Ishura - Volume 1 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Kia the World World

Unfastening her sash, she felt her heavy robe, wet with dew, slide down her smooth skin and fall to the ground. Though deep in the heart of the forest, the simple changing room in the bathhouse had a full-length mirror, which reflected her immaculate nude body—her ample bosom and eyes that sparkled like rubies. Though she was of average height, her elegant legs made up almost half her body’s length. Aureatia’s Seventeenth Minister, Elea the Red Tag, considered her physical appearance to be her most lethal weapon.

She didn’t mean this in the sarcastic and vulgar way men spoke about such matters, nor did she feel it out of vanity or obsequiousness. It was an objective truth. Elea was the one who utilized her beautiful face most of all, and there was nothing for her to be ashamed of.

…Grandma told me that, I think. Beauty is a gift allotted by angels when you’re born, and you need to use the heavenly gifts to bring happiness to others.

The vague contemplations swirled around her thoughts as she brushed her vivid chestnut hair.

She realized that in the six small months since coming to this village, her meditations on beauty and youth had become more frequent.

—My idea is different.

Beauty wasn’t a static grace, bestowed by angels. It was just an ephemeral aspect, rooted in one’s life and old age.

For example, even those blessed with pretty faces would lose all trace of their original beauty should they be afflicted by a terrible pox. Others still could lose it from being scarred in combat.

Even for those lucky enough to avoid such misfortunes, should they be careless with their own attractive features, much like a castle garden no longer being pruned, that natural beauty would fall into ruin, becoming crude and unrefined.

Her mother had harshly ingrained the concept in her. Above all, she said, this idea was what separated the superficial beauty of a lady of the night and the pure, refined charms of an aristocratic princess. Then reminding her that the two of them were now nobility themselves.

Beauty manifested from the combination of innate gifts and personal effort. It required constant maintenance. She was to always be neat and tidy.

Finishing her simple grooming routine, she opened the wooden door to the bath. Elea recognized the shadow on the other side of the steam.

“Yawika?”

“Teacher!”

Hot water sprayed into the air from the momentum of the young girl jumping to her feet.

Elea wasn’t wearing her glasses, but she could still distinguish Yawika through the fog. Unlike the other elves, she had brown skin. Her behavior was immature, but the girl was, in fact, still young. While elves lived longer lives compared to minia, she was most likely still only ten or eleven years old.

“Yaaay! Over here, over here! I thought you already went back to Aureatia! Meoki and Ae were feeling sad… Wow, teacher, you’re super-duper pretty!”

“I-is that so? Thank you. Classes are over, but I’ll still be in this village until tomorrow. I wanted to take a bath here one last time.”

“Yeah! Will Kia be here till tomorrow, too?”

“Of course. I’ll be sure to have her give everyone a proper good-bye before we leave.”

Admiring Yawika’s velvety skin as she snuggled up to Elea, Elea felt the girl seemed to be built from entirely different material in comparison to a minia. On top of that, she would see no decline in her beautiful features for close to a hundred years.

Everyone in this village, from baby elves to their parents, enjoyed a similar level of divine beauty, as if it was their birthright, without paying their appearances anything close to Elea’s level of attention and effort.

“Hey, teacher! Hold class! Just for me!”

Both done rinsing off and now soaking together in the bath, Yawika’s magenta eyes sparkled as she leaned in toward Elea.

Six small months had passed since Elea had come to the Eta Sylvan Province. A small month consisted of forty-two days. There were nine small months in a year, so she had, in fact, spent more than half a year in contact with the elven children while posing as their teacher.

As with minia children, each of the elves in the village had their own quirks. But to Elea, who had come to the village as an educator, children like Yawika were the cutest of the bunch, overflowing with a desire to learn.

“Well, I suppose if you insist… Now, it’ll have to be a short lesson so you don’t get too far ahead. We’ll just go over the Word Arts groups.”

“Yay!”

Smiling at the girl, Elea ladled water into a number of buckets.

She considered that she might have originally been better suited as an educator instead of one of Aureatia’s officials. A path she could no longer pursue.

“There are four big groups of Word Arts. Elves don’t really differentiate among them that much, but central…rather, in minia scholarship, it’s different.”

“Yeah! Thermal Arts, Craft Arts, and, and, ummm…”

“Amazing. Knowing two off the bat is quite impressive. Did you learn that from a book?”

“Tee-hee…! I heard about it from Muya next door, but I really know three of them! Um, um…”

“Thermal Arts. Craft Arts. Force Arts. Life Arts. Those four.”

“Right, right! Life Arts! I remember now!”

“Good girl.”

Elea stroked Yawika’s long silver hair, and the young girl squirmed and wriggled her body with happiness.

Of course, if she was to be precise, these four groups did not entirely explain all the Word Arts that constructed their world. For instance, the arts that gave golems and skeletons their own autonomous will and life were known as Demon Arts and didn’t fit among any of the other four categories.

“You already know Thermal Arts, right? Remember the ability your mother is always using in the kitchen?”

“I already know how to use those!”

“Well now. In that case, think you’ll be able to cook me a nice meal when I come back to visit?”

“Woo-hoo! Leave it to me!”

While holding Yawika in her hand, Elea dipped a finger into one of the buckets filled with water.

“Elea io yethar. Secat tent. Vekuons. En ou kroah. Quonocks.” (From Elea to Eta’s water. Wingless insect. Bulging leaves. Softened backbone. Fly.)

“Bwah?!”

The water’s surface in the bucket burst. A spray of hot water splashed up with force, drenching Yawika’s face.

“Oh no! I’m sorry. I’m not very good with Force Arts, actually…”

“It’s okay! I’m totally fine! Is that what that was?”

“They’re arts that move things or send them flying. For example, let’s see… Have you ever seen any of the adults bend one of the arrows they’ve fired before?”

“Yeah! I think!”

“They let you do that, too. Learn them for yourself, and there are even some who can use them to fly in the air, though only for just a moment.”

If one was to apply them to minia physics, Thermal Arts would be described as manipulating the scalar, while Force Arts manipulated the vector.

Thermal Arts created energy at an intended location, such as fire, electricity, or light. Conversely, Force Arts applied momentum at will to preexisting energy or matter.

The concepts were still difficult for the young Yawika to understand, but naturally combining both allowed one to shoot fireballs or make precise lightning attacks.

“Okay, okay, so what’re Craft Arts?”

“Why don’t we start there, then? Let’s see… Watch closely, okay? I’m going to try something a little funny… Era io yethar. 40ermy tio. Shept alle. Pewrezez nesder. Gubzerbe.” (From Elea to Eta’s water. Twenty-two bones. The soil of the seafloor. Terminus ash. Halt.)

Beyond allowing for mutual language comprehension, Word Arts could be used only on soil, vessels, or living creatures with which the user had a tacit understanding, but since the water in front of her belonged to a region where she had stayed for six small months, Elea could twist it into surprising shapes. For example—

Elea grasped the hot water in the bucket and pulled it out. The water kept its shape when gripped in Elea’s hand, and it didn’t even lose shape when she let go.

“Wh-what…? Ice?!”

“Heh. Is it?”

“Wh-whoa, it’s warm! It’s not ice! But how?!”

“Craft Arts changes the shape of things. There are people in the village who make bows and tableware, right? Just as bending a tree branch can make a bow, you can even change the shape of hot water like this if you try hard enough.”

“Amaaazing!”

In truth, turning a fluid into a fixed shape like this was quite an advanced level of Word Arts. It would be very difficult for someone without an affinity for Craft Arts to pull off.

Naturally, this was nothing more than entertainment, and in most cases, Craft Arts were used to turn materials from a familiar region into a previously determined shape. While it wasn’t seen as an important group of arts to non-minia races, the arts were indispensable when creating complex items and helped support the progress of civilization.

“Life Arts are, to put it simply, the Words Arts of a doctor. You’ve had someone treat a cold or an injury of yours before, right?”

“Grandma Micchi does that! But I’ve been real healthy for a long time, and I haven’t gotten any injuries, either!”

“That’s right. But no matter how amazing Grandma Micchi may be, she can’t treat any of my injuries. Do you know why that is?”

“Ummm…”

“Unless you’ve spent a long time sitting face-to-face with someone, it’s impossible to know which words you can use in your Word Arts to directly heal them. The same way it works with the wind and water and the trees and metal. Of course, that goes for me and for you, too.”

“You and I can’t do it, either?”

“Nope. But unlike living creatures, water is very obedient. I’ll teach you another thing you can do with Life Arts.”

Elea muttered another incantation, and this time, she took her index finger that had been stuck in the bucket and had Yawika stick it in her tiny mouth.

“Mm! It’s sweet!”

“That’s right. Life Arts doesn’t change the shape of something, like Craft Arts, but instead changes the properties of things. It can repair damaged cells, heal wounds, and change water into wine.”

“Really? Then can Grandma Micchi do that, too? I asked her once how she was able to heal people’s wounds, and she just said she could do it somehow.”

“Elves are quite gifted in the Life Arts, so that might be why. I’m most proficient with Life Arts, too, actually.”

Of course, in Elea’s case, her Life Arts were used not for healing the sick but for making poisons.

The fact wasn’t limited to Life Arts, but if someone understood their target enough to directly use Word Arts commands, it was equivalent to holding constant life-or-death authority over them. Of course, societal trust meant people generally didn’t regard their doctors with suspicion, but if an attending physician ordered someone to die, they could induce their patient’s death. Anecdotes in Aureatia were not uncommon about people fearful of assassination rejecting Life Arts, relying instead on technical medicine, ultimately shortening their own lives.

Therefore, as a means to power, Elea had studied Word Arts…and Life Arts in particular. Enough that she easily explained the theory of Word Arts to a bathing child.

Although a member of the nobility, the truth of her parentage was that she was a prostitute’s daughter, and she had gained a limited seat among Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials at such a young age because she had coincidentally also been the successor to the seat of the previous Seventeenth Minister, who had died in an unfortunate case of poisoning.

Unlike most of the unintelligent beasts of the natural world, among the minia race, it was the females, not the males, who were less violent.

However, even without power of their own, by using their charms, they could ensnare those who did have power. They could lead judgment astray and make others fall to their schemes. Even after the dust settled, the fools who realized their own immoral behavior were too deeply enthralled to raise a single cry of suspicion.

Curry favor with her beauty and destroy from within. That was the power wielded by Elea the Red Tag.

“Now, no more class for today. I’ll be sure to continue from where I left off the next time I’m here, okay?”

“Yeah! Um…teacher…?”

“Yes, yes, what is it—? Eep?!”

Without warning, Yawika dived into Elea’s chest, eliciting a strange yelp. With an impudence reserved only for children, Yawika buried her face in Elea’s breasts, giggling.

“Tee-hee… I love you, teacher! I’ll still love you, even after you go back to Aureatia!”

“Y-yes, well…erm. I love you, too, Yawika.”

“Your boobs are so big; they’re amazing!”

“Th-that has nothing to do with anything!”

It was a night where both the big moon and small moon were visible. For Elea, it was her final night to enjoy these moments of serenity.

Afterward, Elea chatted idly with Yawika for a little while, and then, for just a moment, her mind drifted to the reason behind her visit to the village. A reason she could never reveal to Yawika.

She walked back alone. Most of the village’s hot-spring baths were on the outskirts, and Elea had to traverse a dreary forest path to get back to her borrowed lodgings.

“Do all minia baths take that long?”

The question came from up in the trees. A young girl’s voice, one with which Elea was very familiar.

“Yawika was dizzy, you know. She’s still young, after all. Can you stop forcing her to keep you company during your long minia baths, Professor Viper?”

“You shouldn’t…”

Elea’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses, and she looked up at the darkness above her.

There she saw a strange and unnatural construction.

Numerous thin vines were standing vertically atop the ground, nothing supporting them at all. At the top, the vines wove together into a seat, and sitting there was a small young girl with blond hair.

“…call people names, Kia. What are you doing in a place like this?”

“What do you mean, a place like this? I wanted to jump in the bath after you were out, but you took so dang long.”

“You shouldn’t use your Word Arts to peep on people, either.”

“How—?! Don’t make fun of me! Disgusting! There are just less bugs and stuff when you’re up high! It’s easier!”

“Heh-heh. What, did you want to join my lesson with Yawika, too?”

“Bleh! Like I want to study! Yawika’s just a weird girl who likes school!”

Essentially Yawika’s polar opposite, Kia had never once taken her Word Arts studies seriously. If Elea was to give out a written test, she was positive that Kia would score the absolute lowest out of all the students in the Eta Sylvan Province.

Elea glanced at the vines supporting Kia. The tendrils, so thin the heft of a satchel would weigh them down, stretched straight up, maintaining an orderly structure. A pinnacle of Life Arts, twisting life and making it possible to imbue the durability of steel into a single thread of cotton.

The fact that the construction grew up from the ground, in opposition of gravity, and continued to support the young girl’s weight was the result of dexterously controlled Force Arts being used in perpetuity.

“Put me down in front of teacher.”

Kia spun her Word Arts, and the vines smoothly bent and placed the young girl, sitting in their braided cage, down on the ground. Elea had to admit that if she was capable of such feats, then it must have been more convenient than climbing trees herself…assuming the “convenience” was enough of a reason to constantly keep such complicated Word Arts commands going.

“Return.”

Then the plant folded in on itself, as if it were going backward in time, before settling down in the palm of Kia’s small hand.

Left over was but a single grain of seed, no bigger than her pinkie in size.

“You can have it back. Thank you.”

The girl sent the seed flying up into the darkness overhead. The seed cut a strange path, flying toward the weeds growing around a tree. The seed was sucked inside a fruit, unseasonably ripe, before the fruit transformed back into a flower, followed by the whole bud disappearing, leaving only thick leaf growth behind.

“…Kia. You really shouldn’t use your Word Arts willy-nilly like that. Your power—”

“—is a gift to bring happiness to others, right? This is ridiculous. It’s always the same with you.”

“I’m begging you, please start listening to what your teacher has to say… Your power is extremely special. Isn’t it boring to always be putting it to such…normal use?”

“Hmph. If I can spend my days having fun, I’m fine with normal.”

“The world outside Eta isn’t normal, though. After our stop in the New Principality of Lithia, you’ll immediately start attending school in Aureatia. It won’t just be elves, either. There’ll be all sorts of people, even dwarves and leprechauns. Some of the other students might think you’re weird and say nasty things about you.”

“There are people like that at school in Aureatia?”

Word Arts were classified into four categories, with a user’s individual skill and racial aptitude adding specific strengths and weaknesses into the mix.

Word Arts required a special incantation, and upon execution, the words would create a link to one’s very soul.

These arts were born of a mutual understanding of wills that occurred once the user understood the vessel, person, and place involved in the incantation.

There was an exception, however. The Words Arts of one person—Kia—went against every one of these principles.

“…That’s right. You’re headed to Aureatia, remember? Think about how others will perceive you.”

“I don’t care. People can say whatever they want. Doesn’t make a difference to me!”

Her body was slender and delicate, like crafted porcelain. Her blond hair, tinged with white, gently swayed in the breeze. Her turquoise eyes, like a transparent lake surface, angled slightly inward.

However, this appearance was quite normal among the elves, the fairest of the world’s races.

When sizing up the vulgar fourteen-year-old elf girl, nothing about her immediately attested to her peculiarity.

At that very moment, she wore a boastful smile, the same as any other child her age.

“After all…I just have to say die to those creeps, and they’d all drop dead where they stood!”

Exceptions did exist.

She was a genius without peer. An unparalleled prodigy.

The sky was cloudy for the morning of their departure.

The Eta Sylvan Province was a rainy region to begin with, with the dense year-round fog keeping people away from the secluded region. The cloudy weather was commonplace.

As she fought her daily battle with anemia, Elea finished up her plain breakfast of boiled oats and a soup made from the milk of forest goats.

When she had first arrived in the village, where everything, from the level of civilization to the food culture, was different from what she was used to, she had needed help with even the most menial of chores. At this point, though, she could handle almost all of them by herself.

I wonder if Kia’s already outside… How unusual.

For the two small months since she had become the girl’s exclusive tutor, she had lived together with Kia. When it came to their hatred of mornings, the two were astonishingly similar.

Oh, great… And on our departure day…

Grumbling to herself, Elea left the house. In the plaza right in front, she saw three children.

“Ah! Teacherrrr!”

“Good morning. Don’t you think it’s embarrassing for an adult your age to be sleeping so late?”

“Teacher… H-Hello…”

Elea immediately straightened out her posture and snapped her drowsy and languid look into a perfect smile.

In the village, she was a model private tutor, beautiful and kind. At the very least, that’s how she presented herself in front of all the children besides Kia.

“Good morning, Yawika, Thien… And you, Kia, you shouldn’t always be so rude to other people.”

“Um, today’s the day you’re leaving, and Thien said he wanted to come, too, so we came to say good-bye!”

“Um, no, I…j-just…um…”

“Tee-hee. Is that so? I’m happy you came to see me off, too, Thien.”

“…Y-yeah…”

Thien was the oldest among them, but he still cowered behind Kia’s back like a skittish rabbit.

Elea was well aware of his feelings for her, and there were moments when she would use that knowledge to tease him.

“They came all this way to say good-bye, and you still couldn’t get out of bed. You were getting bored, too, right, Yawika?”

“Nuh-uh! You were here to play with us! The hawthorn berries were cold and tasty, too!”

“L-like I’d be playing around with a kid like you! Don’t go blabbering about stuff that’s not important! Honestly, you’ve still got some stuck to your cheek…! Lemme wipe it off.”

“Mmmmhhhph!”

Elea looked at the slender hawthorn berry tree, rising up from the small stream flowing through the plaza. Kia must have used her Word Arts to make it grow large enough to feed the berries to Yawika.

Kia was almost omnipotent. She had been gifted with an incredible aptitude for Word Arts.

Within this secluded forest village, her talents only extended to making hawthorn berry trees bear fruit and entertaining the younger children with light and fire. In the small world of the forest, free of competition and enemies to fight, she had no reason to use any more of her power.

“T-teacher! Kia may act like that, but…the village children, the adults, we all…um, we’re very grateful, and…”

“Really now? And how about you, Thien?”

“Eep! M-me too…! I-I’m very grateful. Before you came, I didn’t even know where the clouds in the sky came from. Everyone’s gotten a lot smarter, and it’s all thanks t-to you. Truly.”

Thien nervously stepped forward and looked Elea in the eye.

“If that’s true, then as your teacher, hearing that makes me the happiest of all. I said it once in class, didn’t I? Wisdom is like a seed—”

“—and knowledge is the life water that will nurture and sustain it. But M-Miss Elea’s the one who sowed that seed in the first place. We’ve caused nothing but trouble, and we can’t do anything to thank you properly…”

Elea patted Thien’s head affectionately. Then she gave him a tight hug.

With his head nestled into her chest, Thien softly yelped like a cornered baby animal.

“Oh, please. Nothing makes me happier than knowing I’ve taught my adorable students well. Right, Yawika?”

“Yeah! I love teacher!”

“You’re so shameless, honestly… She’s the bad kind of adult. She managed to trick Mom and Dad, too. And you too, Yawika! You can’t keep cozying up to her forever!”

“K-Kia, you just don’t want to go study in Aureatia… You’re jealous.”

“Pfft, it’s a lot weirder to want to study, if you ask me!”

“My, my…hee-hee. Can’t you be honest with yourself for once, Kia?”

Elea was not an educator.

She was a member of Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials, the Seventeenth Minister. This fact remained unknown to all the elves in the village.

Devoutly attending to Kia, she managed to convince her parents, who were at a loss as to how to deal with their daughter’s uninhibited behavior, to let Elea be the girl’s personal teacher and have her study abroad in Aureatia. She had a very clear goal behind her actions.

Kia can definitely win.

Kia was nearly omnipotent. Not even old enough to receive her second name, she possessed unrivaled Word Arts power. Should a power like this quietly waste away in this secluded world, only used as a convenient parlor trick?

In the small world of the forest, free of competition and enemies to fight, she had no reason to use any more of her power.

—In that case, what if someone else came along who was able to give her a reason?

If Kia fought, she wouldn’t need to heat the winds with Thermal Arts and rain fire down on an enemy. She could just make her opponent burst into flames.

Prominent masters of Craft Arts were able to transform soil into blades to slice their enemies to ribbons. Kia needed no such technique. She could shape and rework her enemies’ very forms in any way she desired.

At the Imperial Competition to decide the Hero, if such an overpowering existence—yet unknown to anyone and unheard of, even within the realm of armchair theorizing—suddenly showed up to compete… What would the other candidates’ expressions look like then?

No matter who her opponent may be, the World Word is going to win. Even Second General Rosclay…would be no match for her power.

What Elea the Red Tag was after was power. All the truer after gaining her seat within Aureatia’s central governing body, she wanted absolute authority, not as a single functioning substitute among the other twenty-nine members, with no one able to threaten her or disdain her for the circumstances of her birth.

She didn’t care if that meant trading in her endless toiling efforts to achieve the innocent trust placed in her to get it.

“Kia, Kia! Let’s go to our spot! We’re not gonna see each other for a while!”

“Ugggh… I don’t need to go there… It’s really not a big deal…”

This time, Yawika turned her fawning behavior on Kia. The young girl was overflowing with childish stamina.

“I’ve never heard about this before… Where is it?”

“As your teacher, I’m curious myself. Is this place a favorite of yours, Kia?”

“What?! D-don’t be ridiculous; Yawika likes it, not me! I was just going with her!”

“Take me, take me!”

Kia looked, at least on the outside, like the whole idea was an annoyance to her.

Yawika didn’t take her response at face value, however. Kia was rude, and her grades were poor, but all the elves in the village knew her very well.

“Honestly…! Professor Viper can wait here! It’s not that big a deal!”

“Fine, fine… But maybe I’ll just tag along anyway.”

“Just stay here!”

Kia began walking with the other two children in tow.

The Eta Sylvan Province was a combination of rivers and trees, with rolling mountains.

If there were still any routes in the village Elea had yet to travel, she wanted to know about them.

Later in the afternoon, she would be leaving the village behind for good.

“…So there’s a path through the bushes on that hill over there?”

“Yep! On the other side of the hill, right around where you can see the village watchtowers, you can slip through.”

“It probably runs parallel with the elves’ path for the animals of the forest to travel through. We could run into some deer or boars.”

“…My Force Arts would be enough to handle a boar.”

“That’s amazing, Thien!”

“Well, I could grab the whole group at once and hang them up at the very top of that tall tree over there instead!”

“You’re amazing, too, Kia!”

“Come on now—don’t leave your teacher behind.”

The path Kia led the group down was very narrow for someone of Elea’s height to squeeze through, with branches and leaves getting stuck to her overcoat.

Both her hands sunk into the dirt each time she passed under an arch of trees.

The experience was something Elea never would have had back in Aureatia. The Seventeenth Minister put all her attention toward her appearance and behavior during her schemes and intrigue, and only in this village were there times when she’d embrace her inner child.

Having never gotten to experience them for herself, the teacher ended up learning about these childlike experiences from her own students.

Finally…

…This will work. A minia adult could advance through here in a single file without issue. Judging from our direction, we’ll come about midway up the fourth mountain. The people of the village don’t know about this route. Plenty useful.

Elea’s mind was always taking such things into account.

If there were still any routes in the village Elea had yet to travel, she wanted to know about them.

During the harvest festival, when she’d stood with her students and watched the adults perform their flame dance, she had let out a sigh of admiration at the display of fire and beauty. Conversely, she had recorded how long the men had been gone from the village to prepare for the event and what defenses had been set in place while they were away.

When she tried teaching about the practical uses for the vegetation found in the forest, she had been embarrassed to learn that the elves knew about all of it already. That night, she organized which medicinal herbs could be used to treat injuries and which mountain vegetables could serve as food provisions during a march, writing it all down and attaching it to a bird to send back to Aureatia.

For six small months, Elea had thoroughly surveyed the mysterious place, veiled in a dense fog to keep others away.

This village is peaceful. They aren’t wary of possible infiltration. A single platoon would be enough to do the job.

The day was sure to come when Aureatia would seize every inch of this bountiful village.

This was the foundation of the minia nation’s rebirth following their wounded and impoverished fate at the hands of the True Demon King.

Kia, the rare prodigy, would become the Hero under Elea’s wing. The leftover village would be entirely converted into resources for the nation.

The rumors about “one who wielded omnipotent Word Arts” had existed during the age of the True Demon King, and Elea had learned the whereabouts of this individual village from a previously captured soldier of the New Principality. In that moment, the forest village’s status as an unknown land of mystery was instantly shattered.

That soldier was no longer part of this world. By disposing of the few people who knew the link between Elea and the World Word, no one would be able to prepare for Kia’s power.

Curry favor with beautiful looks and corrode things from within.

Before her espionage, all fell with ease. Her second name, inviting both fire and blood, was Elea the Red Tag.

“…Okay, we’re here! Teacher!”

Elea raised her head. Just as she had predicted, they appeared to be halfway up a mountain, looking out over a deep valley.

“Phew, that was tough! Are you tired, too, teacher?”

“Ummm…I’m fine. Is this it?”

Sighing with a hint of exhaustion, Elea looked up and examined the scenery.

It was not an exceptionally moving view.

The far-off mountains were hidden in the clouds, and the whole landscape looked like a vague silhouette outlined in the fog.

“Well…that’s it. I told you! It’s not anything special! I told you I didn’t need to come up here! Great, now my last memory of the village is all dreary and dull!”

Kia awkwardly laughed, sitting on a rock.

This place was a secret from everyone. Elea could clearly tell that by bringing her here, the children all considered her a very close friend.

Suddenly, Thien spoke up.

“…It shouldn’t be cloudy like this, right? Kia, can’t you just clear it up?”

“Ooooh! He’s right! Good thing you’re here, Kia!”

“Hmm…? What do you two mean by that?”

“Give me a break. You make it sound so simple…”

Kia looked fed up as she turned her attention beyond the cliff’s edge.

Lightly twirling the tips of her blond hair with her finger, she then awkwardly looked at Elea.

“…I’m not trying to show off or anything, okay?”

She issued her next command with a huff.

“Clear up.”

Her whisper, with its mystical tinge, surpassed the aural limits of language and echoed out over the sky’s horizon.

It was like the receding waves of the sea.

The thick layer of clouds blocking the sky simultaneously all flowed out and away and ceased blocking the view.

Elea watched the gray clouds as they left, absent a single gust of wind, as though time itself were rewinding.

As if the whole world she had known before left with the clouds and was being carried on toward a new far-off place beyond the horizon.

“…Yeah.”

She was invincible. Her power was without equal.

No matter what opponent tried to stand in her way, Kia was sure to beat them. Just knowing that fact was enough for Elea.

The exposed morning light passed over the landscape, shining azure.

The foggy outlines of the mountains in the distance were penetrated by the bright light, bringing them clearly into view.

The vast lake, once covered by the thick fog, spread out across the valley floor.

There, the entire beautiful spectacle reflected on the water’s surface.

The Eta Sylvan Province. Elea had lived there. All the warm and gentle days, together with the children—it had all been here.

“See, I told you. The scenery is totally nothing special.”

Turning her beauty into a weapon, Elea had focused on gaining power to ensure she would never be mocked or scorned again.

Even the beauty being displayed before her now, just like everything else, was nothing more than a means to an end for her.

Elea the Red Tag felt not a hint of shame for living her life this way.

“Teacher, are you okay? Are you crying…?”

“Hmm…? What’s wrong?”

“You’re crying.”

Yawika pulled at Elea’s sleeve as she made her odd comment.

Elea tried to smile.

“I’m not crying.”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at the children. She could only stand there, unable to peel her eyes from the scenery before her.

It was her final morning in the elf village.

She was right. Yawika’s comment was obviously off base.

Elea remained ever their flawless, beautiful, and kind teacher.

“…I’m not crying at all.”

She had the power to ignore any and all defenses, bending existence itself to her will.

She exercised the authority to surpass nature, controlling weather and geography with a single word.

She was a singularity, beyond the predictions of the universe, who defied all estimations and analysis.

An omnipotent, peerless prodigy, whose limits were still yet to be measured.

The Elf Wizard.

Kia the World Word.