[Elf Bastards]
On the way to the Chancellor’s office, the academy glittered in a variety of colors despite the winter.
That was not a metaphor.
The academy was genuinely colorful.
“Elf student over there. You should grow your pet plant in the flowerbed by your dormitory, not in the garden. The garden is not private property.”
At Hans’s admonition, the crouching elf tilted his head.
“But there’s soil here.”
“......”
“Of course I should plant a tree.”
There was soil there, so he would plant a tree.
It was the sort of statement that belonged beside the old saying, “There is a mountain, so I climb it.”
“If there are more trees, the academy will be prettier too.”
“...Right.”
Perhaps he decided that arguing with a child was a waste of time.
Or perhaps he decided that stopping that elf was not his responsibility.
Hans resumed walking, looking as though his head throbbed.
“The elf students who left Yggdrasil arrived the day before yesterday, didn’t they?”
“Yes. I heard they were originally scheduled to receive instruction on living alongside other races, but...”
Hans looked at me.
“They say it was postponed because someone turned a World Tree Branch into a staff.”
“Well, the World Tree must have mattered more to the elf elders than education.”
Still, it did not seem that matters had taken a bad turn.
If there had been a problem, the elf students would not have been allowed to wander about freely.
Elves were sensitive about safety precisely because their numbers were small.
As we headed toward the Chancellor’s office again.
Fwoooosh—
Wheeeeee—
High flames blazed, and wind rippled between them.
“Spirit students. Excessive use of your powers on campus may harm the surrounding area.”
Hans tried to stop them, but—
Giggle, giggle—
The spirits took it as an invitation to play and tangled around him even more enthusiastically.
To minimize the sense of difference, they wore forms similar to humans.
When the spirits, shaped like young boys and girls, swarmed around him, a flicker of bewilderment crossed Hans’s eyes.
“Strong human!”
“Pretty human!”
“Let’s play!”
“Say yes!”
Giggle, giggle—
The spirits laughed without pause as they tugged at Hans’s clothes.
“You’re popular.”
“This is no time for jokes, Lewis. Please help—”
“I’ll be at the Chancellor’s office first.”
“Are you doing this because I ran away alone yesterday?!”
“Yes, you bastard. Do you know how scared I was yesterday?”
“Don’t be so petty, and just—!”
Hans reached a hand toward me.
But that hand was soon buried beneath the spirits gathering around him.
“This is what they call poetic justice.”
It was not only Hans.
Quite a few spirits were mingling with human students nearby.
It was utterly different from the elves, who quietly crouched in every garden and flowerbed.
If I had to use MBTI terms, most elves were I and spirits were E.
‘No, there were plenty of extroverted elves too.’
Their extroversion simply expressed itself through plants, which was the problem.
‘Still, it’s a relief that no one’s fighting.’
The academy was noisy all the way to the Chancellor’s office, but not chaotic.
It seemed the supervisors had properly taught them that fighting was absolutely forbidden.
‘The elves saw the Yggdrasil War unfold right in their own backyard, so they must be overflowing with goodwill toward the other races.’
The problem was whether this good relationship could last.
The academy must have shared that concern, which was why it had planned the Exchange Meeting.
‘This really does show that things have diverged from the original story.’
The past, in which the Underworld had successfully invaded the continent, had changed. Naturally, the future had changed as well.
If that was the case, most of the crises connected to the demonfolk or the Underworld in the original work would have disappeared.
That was good.
But Teruna had dragged me into the academy no matter what.
With the stick that peace might be shattered and the carrot that He would send me back to Earth.
That clearly meant He expected something from me...
“Teruna... Why are You really doing this to me?”
Even a professor who found an SSS-rank graduate student would not work them for ten years!
As I walked with a gloomy mood, a student floating in midair zipped past my side.
Waaaaah!
Giggle!
Two wind spirits clung to his back and pushed with all their might.
“They’re having fun.”
Seeing that, I could not keep complaining.
If the original situation had been repeated?
The spirits and humans would have snarled at one another and competed viciously, then headed straight for the battlefield after graduation.
Those bright-eyed boys and girls would have.
And someone would have crossed a river they could never return from.
Compared to seeing that again, it was far better for me to be a little inconvenienced.
“That doesn’t make inconvenient things any less inconvenient, though.”
Since the Main Quest was called [Exchange Meeting], it was probably asking me to bring the meeting to a successful conclusion somehow.
‘Should I ask to be slipped into another professor’s group? There’s only me in Professor Kanibara’s office anyway.’
Even if I supervised a group by myself, how many children could I be responsible for?
After walking slowly, I finally reached the Chancellor’s office.
Remembering the spectacle from yesterday made me want to turn around immediately.
‘The moment the Chancellor brings up my dark history... it will be mutual assured destruction.’
A teaching assistant who drank in the office, climbed atop a table, and sang at the top of his lungs.
A chancellor whose wig flipped right off because of a wind path created by spirits.
Let us see who takes more damage.
With that grim resolve, I opened the Chancellor’s office door.
“Ahahaha! That must have been troublesome!”
For some reason, Kanibara’s hearty laughter rang from inside the Chancellor’s office.
Then a gentle male voice followed.
“It was. We had to retrieve it, but the World Tree had already acknowledged Elaine. It was a blessing that it turned into a staff.”
“The World Tree must surely have had a deep purpose. The branches the demonfolk cut off returned straight to the soil.”
“Yes. That is why the elders have decided to observe matters a while longer. The Elf Queen and Sage Aleph offered vigorous defenses as well.”
Kanibara and an elf elder sat across from each other at the center of the Chancellor’s office, sharing drinks.
I discreetly raised my head and checked the door sign.
[Chancellor’s Office]
Fortunately, I had not entered the wrong room, but what was going on here?
“It’s you.”
“Chancellor?”
Just then, the Chancellor appeared from the blind spot behind the door and greeted me.
He held a clear glass in his hand.
“Heh. Hehehe. What is wrong with having a drink in one’s office? Hehehe. It can happen.”
His laughter made it seem as though he had let go of several things.
On closer inspection, the liquid Kanibara and the elf elder were sharing was alcohol rather than tea.
“Do not worry about any theft. I will keep an eye on it as well.”
“Yes. Had we known Lady Kanibara was here, a decision would have been reached far sooner.”
At the elder’s words, I understood why the Chancellor held a glass of alcohol.
‘They barely managed to settle the World Tree Staff issue.’
It was no exaggeration to say that the World Tree was everything to the elves.
Even if relations were friendly, they must have been uneasy that a World Tree Branch was in human territory.
Then one of the branches transformed into a staff, proving Elaine’s qualification.
The problem was that Elaine had fled from Yggdrasil and refused to return.
Naturally, the elder’s targets of protest would have become the Foreign Ministry and the academy.
They could not say anything to someone acknowledged by the World Tree.
The Foreign Ministry and the academy, caught in the crossfire, must have performed a desperate dance to avoid responsibility.
‘Poor civil servants...’
And Kanibara was probably the one who ended that grand chaos.
“Thank you for saving face for me, Elder. Hey, Lewis!”
“...?”
“If you have arrived, hurry up and sit down and pour the elder a drink!”
“This is my teaching assistant, Lewis. He did participate in the Yggdrasil War, but you probably do not know each other.”
At Kanibara’s introduction, the elf elder nodded.
“Yes. But if we stood on the same battlefield, we are all comrades. It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Yureph.”
Perhaps because he had laid down a burden, Yureph kept a gentle smile on his face.
With ‘reph’ in his name, he must have been born around the same time as Aleph the Azure Sage.
‘A truly influential elf came.’
I bowed, then naturally filled the elder’s glass.
“It is an honor to meet an elf elder.”
After I filled Kanibara’s glass as well, the elder offered me a drink, but—
“Ah, sorry. He has work to do again, so he cannot.”
Kanibara stopped the glass being offered to me.
“My apologies. That was discourteous.”
“Discourteous, my ass. I wonder if he resents me for keeping him from accepting an elf elder’s drink.”
Kanibara said that and secretly winked at me.
‘I’m grateful since I still have a hangover, but...’
Was this one of those things?
My punching bag is mine alone to hit?
If she was going to look after me like this, she should have done it yesterday.
“Then I will take my leave.”
I stood and handed the Chancellor the gift I had originally come to give him.
“What is this?”
“A gift. About yesterday, well... anyway. And you have been suffering in many ways.”
“Calbrehon Wine, 30-Year Vintage? Such a valuable— Gasp!”
The Chancellor startled and covered his mouth as he checked the gift.
But it was too late.
“What? Calbrehon, thirty years?!”
It had landed squarely on Kanibara’s radar.
“Chancellor! Come sit down, quickly! We have a precious guest and precious liquor! Haah!”
“Oh? I have heard it is a fine liquor comparable to the dew of the World Tree. Please come over, Chancellor.”
At Kanibara and the elder’s gestures, the Chancellor went pale.
He grabbed my sleeve.
“C-Could you take my place?”
“Sorry. I still have a hangover...”
“I, too, must soon meet a high-ranking spirit who came from Elysia! They arrived at dawn today! It cannot be postponed!”
Wow. They arrived at dawn, and they were already mingling with humans like that?
I deliberately sent my mind elsewhere and bowed.
“I apologize.”
“Betrayal! This is betrayal! Do you know how much I consider your convenience?!”
The Chancellor’s grip on my sleeve tightened.
I understood.
I would not want to be caught between those two either.
An elf elder was at least a minister or royalty.
And in front of him was the Gray Storm, a hero of mankind.
No matter how impressive an academy chancellor might be, he was only Civil Servant One between them.
‘Of course, if I stayed, I would be the lowest-ranked one!’
So I had to escape.
Looking at it, Kanibara did not seem to intend to hold me back either.
“Good luck.”
I gave a polite bow and left the Chancellor’s office.
Oh, right.
I had forgotten to talk about the Exchange Meeting.
‘The spirits arrived today, so I can come back later.’
The orientation and various administrative procedures prepared by the academy remained.
There was plenty of time to discuss the Exchange Meeting.
My only concern was—
‘A chancellor would not be petty enough to take revenge, right?’
Come on. Surely not.
That was the sort of thing only small-minded people did.
Like Hans, who was striding toward me with the corners of his eyes twitching.
“Run awaaaay!”
“Stop right there! You damn traitor!”
Ah. The whole world was betrayal.
***
Twitch.
Elaine’s long ears caught a faint sound in the distance.
Something was running with a rapid thud-thud-thud.
“Is it coming from the Chancellor’s office? People must be having a hard time.”
A faint guilt crossed Elaine’s face.
Originally, there was no need for an elder to come as supervisor for the elf students.
There would have been no reason for the elder to protest to the Foreign Ministry and the Chancellor either.
All of it had happened because she had cut off a World Tree Branch and come to the human world.
But she did not regret it.
“After seeing it for myself, I know for certain. Elves have to change.”
An elf who sat still all day in the sunlight like a sunflower.
That was not bad.
That time itself was peace.
But elves did not have the circumstances to enjoy such peace now.
Not long ago, the disaster called the Underworld had clawed its way through Yggdrasil.
The World Tree had weakened, and the city had become a plant sick with blight, with ruins scattered everywhere.
They needed to restore the city and their strength as soon as possible.
But the elves returned to their old lives, saying peace had come once again.
Elaine could not understand it.
“Our magic is far better than humans’, but humans are much faster.”
The restoration of Yggdrasil and the construction of Gloria Academy had begun around the same time.
Gloria Academy had been completed long ago and was about to open.
But the restoration of Yggdrasil?
“How does it make sense to wait for House Oaks to grow? It will take fifty years!”
As Elaine fumed, she noticed a fellow elf crouching in a corner of the garden.
The seed in the boy’s hand was familiar too.
“Hey! Why are you planting a House Oak in the garden?!”
A House Oak grew into a massive tree, as much as twenty meters tall.
It was so thick that elves used its interior as a home, which was how it received its name.
“Does a House Oak not suit this place? Would a Thorn Oak be better? What about a Sunset Willow?”
“No, that is not what I— Argh!”
The mindset of a fellow elf that would not communicate made frustration surge through her.
Why plant a House Oak in the academy garden?
Were they going to build a home in the middle of the academy?
Academy life only lasted three years. When would they finish growing a House Oak?
And why had Thorn Oaks entered the conversation?
The ends of a Thorn Oak’s branches were exceedingly sharp.
Elves trimmed those branches, bestowed reinforcing magic upon them, and used them as spears.
Unless he intended to make a weapon tree in the garden, it was a name that made no sense here!
“Go away! Before I report you for breaking school rules!”
“Why is planting a tree against the school rules?”
The elf boy tilted his head, looking as though he truly could not understand.
His expression said, ‘Breathing is a crime? That makes no sense!’
But when Elaine’s paired axes clinked at her waist, he obediently backed down.
Even then, he looked unable to let go of the thought.
There was no explaining that obsession unless the act of planting seeds was connected directly to his pleasure centers.
“Did you not even learn the rules of human society before leaving?”
Of course, he had learned them.
The problem was that the academy, which sent the materials, had never anticipated issues like this.
By human common sense, they could not even imagine the act of planting trees everywhere without regard for time or place.
At least the construction process had fostered the impression that elves had an unusually strong attachment to plants.
But reality was far beyond that.
The elves’ obsession surpassed human imagination.
“At this rate, three years will pass with me doing nothing but cleaning up after these children...”
Where the elf boy had been, a World Tree carving had been engraved into a paving stone.
It was a carving containing a spell that protected plants and accelerated their growth.
Unease settling over her, Elaine fell into thought.
She had not come to the human world merely because she cut a World Tree Branch and ran away.
She wanted to learn human life and ways of thinking, then change elf society.
“I need to put a firm stop to this at the beginning. Keep them from doing stupid things.”
Whether she drove the point home to her fellow elves.
Or warned the humans.
She had to prepare somehow.
Naturally, she would say something at the orientation the elder would hold today.
“Is there another good way?”
As Elaine considered it, she noticed the bulletin board erected at the garden entrance.
A document about the Exchange Meeting was posted on it.
“Exchange Meeting?”
Elaine nodded slowly.
The Exchange Meeting had been planned so the three races could learn each other’s cultures and adapt.
At the Exchange Meeting, could she not stop her compatriots’ crazy behavior more effectively?
“But the groups will be divided...”
It seemed better to tell the person with supervisory authority in advance.
So the same instruction could be given to the other groups as well!
And one person naturally came to Elaine’s mind.
“Lewis can do it.”
Elaine decided to find Lewis soon.
But even Elaine had an elf’s languid sense of time.
One day. Two days.
Time steadily passed.
By the time Elaine found Lewis, a full ten days had passed.
More than enough time for an incident to occur.