Chapter 298: Deception (7)

TL/ED – Miso

A Fallen was a wizard whose World had been turned upside down.

Which meant it was impossible for Linmel, who wasn't a wizard, to have fallen. I had never once seen anyone bloom into magic at the age of ten.

'...Am I imagining things?'

I looked at Linmel's face as she grinned foolishly.

But something was definitely different. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly, yet somewhere in her there was that peculiar slackness that only the ones who had fallen carried.

It was nothing more than a hunch. But given what I was, my hunches were not the sort of thing that could simply be brushed aside.

After mulling it over, I carefully put a question to Linmel.

"Linmel, has anything strange happened to you lately?"

"Hm? Like what?"

"Just anything that's been different since we came down to this underground city. Anything at all. Your mood getting worse, some physical problem cropping up, that sort of thing."

"Uh, um..."

Linmel tilted her head, then her face turned a little gloomy as she answered.

"...After coming down here, I did feel a bit sad."

"Why? What was the problem?"

"I-it's not big enough to call a problem. It's just, I felt like there was no reason for me to be here anymore."

At my slightly urgent question, she hurriedly corrected herself.

"I became a Knight partly because I could, but the truth is... I wanted to protect you, Jern."

"...Me?"

"Yeah. Now you're way stronger than me, but back then I was really worried. You looked like you'd collapse if someone so much as poked you... and on top of that you're a wizard."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"I heard that lots of people go after wizards. The other wizards are nobles, so they're fine, but you aren't. There's nobody behind you to protect you. So I wanted to be the one guarding your back. Um..."

Linmel hung her head low.

"But in the end, right up to the very last moment, I don't think I was much help at all. That made me a little sad. That's all."

Any sign that she was hiding something- there was none.

Knowing Linmel's personality, she had no reason to hide anything either. It was probably how she truly felt.

'Still, that's nowhere near enough to trigger a Fall.'

I couldn't tell. I knew Linmel was a sensitive girl, but even so, I didn't think a reason like that would make anyone fall.

"But it's okay, I told you. I can see it now."

Linmel seemed unwilling to dwell on gloomy topics any longer, and she smiled again as she lifted her foot.

"Look at this, it's really something."

-Tap.

She suddenly spread one hand out in the air and tapped the floor of the room ever so lightly with her foot.

Even measured with my Current Sense, it was a negligible motion. There was no force behind it, no aim to it either, just an ordinary step.

But.

-...Crash!

"...What."

Something I couldn't comprehend unfolded before my eyes.

At that tiny vibration, the water glass sitting by the window trembled, toppled over, and scattered shards of glass everywhere.

A few of the scattered shards floated through the air and landed on her palm.

That much was possible. It would have been, if those shards hadn't been standing upright, as neatly as if someone had painstakingly set them there.

"Well?"

Linmel gave her hand a light shake and the shards tumbled off. Telekinesis- had not been involved. No, no force whatsoever had been involved.

No matter how many times I replayed the scene through my Current Sense, what had just happened was pure coincidence, start to finish.

Although, watching Linmel smile proudly as if asking how I liked it, there was no doubt she had done it on purpose.

"How did you do that?"

"No idea!"

"...What?"

"In the middle of training, I suddenly just knew how to make things that are practically impossible actually happen. Punching a hole in the sky with a single sword. Bringing down a building with a light stamp of my foot. I just became able to do it."

I narrowed my brow for a moment, sorted the situation out, and reached a conclusion.

'She really has fallen, it seems.'

Manipulating coincidence. Or rather, coming to know the method for making the near-impossible real.

It was a little different from a Fallen's ability, but the underlying pattern was similar. If anything, wasn't this a somewhat dangerous state to be in?

"I'll help you with this power, Jern."

Linmel herself, meanwhile, declared it with a bold expression free of any doubt or worry, as if her condition raised not the slightest question in her mind.

"You said you had something to ask of me, right? What is it? I can do it. I'll pull off anything."

"..."

I looked at Linmel and thought it over for a moment.

Honestly, I was a little uneasy. I wasn't sure it was right to borrow the strength of a Linmel in that state. If she went out of control, there was no telling what might happen.

But.

"I want you to take a test for me."

"A test?... Th-that's, um... I'm not really confident about that..."

If Linmel could wield that ability freely-

It looked like there wasn't a single test in existence she wouldn't be certain to pass.

*

"What is this."

"The representative of humanity you told me to bring."

The cave.

The enormous field where Azrael did his farming.

He looked at the Linmel I had brought and made a sour face.

"What on earth..."

"She's human, all right. Just a bit strong."

"Hm, hmm..."

Azrael stared at Linmel's dopey expression as though he couldn't believe it, then eventually nodded.

"I'm hardly one to talk, but if this is the sort of thing you'd hold up as a representative of humankind... hm, have humans dwindled to about a hundred or so?"

"A-am I humanity's representative?"

"...Anyway, you told me to pick and I picked. I won't be taking any objections, so keep that in mind."

"Tch, do as you like."

Azrael let out an exasperated sigh, then tossed over three seeds.

"What's this."

"The elves you were searching for so desperately."

"I had a feeling. You senile old lunatic."

I frowned as I looked over this enormous field and the seeds already planted across a good portion of it.

I'd wondered where he'd hidden the elves, and it turned out this deranged elf had turned living beings into seeds.

No wonder he was farming so diligently.

"Are they all dead?"

"No one is dead. Left like this, they'll grow into trees. Trees are easy to manage. You only have to water them, and they don't wander around causing trouble. For managing them inside a cramped cave like this, it's ideal."

"And what did the elves want?"

"I did ask, and they said no. It was none of my concern."

It was absurd, but not impossible to understand.

In an end of the world like this, for anyone who wanted to preserve their race by any means necessary, having a body was nothing but a liability.

From that perspective, the form of a tree was quite correct. They really would only be preserved, nothing more, but preservation was all Azrael had ever had in mind to begin with.

As I sighed, thinking about the bleak future of this mentally ill race, Azrael continued his explanation.

"Those seeds have not been refined. To put it plainly, the moment you plant them, they'll grow back into elves."

"Really? So the point is to earn their approval."

"You catch on quick."

"All right, Linmel. Do you understand?"

"Yeah!"

Linmel nodded energetically.

"I just have to beat up the elves that grow out of the seeds, right?"

"That's it. Exactly."

"I'm confident. And honestly, I've wanted to smack an elf around for a long time!"

"...Why."

"...Jern's Master kind of annoys me."

It was a reason I understood perfectly.

As I started digging a suitable hole to plant a seed- Azrael answered without so much as turning to look my way.

"You must not intervene."

"I know. I'll leave Linmel to handle it alone."

"However, if that one can't handle it, you deal with it. At that point the test will be considered failed."

"...? Fine."

What was he talking about?

Tilting my head, I planted the first seed and stepped back.

-Crrk, the seed grew in an instant. Cotyledons shot up in a flash, the cotyledons fell away and became a stem, and then- the leaves dropped.

"...Whoa."

It felt like watching a tree grow, decline, and wither away in the span of five minutes. The tiny sprout that had only just begun to grow became a massive old tree in a heartbeat, and the old tree aged, died, and turned into a dry, rotting trunk.

The dry trunk gradually shriveled. It shrank and shrank further-

-...it took the shape of a person.

"I-it really does look like an elf..."

Linmel watched with shining eyes as the woman born from the old trunk stood there with her eyes closed.

"There's a real elf right over there. And Master's a real elf too."

"I guess those two were fakes!"

I gave a wry smile. I could understand what she meant.

The elf born from the old trunk had, how to put it, a real aura about her. She had none of the doddering-old-man quality of Azrael, nor the eccentric air of Dersia; she carried the feeling of a genuine elf.

...A genuine elf.

"...Oh no."

"I just have to hit her, right?"

Before I could stop her, Linmel strode forward with confident steps toward the elf standing there with her eyes shut.

Once she came within a certain distance, the elf opened her eyes.

That gaze, full of evident intellect, didn't land on Linmel right in front of her, nor on me.

It landed on Azrael, diligently farming behind us.

"...Have you found them?"

"Not yet."

A gentle yet resolute voice rang quietly through the cave.

"Then why did you wake me?"

"Because a human has proclaimed herself our Savior. Test her yourself."

"An insult. Shaman, why did you accept such a trifling thing?"

"Look at that one over there. The thing behind the human."

Only then did the elf's eyes flick briefly to Linmel before turning to me.

The elf flinched slightly, then closed her eyes again, sighed, and clenched her fist.

"The world truly has come to its end. An Outer God, shielding a human."

"Restrain yourself. If you kill her, not even I can protect you from that thing."

"I shall do so."

Opening her eyes once more, the elf looked straight at Linmel this time and put a question to her.

"Do you know me?"

"Nope!"

"If you don't know my face, then do you know the name Arwin?"

"Arwin? Never heard it!"

"I see. Then, who is the mightiest wizard you know of?"

"Jern, the wizard behind me."

"..."

The elf who had named herself Arwin glanced at me again and frowned.

"That is no wizard. And after that?"

"Jern's Master. Dersia?"

"...Dersia, is it. She was certainly exceptional. I once thought that if any elf wizard would ever surpass me, it would be Dersia and no one else."

Arwin gave a satisfied smile and extended her hand.

"Stay still. The longer this drags on, the harder it will be on you alone."

"No wa..."

She stopped dead. Linmel, about to charge, suddenly halted right where she stood.

Through my Current Sense I saw her eyes flooded with shock. She had frozen like a statue, as though bound by the power of something unseen.

Arwin smiled softly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and took a single step forward.

"I'll keep my sleep-talking to about this much. If I stay awake too long, I'm afraid I'll start clinging to this world again."

The eyes of Arwin, speaking so languidly, were no longer still.

Nine Stars were swimming within them, without a moment's rest.

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