[Chapter 139] - The Fairy Egg
“Pfft. The ‘Fairy Egg’ that I, Katarina, and Einsel deciphered together.
It’s a prison for confining ‘fairies’ who committed crimes in the Fairy Realm. Normally, there are no fairies who defy Morgan, the Archwitch who created the laws of the Fairy Realm, but if there were, this seems to be how they’d be made.
They say Morgan confines fairies who sinned inside these small ‘eggs’ to make them face punishment. We suspect the fairy trapped inside this ‘Fairy Egg’ was imprisoned by Morgan at least several hundred years ago.
According to what Einsel and Katarina found out, the last Fairy Egg was created 600 years ago. Even if we assume it’s that fairy, it’s been 600 years. If it’s a fairy from before that, there’s no way to guess when it was made.
Anyway, once trapped inside this egg, the fairy’s ego slowly melts away as time passes. Since fairies normally live as immortals unless someone kills them, the fairy inside is still considered ‘alive.’
With its ego melted away, only the fairy’s magical power keeps accumulating inside this ‘egg.’ As time goes on, it grows thicker and denser, until it becomes a ‘magical power’ capable of granting any wish of the user.
Do you have any questions about what I’ve explained so far? Little child?”
At Veronica’s tone, grinning as if she were teasing me, I clenched my fist and trembled. I wanted to reach out and smack that annoying Veronica’s back right away, but my hand wouldn’t reach no matter how far I stretched.
If I hadn’t shrunk, it was a distance I could cover just by bending over, but in my current state, my arms were too short. As I flailed my hands in the air, Veronica curled the corners of her mouth even higher and giggled.
“You, come here!”
Unable to hold back my anger, I flailed my hands and snapped, shouting. What burst from my mouth was a scolding yell in a child’s voice. Even to me, it sounded cute and lisping. Just like Titania’s voice when she was young.
In that moment, as my body tilted forward, Titania, who had been seating me on her lap, wrapped her arms tightly around my waist to keep me from falling. Pulled into Titania’s embrace in an instant, my legs dangled in the air.
“Mother, it’s dangerous to struggle on my lap.”
“No, but…!”
I felt like crying. I had just moved as I normally would, but to Titania, it must have looked like a terribly dangerous act. I was so confused that I could only open and close my lips, and Titania petted my head as if to calm me down.
For some reason, I felt like I might burst into tears at any moment. Watching me being petted on Titania’s lap, Veronica grinned and asked me,
“It seems you have no questions, so I’ll continue.”
When I nodded, Veronica began explaining about the Fairy Egg again. Why I had changed like this, why I had changed without even making a wish. She continued her explanation step by step.
“They say it’s a magical power that can grant any wish, but magical power accumulated like that is difficult to use properly if not purified. Magical power is a force that melts easily into ‘emotions.’
Think about it—what kind of emotions would the fairy inside be trapped with? It would differ from fairy to fairy, but normally, it would be full of negative emotions. Fairies love freedom, so they hate being confined.
Especially since it’s a fairy who committed a sin, there’s no way it would harbor good feelings while trapped.
Magical power created from negative emotions comes to harbor a ‘curse.’ Even if you make a ‘wish’ with magical power that harbors a curse, it won’t be granted properly. It would become a wish with some kind of ‘defect.’
That’s why I, Katarina, and Einsel were researching how to ‘purify’ the magical power contained in the Fairy Egg. Research to turn magical power filled with curses back into a mass of pure magical power.
With magical power that had been completely purified, I planned to fix my body.”
As Veronica continued her explanation, she placed her palm on her chest and smiled softly. There was only one reason Veronica was so obsessed with the Fairy Egg. It was to turn her body, which was gradually becoming more of a ‘fairy,’ back into a ‘human.’
“To get back to the story, the purification of the magical power isn’t finished yet. We’ve reached the final stages, but we haven’t purified all the ‘curses’ remaining in the egg. So there was still a ‘curse’ left in the magical power contained within it.
It’s not certain yet, but…
Your body growing younger is likely due to the ‘curse’ remaining in the egg. Not wanting to be purified to the very end, it probably took some joking remark like ‘I want to become younger’ as a ‘wish’ and latched onto your body.”
“Then… what happens? Am I stuck like this… forever?”
I patted and rubbed my cheeks with both hands, and Veronica burst into a snicker. While the person it happened to felt like the world was collapsing, Veronica was busy laughing, saying I looked cute.
“Don’t worry. Didn’t I tell you? It’s a curse, not a wish. It may take some time, but if it’s a curse, I can break it. And there are ways to break it too. For example—”
Gulp. As I focused on Veronica’s words nervously, she rested her cheek on one hand, tilted her head, and continued with a sly smile.
“A ‘kiss’ from your fated partner, like the ones that often appear in fairy tales?”
“Wha?!”
“That’s what curses are like. A deep kiss with your fated partner is just one of many ways to break a curse. It’s already famous among witches, isn’t it? There’s precedence, after all.”
“Precedence…?”
“There was a fairy-tale-like story in the past, wasn’t there? A witch transformed into a frog who was freed from her curse by a kiss from her fated partner.”
As I gaped in absurdity, my lips flapping like a goldfish, a burning gaze bore down from above my head. Creaking my neck under the ominous stare, I looked up at Titania and couldn’t help but swallow dryly.
It was obvious what Titania was thinking as she looked at me. If the ‘curse’ were broken by Titania’s lips, that would be a huge problem in itself. I hopped down from Titania’s lap and grabbed Veronica’s skirt hem as if begging.
“V-Veronica! So, there’s another way to break the curse besides a kiss, right? Right?! Isn’t there?!”
“Of course there is. However, extracting a curse from a human body is difficult, so it’ll probably take some time. Maybe at least a year?”
“I don’t care! I don’t care, so! I’ll wait, let’s do that! Okay?!”
“…Okay. That was the plan anyway.”
Veronica glanced up at Titania, let out a small sigh, then nodded as if she understood. At that sight, a sigh of relief burst out of me unconsciously.
“Anyway… come to the cabin once a week from now on to be examined by me. We don’t know what kind of effect the curse might have on your body yet. You’ll need to be careful for the time being.”
“Okay… then can’t I just live here until the curse is lifted…? The cabin is spacious anyway…”
“…Sometimes I wonder, do you have a talent for digging my grave? I was going to say you could just stay here as a joke… No, forget it. What would I say to someone as clueless as you?”
“Huh…? What…?”
Veronica looked down at me as if bewildered and sighed. What on earth did I do? As I grabbed and shook Veronica’s skirt hem, she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before continuing.
“For now… let’s start with a simple examination today.”
“Ah, yeah…”
“And, it would be better to talk to Titania rather than me about where you’ll stay. Even if you’ve grown younger, the dwarves who dislike you won’t allow you to stay here.”
“Okay…”
As I hung my head low, Titania lifted me up and embraced me again. Using Titania’s arm as a chair and Titania’s chest as a backrest, I just let out heavy sigh after heavy sigh.
*
After the minor examinations to break the curse ended, still nestled in Titania’s embrace, I was able to arrive at the room in the palace where I had been staying.
After asking Titania to let me down, I hopped into the center of the room, and only then did it feel real. The realization that I had grown younger from thirty-three to around seven or eight years old.
“I’ve really gotten small…”
All the furniture in the room was huge, and the room felt far too spacious. Grunting, I climbed onto the bed with difficulty, and the mattress felt almost three times larger.
It was large enough that I wondered if I could jump around on it. I crouched in place, put strength into my knees, and bounced on the mattress. It definitely felt like my body was incredibly light.
And was it because my body had become lighter? Even jumping on the mattress, the bed didn’t shake much. Flopping down on the bed just like that, I felt like a dwarf who had entered a giant’s world.
Lying on the bed like that, blankly staring at the ceiling, Titania climbed onto my bed and looked down at me intently. An expression as if she had something to say to me.
“Wh-why…?”
“Mother… do you hate kissing me that much?”
“H-huh?”
Titania continued, frowning slightly as if somewhat dissatisfied.
“What Veronica said about a ‘kiss’ being able to break a curse isn’t a lie, but it was half meant to tease you, Mother. Finding a fated partner isn’t that easy.”
“Right…?”
“At that time, you could have just laughed it off. But after making eye contact with me, you clung to Veronica and begged her as if fleeing from me. That… hurt me a little.”
Titania brushed my cheek and pouted as if sulking. But what if I really did kiss Titania and the curse was broken? I was simply scared of that.
“Sorry… I…”
“…I know too. The chances that my kiss would break Mother’s curse are very slim. But, but… can’t we at least try?”
“Huh…?”
Pressing her thumb firmly against my lips, Titania made a bitter expression. An expression as if asking for permission, wondering if she could ‘try.’ But even so…
I smiled awkwardly, rolled my body to the side to get away from Titania’s touch, then sprang up and fixed my disheveled hair. I refused as gently as I could so that Titania wouldn’t be hurt.
“C-can’t we do it later…?”
At my refusal to do it later, Titania curled the corners of her mouth into a smile and answered.
“…Yes. Later.”