The World Tree
Satou here. When I first started working at my company, meetings with the bigwigs made me nervous. But I got used to them after spending a lot of time dealing with unreasonable clients. I guess people really do grow according to their environments.
“Here.”
At Mia’s father’s prompting, I stepped onto the moving walkway, which was illuminated by footlights.
We were now in the center of Bolenan Forest, heading for the Council of Elders’s headquarters at the base of the World Tree.
We’d arrived at the tree the same way we’d traveled from the tree village to the underground city: teleportation by way of fairy rings.
Mia’s father, like his daughter, didn’t explain much, but I was guessing this was an area that could be reached only with teleportation.
When we first entered the area, I used “Search Entire Map,” but it didn’t include the upper or lower layers of the World Tree. So they were all part of different blocks.
Maybe they even had a system that resisted “Search Entire Map.”
As far as I could tell, this section of the World Tree went several miles underground.
I don’t remember how thick a planet’s crust is off the top of my head, but isn’t that pretty deep?
This was just the size of the structure we were in, too. The World Tree’s roots went even deeper and expanded even farther out than the forest itself.
Mia’s house was more than six miles away from this part of the World Tree.
It probably seemed relatively close only because of the absurdly huge size of the World Tree itself.
“Next. Jump.”
Following Mia’s father’s brief instructions, I ventured through a mysterious silver ring.
The materials that made up the cream-colored passages were equally unclear. My AR display labeled it terpeet type-three resin corridor. What in the world was “terpeet”?
Despite the passage’s modern appearance, the cool air smelled of a walk through the forest, and there was a gentle sound like leaves rustling in the breeze.
At the other end of the corridor, an automatic door opened with a hiss of air.
The first set of doors slid open to the left and right, revealing a second set that slid to the top and bottom.
Beyond this set of double doors was a straight hallway about sixty feet long, at the end of which was a similar set of doors. It was sort of like a submarine bulkhead.
Past this bulkhead was a narrower passage, which was suspended above a huge hangar.
“What are…?”
“Outboard hulls,” Mia’s father informed me.
Sure enough, the hangar was full of countless silver hulls that looked just like the hero Hayato’s dimensional submarine, the Jules Verne. They were suspended in the air, their bows pointing up toward the ceiling.
In the back of the hangar were twin-boom aircrafts, wooden hulls, and even some traditional sailing ships.
“Are these all airships?”
“No. Just hulls.”
“They seem to be floating, though…”
“Dimension Pile.”
If memory served, Dimension Pile was a Space Magic spell that could suspend physical objects in midair.
He was probably saying that the countless hulls in the hangar were being held in place with Dimension Pile.
…I was getting pretty good at filling in the blanks with these elves.
At any rate, all the ships were sparkling clean. My AR display revealed how they were being kept so free of rust and decay.
“Fixed?”
“Mm. Practical. Protects.”
Again, this was all speculation based on his few words, but maybe they were using Practical Magic to coat the hulls in a pseudo-substance that protected them from oxidation.
I seemed to remember seeing a spell like that described in the Advanced Practical Magic spell book I’d read at a noble’s house in the old capital.
It wouldn’t work on weapons, but you could use a certain amount of magic power supply to maintain the “Fixed” state, so lords used them in their Item Boxes and things like that.
As I gazed around at the ships, I spotted some engineer-looking elves who seemed to be searching for something among the hulls.
“Are you sure Traya really made a Void Ship?”
“How strange. I could’ve sworn it was here…”
I searched the map, but the Void Ship they were looking for didn’t seem to be in this area.
“Jia, if it’s not here, we’ll have to wake Yua up from the sleep tank…”
“No, you know we can’t do that.”
The two people below started quarreling about something.
What’s a “sleep tank”?
“Satou. Come.”
Mia’s father pulled my sleeve, reminding me that this was not our destination.
Once we crossed the bridge and exited the hangar, we stepped onto a glowing Floating Board that carried us up a slope.
I saw quite a few similar passages, but there was no one around except us.
There were tens of thousands of elves here, ten times more than the elf population aboveground, so I was surprised that we hadn’t seen anyone else but the pair of engineers before.
Checking the map, I learned that most of the elves in this area had the Sleeping condition. Today must be a day off. I wondered if they were sleeping in the “sleep tanks” I’d overheard that pair talking about. Unlike the elves up above, many of these were over ten thousand years old. Their levels were relatively high, but none seemed to be above level 50, not even the oldest among them.
I wanted to ask Mia’s father about them, but he would probably just ask how I came across that information, so I couldn’t say a word.
Aside from the elves, there were eight high elves in this area of the World Tree.
Perhaps they were elf royalty, like you’d find in fantasy stories.
Like the others, most of them were sleeping, but their levels ranged from the 50s to the 70s.
Maybe they had some reason for not leveling up higher than that.
As I was processing all this information, we arrived at our destination, and the Floating Board we’d been riding re-assimilated with the ground.
In front of our eyes was an octagonal door about ten feet tall. Though the corridors we’d traversed to get here were all resin, this area used real wood.
A gap appeared from the top of the octagon, and the door opened like an old-fashioned camera shutter.
It was just the kind of door you’d see in classic science fiction movies.
“Satou.” Mia’s father called to me from the other side of the door.
Oops, I’d been staring at the door for so long, he’d gone in without me. Quickly, I followed behind him.
On the other side of the door was a parliament-like building so big it could probably hold more than a thousand people.
Soft light descended from a skylight above, illuminating the passage that led to the platform in the back.
I couldn’t see her from here, but the only conscious high elf seemed to be in the waiting room ahead.
Does this mean I get to meet her?
My heart fluttered with excitement as I followed Mia’s father to the platform. Twenty or so elders were sitting in raised seats around it.
I sat down next to Mia’s father in a section that reminded me of a defendant’s podium.
“Satou of the Shiga Kingdom. We are most grateful for your aid.”
“Satou of the Shiga Kingdom. We will not forget the debt owed you for delivering our youngest child from the clutches of the wicked sorcerer.”
“Satou of the Shiga Kingdom. We wish to reward you for bringing our little one home from faraway lands.”
“Satou of the Shiga Kingdom. We are pleased…” And so on.
Thus, each and every one of the elders thanked me for bringing Mia home. For some reason, they all started their statements with “Satou of the Shiga Kingdom.”
Was there a rule forcing them to use that phrase or something?
They must have known somehow that I spoke Elvish, since that was what they were using.
Despite being elders, they didn’t look much older than Mia’s father.
However, their eyes were different.
They were so quiet and calm that they seemed almost distant. It was sort of like looking into the eyes of an ancient tortoise.
Their gazes were so steady that they felt a little icy if you made eye contact for too long.
I guess that was what happened when you lived for thousands of years. I’d love to befriend them and hear stories of the olden days.
Still, though the black dragon Hei Long was much older than they were, he somehow seemed a lot younger. I wasn’t sure whether their races accounted for this difference or if it was just his individual personality.
Once all of them had given their thanks, a curtain rose in the back of the parliament room, and a group of elves emerged on a Floating Board the size of a small room.
The eagerly anticipated high elf was in the center, surrounded by four Elvish shrine maidens.
Unlike Sara and the other maidens in the old capital, who wore Western priestess–style clothing, these elves were wearing Japanese shrine maiden–style dress. All proper shrine maidens should have red hakama and a white haori.
However, these weren’t any ordinary shrine maiden outfits. They were also decked out with golden crowns and bells, like for the Kagura dance, and a transparent chihaya jacket embroidered with silver thread—no, with mithril.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the high elf yet. She was hidden behind a floating bamboo screen. It must have been magic of some kind.
The glowing board passed through the line of elders, coming to a stop in front of me.
“““Quiet, please,””” the shrine maidens called, ringing their bells.
The room was already silent, but now wasn’t the time for my snarky observations.
“““A word from Lady Holytree.”””
They must be referring to the high elf.
Her real name seemed to be Aialize, so “Lady Holytree” must have been her official position or a second name or something. According to the AR display, her title was Pure Maiden, and her occupation was World Tree: Warden of Earth.
The bamboo screen slid open, revealing Aialize.
Wow, she’s young.
The girl before me looked even younger than Arisa, barely old enough to start school.
Her facial features were similar to Mia’s, but she had silver hair and red eyes, distinguishing her from the blue-green hair and eyes of ordinary elves. Like them, however, her ears were only slightly pointed.
Whoa!
Checking her age out of curiosity, my jaw nearly dropped in shock. She was hundreds of millions of years old!
Most of the dryads I met were near that range, but Miss Aialize was on another level.
I had never seen nine digits in the age column before. Just trying to count them made me dizzy.
But why did she look like a young girl…?
“Satou of the Shiga Kingdom. You…erm, thou hast done well to bring Misanaria to the Bolenan Forest.”
…Huh?
“I am very grateful to, um, thee.”
What’s going on with her speech?
Her sentences started off confident enough, but then she kept hesitating and switching to more classical-sounding words.
And although her voice was generally much more composed than one would expect from her childish appearance, she put on a strange, overdramatic voice when saying “thou” and “thee” and so on.
It was like an anime fan trying to imitate a voice actor.
I looked around at the elders, but they were as expressionless as ever.
The shrine maidens, on the other hand, were covering their faces, but I could see their shoulders shaking.
“What’s the mat— Um, pray tell, what troubles thee?”
The young girl tilted her head.
Hmm? Wait, what’s that?
Overlapping with the young girl standing before me, I could see a woman who appeared to be in her twenties, kneeling demurely.
The little girl was an illusion, then. Just like when I’d seen through the white tigerfolk’s illusions at the dark auction, this sort of technique didn’t seem to work on me.
Her real appearance was beautiful, if not quite as much so as Lulu: pale-blond hair, blue eyes, thin lips, and a perfectly shaped nose. She was completely my type, to be quite honest.
It was hard to tell through the layers of the white haori and the chihaya, but her chest seemed to be a C or D cup.
And though I wasn’t sure, since she was sitting, she looked to be around my height.
Now, that’s what I’m talking about!
If you asked me, I hadn’t met nearly enough beautiful adult women in this alternate world. It was always little girls for some reason.
The likes of Sara and Zena were too young to be possible romantic partners, and my traveling companions and Karina and such were more like my adopted kids.
Oh, I was so glad we came to Bolenan Forest.
“As for your reward, what do you wa—? Is there anything thine heart desires?”
The illusion of the little girl looked smug and confident, but the real Aialize’s face was a little red.
Clearly this little farce wasn’t her idea.
She was probably going along with a surprise planned by some other elves.
I couldn’t help being captivated by her shy, slightly frustrated expression.
“Well then, Satou of the Shiga Kingdom. As a reward, I shall allow thee one kiss.”
Whoops. I should’ve been listening a bit more carefully.
The illusion of the girl extended her arms in a welcoming gesture and appeared to be puckering her lips.
The real woman kept her eyes down, plainly embarrassed now.
I definitely didn’t want to kiss a little girl, but I wouldn’t say no to the gorgeous adult behind her.
Based on my past experience with Mia, this was probably just meant to be a light kiss, like a European greeting.
I stepped forward in one smooth motion, then without missing a beat, I put my hand on the cheek of the real woman before me.
I nearly gave in to the temptation to kiss her right on the lips, but she was the representative of the high elves, after all.
Better to restrain myself, then.
When I rescued Mia, she thanked me by kissing me on the forehead, so I did the same now to Miss Aialize, barely brushing my lips against her forehead.
Since she didn’t react, I looked down questioningly to find that she was as red as a lobster. Steam was practically coming out of her ears. She’s as bad as Miss Karina.
Aialize wobbled and started to fall over, so I hurriedly caught her.
It looked like she had fainted.
Oops. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to do that?
“Satou of the Shiga Kingdom, our sincerest apologies for Holytree’s tactless blunder.”
In a separate room, a single elder apologized to me with a very serious expression.
“No, I’m the one who should apologize. Was it terribly rude of me to kiss her on the forehead?”
“No, but…placing a kiss above the brow is a sacred act. We do not do such things lightly.”
I see… I guess I surprised Miss Aialize, then.
Well, at least it wasn’t offensive or anything.
“Lady Aaze is resting now in the medical office. Lua will care for her there.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yes, she’ll be fine after some rest. She was simply a bit light-headed.”
The shrine maidens, who’d just returned to the room, giggled.
“Still, it is common for elves who have come of age to kiss one another on the forehead. I was surprised to see Lady Aaze get so flustered.”
“Kua.”
The elder elf scolded the chatty shrine maiden in a deep voice, then turned to me.
“As we were saying before, we elves of the Bolenan clan are pleased to welcome you to our home. Please do use the guest house until we have finished building a home for you.”
…Wait, what? Building a home?
“Oh, it’s not necessary for you to go to all that trouble. We’re more than happy to stay in the tree house while we are here.”
“But surely a house in the trees can’t be very comfortable for you, can it? Why, building a house hardly takes a year, so it’s no trouble.”
The shrine maidens blinked at me in confusion.
I guess elves’ sense of the passage of time was further off from mine than I’d realized.
It sounded as if they’d all assumed we’d be staying there for at least a year.
I was planning to stay roughly two weeks at most, but now I was concerned that it would seem rude if I left too quickly.
“Well, even if you are content to live in a tree house, there must be some other way we can repay you for rescuing Mia. Is there anything you desire?”
“Will thank.”
“You are free to thank him personally, Laya. However, what I refer to is a gift of thanks from all the elves as a whole.”
“Mm. Okay.”
Mia’s father seemed pacified by the elder’s words.
It wasn’t like I’d brought Mia home because I wanted a reward, but it might be rude to say “No need to thank me” or something like that. I’d run into a similar situation with the nobles in the old capital.
My best bet would be to ask for something easy.
“Then might I ask permission to go sightseeing in the Bolenan Forest?”
“But of course. However…”
The elder gave us free rein to go anywhere, with the exception of places like elves’ individual homes, studios, or off-limits areas of the World Tree, which would require permission from the elves in charge of those places.
Once the welcoming banquet for Mia finally settled down, I was looking forward to going sightseeing with everyone.
“Now then, have you decided on a reward?”
Huh? Getting permission to go sightseeing was good enough for me…
But then the image of the metal hulls and sailing ships I saw in the huge hangar earlier crossed through my mind.
I was thinking of traveling by air or sea from the Bolenan Forest to Labyrinth City next, so it was perfect timing.
“Well, I did pass through the hangar earlier…”
On a whim, I asked if I could have the outer hull of a ship. After a moment’s contemplation, the elder agreed.
I later learned that he’d been hesitating over whether such an imperfect product was really a sufficient reward.
With that, I now had a fun little remodeling project to occupy me during my stay.
“Lua, waterrr…”
The high elf Aialize, who was stretched out on a faintly glowing transparent bed, sat up with sleep still in her eyes.
“It appears Lady Aaze has just awoken.”
After my conversation with the elders, I’d gone to see how Aialize was doing. Apparently, my timing was perfect.
Lua, one of the shrine maidens, handed her a cup of water.
The cup looked like glass, but when I held one myself, it felt more like plastic. According to my AR display, it was called an alua goblet, so “alua” must be the name of the mysterious material.
“Ugh, I knew Daisaku had to be wrong about that. Why would he tell me that high elves are supposed to be little girls with silver hair who say ‘thou’ and ‘thee’ and all that nonsense?”
“Lady Aaze…”
Lua was trying to inform Aialize that I was present, but she was too busy grumbling to notice.
“I know, I know. I shouldn’t speak ill of the deceased, but—”
“Lady Aaze!”
Miss Aialize puffed up her cheeks, not unlike Mia when she was cross.
It was pretty cute, though. If I let my guard down, I’d likely fall for her in a heartbeat.
“Come on—can’t you let me rant a little? He definitely thinks I’m a weirdo now. I hope we haven’t given Mia’s savior a terrible impression of the elves—”
“Lady Aaze!!”
Sure, she seemed a little emotionally unstable at the moment, but I found her rapidly changing expressions endearing.
“I mean, he wasn’t even there when I went to the upper village yesterday to say hello to Mia after I finished my business. And what was that Arisa girl on about? ‘Yes, high elves are always silver-haired little girls, no doubt about it!’? Not to mention telling me that her master would never accept a kiss from a little girl…”
“Oh, Lady Aaze…”
So Arisa had a hand in this, too, huh?
“This is why you can’t let your guard down around the people of Nihon. They always mess around like this!”
It sounded like she’d met multiple Japanese people in the past, most of whom were probably as ridiculous as Arisa.
That’s bad luck on her part. Some Japanese people are normal like me, you know.
Actually, how did she know that Arisa was Japanese anyway?
I doubted Arisa would’ve just told her, so she must have figured it out because of her telltale purple hair, generally a sign of a reincarnation.
I should’ve made sure she was wearing her blond wig.
“Lady Arisa, please listen to me.”
“Honestly! What is it, Lua?”
In response, Lua simply pointed toward me.
Aialize’s head turned oh so slowly, like a tinman whose neck joints needed to be oiled.
Then our eyes met.
Immediately, Miss Aialize flew into a flustered panic.
The contrast between her composed, grown-up appearance and her unguarded carelessness was pretty cute. Was this what they called “gap moe”?
At any rate, I should probably give her an out. This seemed to be partly Arisa’s fault, after all.
“Miss Lua told me that you have been abed with a fever since this morning. To the point where you were even speaking deliriously, correct?”
I used my “Fabrication” skill to make up an excuse for her and then passed the baton to Lua.
“Th-that’s right, Lady Aaze. You still seem to have a fever, so please rest for the rest of the day, all right?”
Lua caught on quickly. Now Aialize could blame her strange behavior on a high fever.
Promising to come back to visit once Miss Aialize was feeling better, I took my leave for the day.
According to Lua, there was something Aialize wanted to talk to me about.
I had a bad feeling about that somehow, but no harm could come of hearing her out, I was sure.
When I came back to the tree house where Mia’s welcome-home party was still taking place, for some reason, Mia ordered me to “Kneel.”
Mia’s father had returned before me, but he didn’t seem to be the one who snitched. It wasn’t long before I noticed the three of the shrine maidens standing behind Arisa and Mia, giggling away as they snacked on pastries.
Next time, I’d have to make some extra-spicy cookies just for those gossipy blabbermouths.
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