Unfastening her sash, she felt her heavy robe, wet with dew, slide down her smooth skin and fall to the ground. Though deep in the heart of the forest, the simple changing room in the bathhouse had a full-length mirror, which reflected her immaculate nude body—her ample bosom and eyes that sparkled like rubies. Though she was of average height, her elegant legs made up almost half her body's length. Aureatia's Seventeenth Minister, Elea the Red Tag, considered her physical appearance to be her most lethal weapon.
She didn't mean this in the sarcastic and vulgar way men spoke about such matters, nor did she feel it out of vanity or obsequiousness. It was an objective truth. Elea was the one who utilized her beautiful face most of all, and there was nothing for her to be ashamed of.
…Grandma told me that, I think. Beauty is a gift allotted by angels when you're born, and you need to use the heavenly gifts to bring happiness to others.
The vague contemplations swirled around her thoughts as she brushed her vivid chestnut hair.
She realized that in the six small months since coming to this village, her meditations on beauty and youth had become more frequent.
—My idea is different.
Beauty wasn't a static grace, bestowed by angels. It was just an ephemeral aspect, rooted in one's life and old age.
For example, even those blessed with pretty faces would lose all trace of their original beauty should they be afflicted by a terrible pox. Others still could lose it from being scarred in combat.
Even for those lucky enough to avoid such misfortunes, should they be careless with their own attractive features, much like a castle garden no longer being pruned, that natural beauty would fall into ruin, becoming crude and unrefined.
Her mother had harshly ingrained the concept in her. Above all, she said,
this idea was what separated the superficial beauty of a lady of the night and the pure, refined charms of an aristocratic princess. Then reminding her that the two of them were now nobility themselves.
Beauty manifested from the combination of innate gifts and personal effort. It required constant maintenance. She was to always be neat and tidy.
Finishing her simple grooming routine, she opened the wooden door to the bath. Elea recognized the shadow on the other side of the steam.
"Yawika?" "Teacher!"
Hot water sprayed into the air from the momentum of the young girl jumping to her feet.
Elea wasn't wearing her glasses, but she could still distinguish Yawika through the fog. Unlike the other elves, she had brown skin. Her behavior was immature, but the girl was, in fact, still young. While elves lived longer lives compared to minia, she was most likely still only ten or eleven years old.
"Yaaay! Over here, over here! I thought you already went back to Aureatia! Meoki and Ae were feeling sad… Wow, teacher, you're super- duper pretty!"
"I-is that so? Thank you. Classes are over, but I'll still be in this village until tomorrow. I wanted to take a bath here one last time."
"Yeah! Will Kia be here till tomorrow, too?"
"Of course. I'll be sure to have her give everyone a proper good-bye before we leave."
Admiring Yawika's velvety skin as she snuggled up to Elea, Elea felt the girl seemed to be built from entirely different material in comparison to a minia. On top of that, she would see no decline in her beautiful features for close to a hundred years.
Everyone in this village, from baby elves to their parents, enjoyed a similar level of divine beauty, as if it was their birthright, without paying their appearances anything close to Elea's level of attention and effort.
"Hey, teacher! Hold class! Just for me!"
Both done rinsing off and now soaking together in the bath, Yawika's magenta eyes sparkled as she leaned in toward Elea.
Six small months had passed since Elea had come to the Eta Sylvan Province. A small month consisted of forty-two days. There were nine small months in a year, so she had, in fact, spent more than half a year in contact with the elven children while posing as their teacher.
As with minia children, each of the elves in the village had their own quirks. But to Elea, who had come to the village as an educator, children like Yawika were the cutest of the bunch, overflowing with a desire to learn.
"Well, I suppose if you insist… Now, it'll have to be a short lesson so you don't get too far ahead. We'll just go over the Word Arts groups."
"Yay!"
Smiling at the girl, Elea ladled water into a number of buckets.
She considered that she might have originally been better suited as an educator instead of one of Aureatia's officials. A path she could no longer pursue.
"There are four big groups of Word Arts. Elves don't really differentiate among them that much, but central…rather, in minia scholarship, it's different."
"Yeah! Thermal Arts, Craft Arts, and, and, ummm…"
"Amazing. Knowing two off the bat is quite impressive. Did you learn that from a book?"
"Tee-hee…! I heard about it from Muya next door, but I really know three of them! Um, um…"
"Thermal Arts. Craft Arts. Force Arts. Life Arts. Those four." "Right, right! Life Arts! I remember now!"
"Good girl."
Elea stroked Yawika's long silver hair, and the young girl squirmed and wriggled her body with happiness.
Of course, if she was to be precise, these four groups did not entirely explain all the Word Arts that constructed their world. For instance, the arts that gave golems and skeletons their own autonomous will and life were known as Demon Arts and didn't fit among any of the other four categories.
"You already know Thermal Arts, right? Remember the ability your mother is always using in the kitchen?"
"I already know how to use those!"
"Well now. In that case, think you'll be able to cook me a nice meal when I come back to visit?"
"Woo-hoo! Leave it to me!"
While holding Yawika in her hand, Elea dipped a finger into one of the buckets filled with water.
"Elea io yethar. Secat tent. Vekuons. En ou kroah. Quonocks." (From Elea to Eta's water. Wingless insect. Bulging leaves. Softened backbone. Fly.)
"Bwah?!"
The water's surface in the bucket burst. A spray of hot water splashed up with force, drenching Yawika's face.
"Oh no! I'm sorry. I'm not very good with Force Arts, actually…" "It's okay! I'm totally fine! Is that what that was?"
"They're arts that move things or send them flying. For example, let's see… Have you ever seen any of the adults bend one of the arrows they've fired before?"
"Yeah! I think!"
"They let you do that, too. Learn them for yourself, and there are even some who can use them to fly in the air, though only for just a moment."
If one was to apply them to minia physics, Thermal Arts would be described as manipulating the scalar, while Force Arts manipulated the vector.
Thermal Arts created energy at an intended location, such as fire, electricity, or light. Conversely, Force Arts applied momentum at will to preexisting energy or matter.
The concepts were still difficult for the young Yawika to understand, but naturally combining both allowed one to shoot fireballs or make precise lightning attacks.
"Okay, okay, so what're Craft Arts?"
"Why don't we start there, then? Let's see… Watch closely, okay? I'm going to try something a little funny… Era io yethar. 40ermy tio. Shept alle. Pewrezez nesder. Gubzerbe." (From Elea to Eta's water. Twenty-two bones. The soil of the seafloor. Terminus ash. Halt.)
Beyond allowing for mutual language comprehension, Word Arts could be used only on soil, vessels, or living creatures with which the user had a tacit understanding, but since the water in front of her belonged to a region where she had stayed for six small months, Elea could twist it into surprising shapes. For example—
Elea grasped the hot water in the bucket and pulled it out. The water kept its shape when gripped in Elea's hand, and it didn't even lose shape when she let go.
"Wh-what…? Ice?!" "Heh. Is it?"
"Wh-whoa, it's warm! It's not ice! But how?!"
"Craft Arts changes the shape of things. There are people in the village who make bows and tableware, right? Just as bending a tree branch can make a bow, you can even change the shape of hot water like this if you try hard enough."
"Amaaazing!"
In truth, turning a fluid into a fixed shape like this was quite an advanced level of Word Arts. It would be very difficult for someone without an affinity for Craft Arts to pull off.
Naturally, this was nothing more than entertainment, and in most cases, Craft Arts were used to turn materials from a familiar region into a previously determined shape. While it wasn't seen as an important group of arts to non- minia races, the arts were indispensable when creating complex items and helped support the progress of civilization.
"Life Arts are, to put it simply, the Words Arts of a doctor. You've had someone treat a cold or an injury of yours before, right?"
"Grandma Micchi does that! But I've been real healthy for a long time, and I haven't gotten any injuries, either!"
"That's right. But no matter how amazing Grandma Micchi may be, she can't treat any of my injuries. Do you know why that is?"
"Ummm…"
"Unless you've spent a long time sitting face-to-face with someone, it's impossible to know which words you can use in your Word Arts to directly heal them. The same way it works with the wind and water and the trees and metal. Of course, that goes for me and for you, too."
"You and I can't do it, either?"
"Nope. But unlike living creatures, water is very obedient. I'll teach you another thing you can do with Life Arts."
Elea muttered another incantation, and this time, she took her index finger that had been stuck in the bucket and had Yawika stick it in her tiny mouth.
"Mm! It's sweet!"
"That's right. Life Arts doesn't change the shape of something, like Craft Arts, but instead changes the properties of things. It can repair damaged cells, heal wounds, and change water into wine."
"Really? Then can Grandma Micchi do that, too? I asked her once how she was able to heal people's wounds, and she just said she could do it somehow."
"Elves are quite gifted in the Life Arts, so that might be why. I'm most proficient with Life Arts, too, actually."
Of course, in Elea's case, her Life Arts were used not for healing the sick but for making poisons.
The fact wasn't limited to Life Arts, but if someone understood their target enough to directly use Word Arts commands, it was equivalent to holding constant life-or-death authority over them. Of course, societal trust meant people generally didn't regard their doctors with suspicion, but if an attending physician ordered someone to die, they could induce their patient's death. Anecdotes in Aureatia were not uncommon about people fearful of assassination rejecting Life Arts, relying instead on technical medicine, ultimately shortening their own lives.
Therefore, as a means to power, Elea had studied Word Arts…and Life Arts in particular. Enough that she easily explained the theory of Word Arts to a bathing child.
Although a member of the nobility, the truth of her parentage was that she was a prostitute's daughter, and she had gained a limited seat among Aureatia's Twenty-Nine Officials at such a young age because she had coincidentally also been the successor to the seat of the previous Seventeenth Minister, who had died in an unfortunate case of poisoning.
Unlike most of the unintelligent beasts of the natural world, among the minia race, it was the females, not the males, who were less violent.
However, even without power of their own, by using their charms, they could ensnare those who did have power. They could lead judgment astray and make others fall to their schemes. Even after the dust settled, the fools who realized their own immoral behavior were too deeply enthralled to raise a single cry of suspicion.
Curry favor with her beauty and destroy from within. That was the power wielded by Elea the Red Tag.
"Now, no more class for today. I'll be sure to continue from where I left
off the next time I'm here, okay?" "Yeah! Um…teacher…?" "Yes, yes, what is it—? Eep?!"
Without warning, Yawika dived into Elea's chest, eliciting a strange yelp. With an impudence reserved only for children, Yawika buried her face in Elea's breasts, giggling.
"Tee-hee… I love you, teacher! I'll still love you, even after you go back to Aureatia!"
"Y-yes, well…erm. I love you, too, Yawika." "Your boobs are so big; they're amazing!" "Th-that has nothing to do with anything!"
It was a night where both the big moon and small moon were visible. For Elea, it was her final night to enjoy these moments of serenity.
Afterward, Elea chatted idly with Yawika for a little while, and then, for just a moment, her mind drifted to the reason behind her visit to the village. A reason she could never reveal to Yawika.
She walked back alone. Most of the village's hot-spring baths were on the outskirts, and Elea had to traverse a dreary forest path to get back to her borrowed lodgings.
"Do all minia baths take that long?"
The question came from up in the trees. A young girl's voice, one with which Elea was very familiar.
"Yawika was dizzy, you know. She's still young, after all. Can you stop forcing her to keep you company during your long minia baths, Professor Viper?"
"You shouldn't…"
Elea's eyes narrowed behind her glasses, and she looked up at the darkness above her.
There she saw a strange and unnatural construction.
Numerous thin vines were standing vertically atop the ground, nothing supporting them at all. At the top, the vines wove together into a seat, and sitting there was a small young girl with blond hair.
"…call people names, Kia. What are you doing in a place like this?" "What do you mean, a place like this? I wanted to jump in the bath after
you were out, but you took so dang long."
"You shouldn't use your Word Arts to peep on people, either."
"How—?! Don't make fun of me! Disgusting! There are just less bugs and stuff when you're up high! It's easier!"
"Heh-heh. What, did you want to join my lesson with Yawika, too?" "Bleh! Like I want to study! Yawika's just a weird girl who likes school!" Essentially Yawika's polar opposite, Kia had never once taken her Word
Arts studies seriously. If Elea was to give out a written test, she was positive that Kia would score the absolute lowest out of all the students in the Eta Sylvan Province.
Elea glanced at the vines supporting Kia. The tendrils, so thin the heft of a satchel would weigh them down, stretched straight up, maintaining an orderly structure. A pinnacle of Life Arts, twisting life and making it possible to imbue the durability of steel into a single thread of cotton.
The fact that the construction grew up from the ground, in opposition of gravity, and continued to support the young girl's weight was the result of dexterously controlled Force Arts being used in perpetuity.
"Put me down in front of teacher."
Kia spun her Word Arts, and the vines smoothly bent and placed the young girl, sitting in their braided cage, down on the ground. Elea had to admit that if she was capable of such feats, then it must have been more convenient than climbing trees herself…assuming the "convenience" was enough of a reason to constantly keep such complicated Word Arts commands going.
"Return."
Then the plant folded in on itself, as if it were going backward in time, before settling down in the palm of Kia's small hand.
Left over was but a single grain of seed, no bigger than her pinkie in size. "You can have it back. Thank you."
The girl sent the seed flying up into the darkness overhead. The seed cut a strange path, flying toward the weeds growing around a tree. The seed was sucked inside a fruit, unseasonably ripe, before the fruit transformed back into a flower, followed by the whole bud disappearing, leaving only thick leaf growth behind.
"…Kia. You really shouldn't use your Word Arts willy-nilly like that.
Your power—"
"—is a gift to bring happiness to others, right? This is ridiculous. It's always the same with you."
"I'm begging you, please start listening to what your teacher has to say… Your power is extremely special. Isn't it boring to always be putting it to such…normal use?"
"Hmph. If I can spend my days having fun, I'm fine with normal."
"The world outside Eta isn't normal, though. After our stop in the New Principality of Lithia, you'll immediately start attending school in Aureatia. It won't just be elves, either. There'll be all sorts of people, even dwarves and leprechauns. Some of the other students might think you're weird and say nasty things about you."
"There are people like that at school in Aureatia?"
Word Arts were classified into four categories, with a user's individual skill and racial aptitude adding specific strengths and weaknesses into the mix.
Word Arts required a special incantation, and upon execution, the words would create a link to one's very soul.
These arts were born of a mutual understanding of wills that occurred once the user understood the vessel, person, and place involved in the incantation.
There was an exception, however. The Words Arts of one person—Kia— went against every one of these principles.
"…That's right. You're headed to Aureatia, remember? Think about how others will perceive you."
"I don't care. People can say whatever they want. Doesn't make a difference to me!"
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Her body was slender and delicate, like crafted porcelain. Her blond hair, tinged with white, gently swayed in the breeze. Her turquoise eyes, like a transparent lake surface, angled slightly inward.
However, this appearance was quite normal among the elves, the fairest of the world's races.
When sizing up the vulgar fourteen-year-old elf girl, nothing about her immediately attested to her peculiarity.
At that very moment, she wore a boastful smile, the same as any other child her age.
"After all…I just have to say die to those creeps, and they'd all drop dead where they stood!"
Exceptions did exist.
She was a genius without peer. An unparalleled prodigy.