15-1 Messenger From The Forest

This morning too, after the daily war in the dining hall ended, I took a broom and went out for my routine cleaning in front of the gate, and there was a child peeking inside from the gate’s shadow.

She was a cute blond girl.

At a glance, she looked about seven years old.

This was…

“Déjà vu.”

I tried appraising her for a moment.

“Nymph of the Spirit Forest. Currently on an errand.”

So that was it.

She was on an errand, huh? How admirable.

I deliberately pretended not to notice and tried sweeping around there.

Then she toddled through the gate.

As I wondered what she would do, she timidly called out to me with a troubled look.

“Um…”

“Oops, it’s dirty over there too. I have to clean!”

“Eek, wait. Please listen to me.”

Oh my, that troubled face was rather cute.

“Did you come from the Spirit Forest?”

“Y-yes. I did…”

Then she staggered over to me and hugged me.

My mana was being sucked away at an incredible speed, almost as if she were making slurping sounds.

Was she hungry?

Then I guess it could not be helped.

She stayed like that for a while, but since she would not let go no matter how long passed, I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and forcibly peeled her off.

All these spirits were like this.

“Aww, just a little more.”

“No. I won’t listen to what you have to say.”

“That would trouble me.”

For the time being, I brought her inside, and when I served her cake in my room, she gobbled it down with all her might.

The other spirits stationed at our place also gathered.

These guys were more or less always near me too.

How should I put it… a human buffet?

Eventually, perhaps having sniffed out the smell of cake, the sacred Elion arrived.

When I served her cake, she clung to it and, with her usual snorting, sent cream flying from her nose.

“Th-this is Lady Rainbow Fals.”

The nymph hurriedly stood up and bowed.

However, her mouth was covered in cream.

She was still clutching a fork in her hand too.

Unfortunately, the one being bowed to was the same way.

On top of that, Fal seemed absorbed in the cake and was not listening.

For the moment, the little nymph also gave up on continuing the conversation and resumed eating her cake.

Then, after she finished eating, she finally seemed to realize she had not introduced herself yet and greeted me.

“I am a nymph of the Spirit Forest, and my name is Sylvie. I usually serve Lady Alpha.”

“Alpha?”

“Ah, yes. She is the Rainbow Fals who is currently in the Spirit Forest. She is called Rainbow Fals Alpha. The only Rainbow Fals until now. As the founder of her kind. Until Lady Fal was born, that is.”

Hmm.

She must have appeared during Takeshi’s wedding, so a thousand years had passed since then.

Since they said a Rainbow Fals had appeared only once in the past, did that mean beings called Fals lived quite long after all?

Or was Rainbow Fals special?

“So?”

“Um, the elder of the Spirit Forest would like you to bring Lady Fal to the Spirit Forest once.”

Hmm, so that was what this was about.

“Then where is your village located?”

I visualized the map and showed it to her as I asked.

“Um, you go this way and that way, like this, I think. If traveling by an ordinary human carriage, I think it would take about five days from here.”

From what I heard from her, judging by the map, it was about two hundred kilometers from here.

“Would it be all right if I brought the children here along? Along with twenty caretakers and twenty adventurer guards. Altogether, there would be about a hundred of us.”

“…Um, why would you do that?”

“I want to hold an autumn field trip. I was just having trouble deciding on the destination.”

Yes, I had completed the bus because I wanted to hold a field trip.

After all, what kind of kindergarten would not hold a field trip?

Mine had been a nursery school, but my parents were often sick, and even when a vendor came to the nursery school for an on-the-spot sale of field trip snacks, there was nothing a single small child could do, so I alone had watched that fun scene, hanging my head while practically sucking my fingers.

Thanks to that trauma, I had been fixated on “nursery school field trip penny snacks” until I was fairly old.

I would absolutely not let our children feel that way.

As usual, the field trip bus was a sham product that was just a shell with tires attached and moved by magic, but well, it was a matter of atmosphere.

All impacts and such were absorbed by magic.

There was also that cushioning magic used to fill the gaps in armor, after all.

It was a salon bus with toilets and sofas too.

Naturally, it was also something that could fly by magic and shorten travel time.

Even if we played too much and ran short on time over there, we could just return by teleportation magic on the way back.

Apparently, spirits could communicate their intentions even across long distances.

She immediately got permission for us.

Since the Spirit Forest was a sacred place, apparently outsiders would normally never be allowed inside, but I decided to force my way through with my usual strong-arming.

The other side probably also felt bad about suddenly pushing troublesome matters onto me.

Permission was granted quite easily.

Sylvie would be staying with us as the field trip guide.

Since Jolly was a high-ranking great high priest, she would be placed under him.

But from the side, they looked like nothing more than two small, cute children.

Come to think of it, I had not yet seen Jolly’s manifested form as a spirit.

For now, I decided to start preparing for the field trip.

I had already made various prototypes of field trip backpacks.

All the little kids became models for each other and began a little fashion show.

The girls were posing proudly, and the boys were simply running wild.

Well, I suppose that did serve as reference too.

After all, there was no way boys going on a field trip for the first time in their lives would not go wild.

A heated debate also began over the packed lunches.

This old man, of course, belonged to the rice ball faction.

The container for them was a thin yellow, or rather ivory-colored, plastic one with a mesh-like pattern, the kind I used when I was a child.

Along with that, I prepared the metal, gasket-sealed side-dish container I had used for field trips too, as well as cute children’s water bottles.

The children seemed extremely excited, with some thinking Japanese-style sandwiches were supreme, while others said no, skewered grilled meat with bread was the best.

Requests like “Put in mini burgers,” and “Hot dogs,” flew all over the place.

Though food around that area would be better grilled on-site.

This was already, well, that.

Rather than having each child carry their own, maybe it would be better for each group to share and eat together.

Though the true charm of a field trip was everyone taking out the packed lunches they liked from their backpacks and eating them.

In any case, I decided to have the children submit requests for the packed lunches they wanted to bring.

For dishes that were better freshly made, we could cook them on-site in addition to what each child carried individually.

If worse came to worst, I could take something out of the item box, and I could also go shopping by teleportation magic.

The children’s excitement over the kindergarten’s first event going somewhere far away would not stop.

Furthermore, when the discussion turned to snacks, it became completely impossible to manage.

Well, look forward to it.

This old man was looking forward to it so much he could hardly stand it.

The little cat was enthusiastic too.

Come to think of it, I had been so occupied with Fal lately that I had not paid much attention to Remi.

When I patted her head, she looked happy.

She no longer recklessly swatted away an adult’s hand.

When I picked her up, she rubbed her head against me sweetly.

This child too would probably come to dislike being held someday.

But until then, I would stay like this.