Chapter 37: An Elf’s Gift Must Be Extraordinary (3) Fin
Time passed quickly, and before we knew it, Aria’s birthday had arrived.
Thankfully, the gift I had prepared for Aria—the book I had written myself—was somehow completed within the deadline.
Though it had been a bit of a close call.
“Did you properly prepare the book you’re giving as your gift, Oppa?
Don’t tell me you still haven’t finished writing it.”
“Don’t worry. I definitely finished it.
What about you? Didn’t you say you were preparing a separate gift?”
“It’s right here. This is the gift I prepared.”
Lena pointed beside her with considerable confidence.
There were all kinds of fresh-blooming flowers, along with branches and stems that were smooth and pretty in shape.
“Huh? This? It is pretty, but isn’t it a little too modest for a birthday present?”
“What’s wrong with that? Like you said last time, Lady Aria probably won’t care much about material value anyway.”
“Well, if you put it that way, I guess that’s true.
Besides, women all like flowers, and since Miss Aria is an elf, she’ll like them even more.
A gift like this might actually be better than expected.”
“Right? And one more thing.
Lady Aria always wears a flower crown on her head.”
“Yeah, she does. She doesn’t wear other accessories, but she always wears that.”
Thanks to that, combined with her green hair, she practically radiated an elven image.
Should I call it a kind of identity?
“I’m going to tell her to use these to make that flower crown too.
Since she always wears a flower crown, wouldn’t this have a similar effect to gifting her an accessory?”
“Oho. That makes sense.”
This Lena had struck a surprisingly sharp point.
To cover both psychological satisfaction and practicality with flowers.
Now that was killing two birds with one stone. A true creative economy.
“Tsk. If I’d known this would happen, maybe I should’ve bought some flowers too.
They look really good.”
As I smacked my lips in regret at having missed a chance to earn more points with Aria, Lena let out a small sigh.
“Honestly. You should’ve had the sense to prepare something like that on your own.”
Then she separated half of the flowers she had prepared and held them out to me.
“Here.”
“What? Why are you giving these to me?”
“You give these flowers to Lady Aria.
I can give her the ones left on this side.”
“Ooh. Is that really okay?”
“I brought plenty on purpose, so it’s fine.
And if possible, Lady Aria will be happier if you give her some too.”
“Is that so? Anyway, thanks!”
I had already been feeling that just giving her a single book felt a little lacking in volume compared to Lena’s flowers.
Of course, since I had worked hard to write it for Aria, I could proudly say that the sincerity put into it lost to no other gift.
Still, if I decorated it lavishly along with flowers before giving it to her, Aria would probably like it even more.
“Seriously. Oppa, you should really be grateful to me.
I’m making up for all the tact you don’t have.”
“Yeah, yeah. At least for today, you’re the best.
Thank you very much, Lady Lena!”
This time, without any teasing, I sincerely thanked her and accepted the flowers.
Lena gave a small grin, then turned her attention to the book in my hand.
“Come to think of it, what’s the title of the book?
It’s a gift for Lady Aria, but since I helped you like this, it’s okay if I read it later too, right?”
“Of course. The title of the book is [The Elf’s Journey].”
I had settled on an intuitive title focused on the core theme of the story, the journey, and the protagonist, an elf.
Unlike my previous works, it was a rather plain title with all the attention-grabbing elements stripped away, but it wasn’t like I was going to publish it anyway.
Now then.
Would Aria be happy with this gift?
Feeling a writer’s flutter of anticipation, Lena and I headed toward Aria, who would be waiting.
***
That night, after a small birthday celebration—not a grand party, but one where the table was a little fuller than usual and we had thoroughly enjoyed board games—came to an end.
“Hehe. This year’s birthday is more wonderful than any birthday I’ve had in all my life.”
In her room, Aria looked over the gifts she had received today with a smile so full of happiness that it ranked among the best she had worn on her birthdays in the last several decades.
The gifts taking up the most space were, as expected, the ones sent every year by acquaintances and fans.
But in truth, their gifts had little to do with Aria’s current state, which was several times more excited than on previous birthdays.
Of course, she was naturally overflowing with gratitude that they had sent her gifts.
However, for someone like her, who had lived for hundreds of years, gifts that felt fresh and special were not very common.
Her acquaintances and fans who sent gifts knew that fact well too, to the point that they even made wagers over who could give Aria the gift that surprised her the most.
Unfortunately, however, this year’s winner was not among them.
Then whose gift had made Aria so excited?
“To think Mr. Wade would prepare such a wonderful gift.”
The thing that had made Aria this happy was none other than the gift Wade had prepared.
The flowers he had given her, telling her to use them when making flower crowns, were one thing.
But what she liked most of all was, of course, the single book in her hands: [The Elf’s Journey].
“Haa—A book written only for me.
What a deeply moving gift!”
And no wonder.
This [The Elf’s Journey] was a book that Wade, the author Aria revered most, had specially written in commemoration of her birthday, meant for Aria alone.
‘You must have felt stifled since I’ve been too busy to go anywhere, and you’ve had to stay by my side all this time, right?
I hope this book can relieve even a little of that frustration, Miss Aria.’
Since Wade had written it out of concern for her condition, it was an even more special gift.
“Ugh. I can’t hold back!
I was going to prepare myself a little more perfectly before reading it, but I’ll just read it now.”
Unable to endure the excitement rising in a corner of her heart any longer, Aria immediately opened the book.
“The contents are... a story about an elf who leaves the forest and travels here and there?
It feels a little similar to me. Did the author aim for that on purpose?”
As could be expected from the title, [The Elf’s Journey] began that way.
—How can everyone not feel stifled, living their entire lives only in the forest?
I, Ophelia, can’t live like this! I’m going to go and see for myself what kind of world exists beyond the forest!—
An elf named Ophelia, who had a somewhat unusual personality, decided to leave the forest that was the elves’ homeland and place of life and set off on a journey.
“Hehe. So there was an elf like me here too.”
Originally, elves were born in the forest and lived only in the forest.
Without considering that particularly strange.
If anything, elves who went outside were the unusual ones.
Why was Aria herself so popular right now?
Of course, the biggest reason was her ability and career as a bard.
But if there had been many elves wandering around outside the forest, she might not have gained the nationwide popularity she had now.
Therefore, Aria was able to immediately sympathize and immerse herself in this unusual elven protagonist, Ophelia, as she continued reading.
—So this is the sea! Just like I heard, it’s a puddle of water far bigger than a lake that goes on without end, isn’t it?—
Ophelia, who had excellent initiative and had immediately run out of the forest, first arrived at a port city by the sea.
There, Ophelia began showing all sorts of reactions.
—Wow, there are so many people.
At this rate, won’t everyone run out of space to live and fall into the water?—
She was amazed by the scenery completely different from the forest and the vitality created by the countless crowds.
—Ptooey! Ugh. Did someone dump a whole bunch of salt in here?! It’s too salty!—
She made Aria laugh when she drank seawater without knowing it was salty and spat it out.
—Wow! They’re way bigger than the fish caught in lakes! Would this taste good if I ate it?—
And when she marveled at the much larger and more varied sea fish, then ate dishes made with them and was amazed,
“Hehe. When you go traveling for the first time, everything feels fascinating.”
Aria discovered her own old self, now a distant memory, and let out a small laugh.
Memories of “back then, that was how it was” vividly came back to life, making her feel pleased.
“There’s a reason Mr. Wade described it as healing.”
She could also clearly feel the frustration that had been accumulating inside her without her realizing it beginning to melt away.
It was a warm feeling that truly seemed to heal her, just as the word healing suggested.
Of course, the story did not continue only in this calm and ordinary atmosphere, which could easily have become boring.
—Hm? Ships keep getting attacked in a certain area of the sea?
I smell something interesting. Shall I look into it?—
As the curious Ophelia took an interest in a suspicious disturbance at sea,
A little tension began to mix into the healing content.
—Spirit of water, show me what happened here.—
Ophelia borrowed the power of the water spirit contracted with her and began investigating what on earth had happened.
—Mermaids? Whoa! They’re really mermaids?! My goodness, I’ve only seen them in books. This is my first time seeing them in real life!
Hey, are you the culprits behind the attacks that happened here? Why did you do it?—
—Because evil humans kidnapped our people!—
After her investigation, Ophelia met the mermaids she had only known from books and realized that this incident had occurred because mermaids had been kidnapped.
—All right, I’ll help rescue them!—
She helped the mermaids rescue the kidnapped mermaids, undergoing a fiery initiation from her very first journey.
“Even I, who have traveled for decades, have never experienced an incident like this. Her very first journey is anything but ordinary.”
It was enough to make even Aria, who prided herself on having accumulated many experiences over her long years of travel, admire it.
It also provided her with vicarious satisfaction through a special travel experience she had never undergone herself.
—Elf! As thanks for saving us, we’ll show you the most beautiful underwater scenery in the world!—
And finally, in the scene where the rescued mermaids repaid her by showing her the fantastical undersea scenery where they lived,
“Hundreds and thousands of fish moving in perfect order as a school, the mermaids’ dwelling decorated with corals more beautiful than jewels, and a whale larger than most castles...
Haa—It must truly be a fantastical and magnificent sight.”
Imagining that scene, Aria fell into rapture.
—Now then, where shall I go next?—
With the pearl the mermaids had given her as a token of friendship and the memories of her first journey engraved in her heart, Ophelia left the city, hinting at her next journey, and the story came to an end.
“Huaaah.”
Only then did Aria let out the breath she had been holding.
It was short.
So short that it was even shorter than the short stories Wade had written before.
But even that was more than enough to make it a wonderful gift.
Not only had the frustration built up inside her been swept away as she felt the emotion of free travel that reminded her of her days as a bard,
“Someday, I’d like to go on a fun journey like this with the author too.”
It even gave rise to such a wish.
“Ugh! I want to read more right now, but this is all there is!
It’s not as though the next installment will come out right away. How am I supposed to wait a whole year?”
However, the fact that she could not read the next story was truly regrettable even for Aria.
Wade had clearly said that he would give her one volume of [The Elf’s Journey] as a gift every year on her birthday, hadn’t he?
At the catastrophic serialization speed of one volume per year, Aria felt sad for a moment.
On the other hand, the birthday she had come to think of at some point as nothing more than a day that added another tree ring to her age
now seemed to be becoming a day worth eagerly awaiting in her life, and that also made her happy.
For an elf with a long lifespan, such anticipation and enjoyment were truly important.
And since Aria had no intention of monopolizing that enjoyment for herself,
she immediately ran to Wade and shouted,
“Author! Let’s publish this!”
“Yes?”
She meant they should publish this book right away so other people could read it too.
Since it was a work meant only for her, received as a birthday gift,
she did have the desire to cherish it as something belonging to her alone.
But surely such a wonderful work ought to be enjoyed together with the whole world, didn’t it?
After all, joy doubled when shared!
Well...
There was also a small part of her that wanted to share the pain of waiting for yearly installments.
After all, pain was halved when shared!