"Hmm... do that much, and I suppose you can eat the snacks and ramen that are left."
"I can do it well!"
"First chance and last. There's no trust between us yet. You know that, right? But if you pull it off this time... aren't you curious how much food I'll come back with?"
"Hahh..."
"Ramen. Snacks. They're really nothing. I just grabbed whatever was lying around on the street because I was in a hurry."
"...!"
"Feel free to look forward to it. Keep the water coming."
A conversation along those lines had passed between them, and with permission secured, the remaining food was entirely Ruru's.
It was not easy. Ruru had not grown so much as a finger's width, and simply carrying a watering can, drawing water, and trudging back and forth to sprinkle the garden in the front yard was already hard work. The road to the orchard, besides, had to be walked with extreme care, in case a monster appeared along the way. So, honestly, she skipped the trip to the orchard a few times. Master didn't know it, but an automatic irrigation system was already installed there; even if she gave it nothing, as many as five fruits would set on their own. Checking in once in a while before he returned ought to be enough to avoid any real trouble.
When she had struggled through the day's work, she was so exhausted that she treated herself to a nap in Master's bed, and only then, at night, came the hour when she could indulge in a little leisure of her own. Ruru loved that time. The cottage was quiet. The Big Rats had been dealt with, so monsters were unlikely to come this way without a reason. Before long, once it became known that the Big Rats were gone, other monsters might come slinking in from the surroundings to claim that territory as their own—but for the moment, this place still lay across Big Rat ground.
Slurp. Hot noodles vanished, snacks were torn open, and her belly swelled round and full.
"I'm happy."
She found herself waiting for Master. More precisely, she was waiting for the foods of the dimension called Earth that Master would bring.
And so the days passed, one after another, until about four days had gone by since he left. Ruru was watering the yard when she heard a strange sound.
Fssss—
"...Huh?"
The moment the nearby weeds rustled and she heard something coming, Ruru scurried into the house.
"Huueng."
Her senses were exceptionally sharp in that regard. She peered out through the cottage's little window in every direction, and perhaps three minutes passed. From all sides, something poked its head up between the weeds. About five of them. Monsters. They stood about as tall as Master, with gaunt green skin.
"Goblings..."
One of the monsters burned viciously into Ruru's memory. Of all her days with the Previous Master, the memory that lingered longest—because it had been the hardest, and hard things stay—was the struggle of forcing a path through the Level 0 Biome. The Previous Master had chosen magic, of all things, and suffered terribly at the start. The Big Rats had given her trouble, but the Goblings she met next had put her through suffering worthy of the name. The Previous Master's first death had been because of those Goblings. Ruru herself had been tormented by them often enough that her body began to shake on its own.
Those Goblings were cunning, and they moved as a pack, which made them extremely troublesome to face. They were fairly intelligent, too, and there had been many times she looked up to find she had already fallen into one of their traps. The proof was the way they scouted with a light touch and then withdrew. They circled near the cottage, found the traces, muttered something among themselves, watched for about ten minutes, and left just like that. Set beside the Big Rats, who had utterly wrecked the garden while Master slept and then gone, it was cunning enough to raise goosebumps.
This cottage lay under the protection of the Rift Dimension. No monster living here could enter the interior, or even see it, so they had no idea Ruru was watching them from inside. The Goblings might well have assumed the place was empty—and yet they never touched the planted garden. They took only information and left, so that no one would know they had been here.
"Ugh... I hate Goblings."
Ruru trembled. Too afraid to go outside, she did not take a single step out of the cottage that day. The one small mercy was that she had already watered in the morning. She wanted to do nothing at all and stay inside until Master came back, but the next day she found the courage to water the garden. In its own way, that was tremendous bravery for a coward like Ruru.
"Master will take care of them..."
Ruru had faith in her Master. She thought the sight of him slaughtering the Big Rats would work on the Goblings too. That was why she had managed to be brave.
"...If I get too scared to water, Master might throw me to the Goblings."
The Goblings were frightening, but a Master who never hesitated was more frightening still. He had said he would trust her and left her food, and if she failed to give so much as water, failed to harvest the crops, and did nothing but eat through the stores, the memory of being thrown down into the sewer along with everything else came rushing back, and her whole body shook.
"Uuuu..."
The days that remained were tense ones for Ruru. Still, what comforted her was, as ever, the food from Earth left in the house.
"Hehehe..."
Around the time the food was about to run out, Master came back.