“Huh?”
From Ethel’s face alone, it was plain to see that he was serious, and his solemn tone removed all doubt.
“He is a skilled elementalist and a spectacular hunter. And not just that — he is a half-elf, slow to age, and he has no reservations about speaking his mind. I want him. I dearly want him!” The duke sounded like he was greatly enjoying himself.
I gave a half-laugh, half-sigh as I thought about what to say. “Your Excellency, Menel is not an object. As much as you say you want him, he is not mine to give.” I paused. “If he were to say he’d like to serve Your Excellency, then that would be another matter, but—”
“I serve no one,” Menel said, interrupting. “Like hell I’m gonna be bartered around like some dog or cat.”
Although Ethel had been demoted to commoner status, he was a member of the royal family. But this made no difference to Menel, who flatly rejected his offer, closing his jade eyes and waving a hand in front of his face to show he wasn’t remotely interested.
Ethel sighed upon seeing Menel’s reaction. “Dear, dear. What a shame. I can never have enough talented people, you see.”
The Duke of Southmark was from the northern continent of Grassland.
Brother to the King of the Fertile Kingdom, he was in charge of expanding the kingdom into Southmark. He probably had a lot of difficult things to deal with and was always short of people and resources.
“I just need one more ship, I just need one more trustworthy, competent official… I am sure you too must have thoughts like these.”
“Yes. Especially recently… I’ve started to understand what that feels like.”
After being pushed into the position of lord of the region of Beast Woods and doing all kinds of work to develop the area, I’d developed a close familiarity with that kind of difficulty.
“I see. How is the river port?” asked Ethel.
“Fortunately, it’s going okay with everyone’s help, but there are a few issues…”
“Hm. Let’s hear them. Perhaps I can give you some advice.”
“Not very generous of you,” Menel said. “Only advice?”
“Material support as well. That is, if you are willing to take it in place of the reward I mentioned earlier…”
“Tch.”
The two of them smirked at each other. Then, from the entrance to the courtyard, I heard gravel being stepped on and the sound of heavy breathing.
Walking towards us while wiping copious amounts of sweat off his face was Bishop Bart Bagley, the man in charge of the main temple of Whitesails. He had a portly body and was wearing loosely fitting priest’s robes with gold and silver thread woven in. His movements exuded impatience, and he had a sternness to his expression that came from his quick-to-anger personality and the stress of his daily responsibilities.
As usual, he was a person who, to put it politely, did not impart all that positive an impression — but even so, I respected him.
He stopped in front of the arbor, gave a bow to Ethel, and then turned his gaze on Menel and me and gave us a long, searching stare. “Hmph. Returned victorious, I gather. I was expecting all the flattery from people calling you a hero and a peerless, brave warrior to have gone to your head and earned you a crushing defeat or two by now.”
I bowed to him. It was because he was someone who would speak like that to me that I continued to respect him as much as I did. I returned a full smile to him. He blasted air out of his nose and turned the other way.
As Ethel watched us, he let out a chuckle and said, “Thank you for coming, Bagley.” Then he composed himself, and his serious face was back. “Well then, let us hear your report of the incident.”
“The fire of dark disaster shall catch in the mountains of rust. That fire shall spread, and this land may all be consumed.”
After we finished giving our account of the incident and the killing of the demon responsible, we then began to speak of the prophecy. Silence immediately descended upon the table under the arbor. Not reporting it hadn’t been an option.
“Those were the words the Lord of Holly used.”
“The Lord of the Woods said that…” His Excellency grumbled to himself and massaged his temples. “Beasts, then demons, and no sooner had I begun to think things had settled down than we face the unidentified threats of a ‘fire of disaster’ and ‘lord of miasma and wicked flame.’ The story I heard from you in the past, of the demons’ High King sealed in a city of the dead, also concerns me. The trouble never ceases, it seems. Good heavens, this continent. It never bores.”
I could sense considerable tiredness in him. Since becoming a paladin, I’d seen him forced to do a lot of work responding to demon plots, damage caused by beasts big and small, and all kinds of other things. He provided aid to settlements that had suffered real damage from attacks. He negotiated with the mainland to coax aid out of them. He had knights patrol areas to prevent damage before it happened. He employed adventurers on a temporary basis to hunt down and kill the causes of these problems. He took care of the documents necessary to carry out all of that. He actually traveled to the affected areas and provided consolation and on-site instruction. And of course, he couldn’t neglect normal city governance, either. I had never seen Ethel relaxing and enjoying a break.
Out of consideration for the duke, the bishop asked in his place. “Hunter, what level of power does this Lord of the Woods have? Can his so-called prophecy be trusted?”
“I have a name, old man.”
“As do I, boy.”
The two of them glared at each other and tutted. These two did not get on very well.
“U-Um, both of you, try to get along…”
“Hmph. Get along with this lout? You must be joking.”
Menel snorted. “You got that right. I hate self-important guys like him.”
The two of them openly displayed their displeasure of one another, Bishop Bagley by crossing his arms and looking down on Menel, and Menel by resting his chin on his hand and drawing his eyebrows together. It felt really uncomfortable that my friend and the person I respected hated each other’s guts so much.
As I wrung my hands, Ethel smiled brightly at the pair. “But I’m sure you’d both agree that as a business partner, the other is more than suitable, yes?”
“Well, indeed. I am not ignorant of his talents.”
“Wouldn’t even be in the same room as him otherwise.”
Neither of them sounded happy about it. His Excellency glanced in my direction and winked.
“Fine, whatever,” Menel said. “This is business. I’ll answer. Have a look at this.” He took a map out of the leather bag he’d been carrying and spread it out on the desk. We had obtained this map from Tonio, a merchant we were on friendly terms with. It was a detailed, pretty carefully crafted map of this area as it had been during the Union Age. Being two hundred years old, the map had changed quite a lot, and it was covered from corner to corner in Menel’s corrections.
He traced a finger across it as we all peered over. “So, first off, when I say
‘Lord of the Woods’—there are leylines around there which are like conduits for the mana in the earth.” He drew several invisible lines with his finger, probably representing the leylines, and then pointed at the spot where many of them crossed. “Where they meet, you have a Domain, and ‘Lord of the Woods’ refers to its lord. As for what a lord actually is, it varies. It can be a great fae dwelling in a tree or a boulder, an old wild animal that had its den in the Domain for a long time and gained intelligence, or a bunch of other things.”
Pausing for breath, Menel brushed his silver hair back behind his ear. “Not only do they live far longer than one or two hundred years, they’re directly connected to the leylines. They store up a lot of memories and knowledge, and are constantly drawing mana into their bodies from all the areas the leylines connect them to. The lord is the woods’ heart, its brain.”