21

“A changeling??”

Noel felt greasy sweat run down his back.

“That is why she can hear and speak the wordless words of spirits. Even now, Beth is not good with human words, is she?”

Oberon said it as though it were perfectly obvious.

“Changelings who learn human words normally forget the language of spirits, though. That girl’s foster parent was a human who had lost language, was he not? Because she grew up in the human world until she became a child, yet remained untouched by human language, she grew while still understanding the language of spirits, despite being human.”

Noel finally understood the secret of Beth’s Green Thumb.

And why it felt so comfortable to be before Beth.

And why every life in the greenhouse seemed so happy before Beth.

Beth directly listened carefully to all the voices of the lives in the greenhouse, received them with that beautiful heart of hers, and returned them with her hands.

Beth did not need human words. She was not misled by human words.

Noel remembered Beth’s nostalgic, gentle smile, and tears nearly overflowed.

—And then he realized something very important.

“Oberon. …Surely you did not take changelings because human hands are necessary for the succession of the Fairy King…”

Oberon smiled slowly and said, without any sign of guilt.

“Ah, Noel, you truly are clever. That is right.”

“The succession of the Fairy King requires human hands. I wonder how many abducted children Beth makes now. The previous succession involved a life cared for by an eccentric witch, but eccentric witches do not appear that often. The fairies decided on their own that it would be faster to abduct human children into the spirit realm, and so they abduct them from here and there.”

“…What happened to the other children the fairies abducted?”

Noel suppressed his trembling voice and questioned Oberon with anger.

“You should not be so angry, Noel. Fairies are whimsical. They only abduct children when they feel like it. The children brought in besides Beth all reached the end of their lives in the spirit world, though there were rare ones who escaped from the spirit world and returned to being human. None of those children were useful to me, however.”

Blood rushed to Noel’s head.

Throughout history, there had been many missing children who were believed to have been victims of changelings.

Reflexively, he formed attack magic and aimed it at Oberon.

“…Have you ever thought about the lives of the human children abducted for your own convenience, or the hearts of the parents whose children were taken from them!!!!!”

Without so much as flinching, Oberon moved his finger slightly, and Noel was blown away to the edge of the greenhouse together with his attack magic by a shockwave.

“Uwaaaaaah!!!!!”

With a heavy thud, Noel slammed hard into the wall, struck his head violently, and collapsed to the ground.

Oberon said to Noel, who was lying on the ground.

“Such things are trivial. You people also use animals, make them bear offspring, then kill and eat them, do you not? You are worse than we are. Through changelings, we let them enter the spirit world from the barbaric human world. The children are treated with care, and they are freed from the ugliness, suffering, and sorrow of the human world. Noel. You should know the suffering of the human world well.”

When Oberon stared at him with both eyes, black like a void and without whites, Noel felt as though his past, his future, and his present were all being seen through completely.

Noel had no words to answer with.

“…Cough, cough, haah, haah. Beth, haah… What do you intend to do with her now?”

Oberon said in good humor.

“I will do nothing to her. That girl is the benefactor who succeeded in bringing about the succession of the Fairy King. She will be received with special treatment in the spirit world. That girl will become Oberon’s beloved child, and she will be treated with care in the spirit world until her life ends. …Ah, it is about time I went to welcome my beloved child. I sense that girl’s presence very close by.”

“Cough… D-don’t tell me, cough… Beth is in the Royal Capital??”

The next instant, golden magical lightning flashed across the entire sky of the Royal Capital, and all the magic of the King’s barrier surrounding the Royal Capital was suddenly overwritten. With the great release of magical power, Noel could see the barriers and magic here and there throughout the Magic Institute beginning to warp limply.

“Gyaaaaaah!! Wh-wh-wh-what!!! Noel-sama, what is happening!!”

Rodney, who seemed to have finally recovered consciousness from his half-fainted state, pitifully collapsed to the floor again on the verge of fainting. It seemed he had slightly wet himself this time, so Noel quietly pretended not to see it.

Noel recognized this magical power. It seemed he had cut the inside of his mouth. Wiping away the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, Noel muttered.

“Princess Eugenia…”

At the autumn festival, she would free Noel from everything.

He remembered that the princess had certainly declared that to Noel.

“Oh! The human world is also undergoing a royal succession. This is truly fascinating.”

Oberon laughed loudly and happily, and from the shockwave, a wind blew so violently through the greenhouse that it was impossible to stand.

Oberon soared high into the air, flapped his great wings, generated particles of light in all directions, and filled the greenhouse with them.

Inside the greenhouse, space-time was distorted by the particles of light Oberon had generated, and Noel became dizzy as his body was pulled into the distortion of space-time, but against the strength of that power, he could not resist at all.

“Now, I have opened the spirit path. Beth, walk here.”