The lights elongated like a laser beam, then flashed, disappearing suddenly.
The final elemental king, the King of Earth, waved his hand over me, sending a beam of yellow light straight towards me.
I reflexively flinched back and slammed my eyes shut, but the only thing that happened was the pendant warmed ever so slightly where it sat against the skin on my chest.
“It’s done.”
I opened my eyes when the King of Earth said that.
Glancing down at the pendant to see if anything had changed, I found something moving around inside of the yellow magical stone. It looked almost like mist and was a darker shade of yellow than the stone itself. The mist swirled leisurely around inside the pendant.
It kind of looks like a snow globe, but I’m assuming this moving mist is the elemental king’s power?
“If you just say our name, we won’t bother responding even if we hear it. We’ll come to you only if you activate the magical stone by calling out to us telepathically… Oh, but maybe we should also respond if the pendant ever breaks, just to be safe?” the King of Earth explained, directing the final question to the other elemental kings.
However, the King of Fire seemed a bit dissatisfied with that arrangement.
“If she calls my name out loud, I’ll probably at least check to make sure she’s okay…”
“Don’t try to hide it; we all know you’ve been using the little ones to check up on the beloved child long before even meeting her!”
Is it part of the King of Wind’s personality that he can’t help but make teasing remarks about anything the King of Fire says?
“You’re one to talk! You’ve been doing the same thing, right?!”
“Well, of course I have. I am the wind, after all. I can see anything and go anywhere, any time I like. So, unlike you, Lem, I’ve been watching her ever since she was born.”
He basically just announced he’s been stalking me for years…
Does that mean he was watching when I was nursing from Mama’s breast and having my diaper changed? Whoa, we might have an even bigger pervert than Will right here!
“Bet you’re jealous you didn’t get to see the beloved child as a cute little baby, eh, Lem?”
And now he’s antagonizing the King of Fire! He really is a free spirit! I suppose that’s just how wind is, though…
On Earth, the mechanics of how wind worked had mostly all been scientifically quantified, but in this world, it seemed to all be the work of elemental spirits. There were even times when the weather changed suddenly due entirely to the whims of the elemental spirits.
In Japan, we called the phenomenon of sudden rain on a sunny day a “fox bride’s wedding,” but when that happened here, they said it was raining because “the water spirits are in a good mood.”
This “good mood rain” was always a light rain that helped plants grow without causing flooding or other damage sometimes associated with heavy rain, so it had a very positive connotation, amongst farmers in particular, as being a good omen.
Come to think of it, although everyone worshiped God, the Goddess and the elemental spirits had more impact on their day-to-day lives. Although God was the primary deity that everyone worshiped, it seemed kind of sad and lonely that he couldn’t interact with people the way the Goddess could.
“Hopefully, you will never need to seek our assistance, but you are welcome to visit us here any time you like.”
As Sol had warned me, the elemental kings were all unique in their own way, but the King of Water seemed to be the most reasonable among them.
“That’s right, come visit any time! Roslan only really started visiting us regularly after becoming king, and even then, it wasn’t very often.”
“That’s true… He was always showing up to scold us about being too blunt because we’re supposedly clueless when it comes to the ‘subtleties of human hearts’ or some such nonsense.”
Meaning that Roslan would come all the way here just to complain? Not only that, but he was complaining about the elemental kings straight to their faces? Somehow, this changes my first impression of him considerably…
“Founding a country is much more difficult than keeping an existing country going. I can only imagine it, but I think it must’ve been very difficult for him until he’d gathered a solid group of loyal and reliable retainers,” Emperor Celiunos astutely observed on his ancestor’s behalf, practically shuddering as he said it.
Either he was unable to fully picture the work that it would take to build a country from the ground up, or he didn’t even want to think about it, but either way, for the current emperor to react with such repulsion to the idea really told you how difficult an undertaking it must be. Roslan must’ve had his work cut out for him! Maybe that was why royals started building a network of trusted vassals as children.
“I imagine the longer a country exists, the more difficult it becomes to keep going,” I speculated.
It wasn’t as if Emperor Celiunos had it easy.
Beings in this world, such as elves, possessed incredibly long lifespans. It was likely that, having lived through the rule of multiple emperors, at least some of them might romanticize the past and complain about how terrible things were now. It simply wasn’t possible for different emperors to continue ruling the country in the same way, especially as times changed and the world changed, too.
Both founding a country and keeping it going were surely very difficult. I certainly couldn’t do it. I just wasn’t cut out for such a thing!
“Thank you, Lady Nefertima. If you decide to found your own country, I’ll gladly lend you my assistance. Just let me know.”
“I will not be doing any such thing!”
I could not, by any stretch of the imagination, picture myself ruling over an entire country. I knew myself well enough to know it would not end well. I would probably push all my responsibilities off on others and hide away in my room.
As the old saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun, and before I knew it, it was time for us to leave. I was grateful to the emperor for taking time out of his busy schedule to bring me here.
Because our return trip took even longer than the journey here, I asked Emperor Celiunos if this would interfere with his plans for the rest of the day.
“I had a feeling something like this might happen, so I cleared my schedule for the day. Don’t worry.”
Just as the entrance into the elemental palace was accessed by ducking underneath the komorizae, naturally, so was the exit. If the komorizae had moved since you entered, the route out of the elemental forest from where you exited might be much longer than the route there. I assumed this was what the emperor was referring to having planned for, but I was wrong.
The emperor chuckled and explained that he’d planned extra time for me to be distracted by animal after animal. He’d gone out of his way to make sure I had time to observe and pet each animal that inevitably appeared along our journey.
He really thinks of everything!
We’d only known each other for a short while, but he already knew me so well.
The trip back through the elemental forest was highly enjoyable, full of enchanting fluffy creatures and mysterious plant life.
Once we arrived back at the imperial palace, I thanked the emperor, and then we parted ways. Spica and Paul came to the courtyard to pick me up, but for some reason, Spica looked worn out.
Did Paul work her to the bone or something while I was gone?! You have to let her take breaks properly, Paul!
I turned to Paul for an explanation, and he coolly passed it off as nothing more than ordinary tiredness from a vigorous training session.
Training with Paul has got to be the most rigorous workout known to mankind—there’s nothing ordinary about it!
When we reached my and Karna’s room, I felt a sense of relief at being back in the familiar atmosphere, surrounded by familiar smells, and, of course, together with my sister.
“Karna!”
“Welcome back, Neema.”
I hugged Karna tightly, reveling in her comfortingly familiar scent.
Karna had changed her perfume since coming to the Linus Empire. She was now using Mama’s favorite perfume. I knew she was doing that for me so that whenever I returned to our rooms, I would feel like I was coming home.
“It looks like you had fun at the elemental palace, huh?”
I confirmed that I’d indeed had fun, and Karna chuckled that she could tell just from looking at my face.
“Let’s have some tea. I want to hear all about it.”
As soon as Karna said that, Shell astutely began preparing the tea. She also served us some sweets, which I dug into happily as I recounted my visit to the elemental palace in as much detail as I could.
I even managed to needle Paul into allowing Spica to join us for tea! I figured he only had himself to blame for tiring her out before I got home.
When the topic of the pendant came up, I checked the other magical stones to see how they looked. Paul brought them out at my request, and as predicted, they all contained the same kind of mist I’d witnessed in the earth stone. I held the stones up to the light, examining the mist, which was a darker shade than the base color of each stone.
“They’re so beautiful…” Karna said in a breathless tone as I peered at the stones.
They really are beautiful… Beautiful enough to completely enchant even Karna!
When the light hit the mist at just the right angle, it produced a faint rainbow. And as the mist swirled, the different colors alternately became more pronounced, first red, then green, continuously fading in and out and changing hues.