Stranger

 

I had no complaints about that peaceful, comfortable city.

The people were warm, life was convenient, and the food was delicious.

—But it was not where I belonged.

—Zek, the Stranger

 

"Are you the Lord Mentor?"

"Um, yes… that's what people call me."

The dark-skinned woman dropped to her knees on the floor and bowed deeply to me as I stood there, dumbfounded.

"My name is Nokia. It is an honor to meet you. I look forward to your acquaintance."

"Oh. Yes, likewise."

I hastily knelt and returned the bow. It was something close to a kowtow, though our foreheads didn't touch the floor.

A slightly unusual intonation. An unfamiliar form of greeting.

"… Could it be that you've come from another village?"

"Yes. As you surmise."

The woman who'd introduced herself as Nokia looked up and smiled warmly.

"She says she came from a country called Mashiro, wayyy to the east," Yuuka chimed in.

"Is that across the sea?"

Yuuka's words brought to mind the village where Rin had once nearly been executed. The village where a reincarnated Ai might have been living.

"No. Mashiro and here are connected by land. I walked the entire way."

"We were just hearing all sorts of stories about other countries from Nokia!"

"Huh, that's fascinating."

As far as I knew, this was the first time a human had ever come from another nation. People came and went from the merfolk, quadruped, and lizardmen settlements on a daily basis, of course, but another human was exceptionally rare.

Nearly all the humans in this region had already congregated in Scarlet.

"I had no idea a nation this large existed out here, either. And on top of that… elves and humans, living side by side."

Nokia glanced between Nina and Yuuka as she spoke. It reminded me of that village that had persecuted non-humans, but her expression held no hostility or malice.

"In other countries… do they, um. Are elves disliked?"

"Huh?"

Nokia's eyes went wide at my unthinking question.

"No, no, no… not at all. It's the opposite. Elves are strong, long-lived, and possessed of deep wisdom. It's the elves who want nothing to do with weak, short-lived humans."

Now that she mentioned it, that made sense. Even in Scarlet, hardly any elves settled down permanently. The two standing right in front of me were among the very few exceptions.

"Um… Lord Mentor. I have a request."

Nokia straightened up and dropped to her knees once more.

"Oh, um, Lord Mentor, please stay as you are."

"Oh, okay."

Since we don't wear shoes indoors and I had no intention of criticizing another country's customs, I'd started to mimic her, only for her to stop me with an apologetic look. Still, being bowed to like that while I sat on a sofa was rather uncomfortable.

"Might I… be granted permission… to tour this country…?"

"Oh, sure. Look around as much as you like."

Nokia's eyes went wide.

"A-are you sure…?"

"Well, I'm not even sure it's my place to decide. I'd have to ask Misera…"

"I've already met with the Swordsaints. They said that if the Lord Mentor gave his blessing, they had no objections."

"Ah, so that's why you came to me."

I couldn't help but smile wryly. Dutiful as always, those Swordsaints. They'd long since been the ones actually running this village; there was no need to keep deferring to me.

"I could show you around, if you'd like. I am, after all, the longest-tenured resident of this village."

"Would that really be alright?"

Nokia blinked in surprise.

"Of course."

I was curious to see how our civilization compared to other nations, too.

"Ooh, me too! I wanna help with the tour!"

Chryse suddenly threw her hand in the air.

"And Mommy too!"

"I've told you to call me Nina."

Nina gave Chryse's head a firm push.

Whether she found the title embarrassing or didn't want to become an unwed mother, Nina, unlike me, stubbornly refused to let Chryse call her "Mommy." She'd been just as visibly shaken as I was the first time she heard it, so it wasn't as though it didn't make her happy.

"Tomorrow's your day off from work, isn't it? Please?"

Chryse fixed her with those dewy, pleading eyes, and Nina let out a deep sigh.

"… Fine."

"To be shown around by the king and queen themselves, what an extraordinary honor."

Nokia prostrated herself for a third time.

"I'm not the king."

"We're not a couple!"

The protests rang out in unison.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

The next day, together with Nina and Chryse, I walked Nokia through the streets of Scarlet.

I was usually so buried in research that I rarely strolled through the village like this, so it felt oddly refreshing.

"So every country you know of is a monarchy, then?"

"Yes. I was told that the Mentor was the highest authority here, so I simply assumed."

"Lord Mentor" was more than a little uncomfortable, so I told her that just "Mentor" was fine. From there, we agreed to drop the honorifics with each other entirely.

"No, I'm really nothing like that. I don't hold any particular authority."

Was Scarlet a monarchy, strictly speaking? The leaders were clearly the Swordsaint clan, and the position was more or less hereditary. I couldn't quite picture it, honestly, but at the very least, it seemed that democracy being premature was a universal truth across nations.

"There's something rather peaceful about this country. It's nice."

"I can guarantee that much. Everyone here is good people. Right, Nina?"

"… I suppose."

Nina's reply came out sour. Huh? Why was she in such a bad mood?

"Even so…"

Nokia turned her gaze toward a passing carriage and tilted her head.

"There certainly are a lot of unusual-looking beasts around here. And those tags hanging from their necks… what are those?"

The horses pulling the carriages came in all sorts, some with horns, some with scales, some covered in long fur, and every one wore a numbered tag around its neck. I could see how the sight would puzzle an outsider.

"They look like beasts, but they're not real animals. They're spirits… um, how to put it… living magic."

"Huh?"

Nokia blinked rapidly.

"And those tags are number plates… well, that wouldn't mean anything to you. Let's see… they indicate who the owner is and certify that they have permission to handle spirits."

The Brownie Hood gifted to a spirit becomes part of the spirit itself and cannot be removed. And the only one who can summon a spirit wearing a Brownie Hood is the original summoner. If a different sorcerer tries to summon the same spirit, the Hood won't be there.

In other words, spirits, which can otherwise be copied endlessly, gain individuality through receiving a gift.

We used this to license only spirits that had the Six Orders properly woven into them, with the plates serving as proof of certification. Well, now that sorcery was so widespread, hardly anyone bothered creating spirits on their own. It was far simpler and safer to buy a spirit-horse summoning spell from a licensed sorcery shop.

"Um, no, I understand spirits, but… wait, all of these are spirits?"

Nokia glanced around, bewildered. Carriages and spirits were still expensive, so it wasn't as though the streets were packed with them. Even during the busier hours of a day off, there were only about ten in sight, including those parked along the road.

"That's right. We do sometimes hitch deer to pull carts, too, but…"

"Oh, right, of course. That's how it's normally done, isn't it?"

It seemed that deer-drawn carts were the standard abroad.

"Well, great-antlered deer have a pretty wild temper, so they're not exactly ideal…"

We'd tried and failed so many times in the past that I felt a little embarrassed to seem behind the curve.

"You have them pull carts without Elf Drug?! Wait, by great-antlered deer, do you mean Cruels?! Those ten-foot-long monsters?!"

Oh? Nokia's people used feet as a unit of measurement. If I recalled correctly, one foot was about thirty centimeters, so ten feet would be three meters. Great-antlered deer were about that size, so, yep, that checked out.

"Probably the same thing, but what's Elf Drug?"

"You know what she means. That stuff you used to call Zombie Powder."

I tilted my head, and Nina threw me a lifeline.

Ah, right, come to think of it, there was something like that. The drug the elves used that stripped a living creature of its will.

"I don't like that stuff, so we don't use it."

"You don't…? Then how do you get beasts to obey…?"

Nokia's expression tightened, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing.

"Want to go see the ranch?"

"Yes. Please, by all means."