She Professed Herself The Pupil Of The Wiseman (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

THE NEXT MORNING, Mira said her goodbyes and climbed onto Pegasus before leaping into the clear blue sky. The hunters belted out their thanks and watched as she went. Since they were all hungover, though, that made for quite a painful cacophony.

Only three people could say goodbye without wincing at the light: Dran, the perennially heavy drinker; Melissa, who had abstained while she healed; and Latry, who had abstained in solidarity.

***

In the skies above the forest, Mira slumped on Pegasus’s back, hungover as well. She recalled advice that Solomon once gave her: “When you drink, you need to hydrate.” She withdrew an apple au lait and sipped it delicately.

However, what goes in must come out, so she was forced to land several times. Due to her powerful metabolism, however, she recovered her composure in the space of a few hellish hours.

Now able to properly enjoy the view, Mira sighed in awe at the landscape that covered the world before her. One never tires of such glorious sights. Directly ahead was an enormous wall that outdid even the bastions of Grimdart Castle, the largest on the continent. Instead of being stone, though, this was a single enormous tree—the Elder Tree—that merely looked like a wall.

Mira looked up and saw that the sky was now blotted out by the Elder Tree’s thick canopy. Yet strangely, the space underneath the tree was well lit. Glowing particles of light like motes of sunshine slowly fell from the treetop. Those were pieces of mana the Elder Tree dropped, which allowed the trees below to grow despite the shade. When the particles touched the ground, the countless flowers that littered the forest floor absorbed them, setting their petals aglow. Consecrated by the falling mana, the ground below became sacred.

Pegasus landed at the base of the imposing Elder Tree. Particles of light fell from far overhead like gentle snow as Mira descended from her mount. 

The flowers perked up at her presence, as if looking at their visitor from above. Pegasus worriedly rubbed its face against Mira, and she reassured the winged beast before dismissing it. Then she faced a great wooden wall—the trunk of the Elder Tree.

“Elder, I come bearing a question. Show yourself.”

At her voice, the wind blew like a whisper and caressed her cheek. The trees behind Mira rustled and swayed. The breeze spread gradually through the sacred grounds, until all at once it stopped, and silence ruled.

The air became heavy. Mira was familiar with this situation; she simply waited for the Illustrious Elder of Wood and Shade—the lord of the Forest of the Devout—to appear before her.

Before she realized it, the incessantly falling mana had disappeared, covering her surroundings in quiet darkness. There was the sound of something creeping along the ground, closing in behind her. In the next instant, the shadow of a young girl—Mira’s own shadow—appeared on the tree trunk in front of her.

She turned to see an orb of light floating behind her, just big enough to fit her arms around. It darted left and right, as if sizing her up, then fell abruptly to the ground in front of her.

The soil where the light fell slowly swelled as a sprout emerged from it. The sprout grew rapidly, becoming taller than Mira in a few moments, then transformed into a human, maturing completely in just over ten seconds.

The Elder had appeared before her. Though roughly humanoid, he wore a robe of leaves and had a strangely mechanical appearance.

“What brings you here?” The Elder’s voice was low and muffled. His eyes gleamed in uncanny suspicion as they beheld Mira. Though she had seen him once before, he was still unsettling enough that she unthinkingly stepped backward.

“I apologize for my impertinence. I’ve come to inquire about any who may have come in search of your root…though I do not know how long ago they might have come. If you’ve any idea, I would appreciate your help,” Mira said.

The Elder gazed at her in silence for a moment. Despite Mira’s discomfort at his vacant eyes gazing through her, she awaited his response. Then her surroundings abruptly lit up.

“Wh-what’s the meaning of this?” She looked around and spotted three orbs of light sinking to the ground. Each caused the ground to swell, sprout, and create another human form.

A woman in a cherry-blossom robe, a man in bark armor, and a little girl wrapped with nothing but vines appeared in the same manner as the Elder had. All three had the same biomechanical look as the forest lord.

“I remember him,” said the cherry-blossom woman with a gentle, feminine voice that soothed Mira’s apprehension. “It was the first time anyone had ever asked, so he sticks out in my mind. The exact date eludes me…but he asked for my root, and I agreed.”

“I remember him too!” the girl chimed in, waving her vines around. “He paid us back by bringing us a ton of tasty food. I hope he comes again…” Unlike the other three, she was completely nude, and the vines did a poor job of covering her—but she seemed not to care at all.

“Hmm, I do remember that,” the bark-covered man agreed, his voice deep and his appearance reminiscent of a warrior’s. He put his hand on the shoulder of the vine-covered girl and scolded her. “It’s rude to be naked in front of guests!”

Mira took all this in. It seemed that someone had come here after all; he had received the root in exchange for food. Unfortunately, the timeframe was still unclear…but the visitor had been the first person to come in search of the Elder’s root. All signs pointed to the mystery man being Soul Howl.

“Hrmm. And you’re certain about all this?”

“It is certain,” the Elder answered emotionlessly. As if reacting to his voice, the earth rumbled, and a root hundreds of times bigger than Mira split the ground and emerged. Its tip was severed unnaturally.

“I see… This is where it was cut?”

It was too dim to tell for sure, but Mira did indeed see signs of the root having been sliced. The wound also appeared to be old, which meant that Soul Howl must have been here long ago.

“That may be the person I’m searching for,” Mira said. Now that she’d completed her main objective, she asked for more information. “Do you remember any details about him?”

The Elder again thought to himself with his eyes fixed on her, but said nothing.

“I think…he had black hair. And a white mask that covered his eyes,” the armored man spoke up. He added that he couldn’t remember anything else. The other three agreed that those were the only features they recollected.

“Hrmm. I have to assume it’s him.”

Black hair and a mask that covered his eyes… Soul Howl did have black hair, as long as he hadn’t changed his appearance. As for the mask, Mira had some ideas. Soul Howl was devoted to role-playing a shady character, so the mask was likely part of the performance.

“Did he mention anything else at all?” Mira asked, probing for details.

The woman answered hesitantly. “I wonder… I was curious what he wanted to use my root for, so I asked him. Erm…”

The girl took up the story to help fill in the specifics. “A grail, right? And he needed, um…something black to carve it with?”

“Something…black?” Mira repeated. “Hrmm. I’ve no idea what that could be.”

Unable to fit that in with what she’d learned, Mira decided to tell Suleiman about it and let him handle the rest. He had read Soul Howl’s documents, so surely he’d be the right person to make the connection.

Recalling the hunters in the fortress, Mira added, “One more thing. This is unrelated, but I’ve heard that unusual monsters are appearing in this forest. Do you know anything about that?”

“Ah, we know few details, but we do sense a distortion to the east. If there’s a cause, that might be it.” The man looked east and opened his eyes wide as if seeing something. Mira only saw the dark forest and the falling particles of light.

She knew that these three could grasp everything in the realm of the Elder Tree and its sacred grounds, but since the distortion was located outside that area, they could only make broad observations.

“A distortion, eh?” Mira put a finger to her chin and pondered the curious news. She decided to check it out once her work was done. Now that she’d asked the last of her questions, she continued, “Illustrious Elder of Wood and Shade, your aid is appreciated. I offer this to you.”

Mira removed a baked treat from her Item Box. She’d summoned a god, so she had to pay tribute. Since gods born from nature tended to love offerings made by the hands of man, Mira had procured plenty of sweets.

“Human sweets!” The little girl leapt for joy and snatched away the treat. She threw it into her mouth and chewed with a blissful smile.

Knowing now that she’d chosen the right offering, Mira produced more from her inventory.

The girl reached again for the ever-growing mountain of sweets, but the fatherly man seized her vines to stop her. “It is improper to seize an offering before it is complete,” he admonished.

He, the woman, and the Elder weren’t quite as excited as the little girl, but they all seemed quite pleased.

“It’s been so long since we were last offered sweets. If I might be so bold, I would’ve been just fine with you relieving yourself a little. With your mana, that would have born fine fruit,” said the Elder, speaking at length for the first time since Mira arrived.

Mira winced at the suggestion, which the Elder delivered with no hint of emotion at all. Perhaps he only wanted a sample of her mana to feed the earth, but it still seemed so…perverted. Apparently, this botanical god of countless years did not have the delicacy to phrase the comment better. The man and woman nodded solemnly in agreement, making the situation even more awkward. The little girl simply gorged herself with pastries, oblivious to it all.

Suddenly, Mira was very glad that she’d brought the sweets as an offering. If she’d forgotten her tribute, it might’ve forced her to do…that in front of them. Gods were terrifying beings indeed.

Now disillusioned with deities, Mira came to another very important realization and shuddered with regret—for she had enjoyed far too much apple au lait on her flight from the fortress.