The Bard
Luke slowly drifted awake.
He had the vague sense that he had been dreaming about something.
Most likely the culprit was staring at the TV with Deana for far too long.
"Mmm……."
Luke opened his eyes to a sensation tickling through his bangs. What filled his vision was Yerna, gently stroking his hair.
"Lu, sorry. Did I wake you?"
"No, I slept quite pleasantly, so don't worry. I was just about to get up, Yerna."
"Is that so?"
Yerna smiled so readily. Just looking at her made him think what a cheerful, laughter-filled elf she was. As he thought that and let out a languid yawn, Yerna let out a little puhu of laughter.
"Why do you keep laughing like that?"
If I said it was because she was cute, she would surely hate it.
Yerna shook her head back and forth.
"It's nothing. Shall we head back now?"
"Yes—back to the forest, then?"
"Hmm, do you like the forest, Lu?"
"It puts my mind more at ease. And the mana is plentiful."
"Hmm……."
Yerna pondered for a moment. The forest's mana was not something an individual could normally use for private purposes. If someone asked Why now?, he would have an answer ready—Luke had received permission for the purpose of "recuperation," so drawing mana from the forest was not illegal. Even so, she could not let Luke into the forest right now.
"W-we can't let you into the forest for about a week. It's hunting week in Luke Forest."
"Hunting week?"
"According to the forecasts, a large-scale monster invasion is expected this week."
A large-scale monster assault—such things had occasionally happened in the past as well. Two or three times a year, there would be a week when monsters grew violent on a massive scale. In the old days, people had called it a Wave.
Of course, the timing had been completely irregular and difficult to predict, so early damage was often severe. In the end, village militias or a lord's private soldiers would hold the Wave at bay, and then the monsters would quiet down again for a while. Many mages had worked to forecast those periods, but precise prediction had been impossible; at best, they could read the omens and make a rough guess with a margin of error of about a month.
"You can predict something like that accurately?"
"Of course."
The reason precise prediction had been impossible in the past was that the "information" needed to grasp it had been woefully insufficient. Now, with magic satellites and real-time links to countless Forest Keepers, information was overflowing instead. Once that data was gathered, organized, and analyzed, Waves in the modern age had become a phenomenon that could be forecast almost like prophecy.
But Luke, who knew none of that, merely nodded with a faintly dubious look.
Is there some skilled prophet involved? I would rather like to meet that prophet once.
The "prophet" Luke wished to meet was currently orbiting at high altitude, still collecting mana data on Luke Forest—but there was no way the present Luke could know that.
"I would like to see whoever makes prophecies like that."
A prophet of that caliber might even be able to answer questions about himself.
"Heh. Really? Then let's go see it later."
How did she know the magic satellite is named Oracle—the Prophet? Did she read it in a book?
Yes. If he ever took her to a magic museum, she would surely love it.
"Anyway, once hunting week is over, let's go play all over the place. Sound good?"
Luke nodded once at her words.
Yerna was a little tired from yesterday's night shift. Afraid she might doze off at the wheel, she had not brought the car, so Luke walked along the roadside holding her hand. Still, it was only about a thirty-minute walk, so it was no great burden for him.
Simply walking was a bit dull, and the question felt too delicate to ask Dighton directly, so Luke turned to Yerna instead.
"Yerna, does Dighton live alone with his younger sister?"
"Ah, yeah. I heard their parents ran off a long time ago."
So that was it after all.
There had been no trace of parents in Dighton's house. Which meant Dighton had raised his little sister by himself.
"How long has that been?"
"Well…… he never told me the details. He just doesn't like talking about his parents, so I never asked."
"I see."
Well, if he did not want to talk about it, that was that. Luke had no particular desire to pry.
Even so, Deana has grown up remarkably bright and sturdy. Dighton must have treated her very well.
They had seemed so close that just watching them from the side made their affection obvious—the kind of quiet care that never needed to be announced.
"But why the sudden question?"
"No reason. It simply caught my attention."
Yerna decided she could not really answer what it felt like to have no parents, and closed her mouth. Maybe he had felt some kind of kinship.
Luke suddenly recalled his promise with Dighton.
Come to think of it, I was supposed to speak well of Dighton for him.
Dighton liked Yerna, and Yerna was looking for a husband candidate. The slight problem was that Luke himself was stuck in the middle of that arrangement…… but when it came to helping a man's pure-hearted devotion, his own position hardly mattered, did it?
Luke spoke to Yerna quite naturally.
"Yerna, come to think of it—isn't Dighton a rather fine man as a marriage partner?"
Yerna was thoroughly flustered.
"Huh?"
She remembered thinking that Luke had liked Dighton. Luke, assuming her trembling eyes were nothing more than ordinary surprise, simply continued.
"He puts on a tough front, but inside he is quite tenderhearted. When Deana falls asleep, he even tucks the blanket over her."
"And don't you think his build is rather manly as well? There is a healthy vigor to him. A sound mind dwells in a sound body—surely a proper spirit resides in that frame."
"He is skilled at cooking, too, and can even make elven dishes, I hear. In practice, the level was quite high. Look—he even made sandwiches like these for breakfast, did he not?"
Having said that last part, Luke lifted the bag in the hand not holding Yerna's and offered a small smile.
"So I wished to ask how you, personally, would rate Dighton as a husband candidate."
So direct!
Yerna, thoroughly flustered, averted her gaze and cried out.
"Th-that's still too early! Do you know how big the age gap is between us……?!"
"The age gap…… hmm. Certainly……."
Dighton and Yerna were roughly twice each other's age. Well, in outward appearance the difference was not so great.
"Indeed, age is a matter worth considering."
"Of course it is!!"
If Dighton tried to marry Lu right now, I would arrest him myself without fail.
As she thought that and kept her eyes averted, a melody drifted over from somewhere.
Luke, half-expecting that Pai had gotten excited and started chattering again, turned his gaze toward the sound of the performance.
"Hmm?"
But where Luke looked, a real performance was already underway. Three men—one at a keyboard, one on guitar, and one drawing a bow across a violin.
Apparently bards still existed in this age as well.
Listening to it, Pai buzzed around with tremendous energy, pointing her whole body that way as if to say Let's go!
Well, the language of spirits was melody. In the past, spirit mages had sometimes hung instruments all over themselves to communicate with spirits, and their skill had been uniformly excellent. The bard Denise, who had once sung The Song of the Serengal Plains and the Twelve Knights, had likely been a spirit mage as well. Spirits loved pleasant melodies, so spirit mages inevitably tended to be born with fine musical talent.
Had Pai been drawn by a good melody too?
"Yerna."
"Hm?"
"Shall we go over there for a bit?"
"Ah, a street performance. Sure—if you want to watch, let's go."
Pai darted excitedly around the musicians, weaving in harmonies that only Luke could hear. Their performance had already been quite rich, but the chords Pai herself added blended with it so perfectly that the calm passages grew calmer and more emotional, while the urgent, tense passages tightened even further.
People could not hear the language of spirits, but spirit mana was real—so the crowd sensed that something about the performance had changed.
"Whoa, doesn't it feel even better somehow?"
"It wasn't bad before, but this is even better."
As the pile of money in the guitar case in front of them grew, the expressions of the performing men brightened further still.
The playing feels really good today! And more money's coming in than usual!
When the performance finally ended completely, the people burst into cheers and applause all at once. They were only passersby who had never met before, yet in that moment they cheered and applauded the three performers with the passion of devoted fans at a concert.
Luke added his own sound to that applause. They had given him a rather pleasant stretch of time, after all.
Seeing how much Luke was enjoying himself, Yerna slipped ten thousand gil into the guitar case, then set off again on the road home still wrapped in the lingering aftertaste of the fine performance.
Or rather—Luke was still actually listening to that performance. Pai kept humming the melody under her breath the whole way.
Was the music that wonderful?
Luke thought that as he smiled at Pai, and Yerna thought the same as she watched Luke smile. What they were looking at differed, but what they thought was the same.
Luke suddenly wondered what it would be like if he could play an instrument himself. He might even grasp some clue about the spirit tongue that way.
"Yerna, what do you think of me learning an instrument?"
"Mm, Sis is all for it if Lu wants to! Want me to look up places where you can learn?"
"Would you? I am always grateful, Yerna."
Seeing Luke's face looking up at her with that soft smile, a mischievous impulse rose in her and she spoke.
"Are you going to keep making me feel left out? What happened to 'Sis'?"
"……Yerna, Sis……. Thank—no. Thank you……."
Why is the word "Sis" so embarrassing, anyway?
She did not really understand, but Luke getting flustered was far too cute!
But to receive the love of a child like this—what exactly had Dighton done right? Food? Was it the food? It really seemed like it had to be the food.
"Lu, even if someone says they'll buy you something tasty, you must never go with them."
"What are you suddenly talking about? As if I would ever do such a thing."