Chapter 40

Chapter 40. "The Dark Elf, the Dwarf, and a Single Rose."20

Rene and I looked at Luna with regretful expressions. Sitting on top of the table, she bared her teeth and growled at Jimant, but perhaps sensing our gazes, she turned her head away to the side.

So Luna used to wet the bed? Hearing that gave her a rather different sort of image. With her face slightly red (though because her skin was dark, it did not show very much), Luna glared once at Jimant, who was rubbing his face, then turned and headed up to the second floor as she said,

"Narsh is late. I will go wake her."

We merely watched her and said nothing. Elves were proud, after all. I, for one, had no desire to scratch where it itched and make things worse.

At that moment, after touching his face a few more times, Jimant asked us,

"Well? Is it gone?"

"Yes. It is completely gone."

At my answer, Jimant gave a broad grin and said,

"Could I trouble you for a beer?"

"Ah, just a moment..."

Rene said that and started to rise, but I lightly pressed down on her shoulder and settled her back into her seat.

"I will get it."

Looking up at me, Rene gave a faint smile, and I smiled back before heading into the kitchen.

To reach the kitchen, I had to pass through the dining room, so on the way I saw Kal and Jeff busily eating, and I could overhear a bit of their conversation as well.

"Hm. Why is it not there? The document clearly said it was somewhere around here."

"Chomp, chomp. Let us look farther inside this time. Gulp. If something that big is supposed to lie down in there, then there should be a proper... ah, this is really good, actually. Mm. There ought to be an open space."

What were they talking about? Even stranger, the moment I stepped in, both of them jolted in surprise and hastily shoved their plates to one side of the table, then rolled up and hid away something that looked like a small map they had spread out. Kal smiled awkwardly and said,

"Ah. Ahaha, please tell Miss Rene that the food is truly delicious."

"That lacks all conviction, Kal."

"...You keep your mouth shut."

"No, what was that, you old fossil?!"

I listened to their bickering for a moment, then smiled faintly and said,

"If you came here looking for some treasure hidden in this place, then I wish you good news. Search as hard as you like. But there are more monsters in the northern part of the forest than anywhere else, so I do not think it would be wise to go there."

At my words, Jeff raised the fork with a piece of ham stuck on it and said,

"Oh, thanks for the advice."

I smiled at the two of them, then went into the kitchen, opened the beer barrel, filled a mug to the brim, set it on a tray, and carried it back out.

As I passed through the dining room, Kal seemed to avoid my gaze, and thinking his reaction a little strange, I brought the beer to Jimant in the hall. Jimant smiled brightly and accepted it.

"So after drinking like that with that man last night, you are drinking again?"

We all turned our heads toward the voice, and there was Luna walking down the stairs.

"So Narsh is still not awake, then."

"Yes. She was still asleep. Even when I woke her up, she only woke up long enough to fall asleep again. I think she must like sleeping in."

Saying that, Luna came down into the hall, then stood beside Jimant and tapped his shoulder, making him turn his head toward her.

"Uncle, when are you going back?"

"I plan to stay here until you say you are going back."

Hearing that, Luna let out a small laugh, then set her expression once more and said,

"Go back tomorrow."

"Why?"

"If you keep staying here, Mother will worry."

At her words, Jimant scratched the back of his head roughly and said,

"When I set out on this journey, my mother was waving a handkerchief with a delighted look on her face and saying she was entrusting one troublemaker to the world, so I had better never come back."

"...I did not mean your mother. I meant my mother. Oh, right. Is Auntie doing well? And is Big Sis Hadis well too?"

"They were both doing well until the day I left. But why am I Uncle while Hadis is Big Sis? There is not even that much of an age difference."

"What does it matter? And this."

I got treated the same way, did I not? Rene was Big Sis, and I was Uncle. Well, Jimant's case felt more like an older brother and younger sister relationship.

Somehow, I felt a sense of kinship there. Luna then held out something she had been carrying in her hand since earlier, and Jimant accepted it with a puzzled look.

"What is this?"

"A gift."

As he listened to her, Jimant quietly examined what he was holding. It was something long wrapped round and round in white cloth, and apparently he grew curious about what was inside. He loosened it a little, then said,

"Are you proposing to me?"

"Even if the world collapses, I do not think that would ever happen."

Luna answered in a flat voice, and Jimant let out a small laugh as he lifted it.

"Then what is this rose? To a dwarf, a rose means a proposal."

A rose? Hmm, so she succeeded. Normally, it took a long time of training to master even a single spell.

Were dark elves different? She read a book once and immediately... ah, right. Luna had some kind of spell engraved into her chest, did she not? What was it again?

Something about using the caster's body as the basis for mana... damn it, whatever it was. Luna stared for a moment at the rose Jimant had lifted, then said,

"It is for my mother. In other words, it is a gift from her unwanted child to Ridin Rosemary Hartrama. That rose is me. As I grow, the rose will continue to bloom, and if I die, the rose will die too. Even if you simply leave it alone, it will not wither, so it does not need any care."

At her words, Jimant's expression hardened, and he began staring silently at the single rose, its bud not yet opened, poking out from between the folds of cloth. Luna continued speaking.

"Mother cannot think properly because her mind has collapsed, but she should still know that I disappeared and that you set out to find me, Uncle. So she is probably waiting for you now, hoping for good news. Go back. And give her that. It is the gift Luna is sending to her mother."

Hearing that, Jimant smiled bitterly.

"Then let me ask you one last time."

"Go ahead."

"Come back with me."

"No."

Luna answered with simple finality, and Jimant let out an exaggerated sigh, then nodded. Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he pulled something out and said,

"Before I left, I met Aunt Ridin. In a halting voice, she said this."

"Luna. M-my, my beloved da... daughter. When you sleep, make sure, mm, make sure... to pull the blanket up, up to your neck. Elves who ca-catch a cold, mm, elves who catch a cold... are a bit, a bit funny, are they not? A-and, and also... be careful."

Luna's eyes widened. Then she placed both hands on Jimant's shoulders and said,

"Mother! Mother spoke? My mother did?!"

"I was surprised too, you brat. Stop shaking me. Yes, even I never imagined that someone who always spoke with expressions instead of words would say something like that. And after saying it, she undid this and told me to pass it on to her runaway daughter."

Resting on Jimant's open palm was a necklace with a tiny triangular green gemstone hanging from it. Luna took it with slightly trembling hands and said,

"This... Mother made this.... But why are you only giving it to me now?"

"I heard you say you were not going back, but even so, I still hoped, just maybe. But now that it has come to this... well, I cannot do what that lady asked of me, but at the very least I can deliver what Aunt Ridin asked me to."

After hearing him out, Luna lowered her head and began staring blankly at the necklace.

Jimant looked back and forth between her and the rose in his hand, then sighed, wrapped it back up more or less the way it had been before, and placed it on the table. Then he reached for the beer mug, still half full.

And at that moment, Luna slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor with the necklace clenched tightly in her hand.

Jimant watched her retreating back for a while, then lowered his head and stared silently at the single rose Luna had given him.

Then he let out a faint laugh.

And I turned my head and watched Luna's small back as she walked up toward her room on the second floor.

A little elf girl who threw herself into the world so that she could return what her mother had once received.

And yet the least amusing part of all this was that the person who would receive her revenge was the very father who had given the world itself to her.