Noel narrowed her eyes as she studied the sword she had borrowed from Allen. Night had deepened. The mansion was quiet. Sitting there without so much as a lamp and staring at it in the dark would probably look dangerous to anyone passing by. She understood that yet made no move to stop. She simply gazed at it, then slowly reached for its wrapping.
It looked like cloth, but the feel beneath her fingers said otherwise. It was far tougher than fabric. The wrapping alone was probably worth a fair sum. Noel didn’t know much about the world beyond the Elven Forest, but even she could tell that much.
That wasn’t why her hands slowed. The moment she held it, the sheer presence of what lay inside pressed down on her. She peeled the covering back a little at a time, thinking how remarkable it was that Allen could carry something like this with such a calm face.
What emerged was exactly what she had expected. No, it exceeded every expectation.
“This is the masterpiece.”
Saying it out loud felt natural. Denying it would be beyond anyone. Perhaps someone of even greater skill than its maker could find fault, but Noel doubted such a person even existed.
That’s why she buried it, isn’t it?
If this saw the light of day, the world would be thrown into complete chaos.
She thought that people would trample each other to claim it, then shook her head. Not because she was joking.
She would never worry about something so small.
If Vanessa had cared about ordinary sensibilities, life on that mountain would have been very different. And this blade would never have been completed. It was precisely because Vanessa lacked ordinary sensibilities that this blade could be born. Noel didn’t reason it out; she felt it, bone-deep.
And that’s exactly why I can’t reach her level. I knew that already.
She smiled. Anyone who had seen Vanessa’s prowess would understand without thinking. Maybe that was why Noel had decided to become the Elven Queen. If she couldn’t reach the same level as the person she most admired, she wouldn’t call it a compromise exactly, but claiming there was no compromise at all would be a lie. And for that very reason, she realized she would never catch up to her. If, by some chance...
How would that even happen? No matter what, I don’t see it.
She didn’t see it, yet strangely enough she could picture it clearly in her mind. Herself at that seat where Vanessa had sat, swinging the hammer. She thought it impossible. So what was it inside her that made the image feel so vivid?
Well, it can’t be helped.
Noel didn’t know how ordinary people discovered what they wanted to become or how they decided on it. She imagined it sprang from childhood admiration. She had no such memories. What she did have was the memory of Vanessa’s sheer skill, and she had not been permitted to reach for it.
Noel felt Vanessa herself had refused her that path, and Noel understood that her own talent fell short. If there had been more time, perhaps she would have persisted anyway. But there wasn’t. No what if and no extra time had been granted to her. Before any of that, someone had come to fetch her and shown her something far better suited to her, something only she could be.
So the path she chose had been the only option from the start. She blamed no one. That would have been absurdly misplaced, and above all, the choice had been hers. To deny it was to deny herself. She had no intention of being that foolish.
Maybe the reason I wanted to see this blade was to confirm that.
Truthfully, she had wanted to look at it on a whim. There had been no concrete reason. She simply felt like she wanted to see it, like she ought to see it. That was why she’d borrowed it. There was no other reason.
No. I don’t think that’s it.
The thought came to her unbidden. She had no proof. She simply felt it was so. Just like when she had invited them to this mansion. Just like when she decided to aid the Champion. Or to become the Elven Queen. This was, most likely, Noel’s fate.
Well then. In that case, let’s go.
If so, what she had to do next was already decided. The idea had been in her head all along. She just hadn’t known why.
Yes. That must be it. The reason I came here...the reason I felt I had to return...all of it.
It had been for this moment. Satisfied with that answer, Noel wrapped the sword as it had been and rose to her feet.
The air outside was colder than she’d expected. Or perhaps she was simply nervous. There was little light, yet her steps didn’t falter. The moon helped, but more than that, she felt that this too had been decided for her.
She reached a forest some distance from town. A forest at night was dangerous, yet Noel walked on without hesitation. Her steps were even lighter than before. Of course they were. Since she was a high elf, the forest was as familiar as her own garden. She had a sense—vague but sure—of where everything lay. She knew precisely where she had to go.
It was a clearing, a place where the trees opened up. For an instant she felt a prickle of aversion at crossing its edge. That was probably because she already knew who was there. She steadied herself and moved on, her eyes finding the figure ahead. And then...