Wind fairies were a special kind of creature.
Beings born from the concept of wishes.
They were creatures created from intense prayers and longing.
‘It can’t be helped that their healing abilities are crude.’
Wind fairies did not contract diseases or grow old.
As long as they did not lose the power of wishes, they were a race that could theoretically live forever.
“The problem is that there’s too much energy?”
Neras tilted their head with an ambiguous expression.
“The more energy we possess, the stronger we become.”
“Too much of anything becomes poison.”
Even if something was good for the body, stuffing it in recklessly would cause indigestion or illness.
If there was too much power of wishes, it could only become excessive desire.
Neras’s younger sibling had been poisoned by the oxygen released as the forest rapidly grew.
More precisely, by the powerful longing mixed into the trees’ breathing.
“Then can you make medicine for my younger sibling, Rah? What should I do? What materials should I bring?”
With each word Neras spoke, their face came closer.
Their desperate face was right before my nose before I knew it.
“No...... There isn’t any medicine I can make for that.”
“I-is treatment difficult?”
Neras’s face darkened.
Before the misunderstanding deepened, I quickly waved my hand.
“I mean they can recover well enough even without medicine.”
“You should have said that from the beginning!”
I let Wer’s scolding go in one ear and looked at Neras.
“I understand you grow Four-Tail Grass. Where is it?”
“How do you know that......?”
“Never mind how I know. Let’s save your sibling first.”
If they dug into how I knew, I would run out of things to say.
It would be better to gloss over it appropriately.
‘Not that I intend to tell them.’
Neras nodded with a bewildered face.
“I will guide you. This way.”
“Wait. You need to bring your sibling too.”
I pointed at the small window leaking light.
Inside, a fairy who looked exactly like Neras was breathing in short, wheezing gasps.
Neras quickly flew into the house.
“Rah! Has your fever risen again?”
“I’m dizzy...... My head hurts.”
The heat-laden voice blurred faintly.
Neras stroked their sibling’s forehead with a careful hand.
“You’ll get better soon. I promise......”
Neras came out holding their sibling and turned off the house’s light.
The village held its breath, sunk in darkness.
‘They must be wary of the human.’
I looked at the small houses for a while, then turned my gaze away.
After all, as long as I was here, not a single sound would leak out.
“There are other sick children besides your sibling, right?”
“None are worse than Rah, but their condition is still worsening.”
“Later, teach the other fairies the treatment method. It’s simple.”
If someone asked how simple it was, it was to the point that calling it a treatment felt embarrassing.
Enough that the time they had spent bedridden felt wasteful.
That was how easily they could recover.
“Let’s hurry to where the Four-Tail Grass is.”
Neras guided us to a small well behind the village.
Neras lightly fluttered up and slipped down below.
Wer naturally followed after them.
I quietly looked down.
The well seemed fairly deep, and because it was dark, it was hard to see the bottom.
“......Hey. Would I get hurt if I jumped down?”
The owners of wings blinked up from inside the well.
As if it was a question they had never even considered, Neras sucked in a sharp breath.
“Ah! I-I’m sorry! Humans can’t fly.”
“Goodness, Ritak. How about staying quietly up there?”
Wer spoke in his usual dignified tone.
But was it just my imagination that he somehow felt like he was grinning?
I should get wings or something so I would not feel so wronged.
I narrowed my eyes and glared down the well.
The sound of quiet laughter headed downward, and before long, a voice echoed up.
“It is not that deep!”
The entrance gaped black like an open maw.
In the game, it had been a path one could descend just by pressing the downward directional key, but actually going down felt hopeless.
‘It’s not like I’ll die.’
I jumped into the well.
WHOOOOSH!
The sound of wind scraped heavily past my ears.
The fall was not long.
By feel, it was about the same as jumping from the second-floor window of a building.
THUD!
At the same time a roar echoed underground, red light flashed.
The fairy let out a thin scream.
“Eek! A-are you all right?”
“More or less......”
A tingling sensation traveled from the soles of my feet to the top of my head.
My legs trembled, but the impact was somehow not as heavy as I had braced for.
Surely not.
“Two remain again. It recovered in the wagon, and you promptly used one.”
The protective power Wer spread over me, his contractor.
His shield was a power that activated only when an attack or trap with malice would cut away a large chunk of health.
‘It used a shield just because I jumped down a well?’
It was a situation I had never experienced even once in the game.
Though that had been when I played as John Doe, the protagonist.
Wer chuckled in the darkness.
“Do not worry. It seems they recover in two days, at least.”
How comforting.
“But I cannot see a thing.”
“I’ll light it right away!”
I heard the flutter of fairy wings.
Before long, the underground cave began to glow softly.
Each time Neras placed a hand on the wall engraved with complex patterns and murmured, the surroundings grew brighter.
‘Is that magic......?’
To think I was actually witnessing magic.
For some reason, I felt moved.
Was magic not the romance of fantasy?
‘Magic isn’t a common power even in this world.’
There were few beings who could properly handle magic.
Wer, one of those rare beings, nodded in satisfaction.
“A useful magic circle. Now I can see the surroundings.”
A mass of warm-colored light illuminated the bottom of the well.
Fluffy grass revealed itself in a pale glow.
Grass with four cottony tufts resembling foxtails sprouting from a single root.
It was the Four-Tail Grass I had been searching for.
The soft grass leisurely swayed as it filled the underground space.
Neras jumped in surprise.
“When did the Four-Tail Grass become this plentiful?”
“I guess you don’t come care for it every day?”
“Well, the truth is, these days I’ve been so worried about the forest and the children that I’ve had no presence of mind.”
Neras adjusted their hold on their sibling and made a firm expression, putting strength into their brows.
“Now. What should I do?”
“Lay your sibling on top of the Four-Tail Grass. Ideally, where the grass is thickest.”
The fresh blue grass filled the floor so completely there was no room to step.
So it was difficult to point out one place where the grass had grown especially thick.
But Neras chose and chose again, then carefully laid their sibling down.
The small fairy’s body stretched out on the grass.
“What should I do now?”
“Just leave them there.”
“Pardon?”
“They’ll get better once time passes.”
Wind fairies were creatures that lived by hearing wishes and granting them.
A race that ultimately brought about what one desired.
Many had prayed to fairies and obtained the results they wanted.
Though all of that had become a thing of the past.
‘Power that’s too strong often tightens around its own neck.’
I swept my fingertips along the wall and walked into the underground cave.
Past the magic circle, on the path leading farther in, murals were engraved into the wall.
A fairy carrying a bright light on their back, and a fairy sharing that light.
The murals that continued afterward were so badly damaged they could not be recognized.
Judging by the parts that showed here and there like fragments, it had been a joyful scene.
‘If it’s broken, it no longer has meaning, though.’
Only when I reached the end of the cave could I see an intact image.
It was a scene of human hands clinging obsessively to a fairy’s wings.
The mural ended with the fairy breaking their own wings.
The ending was that the wind fairies, sick of endless wishes, had left humanity’s side.
A story that was never passed down to the humans who should have engraved it.
I turned around and leaned my back against the wall.
Neras, who had been stroking their sibling’s forehead, looked up at me.
“Will they really be all right if we just leave them like this?”
“Yes. The Four-Tail Grass will absorb the energy that was tormenting your sibling.”
“Thank you! Truly, thank you......!”
Neras lowered their head again and again.
For some reason, the taste in my mouth turned bitter.
“......There’s no need to thank me. I didn’t really do much.”
Because I had passed this village by several times, dozens of times.
I had killed Ritak off early and removed the system that used medicinal ingredients.
The Wind Forest, where Four-Tail Grass could be obtained, became a useless place.
In the end, it died quietly outside the protagonist’s view.
Each time I played the game again, over and over.
Neras abruptly stood up.
“What do you mean, you didn’t do much?!”
“I only told you to try laying your sibling on a grass field you had cultivated.”
Neras shook their head.
Their blue hair surged powerfully.
“Because we couldn’t do that! Because we didn’t even know that much, everyone was dying!”
“Yes, Ritak. Even humility becomes poison when taken too far, does it not?”
Humility, was it?
In any case, I had saved the forest this time.
‘Maybe there’s no reason I can’t be thanked.’
I clenched and unclenched my hand several times.
Wer twisted the corner of his mouth upward at me.
“In my opinion, this seems more than enough to earn a decent dinner.”
“Pardon? Dinner?”
“Ahem. It was something we discussed before coming to the village.”
There was something more important than food, though.
I looked at the fairy, who was blinking in confusion.
“Since we’re on the subject, there’s something I’d like to ask......”
“Anything!”
How could they say that so readily when they did not know what I would ask?
Of course, I was a person with common sense.
Meaning I would take gratitude and reward only in moderation.
“I want to take some Four-Tail Grass with me.”
For a very brief moment, Neras’s gaze wavered.
See? This was why you should not immediately say you would give anything.
“......Of course! It just so happens that plenty has grown. If I tell the other fairies you taught us how to treat the children, they’ll gladly give it to you.”
Neras, who was saying that, did not actually look very willing.
They were fidgeting with their hands clasped together.
“However, since it is grass needed for treatment, I would be grateful if you could leave some behind.”
“You want me to leave some behind?”
“If strange things continue happening in the forest, there’s no telling when the children may fall ill again......”
“Hmm. It seems there’s been another misunderstanding.”
Why were they acting as though I had said I would take all the Four-Tail Grass?
Was I speaking in a way that was easy to misunderstand, or was this fairy’s personality impatient?
Perhaps prejudice against humans was planted deep in their head.
“One root is enough.”
For now, anyway.
The amount of Four-Tail Grass needed to make one dose of Elixir of Luck was about one blade of grass.
One root meant I could make three or four bottles.
“Is that truly enough? I’ll find the freshest grass right away!”
Neras enthusiastically rolled up their sleeves.
I raised one hand and stopped them.
‘I’m not done talking yet.’
Once again, the scales tipped toward the thought that this fairy’s personality was simply impatient.
“......Four-Tail Grass is a useful material, you see. Even a little at a time is fine, so I’d like to receive it regularly.”
There might be a way to obtain seeds and cultivate it myself, but I did not want to go through something so inconvenient.
If I took grass that grew only in the Wind Forest outside, I might even call down disaster upon the ecosystem.
‘Most of all, I have no talent for growing plants.’
Medicine to pharmacists, Four-Tail Grass to wind fairies.
Everything was better when done by an expert.
Would Four-Tail Grass sprouted by fairies with the power of wishes not be different somehow?
“Regularly, you say......”
Neras murmured and nodded.
They were not misunderstanding again, were they?
Before Neras’s face could be colored with distress again, I quickly added,“In exchange for solving the forest’s problem.”
The fairies did not know the cause of the abnormal phenomenon happening in the forest.
They could not even lay a hand on it.
But I knew the way to uproot the abnormal phenomenon.
‘It won’t be easy for me right now, though......’
I could not simply hand over one simple treatment method and be done with it.
Would that not be a completely freeloading mindset?
I did not want to become the ugly human the fairies were wary of.