New Power

And so, I immediately decided to try making orchards for each attribute in Tree Village.

The location was in front of the forest where Simurg-san lived.

I decided to use the space that spread out between the village and the forest.

“It’s a forest where Element Trees are placed, so it’s simple, but wouldn’t Element Forest be fine?”

Adopting Nadja’s suggestion like that, the name was decided as Element Forest.

Thinking about the future, I decided to make the same forest in Guinea Village too, though on a small scale. Once the World Tree over there grew large, spirits would probably appear there too, after all.

Since I was going to put effort into making it, it would be a waste to make spirit protection its only purpose.

So I decided to make this not just a place for ordinary trees, but an experimental site for managing Element-type trees somewhere away from my direct control.

Ideally, after trial and error, we would eventually be able to harvest and preserve Element Fruits without my help.

Until now, I or Simurg-san had managed them, but it would be bad to keep troubling Simurg-san forever, and perhaps the time had finally come for them to leave our hands.

I decided to try entrusting the management to someone.

When it came to trees, elves naturally came to mind, but I had already asked them to manage ordinary trees.

After discussing it with Utena-san, we decided that we might entrust it to the elves who had been coming here little by little recently, but there would not be enough people that way.

So we came up with a plan.

—We decided to have the elves and dark elves manage it together.

“Hmm, will this truly be all right…?”

The one saying that and tilting her head was Utena-san, who was in charge of afforestation in Tree Village.

For the establishment and maintenance of Element Forest, I would also have her and her elf subordinates, who were in charge of afforestation, lend their strength.

For this matter too, I planned to have Utena-san serve as the person in charge.

“I think it’ll probably be all right. There’s no one who hates cute things, after all.”

“Is that how it works…? Well, I do certainly think both are cute.”

The meeting place we were heading toward was a place close to the House Tree given to the elves. We intended to introduce an elf and a dark elf who had been looking for work in Tree Village there.

Just like the dwarves, elves and dark elves also possessed faith in spirits.

In that case, there was no one more suited than them to manage this place where the spirits would live.

With elves alone, there were not enough people.

And among the dark elves, of those who did not wish to become soldiers, there were still several people who had not found work.

In order to solve various problems, it was quite a good move.

…Whether it would go well or not, though, we would not know until we tried.

When we arrived, there were two figures keeping their distance from each other.

Utena-san handled the elf, while I handled the dark elf, and we had them meet each other.

“Why do we have to work with dark elves… At this rate, talking will be… (mutter, mutter)”

The one saying that with a displeased expression was the elf, Giigu-san.

“Did you say something, Giigu?”

“N-no, nothing at all! My name is Giigu. I look forward to working with you!”

Among the elves of Bibi Village, Utena-san apparently held a fairly high position, and Giigu-san looked quite tense.

In front of her, it seemed even he could not object.

“I-it is nice to meet you.”

And the one timidly glancing at the elf with downcast eyes was the dark elf, Juna-san.

She, for her part, was polite and bowed her head.

“Well then, shall we go? It isn’t that far from here, so there should be no problem.”

Thinking of this as a model case for the future, Utena-san and I explained things together.

When we arrived at Element Forest, the first thing that came over us was a wave of heat.

“Ugh, it’s hot…”

“It is only a little better than the desert…”

First, at the very front, was Fire Forest, where various fire-attribute trees made through crossbreeding with Fire Trees stood in rows.

Because a large number of blazing trees were lined up there, it was very hot.

Just walking through Fire Forest made sweat pour down.

Giigu-san the elf, who was not used to heat, seemed to be having a hard time, while Juna-san the dark elf, who had lived in the desert for a long time, still seemed to have quite a bit of composure.

“Woody-sama, here you are.”

“Thanks.”

Seeing me sweating, Aira made a chilled towel for me.

While wiping my face and enjoying the cool sensation, I explained the trees one by one.

—Incidentally, Fire Marrons, explosives that could be used militarily, and Fire Mulberries, which could be used as scattershot, were the only ones not here.

Things that were dangerous and seemed likely to be misused if they fell into human hands were, as expected, being grown quietly in places out of sight.

“Whew, that solved the problem all at once…”

After passing through the blazing Fire Forest, we next came to Water Forest, which had large numbers of water-attribute Element Fruit trees.

The ground was full of puddles, and the humidity was extremely high.

Because of the rebound from the heat earlier, the comfort won out, but if I had come here suddenly, it would probably have felt damp and unpleasant.

Beyond that was Earth Forest, where the amount of earth kept increasing and the elevation gradually rose, and after passing through it, we came to Wind Forest, where intense winds blew against us.

“What a number of mysterious trees… I thought I would have no trouble managing trees, but I am starting to lose a little confidence…”

As Giigu-san let out a large sigh, a pig came trotting over to his feet.

“Oink.”

The one rubbing its feet against him as if to say, “Do your best,” was a Wind Pig.

It seemed it had not come out because it was shy around strangers, but naturally, Tree Guardian Beasts had also been placed in the other forests.

Incidentally, though there were not many of them, spirits also existed here.

For now, I had not noticed them just by looking like this, though.

Since managing all the trees by human labor alone would be difficult, we had decided to leave the things they could do to these Tree Guardian Beasts.

Compared to Wood Golems, Tree Guardian Beasts were quite intelligent, so we could entrust them with tasks like keeping watch over thieves or people plotting to take these trees back with them.

“The pig-san is cute…”

Juna-san did not seem to have taken that much damage and was gazing at the Wind Pig with sparkling eyes.

Seeing Juna-san looking energetic, Giigu-san roused himself as if refusing to lose.

Watching that, the Wind Pig blew wind around them as though to say, “Well done.”

“And so, this is the full picture of Element Forest.”

“Past that gap over there is the forest where Divine Bird Simurg-sama resides, so entry beyond this point is strictly forbidden.”

The place Utena-san pointed to as she said that was the forest where Simurg-san lived.

Since we had reorganized the sections during this forest-building, we had made it in a conspicuous location one level higher than the surroundings.

Tree Guardian Beasts had also been placed around it for security, so people should not enter it except under very unusual circumstances.

“There were spirits too.”

When Juna-san said that in a gentle manner, Giigu-san looked surprised.

“Th-there are even spirits!?”

“Yes. We have seen them several times and gotten used to them, so we are not surprised, but they are quite surprising at first.”

Juna-san, who had already grown accustomed to life in Tree Village, seemed to be taking the lead with Giigu-san, who had only just arrived in Tree Village and was still unused to many things.

At first, Giigu-san had been muttering things like “together with a dark elf…” but as he looked at Element Forest and the Tree Guardian Beasts, perhaps the small details stopped mattering, because he opened up to Juna-san normally.

“Hmm, it seems many things will be difficult… but I look forward to working with you, Juna-dono.”

“I look forward to working with you too, Giigu-san.”

The two of them shook hands.

They probably had not fully let their guard down yet, but it seemed Giigu-san also had the intention of properly meeting her halfway.

“Ah, right. Utena-san, this is sudden, but would it be all right if I planted several trees in Element Forest?”

Since today was only the first meeting, after having Juna-san and the others disperse, I remembered what I had planned to do.

“Um… of course, that is fine. Fortunately, I hear there is still plenty of room in the Sanctuary, and there is no problem with more trees being added.”

Since I had permission, I decided to take advantage of her words and plant some trees.

Thanks to planting new House Trees recently and other such things, my Tree Planting had progressed, and my Tree Planting level was finally about to rise.

I wanted to raise it to a good stopping point here.

It looked like this, so I only needed four hundred more trees, but I had ended up putting it off for various reasons.

I could level up itself by planting Wood Golems and putting them into the Harvest Bag, but it felt like a waste to stockpile a large number of them unused.

Since I wanted to use them in a way that would help my people, this Element Forest orchard was perfect timing.

With a thunderous rumble, I decided to plant trees vigorously.

While keeping things well-balanced so the scenery would not be spoiled as much as possible.

For the time being, it felt like there were slightly fewer Water Trees, so I planted a few more of them.

“Myaa.”

While I was planting, I could see spirits too.

Apparently, being surrounded by trees of the same attribute as themselves did not feel bad, and their excitement seemed higher than when I had seen them before.

Several of the spirits, as expected, climbed onto my head.

Was my head some kind of power spot for spirits…?

“Your amount of tree planting has reached a certain quantity. Level up! New trees that can be planted have been unlocked! You have acquired the Tree Improvement skill! Harvest Bag has changed into Harvest Bag (Improved)!”

While I was thinking about that, my Tree Planting level rose.

In terms of points, I could raise it one more level, but planting more than three thousand trees from here would be exhausting, so this was enough for today.

I was happy that new trees had been unlocked.

And also… Tree Improvement?

Could this perhaps be… the skill I had been wanting all this time?