CH 11

At the Northern Fort V3C11: Rekka-san’s Mystery (1)

The day after Woodbaum arrived at the fort, I had a leisurely conversation with him, sitting on the ground in the shade of a tree.

“Woodbaam.”

When I tried to pronounce his name in my fox cub form, Woodbaum, in his buck form, lightly shook his head and corrected my pronunciation.

“Woodbaum.”

“Woodbaam?”

“No, Woodbaum.”

“Woodbaa……Woodbam.”

“Close. Woodba-u-m.”

“Ba-u-m!”

“That’s right, baum.”

“Baum!”

“Woodbaum.”

“Woodbaam!”

Not good, it went back. Vexed, I rolled around, rubbing my body against the grass as I twisted it about. Today’s weather was good, but a bit chilly to the skin, so for me it was just the perfect temperature.

Woodbaum watched my strange movements for a while with a smile and eventually said this happily.

“So cute.”

As though he couldn’t bear it any longer, he started to lick my forehead. I wonder if deers also groom socially?

“Kugalg from yesterday was also cute. I’m a tree and a deer, so when he gets bigger he might be a bit scary for me, but right now he’s still small.”

Kugalg was fire and a panther after all.

“I wonder if I should try making a child too? But I guess it’s still too early for that. I don’t know that many spirits either. Do you think Snowlea would agree to cooperate if I asked her?”

“Eh! Y-You can’t.”

I suddenly got up and said,

“Mother’s my mother. And Mother has Father.”

“Father?”

“Yup, my Water Spirit Father.”

When I explained about fathers and how I truly saw him as my ‘Father’, as expected Woodbaum also expressed surprise like the other spirits.

“It’s a strange way of thinking, but interesting.”

However, he seemed to have given up on Mother, so I laid back on the ground with relief. When I did so, there just so happened to be a weed with lots of long and thin leaves growing on its stalk right at the tip of my nose.

The wind blew the weed, tickling my nose until it began to feel itchy, causing me to sneeze, “Achoo!” while still lying on my back.

Flying out from my mouth with the momentum of the sneeze behind it was a small white ball of light. In other words, it was my fairy.

The fairy appeared to be happy at being able to move around freely as it flew in the air, slid on the ground, and went round and round my surroundings.

“Thank goodness……”

I was already quite used to the energeticness of my fairy, and had learned that it wouldn’t calm down at all, so I left it alone. Do as you like.

“Wow, did you just make a fairy from your mouth?”

Woodbaum’s eyes rounded as he looked at me.

“Yup, it comes out when I sneeze. Not all the time though……”

It wasn’t a very cool way of producing a fairy, but Woodbaum appeared impressed as he said.

“Eh, I can only create them from my hands.”

Then, he transformed into his human form, raised his right hand, and showed me his palm.

When he did so, a deep green ball of light that was bigger than my fairy slowly rose up from his palm. Perhaps because Woodbaum was ill, the fairy’s light was a little dull and murky.

“Woodbum, you probably shouldn’t make fairies when you’re weakened like this.”

Fairies are created by splitting off a portion of a spirit’s power. The more fairies a spirit creates, the more their power decreases.

“No, I wasn’t planning on making any but—wah!?”

Woodbaum appeared bewildered as two, then three, then four murky balls of light flew out from his palm.

“Woodbaum!”

“What should I do-……”

In the end, Woodbaum could not stop the production of fairies until he clenched his palm, but at that point twelve fairies had already come out. Even if an adult spirit makes ten or twenty fairies, it shouldn’t have any major effects on their main body, but right now Woodbaum was ill. While it seemed to be out of his control, by making so many fairies, it was only natural for him to be just as tired.

As expected, Woodbaum groaned, “Uuu…” as his face paled and he collapsed onto the ground.

“Woodbaum, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I think I should recover if I rest for a bit……”

“Got it, then don’t move from there fo—hm?”

As I was speaking to Woodbaum, a green ball of light resembling a moss ball drifted over and stuck itself to my cheek.

“Woodbaum’s fairy? What is it?”

When I turned around, wondering what they wanted, I found the remaining eleven fairies also sticking to my body. My entire body looked ridiculous, appearing as though it had glowing moss balls equipped to it.

The fairies couldn’t speak, but I could tell that they had a strong liking for me. It felt like they were stroking me and saying, “Cute, so cute”.

Woodbaum lied down with a worn-out expression and faintly smiled.

“Because they’re my fairies, they resemble me. It looks like they also want to dote on Milfiria.”

That made me happy, but being surrounded by this many fairies was a little troubling. It was hard to move too.

On top of that, my fairy also came in as though it were saying, “What are you doing? Lemme join in!” and went from floating around my surroundings to clinging to me. Thus, I was forced to face off against thirteen spirits all on my lonesome.

However, no matter how much I ran around in attempts to get away from them, they would quickly catch up to me and stick to my body. They didn’t even flinch when I used my forepaws to smack them away.

Just as I debated on what to do, Woodbaum’s fairies suddenly turned away from me and then flew elsewhere with an incredible speed.

My fairy, who had been left behind, flusteredly chased after the others.

There’s no need for you to follow after them!

“What’s with them all of a sudden?”

Woodbaum asked doubtfully.

However, we soon understood the fairies’ aim. There were two knights walking in the direction that the fairies had flown.

Woodbaum’s fairies then started to ram themselves against those knights, attacking them.

“Uwah, what is it!?”

“Balls of light? Fairies? But they don’t seem like Mil’s……wait, my face!”

For some reason, one of the knight’s faces became the main target of their attack. It was like having balls of fluff colliding with it, so it didn’t seem to hurt him at all, but it was undoubtedly annoying.

“Ahh, hey! What are you doing? No, you can’t attack them!”

Woodbaum staggered up and headed towards them.

“Woodbaum, is it? Please do something.”

Even as his face continued to be struck by the fluff balls, because it didn’t hurt the knight spoke in a rather calm manner. I did think it’d be okay even if he was a bit more panicked though.

“Wait, I’ll reabsorb them into my main body.”

Saying that, Woodbaum pointed his palm towards the fairies.

When he did so, they were sucked into the palm, and the twelve moss balls disappeared. It seems like he was able to properly reabsorb them.

I also opened my mouth and caught my own fairy, which had continued its fluffy attack even after Woodbaum’s fairies had disappeared, swallowing it back down. The cold light passed through my throat and spread throughout my body.

Having recovered his power, Woodbaum gave a relieved sigh.

“Thank goodness, I was able to retrieve them. I’m sorry, mister knights.”

“It was pretty interesting, so it’s fine.”

“See you.”

The two knights lightheartedly waved their hands in farewell as they left.

“Why did they attack them? I probably shouldn’t carelessly make fairies until I’ve recovered.”

As Woodbaum sighed, I suddenly realised something. What came into sight was a small hole dug up at the base of a tree.

When I approached it and sniffed the ground, I found Woodbaum’s scent, and the scent of acorns lingering there.

Now that I think of it, this was the place where I buried acorns for the squirrels.

“Woodbaum. What happened to the acorns here?”

“Eh? Ah……um.”

Woodbaum’s eyes swam around.

“Did you maybe eat them?”

“……yeah.”

When I said that I had buried them for the squirrels, Woodbaum returned to his deer form and looked guilty as he began to make excuses.

“I’m sorry, somehow I’ve just been hungry lately.”

“You’re hungry? That’s pretty rare for a spirit.”

I still had my common sense from when I was a human remaining, so every day I would get hungry.

“Is it because of your shick-ness?”

“I think so. I think I’m able to regain a bit of my power when I eat. Even though I’ve worked hard to maintain the richness of the forest, whenever I get hungry I end up eating acorns. It’s really putting the cart before the horse. Acorns are like baby trees after all.”

“It’s okay. Even if Woodbaum eats the acorns that have fallen every day, there will still be plenty left to become trees.”

Right now, even if it’s just from acorns, it was probably important to take in some nutrients.

“I know, the fort has plenty of fallen acorns like the forest, so I’ll go ask if they can prepare that for you as your meal, Woodbaum. They always prepare lunch for me after all.”

“Is that so? I feel bad about being a bother, but I’ll also go to ask with you.”

“Okay!”

And then, the two of us set off. At first, I was walking next to Woodbaum slowly, but eventually I started to dash forward on my own.

After advancing about ten metres, I turned around and waited for Woodbaum, who was walking behind me, to catch up. And then, once Woodbaum caught up, I dashed off again, and then turned around and waited for him once more.

That cycle repeated as we headed for the kitchen to search for Head Chef-san.

Perhaps he also got in the mood to run, as Woodbaum also started to dash a little. The movement caused his antlers to swing, and the densely growing crimson leaves started to flutter down.

“Eh, wah!”

However, the two of us happily ran towards the back of the fort, when suddenly, the metal door in front of us opened.

Surprised, I came to a sudden stop, and Woodbaum, who was a little behind me, also stopped.

The one who came out of the suddenly opened door was Rekka-san.

The back door was made a little small, probably for the sake of defence, and at Rekka-san’s height, she just barely scraped the top of it.

Rekka-san was somewhat pale. She rushed outside as though she had encountered a ghost inside, and had been running away.

Rekka-san didn’t notice us, and for some reason, the instant she got outside, she started to do squats.

Just what in the world?