Chapter 8: Tempest, Astrea la Aeras 2

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You will die without ever meeting the Hero. Your only role is solely to inform the world that a threat has appeared. Live as you please, Princess of the High Elves. You will have no influence on this world.

That was what the prophet declared. Countless futures were reflected within those inorganic eyes.

~*~*~*~

You will die two hundred years later.

From the moment she was told that, Astrea’s life had been gray. The one who left that prophecy behind was the Great Elder Astrogonoff. The oldest High Elf in the world, who had lived for two thousand years, a relic of the Age of the Gods. The prophecies passed down through generations of the High Elf clan were conveyed to her as tradition demanded. They had been conveyed to her… Regardless of her own will. 

Astrogonoff no longer possessed a sound mind. He had lost his ego a thousand years ago and had become nothing more than a mechanism that delivered prophecies. Thus, even if he recognized his great-granddaughter, there was no consciousness behind it. He would calmly recite a prophecy and be satisfied. That was all he was, a merciless and pitiful existence.

Declared by such a great ancestor that “you’re just a pebble by the roadside, someone who won’t even appear in the story,” Astrea sank into a profound despair. She loved heroic tales. The relics in the Elven village far surpassed those of the human nations. There were living witnesses still alive—well, merely existing rather than truly living, perhaps—and there were High Elves who had heard stories directly from others besides him.

Raised surrounded by such entertainments, Astrea naturally came to love the world and admire the people who played active roles in those stories.

Someday, I hope I’ll meet a hero.

That innocent, endearing wish had been utterly shattered, but after sulking for around thirty years, she thought to herself. 

『But someone destined to become a hero wouldn’t be defeated by something like this, right?』

Prophecies were certainly accurate.

They were said to have almost never been wrong. Even tracing back to the Age of the Gods, there had only been a handful of people to whom prophecies did not apply. No such individual had ever emerged among the High Elves. In other words, there was not a single reason for Astrea to believe she could escape her prophecy. But even so, rotting away while sulking and doing nothing did not suit her nature.

So she honed herself. She chose the path of becoming strong, stronger than anything else. Her status as a High Elf princess did not allow complete freedom, but she devoted her time to relentless training. Fortunately, she had time to spare in abundance.

She read the movements of the wind. She listened to the voices of the wind. She sang the songs of the wind. She perceived the thoughts of the wind. She heard the will of the wind. She communicated with the wind.

Born as an elf with high natural affinity for wind, Astrea also possessed talent among the greatest of High Elves throughout history. The wind was her neighbor, her beloved friend, her family from birth. Before long, she had become the most skilled wind user in the village.

More than her older sister, who was prophesied to become a companion of the Hero. More than her younger sister, tasked with waiting as a sentinel for the Hero. More than her mother, who would someday become the shield protecting the village from approaching threats…

Astrea became stronger than anyone else. And so, after nearly two hundred years of continued effort, a certain encounter in the village led Astrea to leave it behind.

Ten years passed after that. The High Elf princess who had come to hate humans finally met a “hero.” That “human” was a filthy, ugly child. Wrapped in rags, reeking of foul odor. The shield larger than his own body looked like nothing more than empty bravado. Astrea still remembered the murderous intent she felt toward the Guild, wondering why they had ever registered such a child as an adventurer… Especially since she herself was only a Copper-ranked adventurer at the time.

Astrea did not like the concept of human shields. The longer she spent among humans, the more ugliness caught her eye instead of beauty.

Farmers whose lives were hard and whose hearts were poor. Nobles whose lives were comfortable but who saw others only as fodder. As for adventurers, almost none of them were decent. Every last one of them was an uncouth brute.

To Astrea, who had received an advanced education as a High Elf princess, they were nothing but rude, vulgar, ugly, and pitiful beings. At first, she liked them. Interacting with people was fun. Handling money and truly blending into human society made her happy.

But little by little, she began to hate them. She was deceived by people. She fell victim to fraud and was drugged with paralytics. She casually crushed a slave trader. Silenced a lecherous noble. Adventurers who tried to force themselves on her conveniently went missing.

She kept hating them more. The human world, once so beautiful and fascinating, began to look ugly. It lost its color. It turned gray. She met people who were spoken of as heroes. They were vulgar and weak. She thought they were fakes. She did not want to believe that the heroes she had admired in her childhood were such small, insignificant beings.

She came to hate them. Humans were humans, after all. There were a few noble, respectable individuals but most were not. Heroic legends were based on real events, but she realized they did not preserve reality in its entirety. The prophecy crossed her mind.

『You will never meet the Hero.』

The Hero. Someone unknown, guided by fate, a new hero. The protagonist of the story she had admired, a new heroic tale. She would die without ever meeting them. Then perhaps… She should return to the village. Go back and shut herself away.

Until death, she would tell the elves born afterward that humans were ugly, that the human world was grotesque. She would immerse herself in elven supremacism, the very thing she once despised most. In a gray world where her dreams and admiration had been crushed, she informed the Guild of her intention to return home.

She didn’t want to hate any more. She didn’t want to hate the self who had once thought such ugliness was beautiful. She didn’t want to hate the self who had mingled among such ugliness. She considered leaving without a word, but she had known the receptionist assigned to her for five years.

To Astrea, an elf, that time was no more than a blink. But in that blink, the receptionist had grown. Enough time for a girl to become a fully grown adult. Having watched that growth, Astrea felt that at least a proper farewell was appropriate.

Even though we’ll never meet again?

The farewell she spoke while thinking that was deeply regretted, and she was asked one final favor. To form a party. If she didn’t like it, she could disband it. But if she still felt she could continue, they wanted her to keep adventuring. And so she met three humans.

A swordsman who looked down on adventurers. A nun with a pure heart. And… A filthy, ugly child wearing rags and carrying a massive shield. A child who volunteered to be a human shield, desperately fulfilling that role while drenched in blood.

Stopping him would be pointless. Stopping a child who had chosen to become an adventurer meant nothing.

Astrea, who had stopped expecting anything from “adventurers” in just five years, gave up.

A selfish swordsman. An immature, useless nun. And a boy who continued forward while burning his life away as a shield…

Just a little more. Just a bit longer… At least enough so this child doesn’t die.

Resolve was reckless bravery. If she had to describe him, “foolish” was the only word. What meaning was there in killing monsters by grinding away one’s own life? If he didn’t do it, someone else would. Yes, there was little meaning to his existence. Maybe there was no meaning to it at all. 

And yet.. She didn’t want to abandon him. Just a little bit… Just a bit at a time. Light began to pour into Astrea’s field of vision. The boy, Finn Debyura, never stopped moving forward. He never chose the wrong direction. Foolish, but not vile. Stupid, but not bad. He devoted himself wholeheartedly to the role of a shield.

One day, Astrea asked him.

Why did he work so hard? There wasn’t a day he wasn’t wounded. She knew those wounds were harming his body. Unable to use healing magic, she could only give him potions but even that made Finn smile and thank her.

『Why go that far?』

To that question, Finn answered.

『This is my way of living.』

Astrea thought.

He was not a Hero. The prophecy was absolute. As a High Elf princess, she would never meet the Hero. So he wasn’t a Hero. But… This mindset, this foolishly straight march toward a single purpose…

Wasn’t that the kind of foolish yet lovable hero spoken of in stories? And then, she faced her “destiny.” She met death. But… She did not die. Because Finn… Finn Debyura was there.

The hero who saved her.

~*~*~*~

“……”

The crackling sound of fire could be heard.  A burning campfire, surrounded by a carriage and several people lying asleep. On that day, Finn became a hero. He overturned Astrea la Aeras’s unavoidable fate and stepped into herohood. Yet almost no one realized it. Aside from the three party members, only the High Elf sisters knew.

Prophecy.

Those who overturned it were called heroes. Heroes could only be human. No matter how great other demi-humans were, none could overturn prophecy.

“And yet this man… Honestly, he doesn’t even realize how incredible what he did was.”

She poked his cheek. Finn let out a pathetic noise, making her laugh as she enjoyed the soft sensation. The hero who overturned her destined death. From the world’s perspective, its impact might have been insignificant. Compared to the Hero or other great legends, it was understandable that his achievement still seemed dull.

Battles against Demon Lord generals. Slaying creatures descending from beyond the sky. A direct confrontation with the Demon Lord, ending in a draw. Conquering the Golden Tower and fighting in the Abyss.

Compared to heroes who had achieved all that, Finn—who had accomplished only a single great deed—naturally paled in comparison. She understood that. She understood why he wasn’t popular.

One was a shield. One was a Hero. A meat shield would never be spoken of in the same breath as a Hero. But… Even so, even if no one else in the world acknowledged Finn… To Astrea, he was a hero.

Finn Debyura, who overturned her death and carried her beyond prophecy, was her hero. That was enough. For now, that was enough. Someday… One day, he would stand at the center of the world. She didn’t know what kind of life a hero who defied prophecy would live. But there was one thing she knew…

The one whose life had been saved by Finn Debyura wanted to watch his journey forever. She loved him. She loved him dearly. She wanted to hold him and make him hers.

Thank you for saving me. Thank you for making me love humans again. Thank you for coloring the world once more.

As long as Finn was there, it was enough. With Finn, the world was beautiful.

Yes. Astrea la Aeras was in love… With the one human who had colored her entire world.

“…If they get in the way, I’ll kill them.”

Humans were beautiful. But some were ugly. It couldn’t be helped that he had become involved with a princess. But that didn’t mean she had to lower herself and obey.

Nobles? Knights? Royalty? So what? None of that was a reason to interfere with him.

Finn Debyura was a hero. A man who would someday leave his name in history. And she would not allow something as trivial as royalty to stand in his way. What was decided could not be changed. So she swore it.

She would protect Finn… She would absolutely protect him. She would stay by his side. She would spend her life with her one and only hero.

Astrea la Aeras was in love. With the young man who shattered fate… With the young man who made the world beautiful… With the young man who would someday shake the world…

The High Elf who had lived over two hundred years held her first love… And her eternal love.

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