Chapter 8 : An Untold Story

Wind fairies were special creatures.

They were beings born from the concept of wishes.

Creatures that came into existence from intense prayers and desires.

It can’t be helped that their healing abilities are sloppy.

Wind fairies did not get sick or age.

As long as they did not lose the power of their wishes, they were a race that could theoretically live forever.

“The problem is that they have too much energy?”

Neras tilted her head with an uncertain expression.

“The more energy we have, the stronger we become.”

“Anything becomes poison in excess.”

If you shoved things into your body just because they were good for you, you would get indigestion or fall ill.

If the power of wishes became too abundant, it could only turn into greed.

Neras’s younger sibling had been poisoned by the oxygen released as the forest underwent rapid growth.

More precisely, by the powerful wishes mixed into the trees’ breathing.

“Then can you make medicine for my younger sibling, Rah? What should I do? What ingredients should I bring you?”

With every word she spoke, Neras’s face drew closer.

Her desperate expression was suddenly right in front of my nose.

“No… There isn’t really any medicine I can make for this.”

“Is… is treatment difficult?”

Neras’s face darkened.

Before the misunderstanding could deepen, I quickly waved my hand.

“I meant they can recover just fine even without medicine.”

“You should have said that from the beginning!”

I let Wer’s scolding go in one ear and out the other as I looked at Neras.

“I know you grow Fourtail Grass. Where is it?”

“How do you know that…?”

“How I know doesn’t matter. Let’s save your sibling first.”

If she dug into how I knew, I would have nothing to say.

It was better to gloss over it.

Not that I intended to tell her anyway.

With a dazed expression, Neras nodded.

“I will guide you. This way.”

“Wait. You need to bring your sibling too.”

I pointed at the small window where light was leaking out.

Inside, a fairy who looked exactly like Neras was letting out rapid, thin breaths.

Neras quickly flew into the house.

“Rah! Has your fever risen again?”

“I’m dizzy… My head hurts.”

The feverish voice was faint and muddled.

With careful hands, Neras stroked her sibling’s forehead.

“You’ll get better soon. I promise…”

Neras came out holding her younger sibling, then turned off the light inside the house.

The village held its breath, sunk in darkness.

They must be wary of the human.

I stared quietly at the small houses, then looked away.

After all, as long as I was there, not a single sound would leak out.

“There are other sick children besides your sibling, right?”

“None are in a worse state than Rah, but they are still gradually worsening.”

“Later, you can teach the other fairies the treatment method. It’s simple.”

If someone asked how simple it was, it was to the point where calling it a treatment method would be embarrassing.

So embarrassing that the time they had spent bedridden felt like a waste.

That was how easily they could recover.

“Let’s hurry to where the Fourtail Grass is.”

Neras guided us to a small well located behind the village.

She fluttered lightly into the air and slipped down below.

Wer naturally followed after her.

I remained still and looked down.

The well seemed quite deep, and because it was dark, it was difficult to see the bottom.

“…Excuse me. Would I get hurt if I jumped down?”

The wing owners blinked up from inside the well.

As if it was a question she had never even considered, Neras gasped.

“Ah! I-I’m sorry! Humans cannot fly.”

“Oh dear, Ritark. Why not stay quietly up there?”

Wer’s tone was dignified as always.

But was it just my imagination that it somehow felt like he was grinning?

I should get wings out of sheer unfairness.

I narrowed my eyes and glared into the well.

The sound of chuckling drifted downward, and before long, a voice echoed back up.

“It is not particularly deep!”

The entrance gaped open pitch-black.

In the game, it was a path you could descend simply by pressing the down directional key, but actually going down in person felt hopeless.

It’s not like I’ll die.

I flung myself into the well.

Whoooosh!

The sound of wind heavily scraped past my ears.

The fall did not last long.

It felt roughly like jumping down from a second-floor window.

Thud!

The instant a roar echoed underground, red light burst out.

The fairy gave a thin scream.

“Eek! A-are you all right?”

“More or less…”

A tingling sensation climbed from the soles of my feet all the way to the crown of my head.

My legs trembled, but somehow, the impact was not as bad as I had braced myself for.

No way.

“You have two left again. It recovered during the wagon ride, and you used one up right away.”

The protective power Wer deployed for me, his contractor.

His shield was a power that only activated when an attack with malice or a trap caused a chunk of health to be shaved away.

I used a shield just from jumping into a well?

It was a situation I had never experienced even once in the game.

Though that was when playing as the protagonist, John Doe.

Wer snickered in the darkness.

“Do not worry. It seems to recover in about two days, at least.”

How comforting.

“But I can’t see a thing.”

“I will light it right away!”

I heard the sound of the fairy’s wings.

Soon, the underground cavern began to glow softly.

Every time Neras placed her hand against the wall carved with complex patterns and murmured something, the surroundings grew brighter.

Is that magic…?

To actually witness magic in real life.

For some reason, I felt moved.

When you talked about the romance of fantasy, wasn’t it magic?

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 warm-colored cluster of light illuminated the bottom of the well.

Grass like soft fluff revealed itself in a pale glow.

A plant with four foxtail-like tufts sprouting from a single root.

It was the Fourtail Grass I had been looking for.

The fluffy grass filled the underground space and swayed leisurely.

Neras was startled.

“When did the Fourtail Grass become this abundant?”

“You don’t come tend it every day?”

“Well, the truth is, lately I have been so worried about the forest and the children that I had no time to think about anything else.”

Neras held her younger sibling closer and put on a determined expression, tightening her brows.

“Now. What should I do?”

“Lay your sibling on top of the Fourtail Grass. Preferably where there’s the most grass.”

The blue grass filled the ground so densely there was no room to step.

Because of that, it was difficult to point out any one place where more grass had grown in particular.

Even so, Neras chose and chose again before carefully laying her younger sibling down.

The small fairy’s body went limp on top of the grass.

“What should I do now?”

“Just leave them there.”

“Pardon?”

“They’ll be fine once some time passes.”

Wind fairies were creatures that lived by hearing and granting wishes.

A race that made what was desired come true.

Many had prayed to fairies and obtained the results they wished for.

Though all of that had become a thing of the past.

Power that is too strong often ends up tightening around one’s own throat.

I brushed my fingertips along the wall as I walked deeper into the underground cavern.

Past the magic circle, along the path leading further inside, murals had been carved into the wall.

A fairy carrying a brilliant light on its back. A fairy sharing that light.

The murals that continued afterward were so badly damaged that they were impossible to recognize.

Judging from the parts visible here and there like fragments, they seemed to depict joyful scenery.

Though if they’re destroyed, they have no meaning anymore.

Only when I reached the end of the cavern could I see a painting that remained intact.

It depicted a human hand clinging persistently to a fairy’s wings.

The mural ended with the fairy breaking its own wings.

It was the conclusion of the story: the wind fairies, sick of endless wishes, had left humanity’s side.

An untold story, never passed on to the humans who should have had this carved into their memory.

I turned around and leaned my back against the wall.

Neras, who had been stroking her sibling’s forehead, looked up at me.

“Will it truly be all right to just leave them like this?”

“Yes. The Fourtail Grass will absorb the energy that was tormenting your sibling.”

“Thank you! Truly, thank you…!”

Neras bowed her head again and again.

For some reason, the taste in my mouth turned bitter.

“…No need to thank me. I didn’t really do anything.”

I had passed by this village several times, dozens of times.

I had killed Ritark early on and removed the system that used medicinal herbs.

The Forest of Wind, where Fourtail Grass could be obtained, had become a useless place.

In the end, it had quietly died outside the protagonist’s field of vision.

Every time I played the game again, over and over.

Neras shot to her feet.

“How can you say you didn’t do anything?”

“I only told you to try laying your sibling in the grass field you yourselves cultivated.”

Neras shook her head.

Her blue hair rippled vigorously.

“Because we couldn’t do that! Because we didn’t know something that simple, everyone was dying!”

“Yes, Ritark. Too much modesty can also become poison, can it not?”

Modesty, huh.

Either way, this time, I had saved the forest.

Maybe there’s no reason I can’t accept their gratitude.

I clenched and unclenched my hand several times.

Wer curled the corners of his mouth up at me.

“In this body’s opinion, this seems more than enough to earn us one decent dinner.”

“Pardon? Dinner?”

“Ahem. It is something we discussed among ourselves before coming to the village.”

The truth was, there was something more important than dinner.

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 she say that so quickly when she had no idea what I would ask?

Of course, I was a person with common sense.

In other words, I would extract an appropriate amount of gratitude and reward.

“I want to take some Fourtail Grass with me.”

For a very brief moment, Neras’s gaze wavered.

See? This is why you shouldn’t hastily say you’ll give anything.

“…Of course! There happens to be so much of it. If I tell the other fairies that you taught us how to treat the children, they will gladly give it to you.”

The Neras who said that did not exactly look glad.

She was clasping her hands together and fidgeting.

Really.

“However, since it is grass needed for treatment, I would be grateful if you could leave some behind.”

“You want me to leave some?”

“If strange things continue happening in the forest, we never know when the children might fall ill again…”

“Mm. Looks like there’s been another misunderstanding.”

Why was she acting like she had heard me say I would take all of the Fourtail Grass?

Was I saying things in a way that made it easy to misunderstand, or was this fairy just impatient?

Maybe prejudice against humans was deeply embedded in her head.

“One root is enough.”

For now, that is.

The amount of Fourtail Grass needed to make one dose of the Elixir of Luck was about one blade of grass.

In other words, one root would be enough to make three or four bottles.

“Is that truly enough? I’ll find the freshest grass right away!”

Neras rolled up her sleeves enthusiastically.

I raised one hand and stopped her.

I’m not done talking yet.

The scales tipped further toward the thought that this fairy really was impatient.

“…Fourtail Grass is a useful material, you see. Even if it’s just a little at a time, I’d like to receive it periodically.”

There was also the method of obtaining seeds and cultivating it myself, but I did not want to go through needless inconvenience.

If I took grass that only grew in the Forest of Wind outside, I might bring disaster upon the ecosystem.

Most importantly, I have no talent for growing plants.

Medicine to pharmacists, Fourtail Grass to wind fairies.

Whatever it was, experts were better at handling it.

Wouldn’t Fourtail Grass sprouted by fairies through the power of wishes be different from ordinary grass in some way?

“Periodically, you say…”

Neras muttered and nodded.

She was not misunderstanding again, right?

Before Neras’s face could become troubled again, I quickly added more words.

“In exchange for resolving the problem in the forest, I mean.”

The fairies did not know the cause behind the strange phenomenon occurring in the forest.

They could not even touch the problem at all.

But I knew how to uproot that strange phenomenon.

Though it won’t be easy for me as I am now…

I could not end this by tossing them one simple treatment method.

Wouldn’t that be the mindset of someone trying to get a free ride?

I did not want to become the ugly human the fairies were wary of.

[End of Chapter]