Clouds dropped raindrops.
Rain marks gradually gathered on the surface of the stone.
It really doesn't move at all.
The droplet girl poked it with a finger. When there was no reaction, she picked up the round stone and turned it over. The less-wet underside began to get wet.
The stone didn't react.
Even that doesn't make it move.
—I think your sibling can't move because it's a stone.
The droplet girl pointed at me, then pointed at the stone. Then she pretended to speak.
She wants me to try talking to it.
—All right. Stone, isn't it cold getting rained on? Should I move you under my shade?
I waited for an answer.
The stone didn't respond at all until it was completely soaked with rainwater.
—I think it really can't move because it's a stone.
The droplet girl looked dumbfounded.
As an existence born to flow and evaporate, she might not be able to understand a younger sibling who couldn't move. But the droplet can't speak either.
—Still, you can cherish it because it's your sibling, right?
The droplet girl tapped the stone. Her head nodded roughly.
The response was lukewarm.
Still, she seemed to secretly like it, because when the rain stopped, the droplet checked the stone's size and began weaving blades of grass into a crown.
The finished grass crown was placed on the stone. The remaining rainwater on the grass crown sparkled.
—Waaah, it's a grass-crown stone.
The droplet girl clap, clap, clapped.
Then, as if a fun thought had occurred to her, she controlled the damp soil and piled it up into a point. She packed it down firmly and made a sturdy needle spire, then picked up the stone.
The floating droplet girl placed the stone on the tip of the spire. Her little hands delicately balanced it. The stone left her hand and settled there precariously.
The giggling girl circled around it and looked.
A peal of laughter rang out.
Excuse meee? Is it all right to do that with your sibling? Won't it break if it falls?
Though since it was an existence made by compressing the plate stone together with a lump of mana stone, that was probably needless worry.
I gazed at the droplet.
—You can become closer by playing pranks, but don't play pranks that are too dangerous. All right? Your sibling and you have a difference in experience.
The droplet didn't immediately agree, but thought about it. Her little finger pointed at the spire. It was a gesture asking whether that much was all right.
—Since your sibling is hard, a prank about that level might be all right, huh?
When I looked at the spire's position, the needle spire had long since disappeared. At some point, only the crowned stone was sitting alone on flattened soil.
—Waaah? You got rid of it in that short time? I didn't mean you should watch my mood excessively. I'm asking the two of you to live while understanding each other.
I suppose I really had nagged too much.
The droplet girl panicked. She pointed at herself and the spire, then crossed both arms into an X.
—You didn't get rid of it?
Then who did?
The droplet girl made the spire again. She placed the stone on it, then watched silently.
The spire showed no reaction for a while. Then at some point, it sank with a thump, buried itself in the ground, and became flat in an instant. Only the crowned stone sat there alone.
—Could the culprit be?
The stone was pointed at with a flourish.
I think so too.
—It seems your sibling controls earth well, just like you control water well.
As befits a stone, high places aren't to its taste?
—It's good that even if it can't move, it can express its will......
As I spoke, something occurred to me, and I stopped.
It can express its will.
Then has it been ignoring us this whole time?
Waaah?
The new family member seems to have firm thoughts of its own.
***
My roots opened up the underground.
Soil was pushed away, making a path. Since it was an area with only soil, the speed was fast.
However, I had long since become seasoned enough to worry instead of simply being pleased.
Isn't there too much soil here? If I get heavier, it'll compress, and the ground will sink.
Like driving rebar into weak land, I inserted mana pillars between the soil.
It was fine for the moment, but it was only an improvisation, so I didn't like it much.
Instead of adding only weak areas like this whenever needed, I think it'd be good to work on my entire root area as a whole and make it sturdy.
Someday I should do a full round of earthworks all at once. If I really tried to do it, though, I feel like the amount of mana would be far from enough.
My roots arrived at the end of my field of vision.
·Influence Radius
33,050cm → 39,450cm (Max)
·Production
99,150/d → 118,350/d
Woohoo, I widened it all anyway.
It's time to give myself, who finished my labor, some rest.
For rest, there's nothing like looking around my territory.
I looked into the village chief's house.
The first thing I was interested in these days was the stone spirit, but the second was the village chief's study.
I looked at the books neatly lined up on the bookshelf. Each page was recognized, and the lines of text could be read.
When I read without noticing time pass, my vocabulary improved and my common sense filled in. Reading is food for the mind, after all. As a tree, reading a book about tree care was truly ironically enjoyable.
Of course, I don't only look at books.
"How is your physical condition?"
Village chief Eldrin spoke.
Across from him sat an elf with a pale complexion.
"It's fairly good."
Is that really good? Her complexion looks truly bad.
"It's very disappointing that I can't eat meat or soup, but I originally liked salad anyway. My body had felt twisted and uncomfortable, but now it feels like something has been relieved refreshingly, so I can live with it."
"Jerky is raw food, so you may eat it. It is not food cooked with fire."
The patient shuddered.
"I'll be eating jerky to death all winter anyway, so eating it already is a little......"
Eldrin smiled faintly. The contents of the conversation were calmly written down.
"Seeing you take the future for granted, I suppose your condition really is good."
"Huh? You're right. I don't think I'll die while wintering."
"Understood. You may go. Please tell the next person to come in."
As the patient was leaving, she whispered,
"I saw the next one secretly grilling meat. He was even recommending it to others, so please say something to him."
A little later, the next elf came in. His expression was twisted.
"I went to the trouble of not eating meat, but there wasn't much effect. This is just wasting time, so let's stop doing this."
"Good grief."
The elf grumbled.
"It's not even telling us to eat less. Because our conditions are already bad, we need the drastic treatment of not eating any of it? What kind of person in the world lives on only truly raw grass and fruit without even vegetable soup? Let's stop this unrealistic business and just die."
"Good grief."
Eldrin held his forehead.
The position of village chief seems to involve many hardships.
Still, the improvement of eating habits was definitely proving effective.
Once the bodily sensation spread by word of mouth, it spread through the village like a trend, and the number of people consulting the village chief increased by the day. There were some who could not let go of grilled meat, but they too would gradually have to accept reality.
But since midwinter was coming soon, I do think it'd be cold if they couldn't even eat soup.
More than meat, being told not to eat soup in midwinter seems like the greater challenge.
Right now it's a trend, so everyone is easily keeping it, but won't it fall apart with one wave of cold?
There are many people in the world who collapse after eating food a doctor told them not to eat just because their condition improved.
—Will it be easy to get through midwinter without eating soup?
I quietly asked Termia, who had finally visited after being busy helping the village chief.
"You're right. I feel burdened too. Is there no alternative?"
—You're all right. I reworked you once with mana stone, so you're healthy enough to endure eating it occasionally.
"Really? Thank you! As expected of you, Tree!"
Termia brightened.
Then she crossed her arms and pondered, before making a solemn expression.
"I think sick people shouldn't throw tantrums. Let's just tell everyone to endure until spring. When it's cold, they can warm themselves by the fire."
—Waaah? Are you dismissing it like that because it's not your own problem?
The girl giggled.
"More importantly."
The topic was quietly changed.
"Did you succeed in granting intelligence to nature?"
Termia looked around.
—Yes. It's by your feet.
"Where?"
—The stone wearing the grass crown.
"Wow! It's cute! What is this?"
Termia picked up the crowned stone.
"Is this it?"
—Yes.
She turned it around and examined it, then her gaze gradually became subtle. The girl's head tilted.
"It's extremely cute. It's extremely neat and round too. It really is cute and round enough that I've never seen a stone like it in my life."
Her brow narrowed.
"But isn't it just a stone? If I had to be precise, a mysterious stone?"
I had to refute that, but it was hard to refute.
—Since there's a mysterious ordinary sapling from the local hill in the world, couldn't there also be a mysterious stone?
"Starting with the phrase mysterious ordinary sapling from the local hill, that's a little, huh?"
The stone rolled on its own. It escaped from her palm and dropped to the ground with a tap. The grass crown that fell with it fluttered down and landed precisely on its head.
The grass-crown stone enjoyed the stable earth.
Waaah, so it does know how to move. Wonderful.
"You really did grant intelligence to nature!"
The girl's cheeks turned pink.
She crouched and patted the stone.
"Do you want to be friends with me too?"
No reaction came back.
"I guess this one is shy with strangers too?"
—Maybe so.
But seeing how it doesn't run away when patted, I also feel like it might not be especially shy.
Termia fixed the disheveled grass crown, then stood.
"This time, we sent a pigeon to the lord's castle about the humans illegally kidnapped by the slavers. It cost a lot of money too. But although we didn't know because they hid their identities to the end, it seems one of the kidnapped humans was a noble family's child."
I can see why everyone hates slavers. They have no fear. Or maybe both sides were simply unlucky.
"So a mage is going to visit from the lord's castle as an escort. Have you ever seen a mage, Tree? I've never seen one."
Termia grew serious.
"What if, at this rate, our village is burned away by an enraged mage? Your meal is only jerky and grass, so all of you die. No, wait. Your meal is only jerky and fruit and grass, so all of you die."
It seems mages have a bad reputation.
—Wouldn't the village chief handle it properly?
There was nothing much to handle properly.
The human mage, who arrived in an instant, observed all basic etiquette.
"We have little prepared, but we have tried to make it so you may eat comfortably."
Village chief Eldrin guided him to a carefully prepared table. Every elf good at cooking had been mobilized for the meal.
The old mage sat and smiled.
"Little prepared, you say. Do you think I do not know that preparing this much in such a remote place is no easy matter? You have worked hard. Please pass along my thanks to those who prepared it as well."
It seems Termia's worries were wrong.
Since she had never seen a mage, perhaps she had feared the mysteriousness itself.
"Though the rescued one is a child of a humble family, you have done a very fine thing."
"Not at all. We merely did what we had to do."
"How many in this world do what must be done at the proper time?"
The old man smiled and drank herb tea.
"I am old, so I will stay for a few days, but I will leave shortly, so do not worry. I will see to my own meals as well."
The conversation ended neatly without any conflict.
It was peaceful with nothing happening. A good thing.
But when night came, my impression changed a little.
The old mage wandered through the forest in the middle of the night. His behavior was too suspicious to say he was taking a walk because he couldn't sleep.
He picked up perfectly ordinary stones, checked their undersides, and put them back, then rummaged under trees and looked at their roots. Or he scooped up rotten fallen leaves, smelled them, and even held them up to the moonlight.
Are mages originally like that? I can't tell whether he's unusual or ordinary.
The mage's eyes suddenly shone with a strange light.
"So it was not complete nonsense. It may well exist."
What may?
The mage moved his arm. His robe shifted.
"Come out."
From inside the robe, a snake revealed itself. The snake's tongue flicked.
The mage put a hand into his pouch.
A mana stone was taken out.
"Find something similar. If you find it, it will greatly help my lord."
The snake licked the mana stone.
It smacked its lips, then disappeared beyond the undergrowth.
"A strategic material whose existence no one knows."
The old mage looked up at the moon, then returned.
Waaah?
It's a real investigator.