#81
Elven Kingdom (1)
A dreamlike atmosphere continued.
The fruit of the World Tree fell while wrapped in countless wind spirits, and Cecily stood surrounded by spirits of every color, glowing brilliantly.
Around her, raging winds, glittering clusters of light, the heaving earth, and rapidly sprouting shoots made the scene dizzying.
An immense amount of natural power was concentrated around that place, so even the companions who had been near her had no choice but to retreat farther back.
As Harris put distance between himself and the scene, he realized something.
At some point, countless elves had gathered around the area and were watching.
‘Well, they did say a High Elf’s Eye-Opening Rite isn’t something you can easily see. And Cecily’s appearance this time is supposed to be the first in a very long while.’
And as he felt the storm of natural power surging from her direction with his entire body, he suddenly realized one more thing.
‘Huh? Come to think of it, this isn’t the time to just stand around watching, is it?’
Harris focused his mind and took a deep breath.
Refreshing air seeped deep into his lungs.
Air rich with natural power and the energy of spirits.
It was truly the ideal environment for training.
‘I can’t let an opportunity like this pass me by!’
Perhaps because strengthening his unique skill this time had further increased his avatar’s potential and growth speed, handling energy felt far easier than before.
“Huuup— Hoo···.”
His deep breathing continued one after another.
With his eyes, he watched Cecily’s Eye-Opening Rite; with all his nerves, he focused on drawing the overflowing energy around him into his body.
Perhaps sensing something strange, Rapori, who had been watching Cecily bring the fruit to her mouth, turned to look his way. But intoxicated by a density of energy he had never felt before, Harris had no room to care about such trivial things.
And the moment Cecily fully received the fruit of the World Tree.
《The individual has fulfilled the conditions and gained enlightenment. Skill 「Nature Affinity」 acquired.》
Harris also obtained his own result.
“Hoo···.”
Feeling satisfied, he looked over at Cecily, and saw that she had already lost consciousness and was being carefully carried inward by a group of elves.
In her hand, she tightly gripped the fresh branch of the World Tree from which the fruit had hung.
“They are the High Elf Guard. Since she has only just opened her eyes, she needs to be escorted to a safe place until she regains consciousness.”
Rapori quietly approached him and added an explanation.
“Lady Cecily will remain asleep for some time. She needs time to stabilize the energy that has increased so rapidly.”
“I see. Well, she was in the middle of that tremendous flow of energy, so I suppose that’s only natural.”
“You were quite remarkable as well, Lord Harris. I think I understand why the World Tree has its eye on you.”
As expected, he seemed to have noticed what Harris had been doing.
“Ah, it just seemed like a good opportunity.”
“To think you could control energy to that extent after only learning for such a short time. As expected, you are··· hm?”
Rapori, who had been pouring out praise, suddenly stopped speaking and looked at something behind Harris.
His expression suggested he was quite startled by whatever he had seen.
‘I didn’t sense anything at all?’
Even though his senses were sharpened from taking in so much energy, he had felt absolutely nothing.
Goosebumps rising at Rapori’s reaction, Harris hurriedly turned around—and came face to face with it.
A single tree branch floating in midair.
“······?”
It was an extremely fresh branch, thick with green leaves.
“Ha, it seems the World Tree truly is very interested in you, Lord Harris. To think it would even prepare such a gift separately for you.”
‘A gift?’
When he examined it closely, he could feel that, like the branch Cecily had carried away earlier, it contained abundant natural power within.
The only difference was that this branch had never borne a fruit from the beginning.
“A branch personally bestowed by the World Tree is special. Usually, it is granted only to the person involved when something special occurs, such as an Eye-Opening Rite···.”
And he said that, when processed into a weapon or accessory, it displayed performance not unlike a sacred relic.
As such, it seemed to be a rare treasure that even a High Elf could not easily obtain.
Harris carefully grasped the branch floating before him.
Then the energy contained within it became even clearer.
‘So this is why I couldn’t sense its presence.’
It felt as though he were holding nature itself, blending naturally into the environment.
Since the surrounding concentration of natural power was already high from the aftereffects of the rite, it was only natural that it had been difficult to notice.
But then, a sudden curiosity came to him.
“Then, Lord Rapori, when you opened your eyes, did you also receive a branch like this from the World Tree?”
“Of course. I compressed its energy and made it into a pair of accessories.”
Looking at his face, steeped in reminiscence, Harris suddenly felt uneasy.
He glanced at the bracelet on his own wrist and cautiously opened his mouth.
“Don’t tell me this bracelet is one of them?”
“Haha, no, it is not. I made mine into rings and used them to propose.”
The burden lifted, but in its place he felt a strangely subtle disappointment.
Still, now that he thought about it, that meant equipment made from the branch in his hand would become something superior to this bracelet, so it was not a bad thing at all.
“So you were married after all.”
“Ah, did I not mention it? It has been quite a long time.”
“But you are not wearing a ring now···.”
“I passed my ring on to my daughter. It will be of more help to that delicate child than to me now.”
As Rapori said that, his expression became that of a father who loved his family, and he smiled gently.
‘···That’s nice.’
Seeing him wear such a happy smile as he thought of his family, Harris found himself making a bitter smile without realizing it.
“You have gone through much to come all this way, Lord Harris. Seeing you acknowledged by the World Tree as soon as you arrived makes me feel as though I have done something worthwhile at the very end.”
“The very end?”
“It is about time for me to retire, you see. This trip to the Ion Continent was my final official duty.”
Harris stared blankly at his face.
No matter how he looked at him, Rapori was a handsome young man in his early thirties with smooth skin.
“Ah, of course, because we are short-handed, I will not be stepping down immediately. It is just that I will no longer be taking the lead on the front lines.”
Perhaps misunderstanding Harris’s gaze, he said something completely off the mark.
“And with a new High Elf born just in time, I can rest a little easier.”
“I··· see. That really is fortunate.”
Of course, Harris did not openly point it out.
After all, he himself was now one of the elves, a race known for their youthful looks.
***
The Enamel Continent, where the Elven Kingdom was located, was not even one-fifth the size of the Ion Continent they had crossed over from.
However, in Auterica, the Ion Continent was simply excessively large; the Enamel Continent was by no means small.
And located in its northwest was the nation of the elves—the Elven Kingdom.
‘It feels different from what I imagined.’
Perhaps because of the influence of media from Earth, when he thought of elves, the image of fairies of the forest was strong.
He had held stereotypes of vegetarians who lived on trees while befriending nature···.
‘But civilization is quite developed here too. There are even lots of street performances.’
Of course, as in his initial image, there were quite a few wooden buildings built atop trees, but there were no fewer stone structures built on the ground.
‘Though it’s impressive that all of them have nature-friendly architectural styles.’
He had certainly realized it while traveling here after first setting foot in the Elven Kingdom, but this place had an unusual number of refined buildings.
‘Well, I suppose that’s only natural since it’s the capital.’
This was Drasha, the capital of the Elven Kingdom, so it was only to be expected.
The city, formed around the great World Tree and blending forest with civilization, exuded a strangely exotic air.
And Harris was currently inside one large building.
Though it could not compare to the World Tree, it was a building harmonized with an enormous tree of a size unimaginable on Earth.
From the spacious stone structure surrounding the roots to the wooden architecture that climbed along the naturally formed trunk.
This building, like a single work of art, was none other than···.
“You said your name was Harris, right? I heard you came from the Ion Continent with Lady Cecily this time. Is that true?”
“I heard that place is absolutely impossible to live in. They say Lady Cecily was in a very dangerous situation this time too···.”
“Ah, I heard about that too. They said it would have been disastrous if Lord Rapori hadn’t gone.”
Beside him, young elves chattered without pause.
This was one of the educational institutions of the Elven Kingdom, Drasha Academy.
‘Every single one of them is older than me, but by elven standards, I suppose they are indeed young.’
Their appearances varied from mid-teens to early twenties, and Drasha Academy was where the promising talents of the Elven Kingdom gathered after passing childhood.
A place where those who would grow to become pillars of the nation received education.
Harris had, in every sense, entered the standard elite course.
“Ahaha··· yes, yes. That’s right···. Ah, I was fine. I had many good companions, you see. Yes.”
Though at the moment, the excessive attention only felt burdensome.
Since they had only encountered the outside world through books and stories, he could understand their curiosity well enough.
It was not as if he had merely come from another region. Someone had suddenly appeared after crossing the sea from an entirely different continent, so of course they would want to ask him something.
All the more so since they were now fellow trainees.
“I was working as a mercenary. Back then, I didn’t know how to handle spirits either, so I mostly fought using my body···.”
It was during break time, right after theoretical lessons had ended, just as Harris was about to share an appropriate episode for the sake of smooth interpersonal relationships.
Bang—!
At the sudden noise, everyone’s eyes turned in that direction.
A blue-haired woman who had risen from her seat after striking the desk with both hands did not shrink from the attention focused on her. Instead, she arrogantly lifted her chin and glared this way.
“It’s so noisy that I can’t concentrate at all. Would you please be quiet?”
Her words were directed at everyone gathered around Harris, but her blue eyes were staring directly at him.
No matter how one looked at it, her gaze did not seem even remotely friendly.
‘What’s with that woman? Why is she looking at me like that?’
Even if she disliked the commotion caused by him, her reaction was somewhat excessive.
While he pondered for a moment why he was receiving such a gaze from someone he had just met—
“Ah, I suppose we were being too loud···.”
“Ahem··· We apologize for making a disturbance.”
“Then, Mr. Harris, please tell us again next time.”
Meanwhile, those who had gathered around Harris glanced at her cautiously and quietly scattered back to their own seats.
It was true that things were more comfortable now, but he could not help being bewildered by how suddenly the situation had unfolded.
‘That woman must be quite influential.’
He turned his gaze back to the woman who had made the atmosphere turn chilly.
Long blue hair that seemed to have been painstakingly cared for, sharp upturned eyes, and an expression that felt not merely haughty, but arrogant.
‘Mm, no matter how I look at her, she’s the daughter of a noble house.’
And a noble young lady who looked extremely difficult to deal with at that.
Since most elves he had met so far had been gentle and virtuous in character, she actually felt quite refreshing.
And right after the lesson ended.
“Hmph—”
As she passed in front of Harris, she stopped for a moment, turned her head, and looked him up and down.
Her gaze lingered briefly on the bracelet on his wrist, but she soon snorted and, together with several members of her clique, left the lecture room with elegant steps.
‘What was that?’
While he was still feeling bewildered, he was able to hear about her from the people around him.
Her name was Shapiron Silvesti.
As he had expected, she came from a very prestigious family.
Aside from High Elves, elves had no difference in social status, but old families inevitably gained influence proportional to their history.
How much more so if it was a family that had played a role in establishing the Elven Kingdom during the great migration to the Enamel Continent?
However, among the information about her, there was one unexpected fact that surprised Harris.
‘This really is unexpected.’
Because that young lady was none other than—
The only daughter of the High Elf “Rapori Granwood,” with whom he had some degree of acquaintance.