Vol 3 Chapter 47.2 – Boyhood: Winter, Age Thirteen・Part 3

【Tips】 Apparently, the Adventurers’ Guild once conducted a survey on why people became adventurers. In third place, at around twenty percent, was “Inspired by adventure tales.” In second place, at roughly twenty-five percent, was “There wasn’t much else I could do.” And in first place, at thirty-eight percent, was “For money and glory.”

That’s just how the world is. A career is often decided with the same nonchalance as a roll of the dice. And more often than not, a person’s life is worth somewhat less than a single silver coin.

A spur is a useful thing to have, the master laughed inwardly as she watched her disciple’s growth rate.

“Hey, Shishou.”

“What is it?”

Deftly using the multi-threaded thinking characteristic of her long-lived species, her hand remained steady as she inscribed strings of light into the empty air, forming advanced courtly language. It was a custom rarely used among mages, but the high-born seemed to have a terrible inability to make promises directly, making it necessary to drill the written forms for letter-writing into them for every little thing.

In the middle of that lesson, the disciple—who had just finished pecking at her sweets with a difficult expression, rather than devouring them with her usual smile—posed a question as she gazed at the space her brother had occupied until a moment ago.

“When can I start my magic training?”

It was a good question. Not the content of the question itself, but the trend of the questions she was asking.

If I become smarter, I can be with my brother. If I can use magic properly, I can keep the fairies who pester my brother away. If I’m strong, I can protect my brother. The master, the vicious and shamelessly perverse Agrippina de Staal, had always spurred her disciple on with such thoughts.

And while that spur had been slowly forcing her young spirit to mature, it seemed that today, it had kicked things up another gear.

Little by little, the childish dependency was fading from her words and actions. Not from her attitude, but from the naïveté of her mindset. She was still a little sister who clung to her brother, but… she was gradually taking on a new color.

The color of a paranoid and single-mindedly devoted “Álfr.”

“Well now, in a little while, let’s go out for a meal as a test of your etiquette. If you can conduct yourself as a proper lady there, I will consider it.”

Even at eight years old, she was a half-fairy. The spirit packed inside her brain was not that of a human, but of a fairy, and now that it had begun to awaken, its maturation would be swift. In fact, despite her lack of education, her ability to learn letters had quickened. After a single summer, the quality of her reading and conversation had risen to a level that would have her lauded as a prodigy among the common folk.

It’s touching to think that all her effort is for her brother’s sake, but if you knew the reality of it, it would be utterly terrifying.

Now then, I wonder what manner of fairy she was before she became human.

Agrippina, with her deep knowledge of magic, had a fairly good idea. It would not take much time to gain proof—not by the sense of time of a long-lived species, but by that of a human.

“But why the sudden interest? Are you curious because your nii-sama created that incredible new magic?”

“Nn-no… it’s not that, that’s not it. It’s because of what nii-sama said.”

Denying the question, she haltingly spoke of the scary people.

It wasn’t an uncommon story. In an age with insufficient investigative capabilities and primitive methods for wide-area searches, violence was a profitable business, a world where you could flee to the next administrative district and have minor crimes all but disappear.

For that very reason, the state makes brutal examples of criminals to maintain order. They bind thieves in shackles and iron chains, behead murderers, and hang bandits high.

But even with countless heads lined up for display, the seeds of villainy are never exhausted. The great prose poet, Bernkastel, was moved to write the following upon seeing the heads of thieves who had targeted a tax tribute:

“One might eventually count all the grains upon a head of wheat, but the number of heads in a row shall never run out before history itself comes to an end.”

The foolishness of the creature called man, which lives up to this passage steeped more in resignation than in irony, will likely never change. And for that very reason, people seek power, while those who fail to obtain it gain the protection of those who did, at the cost of being ruled.

“I see. Don’t blame him too much for it. Your nii-sama is doing it all for you.”

And that foolishness lives on even within the long-lived Methuselahs, who live drastically longer and wield drastically faster minds than humans. Namely, the foolishness known as the irrational taste for waking a sleeping child just to observe it wail, all for one’s own delight.

With her abilities and fortune, it would be possible to guide these siblings toward a peaceful path. It should be easy to instill a sense of ethics befitting a human in the sister and to shape the brother’s childish admiration into a proper ideal.

And yet, this monster throws away every one of those possibilities, tossing all her coins onto the “more interesting” outcome.

If the proverb that God does not overlook the foolish is true, then a thunderbolt of judgment should strike her down this very instant, or an apostle should be dispatched.

The result was plain to see. The monster smiled, and the half-fairy’s face lit up as if she had received a divine gift.

The two creatures, destined never to encounter the concept of righteousness, buried their heavy emotions deep within themselves and returned to their studies.

The brother, who was likely trying to refresh his mood with an early bath, was surely struck by a mysterious chill.

For his little sister had begun to seriously search for a way to “perfectly protect him” herself, so that he would never have to do anything dangerous again…

【Tips】 A half-fairy is, in the end, nothing more than a “fairy” that has acquired a human shell.