"This is annoying. Should I just wash my face and go......?"
Termia left Velesa's house.
Then she saw a young human man loitering in front of the house and stopped.
"Who are you, mister?"
He's a prince with prince syndrome.
Though since he's probably in his twenties, calling him mister feels a little too much.
"Do you live here?"
"Yes?"
The girl looked over the suspicious person.
With expensive clothes, an impression like he had never done rough work in his life, and hands without calluses, he was from a rich family.
The crown prince hesitated awkwardly, then quietly asked,
"I heard this is the house of a woman named Velesa. Is that correct?"
"Why? Do you need clothes?"
"I already ordered those. This is a private matter."
"A private matter?"
Termia's expression turned strange.
She looked the crown prince over again, and her expression grew slightly impish.
"Did you maybe fall for Big Sister?"
That's exactly what I'm wondering.
"Who would fall for such a violent woman......!"
The crown prince flared up, then barely restrained himself.
He exhaled and spoke calmly.
"That is none of your business. More importantly, is this the house of the woman named Velesa?"
"You must be really curious about that."
The girl's expression grew clearly impish.
"So you did fall for her."
"Tsk, I said I did not."
Termia ignored the denial and crossed her arms. Her posture became slightly cheeky.
"This is Big Sister's house. And I'm an acquaintance-younger-sister who is very close to her and lives with her. Not her real younger sister, but about as close as one?"
The crown prince's complexion brightened.
"That worked out well. Will you call your big sister? I have something to say to her privately."
"Well."
Termia openly looked the crown prince over as if showing him.
"I'm not the kind of younger sister who introduces Big Sister to someone with an arrogant way of speaking."
The house door shut with a tap.
Muttering that all kinds of people existed, the girl went out through the back door.
The crown prince left behind went blank.
"I was, I was ignored like this......?"
A cold wind blew emptily.
***
Some time later.
·Maximum Height
3,840cm → 4,480cm (Max)
·Capture Amount
Average 240/d → Average 280/d
Woohoo, now I'm a 45-meter sapling.
I think I've grown about four times taller than the tall trees around me.
Exactly how big is that?
Everything around me is below me anyway, so it's hard to estimate.
If I retrace my memories from modern times, isn't the fifteenth floor of an apartment building about forty meters?
Waaah? The fifteenth floor of an apartment building?
Did I grow that much? Was I really that big?
No wonder everyone knelt when I poured in just a little strong will. If a tree the size of an apartment building spoke to me, I don't think even I could easily avoid kneeling.
I'm currently a sapling taller than the fifteenth floor of an apartment building.
Forty-five meters only made me think, I see, but after comparing it, it suddenly feels incredibly tall. If this weren't a remote forest, rumors would have spread all over the neighborhood.
Thanks to that, even Termia, who had visited, gave up looking up and ended up talking while simply looking at my trunk.
"A nuisance latched onto Big Sister."
The girl grumbled.
"No, not nuisance. What was the word again? A leech? A leech latched onto her. There's a human who thinks he's handsome, but by Big Sister's standards, his personality is garbage."
—Waaah, really?
Crown prince, how unfortunate.
You worked hard trying to seduce Velesa, but if it won't work, it won't work.
From the start, it looked like too difficult a target.
It's good to have confidence in one's appearance, but this is an elf village. A random mister passing through the neighborhood is more handsome than the crown prince.
"Big Sister really has it hard. I truly respect her skill, but just thinking about living as a seamstress sounds difficult. I think it's only possible if you really like the work itself."
Termia, looking fed up, mimed aiming a bowstring. The quietly sleeping stone girl was glared at.
"If I didn't have to go to the city soon, I'd have shot an arrow into that nuisance's butt."
—Do you have somewhere to go?
"Since the weather has warmed, we have to go exchange the flour we only piled up because we couldn't eat it. They said they were choosing escorts, so I volunteered, ah, right!"
As if something occurred to her, the girl's cheeks blushed.
"At first, there were people who opposed me going, you know? But I did this."
She mimed shooting a bow into the sky.
"When I showed them the trick of shooting an arrow and hitting that arrow, everyone went wide-eyed, and I was chosen right away! This city visit was selecting elites because of the uneasy public order, and I proudly passed!"
Her palm pointed at me with a flourish.
"It's all thanks to you giving me a good bow, Tree!"
The girl winked.
"Connections are power too!"
She giggled.
—I'm happy you like it. But with the rebellion, there'll be many bandits too. It sounds dangerous. Will you be all right?
"I'm extremely nervous."
Perhaps feeling her palms sweat, Termia rubbed them for no reason.
"Still, this time, we decided to exchange the flour for seeds and make a farm for raw food. Since I pushed for raw food, I feel like I shouldn't pull out just because it's dangerous."
Since the weather has warmed, it seems the village is trying to increase food production in advance at the village level.
Maintaining the raw diet with only gathering and hunting as before would be far too tight.
During that time, the village itself had grown considerably, with the people the lord's castle kept sending and even elves who heard rumors and came.
It's approaching roughly five hundred people, so food will be extremely short this winter.
I should help a bit starting now.
—Then I'll ask the stone to help with land reclamation. Since we have the chance, let us make the village farm on a large scale.
"Really?!"
Termia hopped in place and rejoiced.
—Tell the village chief. If he plans assuming I'll help, it'll be easier to scale it up.
"I'll pass it on to Teacher, not the village chief! Teacher is leading this farm plan."
—Waaah?
Teacher is the male elf who asked me what I was and then pushed literacy study at the village level.
Termia doesn't like him because he's arrogant, but while learning letters from him, she has come to acknowledge him as a teacher.
He's an incredibly passionate person.
He has enough backbone to question the sacred tree as soon as he arrives, and he was passionate enough to push literacy study immediately to raise literacy.
And now he's personally pushing the farm project to maintain the raw diet.
I don't know why such an impressive person came here.
There was a time when the crown prince and his guard suddenly tried to speak about Teacher, then stopped the conversation, saying they should avoid mentioning him at all.
Are the two groups connected?
There's no way someone like the crown prince came here for no reason in such unsettled times. Maybe Teacher inspected the village first and called him over.
If it's discovered that he's connected to outsiders, even attending village meetings would become difficult, so are they simply pretending not to know each other for now?
Even while talking with Termia, I checked the place where the crown prince was.
The crown prince was sitting on a tree stump with his soul drained. Perhaps wanting to be alone, he had dismissed even his guards.
"Nothing is working."
His palm swept over his face.
There was a handprint on his cheek, as if Velesa had hit him one more time.
Waaah? He got hit again already?
How unfortunate.
***
The crown prince muttered,
"Truly, nothing is working."
To think he could not even seduce a village woman.
He had abandoned study and training and poured half his life into playing with women, yet he could not even do this properly.
Perhaps it had been only natural that even after reaching the final conclusion that taking the family along while marching on the capital would not be a great burden on marching speed, his father had left only him behind.
His close guard said his lord merely wished for His Highness to receive a great shock and change, but change what? It was already too late.
Suddenly, he heard water boiling beside him.
Water?
When he turned his head, a small girl made of water was sitting on a blade of grass.
Her expression was blank, and she was sighing deeply. With each sigh, her liquid body bubbled and boiled, then cooled.
What is this?
The crown prince's gaze was stolen by an existence he had never seen even in the royal family.
Before questions, emotion popped out of his mouth.
"Do you have worries too?"
The droplet girl glanced sideways. A sigh came, and her small head nodded weakly.
"What worry is it?"
The droplet girl moved her hands.
The sky gathered, and the earth gathered, forming a mass of water. The water split and divided, making shapes and making a story.
A picture book made of water unfolded.
A happy story of a droplet born from a sprout, touching mystery, making a friend, and gaining a younger sibling.
And.
A tree and friend who only kept her nearby, while discussing important and heavy matters only with the younger sibling.
A story of gradually losing attention to a younger sibling who was far too outstanding.
"Is the existence of your younger sibling the problem?"
Perhaps not wanting to call her younger sibling a problem, the droplet girl hesitated.
"Somehow, I think I know your heart."
The crown prince looked up at the sky.
"I will tell you my story."
He had a younger brother.
A delicate, frail one.
"I like studying. Nothing is as enjoyable as teaching a younger brother something he does not know. I like training. Nothing is as enjoyable as teaching a younger brother something he cannot do."
But this too shall pass.
The concubine, who had watched for an opening ever since the younger brother was born, eventually went blind with greed. Poison was placed in the eldest son's meal, and the heir collapsed.
That day, his father drew his sword and stained it with blood.
His younger brother, whose mother's blood had splashed across his cheek, was locked in an isolated room without a maid.
When the crown prince woke, he asked his father.
Why have you locked up my younger brother, who has done nothing wrong? Why did you lock the door without giving him food? Why will you not allow a doctor or priest to be called?
Why, why.
Why did you cause my younger brother to die?
"I wanted Father to regret it."
He wanted him to know that his choice of successor had been wrong, and that even if his ambition succeeded, it could turn to foam in his son's hands.
"But......"
His expression twisted bitterly.
"After I learned that Father secretly looks at the family register where that child's name was scratched out on every anniversary of his death, I no longer know whether what I did was truly right."
His gesture pointed far beyond them. It was the direction that left the territory and headed toward the kingdom's capital.
"Surely Uncle and Father were on good terms, yet why did it become like this? Did my younger brother truly have to die? I no longer know."
Resentment, hatred, sorrow, and grief.
They sank into confusion that could not be distinguished.
All that remained was a body and mind flowing along with time.
"We have come too far. Father and I both have. Too far to speak to each other."
His voice was blank and calm.
"It is already too late. It has become late to the end."
Suddenly, the droplet girl approached.
A stream of water made the corpse of a small bird.
Her small hands carefully offered the corpse.
The crown prince looked at it without accepting, then tilted his head.
"I do not know what that means."
The droplet girl looked at him worriedly, then tugged his arm.
His body rose, and the girl flew ahead.
As if bewitched, he walked along the winding forest path.
He stepped beyond undergrowth he would not have gone through.
On the far side of the forest, the branches and leaves of a gigantic tree came into view.
The mage had told him that it was a sacred tree.
The crown prince had asked why he called it something so grand, but in the end, he had not received an answer.
But now, he felt he might realize that answer himself.
—Hello, traveler.
The sky spoke.
—We have plenty of time, and nothing is late to the end. If you have worries, you may speak.