Chapter 2 — 봄의 안배

Part 2, Episode 6

Spring’s Arrangement

After Elric left.

Arseus, hands clasped behind his back, strolled alone through Arcadia, which had returned to its original state.

Was he pleased to have met the “child of prophecy” the Progenitor had spoken of?

The smile wouldn’t leave his lips.

“Let’s hope he raises him well. After all I’ve done, it would be a real shame if he botched it.”

Just then, at the very spot where Elric had been standing moments ago, a tiny sapling poked its head up.

Arseus gently stroked it and spoke.

“Don’t you think so, Ygg?”

Yggdrasil.

It was the name of the seed Arseus had handed to Elric.

A name that belonged to the World Tree of legend.

Without realizing it, Elric had begun to grow a World Tree in the depths of his unconscious.

Since ancient times, the World Tree has been said to link heaven and earth at the center of the world.

The taller it grows, the greater the power it will lend Elric.

Power that could, if nurtured, make him a god.

In truth, in Arseus’s time, the last surviving World Tree was snapped by the Demon God.

Arseus had fled with nothing but the seed clutched to his breast.

He vanished early from history for the sake of protecting that seed.

But time had passed, and at last he had found a place to plant it.

All he could do now was wish for it to grow well.

Gazing at the new Yggdrasil that would grow without end, Arseus murmured softly:

“He’ll do well. If he’s a child who knows life.”

His eyes turned toward somewhere.

As though looking at someone.

“Don’t you think so, Progenitor?”

* * *

『Son of a—! …Spring… mana… don’t tell me…!』

Elric opened his eyes to Mephisto’s voice, faint as if from far away.

He glanced aside; Mephisto was right next to him, ranting about something.

His head was too muddled to make sense of it.

Beside Mephisto, Tasha was also hopping about, shouting here and there.

‘Why does everything sound…’

His ears weren’t blown, yet the sounds came through as a dull mutter, as if cut off.

“Ah…!”

Only then did Elric realize the emerald facet of the Arcane Matrix was blazing, swallowing all surrounding noise.

As he banked his mana, the ruckus came rushing back.

『Damn it! Bloody Merwinger bastards! I didn’t think they’d pull pointless crap like this too.』

“Sir Elric, are you all right? You collapsed out of nowhere…. Hey! Is the physician still far off?”

It seemed chaos had erupted when he blacked out entering Arrangement.

Tasha, thinking there’d been an assassination attempt, was on high alert and calling for a healer.

“I’m fine. More importantly….”

There was something he had to do before calming the startled Tasha.

From the Arcane Matrix coiling around the dragon eggs in midair, lances of light were spilling forth.

‘This is…’

Elric reached out to the eggs and fed them the emerald light he had gathered.

At once he felt the Mark of the Divine on the back of his hand quiver.

Mephisto must have sensed something in that instant; he jolted and shrieked.

『You rotten—! Hey, stop!!』

Of course, Elric wasn’t the sort to listen.

“Awaken.”

With the incantation, the mana stone and the dragon eggs resonated, power linking them as one.

Mana surged and thrashed.

Vwoom, vwoo-oom!

Ziiiing…!

Fwoooosh—

The eggs shivered hard, wreathing themselves in halos of light.

Anyone could see they were readying to break free.

“N-no way….”

Eyes wide, Tasha clapped a hand over her mouth, looking between the eggs and Elric.

Click, click!

As Elric felt the invisible tethers of soul snap into place, he caught the thoughts radiating from the three eggs.

‘…They want to come out.’

He knew instinctively how to wake them.

Following the lines only he could see, Elric poured mana into each of the eggs.

The eggs devoured it greedily.

He tried to feed them slowly, lest they overdo it.

But the three acted as if that were nonsense, clamoring for more and more.

Like hatchlings begging their mother for food.

So Elric had no choice but to supply even more.

‘Huh…?’

Before long he was pouring in far more than he’d intended.

“W-what’s wrong with this thing?!”

Only then did Elric realize something was off and tried to pull back.

Too late.

The eggs were already guzzling his mana like starved fiends.

The stony dust that had clung to the shells sloughed away, revealing their true form—

Gem-bright and radiant.

“Good heavens….”

Tasha watched, eyes brimming.

Elric felt like death, but the eggs didn’t care, sucking his mana down to the marrow.

As they did, they swelled, growing far larger than a man’s torso.

『Damn it! Don’t tell me those freaks that went extinct over a thousand years ago are coming back!』

Mephisto snarled, face twisted in disgust.

“I… can’t…!”

Elric had no room to spare for any of that.

His mana didn’t just run dry; it cracked like parched earth.

And then—

Crack!

A fracture ran across one of the eggs.

Tasha and the scholars who’d followed her watched, stunned, as the impossible unfolded.

Cra-rack!

At last, the first egg split.

“Kyu-uu!”

With iridescent scales of molten gold—

“A Gold! It’s a Gold—!”

A Gold Dragon.

Blinking its reptilian, slit-pupiled eyes and cocking its head, it made Tasha’s nose burst.

“The famed, brilliant lord among the ancient drakes—a Gold Dragon…!”

The scholars of House Neresta, drawn by the commotion, wept at the sight.

“I never thought I’d live to witness the revival of a dragon thought extinct a millennium ago…!”

“O, gods above!”

“This will change magic itself! Ahahaha!”

At that historic moment, the scholars leapt up, cheering.

And it didn’t end there.

Moments later, the other eggs split in turn.

One Red, one Black.

Slightly smaller than the Gold, but every bit as imposing as they broke free of their shells.

The excitement ran so hot it set the entire cavern abuzz.

“This is insane…! This is the find of the century! Sir Elric…!”

Tasha spoke with blood running from her other nostril as well.

A twin nosebleed—and beaming.

Elric, however, had no strength left to answer.

“The world’s… spinning….”

Only then did Tasha look back at him, gasp, and cry out.

“S-Sir Elric?”

Pale as paper, Elric toppled backward.

And fainted.

Tasha and the shocked scholars rushed in to catch him.

Mana exhaustion.

* * *

“Ugh….”

On the bed.

Elric slowly opened his eyes.

Tasha hovered over him, face tight with worry.

“A-are you all right? When you suddenly collapsed, we were all so scared…!”

After a moment to take stock, Elric asked,

“How long was I out?”

“About a day.”

After he’d collapsed, Tasha had rushed him to a clinic in the nearest village.

With a diagnosis of mana exhaustion and a prescription for rest, they took rooms at an inn.

‘I collapsed from mana exhaustion, and it’s only been a day?’

Elric frowned inwardly.

People usually needed a month or two to recuperate from something like this.

If you had exceptional mana regeneration, maybe a week.

‘A day is too fast.’

He was surprised at how refreshed he felt.

He raised his left hand and looked at the Mark of the Divine.

‘It must be the Mark of the Divine, right? This is… busted.’

Mana exhaustion was putting it mildly—his mana roads had felt cracked and ruined.

And yet, in a single day, he was back to peak condition.

Elric’s heart thumped at the Mark’s power.

“You shouldn’t be getting up yet…!”

“I’m fine.”

He calmed Tasha as she moved to stop him, then paused, suddenly aware of a heavy weight on his stomach.

“…Huh?”

“The dragonlings are sleeping!”

Apparently, what Tasha worried about more than him were these little ones.

‘Dragonlings…?’

He looked down to find three dragons the size of human heads sprawled across his belly, fast asleep.

“….”

Watching the Gold roll over in its sleep, Tasha nearly drooled.

‘Figures. I was wondering why they were here.’

Shaking his head, Elric asked Tasha,

“How long have they been like this?”

She snapped back to herself, wiped her mouth, and said,

“Ah, sorry. I tried to pull them off so you wouldn’t be uncomfortable… but they just wouldn’t budge.”

“Hm.”

Elric tried to sit up and ease the dragons aside, but as she’d said, they were like boulders—utterly immovable.

He could have pried them off with mana if he really wanted to.

But he didn’t.

‘The mana link is still there.’

Even after hatching, the connection hadn’t broken.

They felt like extensions of himself; he couldn’t bring himself to handle them roughly.

Instead, he set one atop his head and cradled the other two in his arms, managing to sit up at last.

“It’s fine. Like you said, there’s no need to wake them when they’re sleeping so well.”

Tasha looked at him with shining, moved eyes.

Kiiing—

At the little sleep noise the Gold made as it rolled around on Elric’s head—

“Ahhh….”

Tasha let out a blissed-out sigh.

Snik.

Another twin nosebleed blossomed.

“M-Miss Tasha!”

Hanabi rushed to her side in alarm.

Elric blinked, then glanced at the trash bin.

It was stuffed with bloodied tissues.

“….”

…At this point, shouldn’t she go to a hospital for blood loss?

Bothered by the commotion, the Gold cracked one eye open, looked at Tasha, pretended not to have seen, and closed it again.

Then it wriggled down into Elric’s hair, finding a snug spot.

Kyu…

“Gasp!”

Tasha clutched her chest at the lethal cuteness.

“I can’t believe… dragons are this adorable.”

Even the attendants were looking at the hatchlings with warm eyes.

Meanwhile—

There was one person—no, one demon—who looked at them with naked disgust.

Mephisto chewed his nails as he muttered at the three hatchlings.

『Bloody hell… I need to do something about this.』

For a demon who loathed dragons, the fact that they had actually returned made him itch with impatience.

Demons’ ancient nemesis, dragons.

They had hunted them down one by one, finally believing them extinct.

And now here they were, back again, growing right under his nose. It was maddening.

Of course, Elric wasn’t about to sit back and watch.

[Just try laying a finger on them. I’ll blow your head off first.]

Elric glared daggers at him as he sent the warning.

『Son of a—!』

All Mephisto could do for now was grind his teeth.

* * *

With dragons dangling from him, Elric straightened his clothes and went downstairs.

“Miss Tasha, I have a favor to ask.”

Tasha, who had arrived first and was waiting, composed herself for a serious talk.

Not that her gaze—and everyone else’s—wasn’t still glued to the hatchlings hanging off Elric like fruit.

“Yes. Go ahead.”

Elric gave a wry smile inside and continued.

“If we’re going to raise these dragonlings, we’ll need to know their diet and habits.”

“Ah, I was already looking into various things at the nest.”

Elric had no intention of being careless about raising them.

The moment the mana bond formed, he understood instinctively.

All three dragons were linked by the Mark of the Divine.

And only by raising them properly would he be able to—

‘Move on to Summer’s Arrangement.’

The Talent-Devouring Mage