“So, to sum it up: You tried animating a puppet with your mana?”
“... Nn.”
“And then you lost control?”
“Nn.”
“And then the puppet exploded, obliterating everything here?”
“... It’s not all gone.”
“Is. That. Correct?”
“... Yes, sir.”
“Haa…”

Korwen sighed, holding his head in clear exasperation.

“Here I thought I finally found someone who can use magic without making everything explode… Yet you go ahead and do this?”
“... I’m sorry.”
“... The next time this happens I won’t let you off so easily. Understood?”
“Yes, sir…”
“Good. Now then... “

He turned to the person standing right next to me.

“Ria. Please be so kind and list all the times in the past three months where something exploded.”
“Mmmm? Mm… All… seventeen?”
Seventeen?!
“... Nevermind. Tell me how many times you were present among those.”
“... Seventeen?”

Another deep sigh escaped Korwen.

“You aren’t going to tell me that is just a coincidence, right?”
“...”
“Right?”
“... It wasn’t… My fault… In all....”

Ria averted her gaze. Just like a child that had done something bad would do when it got scolded.

“Because the other times you instructed either Wenners or Krutz and then it exploded. Just like this time.”
“...”
“Don’t think you can sweet talk your way out this time, Ria.”

Well, seventeen times was… rather impressive… in three months… Wasn’t that like more than once every week?
Then, seeing as there hadn’t been any incident in the time since we joined…

“Now… The last one… Haaa…”

Korwen turned his attention to the last person standing in front of him.

“... Miss Elder. You are not one of my people. But you are currently under our protection. Causing trouble is not exactly what a guest should do. I’d appreciate it if this doesn’t happen again.”
“I apologise for the trouble we have caused, Mr Korwen.”

The Elder slightly bowed her head to Korwen.

“... Just make sure it won’t happen again.”

Korwen sighed a last time and then took a look at the mess we had left behind.

“... At least not a whole lot is damaged except for the tent. You three can clean that up by yourself, understood?”
“””Yes…”””

Oh, everyone in sync, albeit a little lifeless. More or less in sync.
Really though, after Korwen had appeared he immediately assessed the damage done. As expected of someone used to this. And thankfully, the damage was rather low. Most of the force went upwards and to the side, ripping apart the tent and damaging a few minor things here and there. But everything else survived, much to my surprise.
Although the table was also in a rather pitiful state...

“Good. For now, I hope you will reflect on your actions a little. After that, you three clean that up. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and see anything that might even hint at this having happened, are we clear?”
“””Yes.”””

Korwen nodded at our response.
Then, he turned back to Ria, his expression hardening.

“Also, Ria… Don’t think I’ll forget this. I’ll think very carefully about your punishment, no worries.”
“...”
“... That’s all for now.”

He turned around, showing his back to us and leaving without saying another word, leaving the three of us standing there.

We got scolded, huh…

Well, scolding was probably not quite the right term for this. It was a little more severe. Fortunately, the Elder and I were let off the hook since it was the first time this had happened for us.
Suddenly, a small chuckle could be heard from next to me.

“Nn? Miss Elder?”
“What is it, Cursed child?”
“Uhm… Why were you laughing?”
“Oh, you heard that? My apologies. I was just wondering how long it had been since someone scolded me the last time.”

Wait… She was laughing because she was scolded?

“In my position, it rarely happens. Or rather, even if I weren’t the Elder of my kin, rarely anyone among us elves would bother scolding someone. It was a little nostalgic.”
“Nostalgic?”
“Yes. Long ago, someone used to scold me over many little things. I simply remembered them.”
“Huh…”

Her past…

“Miss Elder… You… You used to travel, right?”
“Mh? Yes, that is correct. I traveled this world a long time ago.”

So she really had been traveling… Then, she really longed to travel once more, didn’t she?

“Why did you stop traveling?”
“Why… There was no other choice but to stop.”
“Huh?”
“... Are you maybe interested?”
“Nn.”

Now that I thought about it… I had never really heard a lot about this world. Or rather, I knew the names of several places, I knew of the relationship between the Lafria Kingdom and the Akkian Empire.
But there were many other things I didn’t know about. For example the religion, the culture. What other places, what other countries existed. Stories of the past, history and all the like. They were unknown to me.
And most of all, she had probably met Yumias long ago as well, right?

“I see… It might be a bit of a long story.”
“Nn… A long story, you say…”

We still had to clean up…

“Nn, I still want to hear it.”

Worst case, we’d just clean up on the side. No, technically we had to clean up first anyway but… I might miss the chance to hear this, then.

“I see. Then, yeah… A long time ago....”

The Elder’s gaze went upwards, to the sky.

“Let’s see... Where do I begin? Are you familiar with the Great Spirit War?”
“No…”
“Mh… Then, let’s start there, shall we?”
“Nn.”

The Elder smiled weakly, then moved to the remains of the tent and lifted up the chairs that had fallen over. Then she sat down and motioned us to do the same.

“Let’s see…”

---

Elves were a long-lived race. Different from the humanoid races, we were closer to the fairykin. As such, our ways only change little with the passing of decades and centuries, or even millenia.
I was born in a forest not unlike this one. Elves are born from the trees in a blessed forest. We call the tree we came from our Mother Tree.

The elves pride themselves with the tree that gave birth to them. The older, the more magnificent the tree, the higher their pride. Usually, only the old trees birth an elf. But sometimes, even a young tree could birth an elf. Such was the case for me. My Mother Tree was more sapling than tree, having lived less than a decade. One like me was called “Child from a Child Tree.” Maybe because of this, I felt life in the forest was… suffocating. Boring.

There was no special reason, no incident or anything. Just, one day, I took the few belongings I had and left the forest, hoping to find a place that wasn’t as boring and stale. Thinking back, it was a pretty trivial reason, wasn’t it? If you could call it even that. But I’d soon learn that the world could be moved by even more trivial reasons.

The first time I met a humanoid was… relatively odd. Having no knowledge of the outer world, I didn’t know their customs either. As such, my first impression was… They’re weird. A small group of wanderers let me join them. They were nice people, they taught me many things. About bartering, about their customs, about the different races. Learning all these, the young me was excited.
Not for long.

There was one thing they avoided talking about: Monsters.
Monsters were everywhere, so they thought I was familiar with them as well. Little did they know—nor I, at the time—that the elven forests protect us from wild monsters. Many elves live their lives without ever seeing one threatening their very lives.

And thus… Came my first encounter with such a beast.
I was horrified, scared. Such a being that could only be attributed to be the product of nightmares… Stood in front of me. The wanderers, though, were well-acquainted with these monstrosities and slaughtered the beast with little effort. It was the first time I had seen a life being taken right in front of my eyes. I remember well the sight and the stench of blood and innards. It overwhelmed me, made me sick.

To my luck, the wanderers were kind to me, albeit surprised at my shock. They told me all about the monsters. And I grew fearful of the outer world.
But… traveling with these wanderers. Was fun. The monsters scared me but I also had found friends. My first true friends.

It was a wonderful time I experienced with them. They were wanderers without a place to call home, traveling from one town to another, doing odd jobs or surviving on the bounty of nature. We never stayed long at a single place. Countries existed but they were small. Incomparable to a country like this one. They were more colonies of villages and towns. Sometimes, you could travel through the entire country by foot within two days.

With time, I also learnt of the more fearful sides of the humanoid races. Discrimination and hate were rampant in some places. In one place, every race except the native one was looked down upon. In the next, one gender stood above the other. Some also fought simply because they lived on the other side of a river. The reasons were often so trivial that I could not comprehend them.

Maybe as an elf I had a different view on these things. The humanoids were all different from me, that was my belief. And I ventured into the world hoping to see many things different from me and from my home.
But ultimately, these were just minor problems in my eyes. I had fun traveling with the ones I called friends.
Just sitting around a fire with them and eating the food you gathered by yourself was… fulfilling.

---

The Elder paused.

“It is a shame, that our life spans are so inherently different. The time we travelled together was short. I was young, so my perception of time was barely different from theirs. But time doesn’t slow down for anyone. They started to grow old and weaker while I stayed the same. After a few decades, they settled down and they lived their lives to their end there. Only I remained.”

There was a smile on her lips despite those words. But even though she smiled… I had the feeling that she still felt sad.

“Afterwards, I avoided traveling with others. The shock of losing my friends was deep and I understood… If I were to find someone else to travel with, they too would likely one day pass on ahead of me. It’s the curse of the ageless races.”

The curse of the ageless races…
That was quite the heavy description but… Assuming I would live for such a long time as well… Korwen, Maya, Ria… and many others would pass on…
That thought was… rather depressing.

“Of course, there were other races that were essentially ageless, like the demonkin and other fairykin. Manakin also had significantly longer lifespans, although they weren’t necessarily ageless. Still, I traveled alone, avoiding any lasting relationships. Until… I met the witch.”
“Nn?”

Until she met the witch? Wait… Wouldn’t that imply…

“Yes, Cursed brat… Although it was only for short, I have traveled with the accursed witch. At the time she did not have her… unsavory reputation yet.”

Ahh…
I somehow had a feeling that I knew where this was going…

“Yumias, the witch… A being so out of the world that even the Great Spirits feared her. And… a being not of this world.”
“... Ah.”

Not of this world…

“Yumias is an enigma. Something no living being can understand. She is a saint. And she is the devil incarnate.”

A saint yet the devil…
That was quite the contradiction.

“To this day I only know few things for sure about her...“

The Elder shifted her gaze to me.

“Cursed brat… Yumi. You are… a surprisingly good child.”
“Nn?”
“That’s why I will tell you this. So that you understand a little of the true terror that is called the Great Witch Yumias.”

---

My first encounter with the witch was… rather peaceful. I was doing some odd jobs in a city, helping out in a store or running errands. One such errand took me to a different village. There, I temporarily joined a small group of travelers. All four of them were women, young and beautiful women.

The country I was located in was one of the first large countries. They created magical fortresses that absorbed mana to become stronger and more powerful. A marvel of their time.
Thanks to these fortresses, traveling within the country was incredibly safe and it wasn’t too rare to see women traveling on their own as long as it was within their borders. Still, these four were… different. They traveled everywhere, including the dangerous places, uncommon for women at the time. Some of the surrounding countries weren’t kind to outsiders and even less to women. Even I avoided them. Yet, these four braved them nonetheless.

They were cheerful, full of life. As if they had no care in the world and feared nothing. They… charmed me. With their liveliness. With their energy. With everything. Including the witch herself.

There were several more occasions where I joined them for work after and we gradually grew closer. They were doing odd jobs to earn money, just like me, so it wasn’t a big surprise to meet them. At one point, they invited me to join them in traveling. At the time I thought that… maybe, with them I can have fun for a long time. After all, they’re all ageless, just like me.

And thus we traveled. All five of us. Including Yumias, all four of them were manakin. White, pink, blue and golden. They were kind to me. The white-haired girl was always scolding us over the most trivial things. The golden-haired girl did whatever she felt like doing, usually lazing around.  The blue-haired girl was trying to calm down the white-haired one. It was fun. And Yumias was in the middle of it all. Even then, I never understood her. Sometimes she was full of life, sometimes rather gloomy, then she behaved mature, the next time like a child. Her expressions and her moods were as rich and different as the colours of the rainbow. Beautiful to look at but impossible to grasp.

And over the time, I understood why they never feared anything. They were strong. All of them. And they were nigh immortal. They weren’t just ageless but they truly… They were at a point where no wound, no matter how severe, could kill them. At first, it scared me, then I admired them.
Their strength… was incredible. I wanted to become like them.

But… One day they picked a fight… I don’t even remember the reason… And Yumias… She got angry. So angry, that she didn’t just kill the other party. She devoured them.

Every being has a soul. Humanoids, fairies, the Great Spirits, animals, even plants. We instinctively understand that there is something that makes us us. Something deep inside. And a soul persists even after death. Physical damage can not destroy it, nor can magic. But the witch… The witch and her three companions… her children… They could destroy and devour them.

---

“She… devoured the souls?”
“That is correct.”
“...”

Ria and I both stared at the Elder in wonder.

“She devoured their very soul… It was horrifying to watch… The witch claimed it would make no difference whether she took their life or destroyed their soul but… I couldn’t accept it… The soul… It’s your innermost… The most precious part of yourself. And she simply robbed them of it.”

The Elder shook her head.

“I was by no means a soft girl. The world didn’t allow me to be soft. If someone attacked me, I’d retaliate, even if it meant the other’s death. Yet it is simply unfathomable to me, what the witch did.”
“... What happened then?”
“... I left them. I was weaker than any of them and even if I were to fight and win… what would I do then? Would I kill them? If so, how would I do that? They were practically immortal. Either way, I still counted them as companions and friends at the time… There wasn’t any other choice but to leave or to stay.”

She had been too weak to stop them… But she couldn’t agree with their way of doing things and so she left… was it?

“Destroying and devouring souls… Goes far beyond just killing a person. At the time, I decided I would do everything I could to find a way to stop them. But… It was basically impossible.”
“Impossible?”
“There is nearly no knowledge about souls. Their mere existence is a mystery. Nobody could perceive them, after all. Even I only stumbled upon it by coincidence, having watched the witch. At the time I was only able to perceive it for a short instant. Not even the blink of an eye.”

There was… no knowledge about them?

“Knowledge about magic was fragmentary at best at the time. And those who had knowledge guarded it fiercely. Fairly few even heard of Soul Magic before. Marvels like the magic fortresses were secrets beyond compare.”

They kept it secret… No wonder nobody had knowledge then.

“Maybe someone knew what I was looking for at a different place. But before I ever found out anything… her companions perished.”
“Eh? They… perished?”
“The Great Spirit War. Her children were strong… But not strong enough to fight a Great Spirit and survive.”
“A Great Spirit…”

The festival in Larfas, this city, had been dedicated to these Great Spirits. They seemed to be like… god-like creatures?

“Only the Witch lived through it. She gave life to many children during the Great Spirit War but scarcely any survived.”
“Nn… What exactly was this Great Spirit War?”
“The Great Spirit War was… a war between several Great Spirits. A fight for supremacy and power. Great Spirits were far more common at the time but then… many perished… were destroyed.”

The Elder lifted her head, leaning back on her chair.

“In the name of the Great Spirits, the humanoids fought each other as well. Even many fairykin joined. It was a truly calamitous war.”
“Did… you fight as well?”
“I did. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be alive anymore.”
“...”

Even the Elder had fought…

“... I apologise, Cursed brat, Miss Ria… But… I think I will stop here. I know I promised to talk but...”
“Eh?”
“... I understand.”
“Nn?”

Why the heck did she suddenly stop now?
The Elder stood up from the chair and pushed it away. Meanwhile, Ria leaned over to me, whispering, so that the Elder wouldn’t hear.

“Yumi… It’s probably… a hard topic… for her…”
“A hard… Ah.”

It was a war. And wars weren’t pretty. People fought and died, even those you might know. It was likely a traumatic experience… for the Elder.

“I see…”

I had to admit that… I still wanted to hear more about this Great Spirit War… But not on the Elder’s expense.

“We have… books about it… You can… read them… if you want...”
“Books… Nn, I will, Ria.”

Back to the books… I didn’t dislike books but… There was a difference between reading it from a book or listening to someone who actually experienced it.

“Cursed brat, Miss Ria. I am certain we still have to tidy up this place. We should probably do so, before the sun sets.”
“Right… We still have to clean this up…”

Well, it was kind of our punishment… And our own fault, too. So it was only right that we would clean it up… That didn’t mean I’d like doing that, though.

“Guess we’ll have to…”

---

Around half an hour or so later…

“Cursed brat, hold it tight.”
“Nn.”
“And… done… You can let go now.”
“Nn, okay.”

I slowly took a step back and… The tent was standing. It was back to normal.

“We’re done…”
“Mm… We are…”

Cleaning up everything was thankfully not that bad. The tent and the table were beyond saving but for everything else, the damage was surprisingly little. Picking everything up and then setting up a new tent, as well as getting a new table, and most of the work was already over with.

“... But, what do we do about those scraps, Ria?”
“Mm… Can you make… use of them?”
“Nn… Maybe?”
“Then… take them…”
“Okay.”

We collected the remains of the puppet as well and put them into a bag. It was just wood but… Maybe I could still figure something out of it. If not, well… I could still recycle it.

“Then… Is it okay if I fetch them later?”
“Mm… I’ll just leave… them here…”

Great.

“Then, I’ll… go and take a bath.”

All the dust, splinters and all the other stuff made me quite dirty… I wanted to bath together with Karen but since the others were effectively just bystanders, they already went ahead and took a bath. I was a little jealous… Albeit they had to force Karen to leave me behind. She resisted rather vehemently but Korwen knew no mercy...

“Mm… Have fun…”
“Cursed brat.”
“Nn?”
“The story I have told you… Do you understand why I did not want to tell you about it?”
“...”

The matter with devouring souls… was it…

“Nn. I think I do.”
“... Good. Then let me tell you one more thing.”
“Nn?”

There was something else?

“Let this matter not steer your sight away from what you are. Power is not inherently evil. But should you ever turn to the path that misuses this power… I will stop you with all my might.”
“... I understand.”
“Good.”

Having gotten my answer, the Elder turned around and disappeared into the newly erected tent.
I stared silently after her for a few seconds, my thoughts dwelling about her words. Power wasn’t inherently evil, she said… I could agree with that.

Was she… trying to motivate me with that?

Leaving behind the tent, I made my way towards the bath at a leisurely tempo. My escort guard, who had simply watched our clean-up from a distance, followed me.

 I felt a little happy that she started telling me a little about these things. Also, hearing about her past was slightly interesting. Albeit… Much to my disappointment she hadn’t told us much about her specific adventures… Just a summary...
But she wasn’t a storyteller or something, so maybe it had been inevitable. Either way, I was glad I had heard her story.

The Great Spirit War… What are Great Spirits even… I probably should read up on these things…

I was lacking a lot of historical and common knowledge… Unsurprisingly, really. There was much I had to learn about… Unfortunately, I had to set priorities. And after the incident with Yumelia… My priority definitely was magic for now.

It’s too bad that there is barely any information about Life Magic… Or Soul and Lust magic, for that matter.

Speaking of which… the Charm Yumelia had used was… Lust magic, right? And the way she got rid of everyone there was likely Lust magic as well… But how did one even do that with Lust magic? Lust was… well, sexual desire, right?

Maybe she lured them away with their sexual desire… No, that doesn’t feel right. Nobody could quite explain why they avoided that place. It was more like… They didn’t even think about going there.

Not thinking, huh…

“Yumi!”
“Nn? Huh? Sis?”

A familiar voice had called out to me… Standing in front of the bathing tent was Karen. Next to her stood Lily and Rina.

“What are you all doing here?”
“We were waiting for you so we could take a bath.”
“Eh? You didn’t take one yet.”
“We didn’t.”

My eyes went wide at Karen’s words. These three had waited for me… Probably for pretty long.

“It was a compromise with Karen, Yumi. She would’ve run back otherwise…”
“Ahh…”
“Lil’ Sis! Lil’ Sis!”
“Nn?”

Rina walked up to me, a big smile on her face. Then, for some reason, she hugged me.

“Rina?”
“Ehehe, lil’ Sis, you know… Let’s all bathe together!”
“... Nn, that’s okay.”
“Yay! We have the bath for us four all alone, you see!”
“Oh? Did everyone else finish already?”
“They did!”

The large bath for only the four of us… That was going to be pretty nice.

“Ahaha… Sorry about that, Yumi.”
“Nn? Why sorry.”

I tilted my head at Lily’s sudden apology.

“Well, you… could have had the bath all alone with Karen, you know?”
“...”

That was unfortunate… But…

“Lily. You two could have had the bath for you alone as well.”
“Eh?!”

Lily’s eyes went as wide as saucers at my retort. And Rina, who was still hugging me, stiffened.

“Tha— That’s! Still too early! Too early!”

Too early? But, didn’t these two…

“Lily! Next time, let’s bath together, only us!”
“Ehhh?”
“Let’s do it!”
“... Uhh.”

Ahhh… Yeah…
It was clear that this proactiveness ran in the blood of these two sisters… Rina was quite forceful, huh.
And Lily was surprisingly shy about all of it. But also happy, seeing how her fluffy ears twitched so much. Too bad I couldn’t see her tail in the dark all that well, but it seemed to be moving as well. Rather furiously.

“Lil’ Sis!”
“Nn?”
“Today, let’s have lots of skinship with the four of us.”
“Nn, that’s oka—

Wait… skinship? She wasn’t suggesting… what I was thinking of… was she?

“Rina... That’s a little too much…
“Huh? What’s the problem?”
“That’s, uhm… You should only do that with Lily.”
“Mm?”

Now it was Rina’s turn to tilt her head in a confused manner.

“Yumi… She doesn’t mean what you are thinking of.”
“... She doesn’t, Sis?”
“She doesn’t. She just wants us all to get closer.”
“Ahhh… I see… That’s a relief.”
“... Is it really?”
“Nn?”

Karen was furrowing her brows, seemingly suspicious.

“Lil’ Sis, what did you think I mean?”
“Eh? Ahhh…. Nothing important! I just misunderstood it in a stupid way!”
“Mm?”
“Yumi, you pervert.”
“I don’t want to hear that from you, Lily.”

She was at the very least just as much of a pervert. Same for Karen. I didn’t know about Rina and I honestly didn’t want to, either.

“Haaa… You all… Let’s just get into the bath, okay?”

Karen suggested, looking a little exasperated.

“Nn, let’s bath. Rina, could you let go of me?”
“Okay!”

And with a bit of a commotion, we went to take a bath.
Needless to say… Karen was later interrogating me quite a bit about my misunderstanding.