ee. They've thought this out well, Souji thought.
"Was this the king's plan? Or the prime minister's?" he asked.
"It was the prime minister's plan to invite you, Sir Souji."
"I see. They're both crafty... No, they're total fraudsters, aren't they?"
Souji crossed his arms and thought about it.
It's true, there's probably no one out there who fits their criteria better than I do. I
hear rumors Cardinal Gold will finally be getting expelled soon, too. If that greedy
cardinal goes down, I just know the court of inquiry will take that as their cue to
censure me. When that happens, it'll be time to pay the piper. So it's not a bad time for
me to be getting out of the country... Still, though...
Souji had one concern. "What happens if I refuse?"
"I find this hard to say, but it would be unwise," Inugami said. "We have already
had the saint communicate our desire to take custody of you to the upper echelons
of the Orthodox Papal State. I am sure those in charge here will have no desire to see
you placed as the representative of Lunarian Orthodoxy for all who live in the
kingdom, so..."
"...I'm in danger, then." Souji sighed at Inugami's observation. "Well, shoot. I never
had a choice to begin with, did I?"
"I am sorry," Inugami said. "However, if you will agree to it, we will escort you
safely to the kingdom, ensuring you are not harmed in the slightest."
"That's not the problem..." Souji scratched hard at the back of his bald head. After
thinking for a while, he looked Inugami straight in the eye as if he had made a
decision, then asked him something. "I seem to recall you saying King Souma is crazy
about collecting talented personnel, right?"
"I would have to take issue with you calling him crazy," Inugami told him. "Is it
not the natural duty of any ruler to search far and wide for excellent personnel to
serve under them?"
"Ohhh, sorry if I offended you there. I didn't mean to insult your king. It's just... I
wanted to check if King Souma will really hire excellent personnel. No matter who
that person happens to be, if they have some gift, will he put it to good use?"
When Souji asked him this with a seriousness that seemed unlike him based on
their interaction up until this point, Inugami thought about it as he answered.
"Well... this is only my personal view, but I do believe His Majesty makes his
decisions based on whether the person does or does not have some gift. He is not
fixated on race, age, gender, history, or physical appearance, and looks to draw
talent from a wide range of people."
"Really? Would that hold true even for someone declared a 'witch' by Lunarian
Orthodoxy?"
"A witch?" Inugami repeated the ominous-sounding word with a questioning
look.
The door suddenly flew open. When Inugami turned around, there stood a
woman wearing a brightly colored cloth draped over her head.
Wearing plain clothes with a beautiful cloth draped over one's head was the
mark of a prostitute in this country. It had started with prostitutes covering their
faces with cloth to prevent them from being seen as they entered a man's home, but
once vanity had been added into the mix, they'd begun wearing more vibrant pieces
of cloth.
When the woman who came in noticed Inugami's presence, she said, "You were
in the middle of talking, I see. I apologize for my rudeness."
She bowed her head, then went to leave at once.
Souji stopped her before she could go. "Hold on, Merula. You don't need to worry
about this guy. He's fine."
The woman stopped, then slowly turned. "...Is he really?"
"Yeah. If anything, he's on the side of people fighting this country."
The prostitute looked taken aback. "You're supposed to be a bishop of this
country, Souji..."
Why are you drinking with a man like that? the woman seemed to say as she
slumped her shoulders. Then she walked over to the table and sat down in an empty
chair. While Inugami was still confused, she took off her cloth. When she did...
"Wha?!" Inugami shouted.
From beneath the cloth appeared a beautiful twenty-something woman with
white skin so pale as to be translucent, golden hair, and pointed ears.
Those pointed ears were the mark of an elf. In addition to them, there was
another thing that stood out about her: Her eyes were ruby red.
"A high elf... No, it can't be! Is she really one?" Inugami gasped.
Deep crimson eyes were characteristic of the high elves. Elves and dark elves had
a dislike for contact with other races, but in multi-racial states like the Kingdom of
Friedonia, there were individuals who lived mixed in with the other races. Some of
those individuals even married members of other races and had children. Souma's
chamberlain Marx was a half-elf who'd been born to parents who were a light elf and
a human.
However, high elves were even more extreme in their hatred for having contact
with other races. Because of that, the high elves were only found in their own
country, the Spirit Kingdom of Garlan, which was situated on two islands, one large
and one small, to the northwest of the continent, and which other races were barred
from entering.
The high elves also engaged in their own unique form of spirit worship, which
made them the ones who had the least to do with a theocracy like the Orthodox
Papal State of Lunaria.
That was exactly what made Inugami so shocked. He couldn't believe that here, in
a country that was the center of a different faith, he was seeing a high elf dressed in
the guise of a prostitute.
When he saw Inugami at a loss for words, Souji smiled wryly and plopped his
hand down on top of the high elf's head. "Allow me to introduce her. This is Merula
Merlin. As you've already noticed, she's a high elf. I know she doesn't look it, but
she's an old woman who's lived twice as long as me, so be careful."
"How rude," said Merula indignantly. "For a high elf, being one hundred years old
is the same as being just under twenty for a human, you know? In the Spirit
Kingdom, if I told people I was a hundred years old, they wouldn't treat me as
anything more than a kid."
She then began to converse naturally with Souji.
"Um... what sort of relationship do the two of you have?" the still-bewildered
Inugami managed to squeeze in.
Merula and Souji looked at one another.
"What are we...? Housemates, maybe?" Merula asked.
"No, no, I'm the owner of the house," said Souji. "I'm acting as your guardian here,
okay?"
"Hold on! Who looks after whom here?! If I don't clean up after you, you leave
things everywhere!" Merula shouted.
"You're just too sensitive about that stuff!"
The two of them launched into something like a fight between a middle-aged
couple.
Inugami squeezed his temples, then sought an explanation. "Um, could I ask you
start from the beginning... and explain what a high elf like Madam Merula is doing
here?"
"Hm? Oh, sorry, sorry." When Souji calmed down, he crossed his arms and looked
to Merula. "Do you mind if I explain?"
"Hm... Please do."
And so, with Merula's permission, Souji began to tell her story.
◇ ◇ ◇
Merula the high elf had been born around one hundred years ago in the country
of the high elves, the Spirit Kingdom of Garlan. The Demon Lord's Domain hadn't
appeared yet at the time, so the high elves had defended the two islands that made
up their Spirit Kingdom of Garlan, one big and one small, and lived without contact
with the other races.
Despite being one of those high elves who were exclusionary and had no interest
in the outside world, Merula had been a bundle of curiosity. From a young age, she
had taken an interest in anything that caught her eye, and gone around asking adults
what things were. When she grew old enough to think for herself, and started to see
that the adults would lie to cover it up when they didn't know something, she started
wanting to go and find the truth on her own. And so, she spent twenty years
studying various things.
Around the time she became a fully-fledged researcher, she ran into a great
mystery.
What were the spirits that the high elves worshiped?
The high elves thought of themselves as a race loved by the spirits. The proof of
that, they said, was in the powerful magic that the high elves were able to use.
The high elves were all able to use powerful magics that only those called mages
among the other races could, and they did it as if it were no big deal. This was proof
that the spirits were always at the high elves' sides, lending them their power... or so
their reasoning went.
Merula had her doubts about their spirit worship.
It's true, high elves can use powerful magic, she thought. But is that really because
of spirits? How can we believe in things like spirits that we can't see?
There were those who claimed they had seen spirits. However, their stories were
all utter nonsense, on the level of, "I saw my dead grandparents standing at my
bedside."
Besides which, living in a country that forbade the entry of all but high elves,
even if the high elves could use powerful magic, how could they say for certain that
the spirits only bestowed their blessings on the high elves?
It might be possible that the spirits would give their blessing to members of other
races. On the other hand, what if a high elf left the islands? If the spirits would
always be at their side, even if they left the island, they ought to be able to use
powerful magic.
Without ever testing that, the high elves just blindly believed that they were a
people beloved by the spirits, and Merula couldn't tolerate it. Her knowledge
couldn't be made complete on the islands alone. Only by going into the outside
world and absorbing knowledge from a variety of sources could she begin to
approach the truth.
Merula began to think that way, and on her fiftieth birthday, she left the islands.
Changing the color of her eyes with magic, she took on the guise of a light elf
adventurer, traveling from country to country and absorbing more knowledge.
There were things she figured out as part of that process, too.