Master and Slaves

“Understood. However there are only two conditions.”

The elder elf held up two fingers and spoke.

“What are they?”

“The first is that while you pass through the forest we will attach surveillance.”

Yeah, that would be natural.

“The second is… Lord Hiroyuki, you will enter Jurou.”

…Huh?

“Elder, that is!”

Sophia raised her voice.

Not knowing what Jurou was, I was dazed even though I was the person concerned.

“A hostage…”

“Sophia! You…”

The old elf on the right who heard Sophia’s mutter raised their voice again.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Sophia, it is as you say. If they pass through the forest without anything happening, we will return Lord Hiroyuki.”

The elder elf who checked the old elf by raising a hand affirmed what Sophia said and further added an explanation.

“Only me?”

“Yes. We will have you enter alone.”

Fumu.

It’s something to worry about.

Helene and the others would probably agree.

But what would the Dules say.

When I turned toward Sophia she wore a bitter expression.

Wouldn’t it be better to go back once.

“Sophia, you can use Recording Voice, can’t you.”

“Y-yes.”

“Then record Lord Hiroyuki’s voice and take it back. Lord Hiroyuki will enter Jurou as he is.”

The elder elf prompted Sophia that way.

No, you could almost call it coercion.

“…”

“Sophia.”

“Y-yes… under, stood.”

Sophia nodded reluctantly.

I hardly understood.

“Before that I have several things I want to ask…”

“What is it?”

“First… what is Jurou?”

“Jurou is a jail using the hollow of a great tree.”

Ah, so Tree Prison.

…Eh?

“Was Sophia in a place like that for fifteen years?!”

“Yes. Punishment for leaving the forest alone without permission.”

“Without permission… just that for fifteen years?”

Fifteen years of imprisonment… that’s quite heavy.

Among elves, does that count as a serious crime?

“That’s right. Just that. That’s why it’s only fifteen years.”

However she answered while tilting her head looking puzzled.

Is fifteen years “only”?

…I see.

Elves are long-lived, right.

“I see… and me?”

“Until those humans pass through the forest.”

“…Understood. So you’ll have Sophia deliver my voice.”

“Yes.”

“Fuu. All right. Sophia, get ready.”

…

And so now I am in the Tree Prison.

It is pitch black and I cannot even see the tips of my hands.

Even if you don’t have fear of the dark or claustrophobia it’s quite frightening.

Apparently I also cannot use magic.

A barrier like that is put up, they say.

However from here I can also “see” the outside world.

Which means this is apparently not magic or anything.

So I know what is happening outside the Tree Prison.

However I cannot see through that far, so I don’t know about Muriel and the others or Helene and the others.

I probably also won’t know about them passing through the forest.

“Well, looking at elf life here might also be good.”

I closed my eyes in the darkness where no one was and spoke to myself.

I don’t have a hobby of peeping, but just looking at the village shouldn’t count as peeping… I think.

That is only a matter of distracting myself.

I have no choice but to leave the Dules to Muriel.

Even if I worry I can’t do anything, and in the first place I don’t know anything.

So I distract myself by “seeing” the elf village.

…So this is the elf village.

The elf village was built on top of one large tree.

From the hollow of the large tree on the ground roots like stairs grew, and from there you could go to the trunk and branches of the tree.

Houses were built on the branches.

They were simple, but they sufficiently functioned as houses.

There were beds, rooms to store nuts, rooms to store tools.

They didn’t seem to use fire.

Food was vegetables, nuts, and wild plants.

They didn’t seem to eat meat.

So-called vegetarians.

Bows and arrows were mainly for self-defense and were not used otherwise.

Fire seemed to be taboo, and even magic rarely used fire.

“How is it, our way of life.”

A voice could be heard directly in my head.

“You are… the elder?”

“Yes. That’s right, let me tell you my name soon. I am Auri. One of the 108 ’Primordial Fairies’ born from the Creator God.”

Primordial Fairies…

I hadn’t exactly doubted it, but what Sophia said was true.

“Which means you have been alive since this world was born?”

I became self-conscious and asked using honorifics oddly.

“I have no memory from immediately after being born. Let me say that when I came to my senses this world already existed. …Rather than about me, please look well at this village’s way of life.”

The elder—Auri answered but immediately returned the talk to the original.

Which means Auri knew I was trying to peek at this village?

“…Why did you think I would try to see this village? In the first place, why did you know of this ability of mine?”

“I said it earlier, didn’t I? That you are the same as me. And you are human. A lump of curiosity. You cannot resist the desire to know this unknown.”

Auri answered.

However that content included a contradiction I could not ignore.

“Even though you say I am the same as you, why do you assert that I am human? Being the same as you means you are also human? However earlier you said ’Primordial Fairy.’ What does that mean?”

“…That is not something for you to know now. What you must know is this elf way of life.”

I was irritated by Auri’s words.

At them arbitrarily deciding I didn’t need to know about myself.

“The elf way of life doesn’t matte—!”

However I started there.

Suddenly the heat cooled and I worked my head calmly.

“…For Sophia’s sake…?”

“Yes. As far as I know, you are the first to make an elf a Dule. Therefore I wanted you to use it as a reference when handling Sophia.”

Auri’s voice sounded somewhat heavy.

“That is…”

Is that because it is Auri’s village.

Auri’s village…

The village of Auri who has lived since the beginning of the world.

Did Auri gather the elves?

No, it is the beginning of the world.

There are no elves either.

Then where did the elves come from…

“…!”

I arrived at something.

“Are the elves your descendants?”

“Yes. They are the descendants of elves I gave birth to.”

…Even though I arrived at it myself, I cannot easily imagine it.

Living together with your own descendants.

However having to attend the deaths of your own children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren even as they die…

“It’s… hard, isn’t it.”

“Thank you. However, that is why I want the descendants before my eyes to live happily. Sophia is one of them.”

“Then do you hate me?”

“There is no such thing. I understand you sufficiently.”

Sufficiently…

“More than that, for Sophia’s sake please keep seeing the elves’ way of life. It is different from human life.”

“Understood.”

I answered that way and turned my consciousness toward the elf village.

Everyone was spending time leisurely.

Harvesting crops from the fields, gathering nuts and wild plants, and just eating them.

Occasionally they went outside to gather information and procure food.

Inside the village they washed clothes and maintained tools.

There was no distinction of men or women in those tasks.

“That is not all. The most important is over here.”

I concentrated toward the voice.

There Auri and several elves had climbed to the top of the tree and were looking around.

“We elves take pride as mediators of the forest.”

“Mediators?”

“Yes. We bear the role of settling abnormal phenomena that occur in the forest.”

“That is…”

“Extinguishing fires, treating illnesses of trees and animals, stopping damage from abnormal rain and wind, and so on. However the most important is being wary of visitors from the outside world, and if necessary eliminating them.”

“Eliminate means… killing them?”

“If possible we have them leave the forest, but if they do not there are times when we have no choice.”

“…Visitors are after all”

“Not only humans. There are also demonic beasts, and also animals that should not be in this forest. It means eliminating factors that break the food chain.”

…Quite conservative.

Like a closed country.

“…Lord Hiroyuki, the humans have entered the forest.”