The date we had agreed upon with the elves soon arrived, and Teto and I took our transfer gate to their palace. Usually, we’d spend at most one night at her place, but this time the plan was for us to spend an entire week in the elves’ forest to truly experience everything it had to offer. As I was getting excited thinking about the prospect of doing some sightseeing with Teto, we arrived at the palace, only to find Elnea—my century-old friend and queen of the elves—waiting for us on the other side of the transfer gate.
“Chise! Teto! I was awaiting your arrival.”
“Thank you for inviting us to spend time in your forest, Miss Elnea,” I said.
“Thank you!” Teto chirped beside me.
Elnea waved her hand in the air dismissively. “No need to thank me. I have been the one taking up your time with visits of late, and I always miss my chance to invite you over before you leave for yet another journey,” she said with a pout, and I felt a bit guilty.
Elnea often came to visit us in the forest or to pass the time with the Great Elder in our absence. We hadn’t gone to her place in a while.
“Well then, should we spend the day relaxing inside and leave the sightseeing for the rest of the week?” Elnea offered.
“That sounds lovely, but I was thinking I wanted to go take a little stroll in town,” I said.
“Teto wants to go to a café and eat sweets!”
Elnea nodded. “The capital has changed quite a bit since your last visit. Come, I shall give you a tour,” she said, and the three of us left the palace.
The capital of the elven kingdom sprawled around the ginormous World Tree, with the core government building and main facilities at the center, encircled by residential districts. That part still looked the same as it did centuries ago. However, the outskirts of the town had since been expanded to include a sightseeing area, which was entirely new. As we strolled down the streets lined with trendy shops, I spotted quite a few non-elves among the crowd.
“It’s only been a couple hundred years since you opened the kingdom to outsiders, hasn’t it? I didn’t expect the capital to have changed so much in such a short amount of time,” I commented.
The elves’ trade network, once confined to the towns on the outskirts of the forest, had developed significantly. As a result, the paths leading to the heart of the forest had been expanded, making it easier for outsiders to travel through the woods. The elves’ unique crafts, traditions, and history had captured the hearts of many, turning the elven kingdom into a popular tourist destination.
“Ah, this café!” Elnea said, pointing at a building excitedly. “It’s a subsidiary of the one we visited together once. They’re still experimenting with the menu.”
We entered the café and I noticed that the acorn coffee we’d had that one time (and that I had since then introduced to the forest) was still on the menu.
“I’ll take the apple pound cake,” I said. “What about you, Teto?”
“Teto wants the same as Lady Witch, and also a nut tart, and a berry cake!”
I placed our order with a strained smile, and soon our sweets were ready.
“Lady Witch, it looks delicious!” Teto commented.
“It does,” I agreed, taking a bite of my cake. “This apple pound cake is lovely.”
Before, the sweets served in this café chain were plain and simple; nowadays, their appearances and taste had been refined to delight the tourists. They were even better than the last time we’d tried them.
“Lady Witch, have some of Teto’s nut tart!” Teto offered, holding out a spoonful to me.
“Thanks, Teto,” I said, opening my mouth and accepting the spoonful.
I couldn’t help but let out a surprised moan when it hit my mouth; that tart too had become a lot better than on our first visit.
“It’s so good... Are they using different nuts than before?” I asked.
Elnea nodded. “Indeed. They have added World Tree seeds to this specific tart.”
Just like walnuts, World Tree seeds had a hard outer shell and edible kernels inside. The owners of this café had apparently started incorporating them into several of their treats, not just the nut tarts: my apple pound cake had some World Tree kernels mixed in as well.
“These never would have seen the light of day if you had not shared your World Tree seeds with us, Chise,” Elnea told me.
“Both you and I have a lot more World Trees than before now. World Tree seeds are still precious, but they’re not as rare as they used to be.”
Before, when there were only a few World Trees in the world, eating the seeds would’ve been considered insanity. But now they were even being incorporated into certain snacks—although I had never seen that outside of the elves’ forest.
The Eltar Kingdom is the only place where we can enjoy such snacks, isn’t it? I mused as I sipped on my acorn coffee.
Having gotten my fill of cake and coffee, I turned towards Elnea. “This reminds me—you said that I forgot something here, right? I have no idea what that could be. Don’t leave a girl hanging.”
“We have recently dismantled an old house and found something with your mana signature imbued on it,” she explained, retrieving a book from the shadows. “Here. Do you remember this book?”
“Oh, Teto can feel Lady Witch’s mana on it too!” Teto noted.
“That’s...volume ten of The Legend of the Heroes,” I said.
Several hundred years ago, I had lent this book to a group of elven kids. I had preemptively enchanted it with a preservation spell so it wouldn’t get damaged, so it still looked the same as the last time I saw it.
“This really brings me back,” I muttered, softly caressing the cover.
Back in the day, this book had absolutely no value, being considered one cheap adventuring novel among many others. But now, this series was considered classical literature, and new editions with beautiful bindings compiling multiple volumes were still released to this day. There were even simplified versions with pretty pictures for children.
“This book caused a real stir with your young folk,” I noted with a hint of nostalgia.
“I still remember the headache it caused me,” Elnea said with an amused chuckle. “Those kids are long gone, but it is all thanks to them that we opened our kingdom to the outside world.”
The average elf’s lifespan was around three hundred years; the kids who had rebelled against Elnea’s authority had already passed away. If it weren’t for them, perhaps the elves’ forest would still be an isolationist nation nowadays—although I was by no means saying that would’ve been a bad thing.
After reminiscing about the past for a bit, we paid for our coffee and sweets and left the café.
“Well then, should we take a little stroll around town to digest all of that cake?” Elnea suggested.
Teto and I agreed, and we followed her through the busy streets of the elven capital.
Feeling nostalgic after our conversation, I tried to look for vestiges of the kids who had caused the little uproar we had been talking about, but I couldn’t find anything. However, I knew that—even if they weren’t obvious at first—the traces left behind by the kids were indeed there. It was their rebellion that had shaped the Eltar Kingdom into the prosperous tourist destination it had become nowadays.
Teto, Elnea, and I would never forget about them as long as we lived.