“Let us stop here for the night. It’ll take several days to reach the next settlement; is that all right with you?” Althea asked us as she dismounted her sleipnir.
“It’s fine. Our flying carpet is pretty comfy.”
“Besides, Teto and Lady Witch are used to traveling in the forest!”
We hopped down from our flying carpet, and I started looking around the village. Besides being in the middle of the forest, it was pretty much a regular village. The only thing of note was that there were metal posts all around the perimeter, probably so that it wouldn’t get swallowed up by the woods.
“Welcome to our humble village, Miss Althea,” one of the village’s elves greeted her.
“I’ve brought Her Majesty’s guests with me. We’ll be staying here for the night.”
The way the elves interacted with Althea felt oddly familiar.
“They sound just like the forest’s people when they chat with you, Lady Witch!” Teto said as if she had read my mind.
“They do... Is Miss Althea really that big of a deal?” I muttered.
She had introduced herself as the elven queen’s aide, so I had already guessed she held some importance, but I hadn’t known just how much.
She must’ve overheard our conversation, as she turned around and flashed us an embarrassed smile. “I’m simply Her Majesty’s humble servant.”
After handing the reins of her sleipnir to a stable hand, she took us on a tour of the village.
“The villagers don’t seem that shocked to see humans,” I noted as we walked around the village square. “And there are other races living here too.”
“Oh! Lady Witch! This looks really yummy!” Teto exclaimed, pointing at a food stall.
All of the non-elves we saw seemed to be engaged in business transactions.
“Merchants and adventurers with a special permit are allowed to venture this far, but no farther,” Althea explained to me.
It seemed that all the trade goods collected and crafted by the elves were brought to this village. A few select merchants and elven caravans then facilitated their distribution to the outside world.
The three of us made our way to a covered wagon and peered at one of the merchants’ stock.
“Whoa, look at all those magic stones. There are arrowheads too,” I commented.
“The magic stones are so pretty,” Teto added, a hungry look on her face.
“Magic tool manufacture is one of the elven kingdom’s most active and profitable industries, and this includes processing magic stones,” the merchant explained to us.
All elves had naturally large mana pools, and through long years of diligent study, some of them had mastered crafting magic tools. They would import magic stones from all over the continent and turn them into high-quality tools, which they would then distribute to the different elven settlements before selling the surplus to foreign merchants.
“I see. Then what about the arrowheads?” I asked.
“Those are used by hunters. They’re always in need of arrows, so they buy the arrowheads in bulk and assemble them in their spare time.”
Every hunter had their own preferences when it came to the size, weight, and type of their bows, and apparently the same went for the arrows they used. Thus, rather than buying premade arrows, they preferred to purchase the arrowheads separately and assemble them according to their preferences.
“Arrowhead making is actually a pretty popular side hustle for former hunters.”
“Huh, is that so?”
As I examined the goods on display, I noticed that there were quite a few of them I was familiar with.
“Oh, they even sell books,” I said.
I leaned forward to examine one of the books on the merchant’s wagon, thinking that it must be some sort of scholarly book or essay, but to my surprise, it was a volume of The Legend of the Heroes.
“I-Is that the third volume?! Oh, and there are other books too!” Althea exclaimed, all but trembling in excitement. “E-Excuse me! How much for these books?” she asked the shopkeeper.
“Ten silvers apiece.”
“I’ll take those!” she said, picking up a few fiction books—including The Legend of the Heroes. She handed the money to the shopkeeper without a moment’s hesitation and happily cradled her new treasures against her chest.
She must’ve felt our gazes; she hurriedly started explaining herself, even though we hadn’t said anything. “Uh, w-we have recently started accepting your more amusing works of prose into the forest. As Her Majesty the Queen’s aide, I have to buy these books and thoroughly review the content to ensure they’re suitable for our people.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I actually really like these books too. No judgment here,” I reassured her.
“Yeah, Lady Witch likes them a lot!” Teto added.
A look of relief crossed Althea’s face.
“I didn’t know books had spread all the way to the elves’ forest, though,” I said.
“We’re all quite dedicated to making sure our children are well educated, so the literacy rate in our kingdom is quite high,” Althea said. “Besides, most elves never get to leave their settlement, so having recreational activities available locally is very important.”
Board games, for example, were quite popular among the elves—or so Althea told me—as they were easy to reproduce and distribute as long as the sellers understood the rules. This allowed the public to stay occupied in the closed season, on top of giving them another source of income by selling them to the outside world.
I noticed that ever since she had bought the books, Althea had started fidgeting. She must’ve been anxious to be alone with them.
“You said we’d be traveling deeper into the forest tomorrow, right? Let’s go to bed early, then,” I said.
“Yeah! We should take this opportunity to rest our bodies properly!” Teto added.
“Y-You’re right! Let us head to the inn, then, shall we?” Althea said, and the three of us did just that.
The next morning, we were greeted by a very sleepy-looking Althea. She must’ve stayed up late reading those books she had bought.
And so, the three of us made our way deeper into the elves’ great forest.