Living as a Recluse Deep in the Forest - Episode 16: The Empress’s Soliloquy
Yuu’s back receded with a sudden burst of speed. Carrying the vine knapsack stuffed with an immense quantity of spices, his run was smooth, making it seem as though his feet barely felt the weight of the earth. Rather than kicking off the ground, he moved as if his body were being carried, riding the very flow of the wind.
The branches and leaves of the oasis trees swayed slightly as he passed. Yet, the soil was not gouged. The roots did not snap. Only a single thread of wind extended, tracing the path he traveled.
『...As always, he uses it with such finesse.』
A faint flicker of amusement appeared on the mannequin-like wooden face. The Dryad Empress knew. That "wind" was no simple wind-attribute magic.
Compressed air at his feet. The propulsive force generated by its release. The simultaneous deployment of a buffering spell-formula to support it. And the trace amounts of barrier magic flowed into the branches and leaves ahead of his trajectory to ensure no burden was placed on the surrounding trees. For a child of man to construct such a multi-layered, delicate magical operation... An practitioner capable of perfectly replicating that...
『...exists nowhere in this world.』
The Empress concluded this with certainty. Since ancient times, she had watched the deeds of humanity.
Children of men who did nothing but tread through mud with bare feet. Children of men who possessed only crude spears and trembled at the darkness when night fell. Eventually, they mastered fire. They forged iron. They learned the "words" called magic. Human nations multiplied. Towers grew taller, castle walls rose higher, and houses of learning called academies were built. There were indeed mages who wove spells powerful enough to strike the heavens or burn the forest. There were indeed heroes who struck down dragons. However, they were all "clumsy." Strong, yes. But crude. Savage flames and lightning that didn't even care if they tore the grass beneath their own feet. Rough, wide-area magic that viewed the forest as nothing more than a collective of "combustible material." In contrast, Yuu’s magic...
『...causes little harm to the forest.』
That alone made him sufficiently alien in the eyes of the Empress.
8 Years Ago
She had first perceived his existence eight years ago.
In the southern part of the Great Forest. In a place where there should have been nothing, a "sprout" suddenly appeared. It did not feel like a seed dormant in the earth had germinated. There was a strange sense of incongruity, as if he had been "transplanted" from the outside along with a small amount of soil. The presence of a young child of man. A slender light of mana, filled with surprise and terror.
Normally...
『I thought it would be extinguished immediately.』
The Great Forest of the Demonic Region rejects the intrusion of man. Miasma. Powerful monsters. Complicated, labyrinthine terrain. Stumble over any one of these, and a slender life is easily snapped. The Empress had seen it happen countless times. Therefore, she initially recognized the small light that appeared in the South as nothing more than a "short-lived flame."
And yet... The flame did not go out.
Time and again, surrounded by the presence of powerful monsters. Time and again, covered in the scent of blood and sweat.
The small light stubbornly survived.
At times, nearly falling from cliffs. At times, nearly having his lungs seared by miasma. At times, nearly having his flesh torn apart by fangs.
Each time, he desperately gathered whatever was inside him to endure.
The Empress could not see his facial expressions. However, from the fluctuations in his mana, she could read his emotions to some extent.
Trembling. Cowering. Yet, standing up.
He bore a striking resemblance to a tiny sprout extending its roots even while being battered by a storm.
7 Years Ago
The turning point came one year later.
The southern sky "inverted" for a single moment. The lines of light flowing from the World Tree through the Empress’s extended roots trembled with exceptional violence. From that single point in the South, a torrential flood of information erupted.
Letters. Pictures. Sounds. Colors. Smells.
The Empress involuntarily focused her consciousness there. The magic Yuu had unleashed. A technique to reactivate memories and pull back everything he had forgotten. That intervention into the laws of the world felt bizarrely tactile, even to the Empress.
『...This is...』
She "saw" those scenes.
Seas. Mountains. Towers made of iron and glass, stretching high into the sky. Things like songs flowing out of mysterious boxes. Cities that did not turn dark even at night. Unfamiliar characters flowing across thin plates that were neither paper nor stone.
Yuu’s homeland. Fragments of the world he called "Earth."
The Empress had no way to judge whether these things still existed somewhere or were merely lost illusions. However, as memories "engraved" within him, they were certainly real.
Faces of family. Laughter of friends. A place called school. A vehicle called a train. A store called a convenience store, bright even at night.
The more the colors increased... The more the color of his mana sank. Like a sprout forced to stare directly at everything it had averted its eyes from. The Empress remembered that moment clearly.
The light in the southern forest "snapped" completely, just once.
4 Years Ago
Even so, Yuu did not die.
While losing his reason to live, he continued to hunt monsters out of inertia. He toyed with his fields only when the mood struck him. He constructed magic he happened to think of, then left it abandoned without keeping records. The sprout stopped seeking the light. Even so, its roots continued to stretch deeper and deeper. And when four years had passed...
His "name" was engraved upon the world.
The Great Forest itself breathes slowly. To the Empress, this was a daily occurrence and her only sense of the flow of time.
One day, a faint "foreign object" mingled with the rhythm of that breath.
Deep within the earth. Beyond the water veins. Further beneath the roots of the world, in a nameless sea of mana. A new line was drawn.
A name. Occasionally, the world bestows a "Title" upon specific existences. The Empress herself was one such instance.
Dryad Empress.
That name was not one she chose for herself. Before she knew it, she was "called" that.
The "Serpent" of the East has a name. "That" in the North has a name.
Just as a volcano is a mountain. Just as the sea is the sea. An "registered name" engraved as part of the framework of the world.
And... On that day, a new name was engraved.
Forest Hermit.
『...You were called, you see.』
The Empress whispered softly, yet somewhat sadly.
『By this world itself.』
It indicated a single fact. That Seto Yuu did not "transfer" by accident. He was "summoned" by necessity.
She did not know why he was chosen. She did not even know the reason why she became the "Oldest Dryad."
Before she knew it, she could hear the voices of all the forests. Before she knew it, protecting this West became "natural." Before she knew it, she occupied a corner of the circulation of life flowing from the world. It was less of a "choice" and more of a "process." Yuu was likely the same.
Rooting himself in the South. Hunting monsters. Adjusting the flow of miasma. Suppressing the rampage of the North, if only once.
As a result. The world wrote him into the ledger as the "Guardian of the Southern Forest."
Forest Hermit.
The position of the one responsible for the balance of the South. Regardless of his own will.
『...How pitiful.』
The mannequin-like wooden face was lowered slightly.
With no way to return home. Holding onto alien magic and knowledge. To the child of man who shut himself deep in the forest all alone... The world gave even a "duty."
In the East, the "Serpent." In the West, "I." In the North, "That."
And in the South, the "Hermit." Guardians arranged like wedges pinning down the four directions.
Among them, Yuu alone is... so very young.
The Serpent of the East is an ancient calamity that rewrites the terrain of the forest just by moving. "That" in the North is a mass of destructive impulse by its very existence. The Empress does not want to fight them. Simply put, the scale is too large. If those two truly clashed, not just this Great Forest, but the very terrain of the continent could change.
However, she "does not want to fight" the Hermit of the South for a different reason. With Yuu alone...
『My emotions refuse it.』
The Empress’s values are far removed from those of humans. She does not treasure all life equally. There are roots that ruthlessly crush weak sprouts. There are branches that sweep away swarms of insects all at once. If necessary, she does not hesitate to cut off and burn parts of the forest.
But even so. Toward a life that continues to live earnestly, all alone, without anyone’s help... she is weak.
The nights Yuu slept huddled behind rocks. The nights he protected a bonfire with trembling hands in the middle of a storm. The nights he stared at the ceiling after striking down a dragon, unable to exchange words with anyone. Those "colors" seeped slowly into the tips of her roots.
Even after snapping that much. Even after becoming that twisted. The Hermit continued to till his fields, hunt monsters, boil water, and cook food. His way of living, in the eyes of the Empress...
『...is like me in my early days.』
A tiny sprout that was afraid of even being bitten by a bug. While being battered by rain and broken by wind. Even so, the self of the past who continued to stretch her roots. Yuu is a child of man, and the Empress is a tree spirit. Their forms as living creatures and the length of their lifespans are entirely different.
But in the single point of "earnestly taking root," the two were similar. That is precisely why...
『I have no desire for conflict.』
She prayed for that from the bottom of her heart.
Suddenly, the wind crossing the sky of the oasis changed. The thread of Yuu’s mana heading toward the South drifted a little further away. As if seeing him off, the Empress raised her wooden puppet face.
『I hope...』
The words spilled out softly.
『...that you remain healthy.』
A soft smile appeared on the mannequin-like wooden figure. In the next moment—
A rasping sound came from beneath her feet. The roots that had been tangled around the puppet’s ankles crawled upward, enveloping the body. The trunk and branches did not collapse; instead, they "returned." Arms, fingers, and torso unraveled one by one into wooden planks and slid into the earth. Eventually, nothing remained.
The Dryad Empress inherently has no "form." The wooden puppet until moments ago was nothing more than an avatar. The roots entwined throughout this entire Western region. The canopy spreading overhead. Each and every leaf swaying in the wind.
All of it was her body, her eyes, and her ears.
The Great Forest breathes quietly again today. Through the roots of the West, the Empress "sees" various parts of the forest.
East— A massive presence. However, it does not move. The giant serpent simply remains asleep, coiled up.
North— The black "something" that once went wild and nearly tore the earth apart. Now, it is silent deep underground.
The Empress has not forgotten how she and Yuu scrambled together four years ago to maintain that silence. The loathsome feeling of exhaustion and depletion from that time still remains somewhere in her roots.
And, South— The light of the young Hermit is bouncing along lightheartedly.
Avoiding the monsters of the forest. At times, carelessly "putting to sleep" small monsters. At times, whimsically clearing away fallen trees. On his back, the vine knapsack filled with the scent of spices.
Ahead of him lies his own field. A small log house surrounded by trees. Warm water. And the scent of a newly born "curry."
The Empress watches that scene softly from the depths of her roots. As the Master of the West. As the tuner of the forest.
And—as an old tree watching over a single, earnestly living sprout.
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