The Nymph Wants to be Plundered - Chapter 214

“I think the scent of home is getting closer….”

“Is it different from when you were at the castle?”

Her head nodded slowly.

“Yes. The distinctive earthy smell I’m picking up now, and the intensity of the sunlight beating down strongly—maybe because there are fewer trees than in Jupiter. You can see fields being cultivated occasionally on the gentle mountains around here, you know? When I was little, I went to visit other villages and it was really fascinating.”

“I see.”

Since Jupiter, which had the most abundant territory on the entire continent and islands, had no need to deliberately touch the mountains to plant anything, her words came to him like a distant dream. But this is humans’ true life. It’s also Evelyn’s recent past that she had lived through.

His hand slowly stroked her fine, pale yellow hair. The braid he had personally woven for her when the blue light of dawn was coloring the window had shifted to one side.

Was she going to sleep? Cassis encircled his arm in the air to guide her so she would lean toward him.

“Mmm….”

After muttering a few more words with trailing endings, her head suddenly touched his shoulder with a soft thud. It was a happy contact given by the weight of being unable to overcome the approaching drowsiness.

“……”

Whether the forced march of two days had been too much, even after returning to the hometown she had longed for so much, she didn’t wake easily. When Cassis arrived at the destination, he quietly got down alone and looked around, then fixed his gaze on something at his feet.

Dandelions ready to scatter their white seeds and lemon-colored wildflowers resembling his original hair color were blooming sparsely here and there. However, his aspect befitting a guardian of the World Tree that flowed in his blood made him look instead at the climbing roses growing tangled on the collapsed stone wall.

Unfortunately, there were only four or five flowers that looked like they might bloom in the future. Even without deliberately thinking of Jupiter where roses were in full bloom, his eyes kept going to how the roses seemed to be struggling too hard, unsuitably for the season. How could this be—not even in full bloom, and with so few buds? It’s their season. The sight of her sleeping soundly in the carriage and these rose vines’ struggling endurance seemed to overlap.

The coachman got down following him and acted familiar.

“Well, this village is so small it doesn’t even have a name, but it’s truly exactly the same as in the old days, sir knight. Is it good that there’s no change?”

“Do you know anything about this place?”

When he asked with a completely innocent expression, the coachman rattled off the facts he knew.

“Since there are hardly any customers who want to come here in the first place, I don’t know it well either. Rather than here, I know a bit about that Dendra village we just passed through. The flower garden around here was also made by a wealthy person living in Dendra village, you know?”

If Evelyn hadn’t become a nymph, she would have gone there, hadn’t she said? He nodded, remembering what she had chattered about so well.

“Hmm.”

“This place doesn’t have any large-scale inns, and aside from one general store, there aren’t any decent shops to speak of. So unless you’re from here, it’s a village you wouldn’t even know exists. Oh…. This rose vine is exactly as I saw it over ten years ago too. What was it, now? Some grandmother who lived here told me something about it.”

Cassis stood still, then discovered a blade of grass trampled under his feet and moved his shoe back. He wasn’t too worried since no wild grass dies from being stepped on just once.

The coachman, who had been lost in thought, clapped his hands lightly.

“Ah! I remember now. You know, this place was apparently land where elves lived together a very long time ago? This rose vine was planted by the elves, but when they retreated to Jupiter, they didn’t dig it up and take it with them.”

“How interesting.”

He slowly parted his lips and spoke words completely opposite to his feelings.

He had a premonition. Among the grass, flowers, and trees that could be seen abundantly anywhere in the world, any individual that had the ability to focus his attention could be considered special. This rose, which couldn’t bloom countless flowers to the point where it would be hard to be loved even briefly by passing people, let alone bees and butterflies, was the same.

“Yes, yes. The nymphs who lived in this village all died on the very same day, and their bodies disappeared without a trace, but only one nymph barely survived. It was the nymph of this very rose, and that nymph trembled and prayed every day to be saved.”

“Prayer….”

The World Tree strictly forbade any words or actions that revered it as a sacred god. It had always said that when its guardian appeared, through him it would make clear that it was merely a tree with power at most, nothing more than God’s creation, so while everything else was permissible, temples and such must absolutely never be built. It was the same with Cassis. That’s why, unlike the old holy lands, the existing holy land of Jupiter was occupied solely by flowers and plants.

So the prayer that nymph supposedly performed wouldn’t have been directed toward the World Tree. It must have been offered to the goddess Theia after all.

The coachman crossed his arms and nodded while looking at the vine winding pitifully along the stone wall.