After that, I entered the country and found that there wasn't much in the way of sightseeing, so I headed for an inn. I rented a room for only one night, took a bath, and slid under the covers.
Staring up at the cheap wooden planks of the ceiling, I deliberated about the flower field, and about the girl sitting there.
There was a book I had read a long time ago, The Adventures of Niche, in which there had been a story about another strange plant.
As I recall, in one part of that story, there was a plant with a mutation that caused it to absorb magical energy rather than exude it the way normal plants did. It gained sentience and eventually became violent.
First, I should clarify that the substance we know as "magical energy" flows freely from every part of the natural world. Flowers, trees, and other flora especially produce and exude magical energy by absorbing sunlight. Honestly, I don't really understand the theory behind it all.
Anyway, the human body is typically unable to absorb this energy, but there are certain people who can harness it regardless, and even use it at will. We call them mages.
That's why our powers can reach their full potential in the middle of a forest overflowing with raw magical energy. When I was still studying to be a witch, the place where my teacher trained me was also a forest.
You could say that we mages resemble the mutated plant in The Adventures of Niche. We have become able to handle things that humans ordinarily can't. …Or is it that people who can't do magic are the rare ones?
I don't know which is which. I feel like it might not be a good idea to think too deeply about these things. Plus, sitting and trying to puzzle it out doesn't amount to much in the end. It's like trying to logic out which came first, the chicken or the egg. Completely unproductive.
"…Yawn." I covered my mouth and rubbed my eyes. I'm not tired yet. I'm fine. Not tired, not tired—the flower field.
Maybe the flower field had evolved in a strange way because there was too much magic. Like the sentient plants in the story. Thinking about it, the forest around the flower field was so overgrown with trees, you couldn't see the sun through the foliage. The magical energy produced in such a place could create the necessary conditions.
It wouldn't really be so strange for the flower field to mutate due to the great overabundance of magical energy.
And so the flower field began to draw humans in with whispers of nectar-sweet poison. What on earth had been born there?
"..."
What had become of the humans lured to that flower field?
A bad feeling took root in my mind, and I couldn't shake it.