When Heilit made an unpleasant expression, she got a double chin.
Iris didn’t miss that.
“Unable to manage your own body, your combat power must have dropped terribly.”
It wasn’t wrong, since Heilit’s specialty had been nimble movements.
“Sorry but.”
However, Heilit coldly retorted.
“I’m human, so just running from here to the kingdom will make my six-pack abs pop out again.”
Though it seems easy to say considering how far it is from the World Tree to the kingdom, it was quite possible for her.
“The problem isn’t me but you and the fairies. You don’t gain weight even eating the same snacks as me.”
Heilit pinched Iris’s nape with her finger.
There was nothing but smooth skin.
“And even if you run the same distance as me, your body won’t wear down.”
Actually, Heilit wasn’t trying to argue about gaining weight or not.
What does that matter?
“If you have something to say, say it straight. Don’t beat around the bush.”
Iris was expressionless even in this situation.
“Your race’s homeostasis is the problem.”
Heilit sat on the tea table in front of the Elder.
Then she put her face next to the Elder’s face and looked at Iris.
“Don’t you see this?”
“Your face is bigger.”
“Hey, damn it.”
She took out a round locket pendant from her chest.
When she opened the locket lid, there was a finely drawn portrait inside.
None other than the Elder holding a young girl.
“It’s the Elder and me. Somehow I’ve come to look older than this person.”
“What can we do about our long lifespan?”
The Elder pointed that out but Heilit firmly shook her head.
“They say dwarves don’t even live half as long as elves but at least they age. But elves? You don’t change. Your appearance doesn’t change, your mind doesn’t change. It’s not for nothing they say your race is closer to plants than animals.”
It didn’t seem like an unreasonable complaint.
“Humans are like fire. They prosper by burning their surroundings. By burning trees and cultivating land. By developing territory and domesticating monsters. But elves?”
“So we’re water, is that it? Are you bringing out racial elemental theory now?”
“I don’t know about that. And I don’t care that because of that nature fairies declined and will eventually go extinct!”
Langrey banged the tea table.
“I think I understand why you’re still being played by Pelerian.”
Iris’s expression froze like ice.
“…What do you mean?”
“That magician Pelerian is clearly the least fairy-like fairy. He was truly a fiery magician.”
That wasn’t wrong.
Pelerian was someone who had stronger pride in being a fairy than anyone, but actually had the least fairy-like temperament of any fairy.
Putting it nicely he was progressive, putting it badly he was vulgar and wicked.
“That’s why trying to analyze someone like that in your old-fashioned fairy way won’t work.”
“…”
Heilit Langrey, who had been staying here, had been observing Iris and the Elder.
After watching them search for traces of Pelerian, train, and drink tea, she was convinced.
She understood why they hadn’t been able to find Pelerian’s whereabouts until now.
“Did you even intend to find him in the first place?”
“Why ask something so obvious? Did it look like we were just playing around?”
She knows Iris swore revenge.
However, comparing what they were doing, it was no different from searching every bed in a hotel alone to find bedbugs.
“How long were you planning to search?”
“What?”
“How long were you planning to investigate Pelerian’s whereabouts?”
How much effort and time would it take doing it that way?
“…At least within the next fifty years.”
“This is why fairies are the problem.”
If someone like Iris was a hotel manager, that hotel would eventually go bankrupt.
“To catch bedbugs, you need to narrow down where the bedbugs might be first.”
“What are you talking about suddenly? What bedbugs?”
“Either find places where guests who might have brought bedbugs stayed. Or close the hotel and drill the housekeepers to do a complete inspection at once. Will you catch all the bedbugs if the manager runs around alone trying to catch them?”
It was familiar for Heilit Langrey to spout incomprehensible words following her stream of consciousness.
Fortunately, the seemingly meaningless talk ended there.
“You have to consider Pelerian’s personality. That old man is one of a kind.”
“One of a kind…?”
“Yeah, you know. The type who has desire for attention but while wanting to show off to people doesn’t actually want to directly reveal it. The type who enjoys people recognizing them on their own and whispering ‘gasp, isn’t that the famous Heaven Defier?'”
It was a scathing evaluation.
But I hadn’t thought about it that way before.
“You don’t know that? Don’t you know Pelerian used to wear a crystal mask?”
“He did.”
“Why do you think he wore a mask?”
When she couldn’t answer immediately, it was none other than the Elder who cut in.
“Wasn’t it to hide his identity?”
“Holy Light protect us.”
Heilit Langrey smacked her forehead.
The elves exceeded her expectations.
“Who wears a crystal mask to hide their identity! If that was the case, he would have just worn a hood or headdress.”
“Wearing a mask…”
“He probably wanted to create stories like ‘The mysterious crystal mask magician appears!’ You know why he suddenly stopped wearing the crystal mask? I heard this directly. Get this, apparently Archmage Caspian mocked him. Said the crystal mask didn’t suit him because he was ugly, so take it off.”
“So he stopped wearing it after that?”
“Yes. A Magic Tower magician told me? If you’re going to do a concept, commit to it until the end, why quit halfway like that.”
For innocent elves, it was impossible to understand Pelerian’s way of thinking.
Why he wanted to be revered by others so much, and while wanting that, why he wanted such an atmosphere to form naturally rather than forcibly drawing out reverence.
“Anyway, that map shows all the dungeons he’s made so far, right?”
There was a map of the continent on the wall.
Surprisingly, the administrative districts marked on this map seemed to have been last updated hundreds of years ago.
Even that was very elf-like.
“You all wouldn’t know since you’re always cooped up in the great forest, but even in the capital there’s this thing called opera?”
“What about opera.”
“There are stories that Pelerian watched opera several times. They say the opera he watched the most was The Blue Night of Kabbalah.”
Suddenly Heilit started drawing lines on the map with red chalk.
“I’ve seen The Blue Night of Kabbalah too so I know. They use the symbol of the Tree of Life in stage art several times. I’m not a magician or shaman so I don’t know the exact shape but… is this right?”
“No way…”
When she connected the dungeons with lines, a unique pattern started to form.
Honestly, it’s not easy to find regularity in the shape.
You’d only know if you had knowledge of Kabbalah and tried drawing lines according to that shape.
Originally it would have been difficult to find such a clue naturally.
“Right? He’s gen- I mean, this is really right. He wanted someone to recognize it. But he made it very subtle so no one would notice easily.”
The Elder jumped up.
If this symbolized the arrangement of the Tree of Life, they could draw corresponding flows and paths.
“If we follow the path of the Snake of Wisdom, the Path of the Snake.”
The snake’s head exists in the north.
“There might be a dungeon if we search broadly around here.”
If the dungeon arrangement follows the Path of the Snake, that would be so.
And if what symbolizes the snake’s head is the last placed dungeon.
“This must be a meaningful dungeon. Especially important.”
“Thank you, Heilit Langrey.”
Iris, who had always been snippy, expressed gratitude politely.
Then she put on her weapon.
The Elder asked.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Now.”
And once again, just as Iris was about to leap down under the tree.
“Ah geez, you’re doing it again.”
Langrey grabbed Iris’s hood.
Iris dangled, caught by her hood.
“Going to take three months again?”
“Then…?”
“Come with me. If we run for just a few days, we can get there quickly using the warp gate.”
“…Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
