We're Doomed
Just as Hana's merchandise was flying off the shelves...
Not every elf welcomed the appearance of the World Tree's Avatar. It was not that they disliked her, or held her in contempt. To the elves, the World Tree was a mother in the fullest sense of the word.
She was nothing like the gods of humankind, who existed only as empty phantoms. She possessed a form they could see, and her influence reached far and wide among them. Without the World Tree, the spirit arts and the natural affinity the elves so prided themselves on would vanish altogether. Considered in that light, the World Tree was, to them, an object of worship itself.
The politicians, however, felt a certain discomfort at the Avatar's arrival. Even granting that the Avatar was the soul of the World Tree, she had already been deeply shaped by another world. Had she finished her amusement and returned for good, there would have been no problem—but this was not that. An Avatar coming among them was something that had never happened before.
If Hana were to enter politics, she would take an overwhelming share of the vote and become their representative as surely as dawn follows night. That she would command a crushing base of support went without saying.
The political order as it stood would be overturned. Hana was not a kingmaker. She was the king herself. If she wished something done, she could do it—and she stood where doing so would be all too easy.
"Are we meant to obey the words of the Avatar, and not the World Tree herself?"
"However I turn it over, I think we need to watch God's movements very carefully..."
Just as that seed of unease was taking root in political circles, contact with the Church of the World Tree brought them a single, definitive answer.
God will depart once more for Her original dimension in one month.
It was a statement that rendered every worry they had nursed until then so pointless they wondered why they had bothered at all. If she was leaving in a month, the anxiety they had carried could vanish as if washed clean.
Not long afterward, a great statue of Hana was raised in the very center of the garden before the assembly building.
"God, please wake up!"
"Just one more hour..."
"Hey! You're the one who told me to wake You when it was time to eat!"
I couldn't get my eyes open, but Rinea's shaking left me no choice but to wake. A week had passed since I'd met her, and perhaps that was why she no longer hesitated at this sort of thing. At first, even touching me had put her on edge and sent her into a fluster. I must have seemed far too approachable. Then again, on the outside I was nothing but a child.
"Once God is ready, we'll depart!"
I rubbed my eyes as I answered.
"Already? Isn't that a little fast?"
"Already? The sun is high overhead!"
From the sound of it, lunch was nearly upon us. I nodded and sent Rinea out of the room. The more her nagging grew, the more the World Tree's dignity seemed to slip away. I found myself missing the Rinea of that first day. Back then she had looked at me with eyes full of reverence. Now, not quite so much.
Washed and changed, I climbed into the carriage waiting in front of the church. For the month I would be staying, Rinea had asked me what I wanted.
I told her, more or less, that I wanted to sightsee—to see how the elves lived. Hearing that, she had smiled brightly and told me not to worry.
It felt a little like a senior in the army promising you the grand tour of Busan. Then you actually got there, and there was nothing much to it: shop after shop that hardly deserved to be called a full course. The only memory that stuck was that Busan's pork-and-rice soup was delicious.
The carriage carried us a long while before stopping in front of an enormous building. I tilted my head back to take it in. It dwarfed the grandeur of any ordinary structure, and I found myself wondering what could possibly be inside.
"What kind of building is this?"
"You'll know once we go in!"
Rinea took my hand and led me through the doors. By now the closeness came naturally. The moment I stepped inside, I caught a delicious smell. This huge building had to be a restaurant—and a very fine one, the sort you'd find in a luxury hotel. I had expected it to be packed with elves, yet there was no one at all.
"Why isn't anyone here, Rinea?"
"I told them God would be coming today, so we reserved the whole place."
"You did...? You didn't have to go that far."
Buying out an entire restaurant just for me. What a waste. I couldn't eat much on my own anyway. Rinea would be eating with me, of course, but that was still only two portions—and I never ate a great deal. Perhaps she read the look on my face, because she met my eyes and said,
"It isn't reserved for the whole day, so please just enjoy yourself. And every expense is God's money anyway!"
Someone had said the Church of the World Tree's money was my money, so when I thought about it, I was paying with my own funds. I felt my hunched shoulders ease a little. From what I'd heard, the church had made an astonishing fortune since I arrived.
All sorts of ceremonies had flourished, and donations had surged as well. Word was that one immensely wealthy elf had given half his entire fortune to the foundation—and even then, he was thinking of giving more.
In other words, the money I spent was like bailing the sea with a bucket. Unless I indulged in luxury on a national scale, no bucket was going to drain the ocean. I could bail for a thousand years, for ten thousand, and the sea would still be the sea.
Only then did I set the burden aside and decide to enjoy myself under Rinea's guidance. I was going home in a month anyway. I had already done everything I needed to do, so I might as well approach this intending to have fun. Even after I left, the Church of the World Tree would probably keep raking in money on merchandise.
"Hmm-hmm~"
Maru was heading in to work with a light heart, just as she did every day. Everyone said working life was hard and exhausting, but for Maru, at least, those words never quite landed. There were difficult days on the job, of course, but she had weathered plenty of trials like that back in university.
And compared with university assignments she had been forced to muscle through alone, thanks to a narrow circle of friends, this place—with senior colleagues to lean on—was in some ways easier.
If she didn't know something, she could simply ask. Nor were her superiors the sort of broken personalities who flew into a hysterical fit and picked a fight over every little thing. She counted herself lucky to have met seniors who were reasonable, and genuinely kind.
Beep.
Taking in a company that had gained so much more since her first day, Maru tapped her pass and stepped into the building.
The Starlight Research Institute always looked under construction, no matter when she saw it. From what she'd heard, they were all but building a theme park for Hana. Inside the building there was already talk of a buffet, a convenience store, and now even a roller coaster. They probably wouldn't actually build the roller coaster.
Most of the revenue came from Hana anyway, so they invested without hesitation. What Hana wanted rarely cost much. Perhaps that was why the Starlight Research Institute was slowly turning into something like a bank that played with money, putting its overflowing funds to work through outside investments.
Today, too, Maru was the first to arrive. Other people hated coming in to work, but Maru was the exception. She loved coming to see Hana. Hana got into mischief sometimes, of course, but to Maru it was nothing more than a bit of play.
There was hardly any overtime, and when she thought of the salary and bonuses landing in her account, Maru felt she was being paid far more than the work she actually did. More and more, it struck her that she was something like a teacher at a daycare.
Reaching the tenth floor, she moved at once toward Hana's room. A flicker of unease crossed her mind. The moment the elevator doors opened, she ought to have felt that fresh air, as if she had stepped into a forest. She felt nothing of the kind.
Maru hurried into Hana's room. No one was there. The only sign that Hana had been was a blanket lying on the floor.
As luck would have it, there was no one on night duty either. The person scheduled for the watch had gone to the emergency room overnight with a sudden, acute pain. A replacement should have been sent, but months of uneventful shifts had left them complacent, operating on the assumption that a few hours without anyone would not matter. In the end, no one was guarding this floor.
For the first time, Maru felt her blood run cold. It was as if she had stepped into the opening of a film in which something terrible was about to happen.