Adapting
Yerna figured it would take some time to find a facility that could take Luke in.
And for good reason — victims of human trafficking like herself couldn't simply be sent off to just any orphanage.
Planning to spend the day looking into such places, Yerna brought Luke home with her.
"Does a forest keeper not dwell within the forest?"
Yerna smiled faintly at his question.
"How could anyone stand watch every single day?"
She explained with a smile that usually several people took turns managing the forest, then slipped off her outer coat and draped it over her arm.
"I see."
In ages past, elves had been a people who lived in the forest.
Elves are born in the forest, and they die in the forest.
That was the belief Luke had always held, and it left him somewhat unsettled — but he decided to let it go. There were far too many other strange things to dwell on this one alone.
"This dwelling is remarkably tall. Could it be that you are of noble birth?"
"Haha! As if. I'm just an apartment tenant myself."
Luke followed her into the elevator. Having never encountered such a thing before, he studied the contraption with curious eyes.
"The door opens of its own accord. What manner of device is this?"
"It's an elevator. Have you never seen one of these either?"
"Indeed..."
Yerna smiled as she watched the girl stare at the elevator in wonder. A child's eyes lighting up at something new — no matter how many times she saw it, she found the sight endlessly endearing.
Ding!
Luke, utterly absorbed in examining the circuitry of the elevator buttons, startled at the unexpected chime and went rigid with caution — until Yerna laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled.
"Luke, come on!"
They walked a short stretch of hallway, and she turned a key in a locked door.
Click.
Flash…!
"Come on in, hurry."
She pressed a switch by the shoe cabinet, and light flooded the darkened room.
Luke was stunned.
His Mana Sight read every magical enchantment in the space in a single instant.
Light magic in the ceiling fixtures. Blind magic on the windows. And that large rectangular box in the kitchen — a cold-preservation spell of ice and water attributes, balanced so perfectly it approached the ideal. The sofa and carpet were of a material he could not even begin to identify; no beast in his knowledge possessed hide so soft. Either that, or the tanner's craft had reached the realm of creation magic itself. Even the chairs looked as comfortable as beds — furniture that, in his era, not even a noble could freely possess. And the wallpaper, which served no magical purpose at all, was so finely patterned and flawless that—
Good heavens. What manner of artisan crafted all of this...? I cannot even begin to estimate the worth of each piece. To live in a place like this — Yerna must surely be nobility.
Not a single servant was in sight, but in a space this well-appointed, servants might well be unnecessary.
Luke swallowed hard.
He was no longer Archmage Luke Irushi. It was a truth he had no wish to accept. As he stood now, he had no rank, no Circle — he was not even a mage. He was utterly ordinary.
Right now, I am nothing more than a child.
Lamenting his own powerlessness, Luke spoke with a grim expression.
"A place such as this... Am I truly permitted to enter?"
Watching Luke's eyes go wide, then crumple into dejection in an instant, Yerna felt a sharp ache in her chest. The animal ears that had stood so perkily atop his head now drooped pitifully, a sight almost too sad to bear.
Has this child never even known a kindness this simple?
Forcing her feelings down, she put on her brightest smile, knelt to meet the gloomy little girl's eyes, and said,
"You're welcome to come right in. As much as you like."
Luke looked at her warm smile and managed a difficult nod.
There was no choice. Had his body been whole — had even a single Circle, even a trace of one, remained intact — accepting her kindness would have been a matter of choice. But as he was now, even this frail frame was not in proper condition.
With a heavy heart, he stepped inside.
"Shall we get you cleaned up first? Can you wash yourself?"
"I can wash myself."
"You will? The bath is over there."
"Understood."
He walked toward the place her finger indicated and stripped off the filthy blanket. Looking at his small body in the mirror, Luke felt that same heavy feeling settle over him once more.
Ivory skin. A tiny frame. Platinum-blonde hair.
And what, exactly, were these ears? What were these horns?
Out of pure curiosity, he gave one of his ears a firm pinch — and a thoroughly strange sensation followed.
"Hh—..."
A tingling ran down his spine, making it clear that these were not mere ornaments stuck on for show. They were organs fully integrated with his own body.
The horns were the same. Nerves ran through them as well; every touch registered completely. Grip hard, and he felt it hard. Grip gently, and he felt it gentle. That sensation meant these toy-like ears and horns were, in every real sense, proper parts of his body.
"Hah..."
It was absurd. And yet this transformed body did not bring him only despair.
Why on earth did this happen to me?
He felt curiosity.
A mage is a creature that exists by curiosity and courts death by curiosity — one who spends a lifetime chasing questions and lives on the satisfaction of answering them. That truth applied to him as well. It was law.
"Why did this come to pass?"
Sifting through his memories yielded almost nothing, which only sharpened the curiosity further. He resolved that he would, without fail, uncover what had been done to his body — but for now, he needed to wash.
Looking around, he found the room lined on all sides with a material smooth as porcelain, built so that water could splash anywhere without consequence. An indoor bath, then. Once again he was struck by the extravagance — though of course it could not compare in size to a public bathhouse. A cramped interior with no servants; he would make allowances for that.
Still — where was the bathwater drawn and held?
Unless she had judged him a mage, there had to be water prepared somewhere. He tilted his head, then spotted a pure-white porcelain basin holding water.
"Could this be... a well?"
He sniffed it. Clean enough, by the smell. The well itself was not crude stone but smooth porcelain — hygienically superior even to the village wells he had once tended. Scooping some up by hand revealed no particular problem.
So one washed with this, then. Placing a well inside one's home — what a splendid idea, he thought.
He found a ladle nearby, scooped water from the basin, and poured it over himself. The cold touch was not unpleasant, though he found himself wishing the water had been warmed. In ordinary times, heating water would have been a trivial matter for him. This, too, was one of the many deprivations of living as a non-mage.
The water in the well ran out quickly. Wondering how one refilled it, he fumbled about and discovered a lever at the back of the basin. When he pressed it, water filled the empty well once more — a marvel indeed.
"How truly marvelous..."
Whoosh...
When the water filled, he poured it over himself again. When it ran dry, he pressed the lever to refill it. After he had repeated this several times, Yerna grew concerned and opened the bathroom door.
"Um, Luke? Are you feeling sick? Why do you keep flushing the toilet...? What on earth are you doing?!"
Indeed — what Luke had taken for a well was, in fact, a toilet.
Yerna promptly sat Luke in the bathtub and rinsed him with warm water from the showerhead, sighing all the while.
Looking for all the world like a rain-soaked puppy with his ears hanging limp, Luke spoke to her in a feeble voice.
"I am truly ashamed. To trouble a person of such standing so... I can only blame my own ignorance. Once more, I apologize—"
"No talking while you're washing. Water'll get in your mouth."
"Mm... Understood..."
This kid talks like a silver-tongued orator. Where did she even learn to speak like that...? Listening to her, she's clearly not stupid...
"Have you really never used a shower before?"
"Ahhh, aaaaah—. Indeed... This 'shower' is a fine thing. So comfortable and warm, I could nearly fall asleep..."
Luke had, in truth, never seen a shower. He had never seen anything like it. That he did not know how to use one was only natural.
"Haa..."
Yerna found herself wondering just how much abuse this small child had endured — and thinking, not for the first time, that the world held far too many terrible people.
"Sigh... You poured toilet water on your head, so we've got to wash it thoroughly."
"Hyeuk— hnn...!"
She had only rubbed his ears a little firmly, but Luke's shoulders shot up and he let out a sound that was half a moan of pleasure. Yerna yanked her hands away from his ears in shock.
"W-what's wrong?"
Luke cleared his throat, looking embarrassed.
"I-if you would refrain from touching the insides of my ears, if possible... They appear to be rather sensitive..."
"I-I see."
Yerna's startled expression hardened. To think they had even built erogenous function into this child's ears — her murderous intent toward whoever had abducted Luke swelled larger than before.
In the dark of night, Luke stood out on the veranda, gazing at the sky.
It was not that he loved the night sky. He was checking the positions of the stars, to confirm whether this was the world he had known.
The world is the one I knew. As for the time... there is a discrepancy of roughly five thousand years.
He could not be certain of the exact figure. But the stars once used for calendars had shifted by a distance that suggested about five thousand years — and that was enough for him to conclude as much.
"What are you doing out here, Lu?"
Deciding that "Luke" was not a name suited to a little girl, the elf Yerna Risphind had bestowed the nickname "Lu." She approached with a thick blanket and gently draped it over his shoulders.
"Yerna..."
His old nickname had been "Look," but he could not bring himself to show her how awkward this new one felt. He had already received far too much kindness.
"Aren't you cold? You'll catch a cold. Come inside. Want me to make you some cocoa?"
"I am fine. I am most grateful for your concern."
Luke politely declined her offer and lifted his gaze to the sky once more.
"Lu really is so well-mannered..."
Hearing his answer, Yerna laughed lightly and rose to her feet.
"Do you like the stars?"
"Of course."
To a mage, the stars were the very wellspring of magic. The song of the stars, the whisper of dawn, the music of the moon — all of them were materials of the craft. What mage could possibly dislike the stars?
Even if, for now, he had not a single Circle left, and could not even call himself a mage.
Well. The Circles he had lost could simply be rebuilt from the beginning. He who had once climbed as high as the Tenth Circle would raise them again soon enough. Even if the world had changed, his knowledge would still hold. The laws of mana, after all, had not changed.
The city beyond the window was beautiful. Soft yellow light glowed in the windows of countless buildings that rose like towers, and far in the distance a vast tree supplied mana to the entire city.
A magnificent mana-city, truly.
"Is that tree a World Tree?"
"That's right — though it's an Artificial World Tree. The real World Tree isn't in our country; it's way out in Veriton."
"I see."
An "Artificial" World Tree. Five thousand years have reduced even the World Tree — once classified as sacred — to the realm of mere tools.
And yet I, for my part, have only fallen behind.
This world he had awakened to was full of things he did not know. And the mage in him was seized by a fierce desire to interpret and master even this changed world.
Whoosh—!
A gust of wind made Luke shiver slightly. Seeing this, Yerna ushered him inside, closed the window, and spoke gently.
"You'll catch a cold. Look at the stars from inside."
"Very well."
She gave the obediently nodding Luke a light pat on the head and said,
"Shall I bring you some cocoa now?"
"...Yerna."
"Hmm?"
"But tell me — what is this 'cocoa' of which you speak?"
"..."
