“Lord Acer, did you know? If you break open their shell, you can eat the insides!”
I nodded at the energetic explanation Shiez was giving me. Of course I knew. Even if I hadn’t, the trees would have told me, so I hardly needed a guide to teach me about the forest. But I wasn’t about to turn down his offer to guide me.
He seemed to have decided it was his responsibility to take care of me while I stayed in the village, and the other elves seemed content to let me play with him. In truth, I had been given plenty of opportunities to play with the other children in the village as well.
Almost a year had passed since I had sealed three of Jingar’s gates, a full rotation of seasons having come and gone. Shortly after, Zieden had sent messengers to the elven forests to discuss things with them. Apparently the sudden appearance of three mountains outside their city had reminded them of the great earthquake and sudden closing of a mountain pass in Ludoria. Rumors that the elves had been responsible for both events persisted to this day. The fact I had hidden myself and my involvement in all three events seemed to be working out well.
Zieden seemed to have, quite correctly, taken my threat to mean their royal palace could be similarly crushed by a mountain at any moment. However, the elves all came back with the same answer: if you want to discuss things with us, do it with the caravan. With no way to sort things out with the elves living in their borders, they had no choice but to invite the elven caravan back into their kingdom.
It was the first sign of weakness Zieden had ever shown on the international stage. Besides inviting the caravan in, they also had to agree to make a number of concessions to them. After all, considering how long the members of the caravan lived, they had a much longer connection to Zieden’s society than any human might.
Anyway, I doubted this would be enough to put an end to the wars, but it had at least slowed Zieden down.
I had to admit, there had been a bit of risk involved in this plan. There had always been the possibility that Zieden would see the threat from the elves and respond with panicked violence. Of course, if that had happened, I would have been on the front lines trying to keep the number of casualties to a minimum, but thankfully I hadn’t needed to do any such thing.
Seeing Shiez struggling a bit to get the walnut open, I took it from him and picked up another. For an elf, using your fingers alone to crack open a walnut was actually quite a challenge. He had likely seen the adult elves do something similar and decided he could do the same, but it actually took a bit of know-how.
If you inspected a walnut thoroughly, you could see it had softer and harder parts to it. If you held these two parts together and squeezed tight with both hands, the harder part would break open the softer part for you. It was like using a second walnut as a tool to open the first one.
As a blacksmith and a swordsman, I was more than capable of breaking a walnut open with my bare hands, but I was more interested in teaching the trick to Shiez than showing off my own grip strength.
Of course, the best option was to just use a tool. A short time ago, some tools made by the dwarves from monster teeth and claws had started making their way into elven communities. For example, a dwarven knife would easily split a walnut in two.
Passing the freshly cracked walnut back to Shiez, he took it with a mixed expression. While impressed, he also seemed somewhat unhappy. Ah, maybe he had been intending to break it open so he could give it to me, not so that he could eat it himself? It was rather cute. I was pretty sure a big reason he had grown so attached to me was because I was a high elf, but there was no point in worrying about that now.
I wouldn’t be spending much longer here in the forest. Once the elven caravan arrived in Zieden, I would be leaving to join up with them. That would mean saying goodbye to Shiez and this forest. Elves lived for a long time, so it wasn’t like we were saying goodbye forever, but I had no idea when we might meet again.
Once I met up with the caravan and learned what I could from Airena, I intended to head for Ludoria. It was about time I visited Kaeha’s grave. After that, what would I do? Depending on any letters Airena might have for me from Win, I supposed I might end up heading west...but if not, perhaps I would pay a visit to my old home in the Forest Depths in Pulha.
If my conjecture was correct, the way to reach the world of the giants above the clouds would be through the phoenixes that I guessed slept in Pulha. I wasn’t looking forward to the scolding I would be getting from the high elf elders, but if I wanted to make Airena’s dream of finding the White Lake come true, I would need to return there eventually.
In exchange for being allowed to meet the phoenixes, I had brought mystic peaches. While it likely wouldn’t work just anywhere, planting the seeds of mystic peaches in the Forest Depths had a good chance of seeing them grow into new Spirit Trees. Bringing a new species of Spirit Tree back to them would give me a good chance of getting a favor out of them.
The whole idea still had an unpleasant feeling to me, though it was one I was ready to face. After going to so many places, seeing so many things, and meeting so many people, I had learned that the elders’ words had been more or less correct. The lifestyle they cultivated in the Forest Depths was for the sake of avoiding bringing chaos into the world. Because I violated those rules, showing up and asking for a favor from them felt somehow wrong.
But even knowing that, even if I had no intentions of bringing back the mystic peaches or trying to meet the phoenixes, I still needed to go back home.
Seeing Shiez’s face go beet red as he put two walnuts together and squeezed with all his might, I couldn’t help but smile. For a child his size, even if you knew the trick, it wasn’t an easy task.
Anyway, I could worry about the future later. The chaos here in the middle of the continent had yet to settle. I would watch over things here for a while.
There might still be a need for me to get involved.