CH 18

”Haven’t you noticed?”

Wisteria, who had been tucking her hair into a bun, suddenly stopped her hands.

“What is it?”

Wisteria turned her head in the direction of the voice.

A sword, which always looked beautiful, was propped up on an ugly, handmade stand.

The tip of the handle was embedded with a gemstone, and it was sheathed from its flat golden guard to its tip.

Wisteria was well aware that there wasn’t a single scratch on the long silver blade inside the scabbard.

The sword always looked as though it was reclining, perhaps because it was so mismatched to the simple stand.

“What didn’t I notice, Salt?”

“Think back. I don’t know if you’re finally getting senile.”

The voice, which was truly rude, came from nothing else but the sword.

The holy sword “Salutis”–Wisteria had been calling it Salt for a long time now–had existed as a sword with its own consciousness for a long time. Ever since Wisteria came to the “Grey Lands,” it had been her only roommate.

Is there something wrong? Wisteria automatically looked around.

But at first, the scenery seemed the same as usual.

A wooden bunk was by the window, and small pots of plants were lined up on the window sill.

Against the wall, there were shelves lined with sheaves of record boards printed by Wisteria herself and baskets she had woven.

By the pillow on the bunk was the chair she was currently sitting in and a writing desk. There was nothing strange about the mirror on the desk for the bare minimum of dressing herself.

She even looked up at the ceiling. There were no beams or pillars, just wild swirls on a bare wooden surface. In between the swirls, there were luminous stones embedded as a light source, and small pots of plants were hung from the ceiling.

Neither the walls nor floor were flat upon closer inspection.

Wisteria, looking around her house once again, noticed something strange.

She turned her eyes back to the ceiling she had looked at earlier. Something was slightly different.

Then she noticed.

At some point, a dazzling white flower sprouted in one of the hanging pots. It had been a white bud for a long time, but now it was quietly opening.

“Has it been twenty-three years since it bloomed?”

“That’s right. Congratulations, Irene. You have now reached forty-three years. You have even surpassed the age group of a mature woman. You have become a fine old woman while staying a lonely spinster. Even that bud has bloomed, and yet you–”

Contrary to its ostentatious appearance and powerful voice, the holy sword laughed sarcastically. Only this holy sword called her by her middle name, Irene.

Wisteria stood up silently and approached the sword. She gripped the hilt.

“Wh-what are you do–oi, stop, you fool!”

“How can you be so glib after twenty-three years with me?”

“Let go…idiot, don’t let go of me!”

“Which one is it? I’ll let go of you as you wish.”

“Don’t drop me!! Don’t turn me upside down, and don’t drop me!! And stop swinging me!!”

Wisteria, who had been holding the sword upside down by the lower end of the scabbard and was about to relax her hand, was satisfied by its panicked voice. She nimbly flipped the sword so she was holding it by its hilt and put it back on the stand.

But, she stopped just before doing that and slid the scabbard down.

“!? S-Stop that, what are you doing, you pervert!!”

“Oh, you’re not rusty.”

""

“Y-You–there’s no need to say that, and furthermore, you dare to look at my naked body in such a manner, as though you are looking at a stone on the side of the road?”

Wisteria ignored it and returned the sword to its sheath. She set the sword down on the stand and turned around to look in the small mirror on the desk.

There, she saw her own face, unchanged for nearly twenty years.

Familiar pale purple eyes stared back at her from the mirror. Her wavy black hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

Her dark eyelashes, straight nose, pale cheeks with no makeup, and thin lips without a hint of rouge had all changed little since she first arrived in the “Grey Lands.”

The only things that had changed were the fact that she no longer wore makeup and her wardrobe. There were no fancy dresses at all here.

Her outfit, which resembled a riding habit for ease of movement and protection, had a tall collar, long sleeves, and the hem reached her knees at the front and back.

The color of the fabric changed depending on the way the light hit it, perhaps because it was woven with threads from another world. For the one she was wearing right now, it went from a subdued green to a darker shade of blue.

The buttons that closed up her front were shiny stones, and from a distance they looked like gemstones.

Her pants were tight-fitting and she wore long boots over them.

To be precise, she looked a little older than she did during her final days in the Lafferty household. Even so, she was probably in her mid-twenties at best.

If she were to count her age as she did when she was in the other world, she would indeed beb forty-three years old this year.

But there was not a single little wrinkle around her eyes or mouth, and not a single strand of grey hair.

She hadn’t felt any weakening in her body.

What had changed were the clothes she wore and what was inside her.

The woman who had once come to this place prepared to die, the count’s daughter Wisteria Irene Lafferty, no longer existed.

Instead, she had become Wisteria Irene, the <Guardian>.

The fact that twenty-three years had passed brought to her attention something she hadn’t paid attention to in the past.

(I should go and check on the <Great Dragon Tree>.)

Thinking that, she was about to leave the room.

“Where are you going, Irene?”

The holy sword Salutis sounded disgruntled.

“To check on the Great Dragon Tree.”

“Take me with you.”

Wisteria raised an eyebrow.

“Is that how you ask people to do things for you?”

“Just take me with you. I don’t think you should be alone.”

“…I’m a fine adult of forty-three now, apparently.”

“D-Don’t hold a grudge! It was only a joke!”

At that tone that sounded like it was stamping its feet in frustration, contrasting its dignified appearance, Wisteria burst into laughter.

(I’m getting influenced badly too.)

Because this holy sword was her only conversation partner, her formal tone had shifted before she knew it, and it had even come to resemble the sword’s sarcastic side. She didn’t have to worry about etiquette anymore, and she wasn’t even a noble lady, so she was even more incurable.

She grabbed the sword, which, for all its pompous attitude, couldn’t even move on its own.

Wisteria held the sword in both arms, lightly focused on her feet, activated her magic, and kicked off the ground. Suddenly, her body floated gently into the air, and the hem of her upper garment lifted softly.

She slipped through the ceiling and left her house.

Like a flower floating on the surface of the water, she gently ascended into the sky and turned her head.

(…It’s still big even when I look at it in this way.)

She was looking at a gargantuan tree that was a deep amber color. Roots like serpents swimming in the earth intertwined with each other on the ground, and the massive, uneven, and thick trunk reached up to the sky.

It was almost the size of a country’s castle, or even larger.

It resembled a castle not only because of its size, but also because there were no obstacles around it. There was no similar vegetation, just a barren expanse of land in the distance.

The countless intertwining branches that formed an eerie canopy without leaves or flowers made it look like it was standing alone while withering in the wilderness.

Wisteria’s <home> was one of the caves in this huge nonstandard tree.

Drifting through the air like an underwater creature, Wisteria took another look around the world outside.

(I’ve gotten used to this now.)

Who could have predicted at the time that she would have survived for more than twenty years in these terrifying <Grey Lands>?

“…Twenty-three years, huh?”

“You’ve lost all your innocence, haven’t you? When we first walked down the <Path> to this place, you were crying like a child and clinging to me.”

“I was barely crying, and I was reluctantly carrying you because you can’t walk.”

“Rubbish. If I weren’t there, you would have collapsed before you came here.”

Well, that’s true, Wisteria nodded honestly.

At that time, when she was walking down the dark <Path> that connected her former world to the <Grey Lands> while carrying Salutis in her arms, she could only see her own death.

Now, she was still carrying the holy sword Salutis in her hands, and living in a completely different world.