Chapter Text
The girl stiffened when her footsteps echoed in the dimly lit hall.
When no one appeared to scold her, she let out a small breath and leaned against the wall. Carefully removing her shoes, she hid them under a nearby table before continuing her trek. She would see them again whenever the cleaners found them—if they didn't sell the items off first.
Iris wasn't a fool. She knew some of the help stole her family's things. She knew by the glint in the head chef's eyes that he did it out of greed, despite his pay being fatter than all but the head butler and guard. She knew by one of the maid's shaking hands and deep eyebags that she stole not from a lack of pay, but from the abuse other family members suffered. She knew that the maid would be the one to find the shoes and clothes she often "lost." She knew her parents let her get away with it.
She knew they were hiding something from her when Mommy failed to arrive for dinner.
They told her it was a cold, that she'd be back to normal after a few days. They didn't think a four-year-old girl would notice the constant back-and-forth of maids with buckets of cold water, or the multiple visits of the city doctor, or the rags that turned the water red when being cleaned.
Something was very wrong with Mommy.
Iris's father didn't bother to try lying to her—he knew she would be able to tell. He just commanded her to stay away from the bedroom Mommy was resting in. Not the master bedroom that they normally slept in, but the one guest bedroom that notably didn't have a balcony.
That was ultimately what led to Iris's current mission. Something was very wrong with Mommy, and Daddy suspected foul play.
Her steps were nearly silent as she made her way through the dark corridors. After many turns and a couple of pauses to avoid a patrol of guards, she finally found her target. The door to her father's office was shut tight, no doubt because of the seriousness of the discussion held inside.
In any other situation, Iris would have used a listening spell to overhear the discussion. A listening spell required placing a point of mana inside the room so that the sound waves could travel to a second point near her ear. But her father had long since installed a magic item to ward against similar spying magic, so it would have been pointless. It prevented any spells from affecting the inside of the office.
But no mana would enter the room if she used a spell to enhance her own hearing.
Admittedly, it wasn't something people usually had to worry about from spies. Sense-enhancing spells were difficult to learn, and could easily lead to a sensory overload due to the enhancement required to make them useful.
Iris herself had nearly no talent for physical enhancement magic in general, but this one spell was much too useful to pass up learning. None but the most paranoid of people would have their property completely warded against magic, since so many utilized it in their everyday lives.
Even with all her practice, it took a few seconds to stabilize the enhancement spell. Iris struggled to tune out the shuffling of maids' dresses a few rooms down, or the heavy thumping of the guards' metal boots. Instead, she concentrated as hard as she could on finding the voices coming through the keyhole.
"...Relieved her pain, for the most part."
The first clear voice was unfamiliar to her. Presumably it belonged to the doctor. He was soft-spoken, and very tired.
"You saved her in the past," a second voice replied. "Can you not do so now?" Her father's voice carried none of light teasing or encouragement Iris was used to. Tonight his tone was hard, rumbling deeply like the thunder that promised an approaching storm.
"I have done what I can with what I have," the doctor replied sternly. The girl was mildly impressed he wasn’t affected by her father's demeanor. "But what I have is not enough. What this is isn't natural."
"Poison?"
The doctor sighed. "If only it were. Healing potions would clear poison. I brought the highest quality medicine I could, and none of them worked."
Her father cursed. "Magic?" He snarled. A moment of silence followed as the doctor presumably nodded. "Is there anything that can be done?"
"Not with anything currently in your stores," the doctor denied. "For an effect this serious? It has to be a curse, and a powerful one at that. We also don't know what specific curse it is, which means any curse-breaker you hire must have the ability to determine what it is. The only one powerful enough to meet those criteria is in the capital. It'll take a week for them to arrive."
"We might not have a week, doctor. Are there no medicines that can help? No potions we can make?"
"Believe me, my Lord, if there were any I would have tried them by now."
For the next few seconds, all Iris could hear was the rough breathing of the room's inhabitants. Her own heart was stuck in her throat, stopping her breath along with the headache blooming at the back of her skull.
"...Well, I don't know anything, but..."
Iris finally took a silent breath as the unbearable tension was broken. The doctor's voice had taken on a new confidence. "My old friend may have an idea."
Her father let out a weak scoff. "Do you really think he can find anything in that mess?"
"I know he's not the most..." Iris could practically hear the wince in his voice. "... organized person, but believe me, Sholmes's archives are extensive enough to match the royal library. The obscure knowledge he's collected over the years could contain exactly what we need—"
His next words were lost to her as sound abruptly returned to normal. The headache was too much.
Iris grit her teeth to stop herself from audibly hissing as the spell wore off.
For whatever reason, she had always struggled the most with enhancement magic; it was always more taxing than any other magic she tried. It had used up most of her mana, and she wouldn't be able to use any more spells until she rested.
No matter. She had heard what she wanted. It was time to head to her next destination.
She tiptoed down the hall and made her way across the mansion, once again avoiding guard patrols and passing servants. At the guest room hallway, she waited until she was sure no maids were coming, then quietly slipped through the door.
Being a guest room, it was decorated sparsely—or whatever the aristocracy considered "sparse." Really, they had enough guest rooms that this one was almost never used, unless father wanted to put some snooty visitor in their place.
Though it was far from terrible. It was still large enough to hold a massive wardrobe, and kept just as spotless as the rest of the building. The windows were draped with flowing cream curtains, standing out against the velvet red walls and dark wooden trim. The king-sized bed was situated right at the end of the room, away from the windows. The red canopy was closed; Iris pushed the curtain aside and crawled into the bed.
A light cough accompanied the arm the swept down to meet her. "Dear, what are you doing here?"
Iris wiggled closer to wrap her arm around her mother's chest. "You're sick. Wanna help you feel better."
"Child, where are your shoes?" Lady Van Zieks admonished, but she didn't pull her arm away. "And you shouldn't be so close. You might catch it, too."
Iris rebelliously snuggled closer. "The doctor said it was a magical sickness. I can't catch those."
"And how do—" Her mother was cut off by a sudden bout of ugly coughing. Iris turned her head up to look at her. When the coughing fit subsided, her mother raised her hand to pet the girl's hair.
It was true. Iris had caught all sorts of colds and coughs and ailments over her short life, but never an illness caused purely by magic. A mana-gem monster had once let loose a cloud of pollen, loaded with a sickness hex, all over the estate. She and her mother were the only ones completely unaffected.
Her mother was a beastkin—an elf, to be specific. Elves were one of the rarer beastkin, having the largest well of personal mana among them. With an deeper mana well came an increased resistance to magic-based attacks, including a near immunity to curses. Iris was also an elf, and had inherited that near immunity.
Yet here her mother was, at the mercy of a magical illness. One so powerful as to overcome her incredible resistance. On top of being an elf, her mother was a powerful magician who had studied and perfected magic for decades. No wonder her father suspected malicious intention—there was simply no way her mother could have caught this on accident.
Iris's grip tightened at the thought. Someone had deliberately cursed her mother. Cursed her to die . They had used such a powerful and foreign curse that not even the best of doctors could recognize it, and only the best curse-breaker in the country could undo it. They had gone to all those lengths, just to see her mother dead.
Iris couldn't stand for it. She wouldn't stand for it.
Without Mommy, what was the point of all this? What was the point of having all this power, of studying as much as she could? What was the point of a second chance if she couldn't even protect the people she loved?
As Iris's thoughts blazed with fury, her mother soothingly rubbed her hand down the girl's back. Her hand rested at a particular spot she often massaged.
"It's alright," she whispered. "It'll be okay. Dr. Mikotoba's the best in the land. He's the one who—"
Another coughing fit cut her off.
Iris didn't care that she was only four, and very small. She didn't care that she was so physically weak; she just couldn't do this again—!
She hoped with all her heart that Dr. Mikotoba found what he needed from this Sholmes person. If he didn't, Iris wasn't sure what she would do.
What she did know was that she would never let her Mommy go, no matter what .
The first item he ever crafted was a healing potion.
When he was six, Ryunosuke had come running to Haru in tears. A small rabbit was in his arms, its white fur coated with blood. He had found it while exploring near the lakeside, and begged his guardian to help the poor thing.
Haru herself could do very little. As a tree nymph, she couldn't interact with anything physical unless it was imbued with mana. It applied to living creatures, as well—though Ryunosuke was an exception to that rule. In other words, there was nothing she could do to help the rabbit.
But what she could do was teach Ryunosuke how to help.
She showed him every ingredient he needed to gather, and walked him through each step. It was a bit rudimentary, having been brewed on the nearest flat rock available, but it was a functioning healing potion.
Once the poor rabbit was out of danger, they set up a proper bed for it in the tree house. They were able to release it just a few days later. Ryunosuke was ecstatic that he managed to help.
The next item he crafted was a table.
Okay, well, he helped craft it. The potion was certainly a rushed job, and Ryunosuke was curious as to what a well-made potion would look like. But that required building a brewing station, and Haru would not allow a six-year-old to handle dangerous tools.
Seeing the boy's eagerness, however, she agreed to a compromise.
Back on the ground, her roots had moved aside to reveal a very, very rusty toolbox. The tools inside were in much better condition, which was explained when Haru easily picked one up to show him.
Durability enchantments. These were magic items—physical objects that had been imbued with spells. It was his first time ever seeing them, and Ryunosuke was immediately smitten.
The box itself was not enchanted, however, so Ryunosuke had to carry it upstairs. He was surprised to find several logs of wood lying on the floor. Haru had severed them from her tree while they were down on the ground. She assured him it wasn't harmful to her and got to work cutting them up with the various woodworking tools.
Ryunosuke watched from afar the whole time, avidly paying attention to everything she did. It wasn't long before she had cut each piece perfectly, sanded them down, glued them together with some sort of sticky solution spell, and stuck the new table against the back wall. Ryunosuke then helped her collect the various other materials needed for the specific brewing stand. Finally, he crafted his second, more efficient healing potion.
They had plenty of wood left over after finishing, and Ryunosuke may have gotten a little carried away with suggestions… Soon they also had a crafting table, dining table, several chairs, a few bed frames, and even more. Even he recognized it was a bit much for one sitting, but it appeared Haru's crafting inspiration had been sparked. She had completely renovated the tree house's walls by the time the boy convinced her to stop.
That passion for crafting was infectious. Ryunosuke had demanded she teach him her skills. Like with most things, she refused for a while, but eventually agreed under his relentless pleading.
He learned what he could with the materials they had on hand. But after just a year, it was clear they were too restricted by the items found around Haru's tree. They needed to go further.
The only problem with that? Haru physically could not go any further. That was why they called it her area of influence in the first place—her spirit could only wander so far from the great tree it was tied to. If they needed new materials, Ryunosuke would have to go alone.
Understandably not an ideal situation, considering that just outside of Haru's area of influence was an enchanted forest.
As typical of any area highly charged with mana, the forest was both mystical and dangerous. Ryunosuke had been fine avoiding it up until that point—but then Haru just had to make her bedtime stories about the sights of the forest.
Because that was what eventually did him in, wasn't it? His curiosity . How could he not want to explore, when Haru painted such vivid pictures of the world with her words? Crystalline lakes whose surfaces glittered in the morning sun; patches of flowers whose beauty were as rare and sought after as their medicinal properties; cliffside caves whose walls were lined with the purest of gemstones and mana crystals. The giant forest beyond Haru's tree contained it all.
It also contained vicious mana-gem monsters.
Mana-gem monsters were a special kind of monster or animal who had fused with mana crystals. Unlike their average counterparts, they had the instincts to wield mana and cast various spells. Their magic was far from refined, but they could kill any unsuspecting adventurer if they weren't prepared.
Ryunosuke wouldn't leave the tree house for the rest of the day. Haru probably regretted telling him about those monsters in such graphic detail. But what did she expect when telling a seven-year-old about how a lava ogre's teeth were highly sought after by butchers because they cut through flesh like butter?!
For many months, Ryunosuke was torn. He desperately wanted to see more of the forest's magical phenomena, and see what else he could potentially craft with its raw materials. At the same time, he was deathly afraid of the potential dangers lurking just outside of Haru's influence. He wasn't foolish enough to assume his rusty skills with a bow would be enough…
Once again, Haru herself couldn't do much with the vast knowledge she had accumulated over the years. But she could teach him.
To survive in such a dangerous environment, one needed many skills; how to identify tracks, how to scout the area, how to tell if plants were safe to touch. Herding patterns, hunting grounds, territory markers—he needed it all if he wanted to avoid or escape the forest's dangers. Haru had this knowledge, and much more.
The next year was spent training Ryunosuke. She taught him how to craft a bow and several arrows, and made him practice until his aim was near perfect. She helped him craft all the equipment he'd need. She even taught him what to do if he ever found himself stuck in the forest overnight. The idea freaked him out, but she seemed certain it would happen one day.
She taught him many lessons. In Ryunosuke's opinion, the most valuable one of all was the ability to experiment.
Ultimately it was why he found crafting so fun—because Haru had shown him not just new recipes, but how to improve upon them. After so much practice, new ideas came to him whenever she taught him a basic recipe. It made crafting even more fun than he'd ever thought it could be.
That aspect of invention even carried over to their magic lessons.
Haru taught Ryunosuke how to draw mana from his personal mana well. She showed him how to change it into different elements, and how to manipulate it into basic spells.
Then she let him play.
As if the idea of using magic— magic! —wasn't exciting enough in the first place, it had just as much room for creativity as crafting. Add a new element here, tweak the behavior there, and suddenly whatever spell he was casting would do something completely new.
Haru occasionally taught him more complex spells, or spells he hadn't thought of. But for the most part she let him discover magic for himself. Any time she did teach him, she made sure he knew exactly how the spell worked and was constructed, so that he could build upon it later while experimenting.
It was during this experimentation that Ryunosuke discovered how to enchant items. Haru couldn't teach him herself, since one had to touch the items to enchant them. They threw around ideas during his magic lessons until he eventually figured it out.
It was very hard to drag him away from his crafting bench after that. But could anyone blame him? It was a whole other world of crafting to delve into!
In no time at all, a year had gone by. After one final assessment, Haru had deemed him fit to explore the enchanted forest. All the anxiety about leaving crashed down on Ryunosuke all over again, but Haru wouldn't let him avoid it. He had learned so much, and wanted to learn more, so he shouldn't let his fears continue to hold him back.
So he worked up the courage and set out to explore the forest, and…
…His first day went well. Ryunosuke was able to put all the skills he learned to the test, and enjoy himself at that.
He didn't travel too far from the cave back to Haru. Just that small radius around was filled with so many exotic plants and minerals. Sure, he almost stepped right into a fire rat nest, but he escaped them! The hands-on experience only helped.
After that, Ryunosuke visited the forest almost regularly. It was an entirely new world to explore, after all. It also expanded his options for playing with magic—all the magical materials opened so many more opportunities. Haru always had something to say about the things he brought back, and it seemed like Ryunosuke was always learning something new.
It took another year to work up the courage to stay out at night. But it was worth it to see the crescent flowers that only bloomed under the moon, and the fireflies that looked like pixies when they lit up dark hollows. The plants found at night also had completely different magical properties than during the day, so it was one more thing he could study.
It was on one of these nighttime plant-collecting trips, nearly five years after first meeting Haru, that Ryunosuke felt the earth shake.
He had to brace himself against the trunk of the tree he was perched in. Following the tremor was the angry bellow of a disturbed monster.
It was far from the first time Ryunosuke had heard such an exchange. Territory disputes, mating rites, even retaliation from prey caused massive battles and destruction. From the sound of it, a giant lizard of some kind had underestimated its prey and paid for it.
It was probably that one particular rock lizard causing trouble lately. A young, overconfident sort that got angry whenever its prey fought back. There was a reason most hunters backed away from dangerous targets—if it didn't learn its lesson, it would gain an injury that left it unable to hunt.
Ryunosuke was already mapping out a route to get as far away from the fighting as possible. He had been lucky enough to witness one of those fights from a safe distance, and had nightmares for days about the display of raw power.
But just as he prepared to leap to another tree branch, alongside another explosion rang a scream.
A person's scream.
He hesitated.
It was one thing for a monster to attack another monster, and something else entirely for them to attack a person. Ryunosuke could count on one hand the times adventurers had approached his end of the woods. He'd never even seen any of them, just the results of their battles whenever he wandered particularly far out. Severed blades and broken arrows always littered the field. Just based on the amount of blood and destruction, none of those adventurers made it out unscathed. The only ones who ever fared well were the large groups, and even they left things behind.
But this was the first time Ryunosuke had been present at the same time as the adventurers. And it was the closest any of them had ever gotten to Haru.
He hadn't heard any other sounds of battle that night. To have snuck through that much of the forest, they must have been quite skilled. What were they doing out here, so late at night and so deep in the forest at that?
In no time at all, Ryunosuke was hidden in the trees at the edge of the battle. He was greeted with the sight of felled trees and craters caused by flying rocks.
Rock lizards used their magic to fling boulders of various sizes at their enemies, and rarely cared for anything else in the way. They were bulky and larger than elephants, with powerful legs to hold up their massive weight. Their hides were covered by rocky armor, making them slow, hard-hitting behemoths. They rarely had need for mobility when their earth mana-gems gave them such powerful long range attacks, but they were just as formidable in close quarters.
This young rock lizard was easily identifiable by the scarred crater at the side of its head. It had lost one of its crystal horns in some battle, leaving it looking unbalanced. But even losing that horn hadn’t been enough of a lesson, as evident by its frequent challenging of any creature that crossed its path.
Right now, said lizard was frothing at the mouth with anger as it crouched at one end of the field. It was heavily favoring one front leg, the other with a foot bent at an awkward angle.
At the end of its glower was a pair of humans. One was frantically glancing back and forth between his friend and the lizard, assuming a stance to shield the man.
The man on the ground was groaning lightly, struggling to push himself up. One arm was hanging limply at his side, the dense fabric of his coat dampening with blood. The arm, like the lizard's leg, was shaped awkwardly—most likely broken.
The rock lizard hissed and raised its tail, whose yellow crystals began to glow. Sediments began to gather just above the tail, quickly fusing together to form a bigger and bigger boulder.
The adventurers didn't stand idle. While the injured man managed to sit up, his companion's hands lit up with a similar yellow glow. Aiming his hands at the ground, the man swiftly pulled them up, and a thick wall of stone arose just as the lizard fired. The boulder smashed into the wall with a loud crash, sending dust flying.
Ryunosuke flinched as the lizard bellowed again, thoughts running wild. The wall had held, but not without a sizable dent and deep cracks. It would only defend against one more boulder before shattering.
The spellcaster was already breathing heavily, and he stumbled when turning to check on his friend.
The injured adventurer clutched his bag closer and tried to get to his feet, but similarly struggled. He had already lost a lot of blood, and his friend was nearly out of mana. Neither of them were in a position to run. But the only thing that would stop the lizard from chasing them was death.
If Ryunosuke didn't intervene, the two of them would die.
The boy had never fought any monsters as powerful as a rock lizard. He had certainly killed monsters for food and crafting materials, but for the most part he avoided them at all costs. He had no idea if he was even powerful enough to kill a rock lizard, but he couldn't just watch these people die.
Another crash broke him out of his panic. The rock lizard had fired a second boulder, obliterating the rock wall. The humans both flinched, raising an arm to block the dust and debris.
The lizard's broken foot caught Ryunosuke's eye.
Hmm, he didn't need to kill it, right? Just needed to lead it away from the adventurers. Its mobility was already terrible, hindered further by the bad leg. Ryunosuke was confident he could dodge any attacks it threw at him, and knew of several traps in the forest that it might fall for.
Mind made up, Ryunosuke quickly notched an arrow. The lizard was angry enough that simply knocking on its hard shell wouldn't do much. He needed to hurt it at least a bit to get its attention.
So, Ryunosuke took aim at the crater on its head. He wrapped his arrow with a water spell and charged it with as much mana as he could so that it would be powerful, but wouldn't tire him out.
The rock lizard had begun forming another boulder. The uninjured adventurer tried casting another spell, only for the glow of his hands to flicker and die out. He could only watch in horror as the boulder became larger and larger—
Ryunosuke fired.
The rock lizard bellowed as a bright blue streak hit the side of its head, and—and another explosion rang out as the arrow blasted into a tree on the other side.
The lizard slumped over its injured leg. The ground around its head quickly began soaking up the blood pouring out from both sides. With the spell canceled, the boulder it was forming dropped to the ground with a loud thump.
Ryunosuke stared dumbfounded at the dent in the tree on the other side of the field.
The arrow had… gone clean through the lizard's head and out to the other side.
Okay, so maybe Ryunosuke had underestimated himself a bit (he was expecting that arrow to maybe cause a little cut, not go all the way through —) but to be fair, he hadn't tested his attack spells in a long time…
Had he overestimated the lizard? The arrow hadn't done much to the tree, after all. Maybe rock lizards were really fragile under the rock armor?
No but—the arrow had shattered the armor on the other side when coming out. Were the trees in the enchanted forest just really durable? That was probably it. With how powerful the mana-gem monsters in the area were, the durability of the trees was probably the only reason there was still a forest.
And Haru taught him to chop off the branches of trees, rather than their trunks, whenever gather firewood out here… and all those trunks that he thought were felled trees were actually just branches thick enough to be their own trees…
Ryunosuke learned something new about this forest every day.
Wait. I'm not alone!
The uninjured adventurer staggered to his feet and rushed to his friend, who had gone back to lying on the ground. Ryunosuke climbed down the tree as fast as he could while the adventurer threw his bag open.
The injured man tried shoving his own bag into his friend's arms, but it was pushed aside. "Mikotoba—"
"Quiet," the other man snapped. He pulled out a bottle of green liquid and set it aside, then carefully examined the injured upper arm. "It's fractured. I need to set it."
The adventurer started looking at the ground, examining a stick and putting it back down. Was he trying to make a makeshift splint?
In his haste, Ryunosuke dropped out of the tree. The noise of his landing startled the adventurers, their heads snapping to look at him. The boy quickly put his hands up when the uninjured adventurer aimed a knife in his direction.
"I-I have strong vines!" He internally winced at how squeaky his voice came out. "And planks! For a splint."
The adventurer didn't move until his friend tapped him with his good arm. "Put the knife down—it's a child…"
The effort elicited a small groan, and frown on the uninjured adventurer's face tightened.
He lowered the knife and gestured for Ryunosuke to come closer. The boy shrugged his pack off a bit a space away from the other bag, quickly shuffling through it and grabbing the promised items.
The adventurer wasted no time. He moved to his companion's other side and carefully grasped the man's arm. Ryunosuke picked up the strap of one of the bags and held it to the injured man's face, who got the message and put it in his mouth.
The sound of the bone being set sent shivers down Ryunosuke's back. The injured man merely grunted and bit down hard on the leather, gasping in relief when his friend was finished. While his adventurer friend started assembling the splint, Ryunosuke helped the man drink the green liquid.
The boy could tell by the smell that it was some sort of healing potion. Not a very potent one, at least compared to the ones he and Haru made from the forest plants they collected. Were the mana-charged healing herbs not as potent further out of the forest?
"Mikotoba," the injured man said once the splint was finished. "The plant ."
"Worry about yourself, would you?" The other man let out an exasperated sigh. He tried to help the injured man to his feet, but he wasn't able to balance by himself. "You've lost too much blood. The potion will be working to make more, but we will have to take it even slower than before."
The injured man shook his head, leaning heavily against his friend. "No time," he rasped. He once again tried shoving his bag into his friend's arms. "Leave me. You have to take this back."
"I am not going to leave you in the middle of nowhere," The man protested.
Despite his pale complexion, the injured man's eyes were blazing. "You know better than I what will happen if the woman dies, Yujin."
"U-Um!" Ryunosuke winced when both men turned to look at him. "My house! Is nearby. It's safer than the middle of nowhere…?"
There was a flash of both surprise and concern in their eyes, before the injured man nodded. "Excellent," he said. "Then I will have to trouble you and stay the night."
"Herlock—"
"Let's argue about this somewhere we won't attract monsters," the injured man hissed.
The other man relented. With a tentative nod, Ryunosuke led the way out of the battlefield and into the forest. The going was slow; they had to take breaks often to let the two of them rest. But his years navigating the forest weren't for nothing. Soon they were headed down the path that led back to Haru's area of influence.
The two men let out quiet gasps when the tree came into sight, and Ryunosuke couldn't blame them. The largest trees in the enchanted forest were several meters thick—Haru's trunk was as wide as four of them put together. The tree was visible from every corner of her area, towering over the rest of the forest below. Its roots were tangled all around the cliff it sat on, which itself sat at the edge of a massive lake. The moonlight bounced off the surface of the canopy of dark green leaves, hanging from the branches like a great curtain of vines. Its glimmering, white wood made it stand out further against the bright greens, yellows, and otherworldly colors of the magical forest Haru protected.
"An enchanted weeping willow," the injured man breathed. "I've never seen one up close before."
"You're going to get much closer," Ryunosuke said. "That's my home."
Home. His safe place, where no monster could touch him. Just him and Haru, and the occasional injured animal that needed recovering.
He wondered if these two counted as injured animals.
The adventurers were apprehensive while navigating through the leaf canopy.
The first few times, Ryunosuke himself needed Haru's guiding hand to stop from getting lost. The reach of Haru's branches was even wider than her expansive trunk, so the visibility in the leaves was like walking through a thick mist.
That also made it the perfect place to hide the entrance to his tree house.
After many more minutes of walking, they stopped at a spot only marginally less dense than the rest of the canopy. The adventurers watched apprehensively as Ryunosuke cleared away a carpet of debris to reveal a wooden platform. The platform had vine ropes attached to each corner, as well as one in the center. Ryunosuke had the two men sit down and hold onto one of the ropes. He himself then stood on the platform and tugged hard on a hanging rope disguised as a willow leaf.
The men yelped as the platform shuddered and began moving upward.
Ryunosuke tried his best to calm them down so they wouldn't cause the elevator to sway. The boy was used to just carrying whatever animals would accompany him to the top, so he never needed to worry about swinging. He'd have to work on an elevator design that stayed stable even when the inhabitants moved around.
The adventurers eventually settled when they realized what was happening. The injured man was looking at every inch of the elevator with wide eyes; he only withheld questions because of his exhaustion.
The elevator stopped in the space where a thick branch split in two. Ryunosuke helped the two step onto the platform around the elevator, then down to the main building.
When Ryunosuke first arrived, not much of the original tree house was left. It had been built a very long time ago, before Haru's spirit had even formed in the tree. The walls had long since been worn down by the wind, but the tree had grown around the wooden floor and supports. Haru continuously maintained the wood so it wouldn't rot, and made sure the flooring was steady before letting Ryunosuke up.
From there, the two of them had built up their current tree house. It was an open building, with a long roof and no wall on the side towards the elevator. Instead there were posts and a vine rope fence across the whole area, to prevent anyone from falling off. The entire house was mostly just the main room; it contained a dining table near the rope fence, a kitchen area along the left wall, the storage area next to it, the crafting and potion-brewing tables along the back wall, and the guest beds and living area along the right wall. Between the living area and guest beds was the door that led to the bathroom. Between the kitchen and storage area was the door that led to Ryunosuke's room.
Finally, between the tables in the back was a window to Haru's trunk, which had a glowing spiral pattern carved into it. That was the tree house's waypoint, which Haru used to teleport Ryunosuke up and down the tree. That had gotten inconvenient the more Ryunosuke left for the forest without her, thus the need for the elevator.
The injured man practically collapsed into the large guest bed, while his friend sank into a nearby chair. Ryunosuke rushed to grab the both of them something to drink, and grabbed a healing potion from his potion rack as well.
When he returned, the injured man was nearly unconscious. He shoved at his friend very weakly, urging him to leave.
Ryunosuke meekly interrupted their conversation to set his tray down. The uninjured adventurer's eyebrows shot up at the sight of the healing potion.
"You make potions here?" The man asked with a wavering voice. Ryunosuke nodded. "Then, could I use your brewing station for just a moment? I have my own ingredients."
Ryunosuke nodded again, and the man grabbed his and his friend's bags before walking over to it. Ryunosuke busied himself with helping the injured man drink the water and potions. When he was finished, the boy moved to check on the other man.
At first he wasn't quite sure what the adventurer was making. The ingredients he pulled out of his own bag were varied, some standard ones and some he had never seen before. But Ryunosuke couldn't hold in a gasp when, from his friend's bag, the man pulled out a purge-yarrow flower.
"Did someone get cursed?" He asked softly. They had mentioned a woman dying, earlier, hadn't they?
The adventurer looked at him briefly. "I'm surprised you know what this is," he said, turning back to his task. "I didn't even know about it until today, and it's my job to know these kinds of things."
"Are you two doctors, then?"
"I am," he replied. "My companion is a… consultant. My client was fed a death-curse, and none of our medicines were working. This recipe is my last hope."
Ryunosuke frowned sympathetically. Curses were fickle things. They found different ways to attach themselves to someone's mana well, and affect their physical body from there. The more complicated or serious the curse, the more complicated it was to inflict it on someone. Simple annoyances came in the form of hexes that were sometimes hard to find, but easily removed. Others were weaved into the makeup of objects the same way magical items were created. The most dire and complicated of curses had to be directly given to their victims in order to exist without falling apart, usually through liquids. Liquid curses were by far the hardest to make, administer, and break.
Purge-yarrow was perfect for breaking liquid curses, according to Haru. The potions made from it could be used to break down any spell into its raw elemental mana, which could then be filtered by the person's body. But purge-yarrow was just as hard to cultivate as liquid curses were to make—so they were extremely rare. Haru said it was a miracle that there was even a single patch growing in the deep end of the enchanted forest.
The injured man had been desperate to get that plant to the cursed woman. He had implied… "Will something bad happen if she dies?"
The man pursed his lips. "Her daughter…" he began, before shaking his head. "...We are worried that something terrible will happen. It's not certain, but… my friend doesn't want to risk it. Alongside that, we also happen to be quite close with the client and her family."
The man glanced over at his friend after stirring the ingredients together. "This can sit while I make my way back." He met Ryunosuke's eyes with a serious look. "Can I trust you to take care of my friend?"
Ryunosuke stood straighter and nodded vehemently. The doctor's expression softened, and he sent one more worried glance to his companion. "I'll come back to fetch him as soon as I can," he promised, carefully placing the purging potion in his bag. "If he recovers fully before then, he can make his way home by himself—so long as you take him back to the battlefield."
The boy nodded along as the doctor took his friend's bag back over to him. By then the man had passed out completely. The doctor set the bag down and adjusted his friend's blanket, before shrugging his own bag over his shoulder.
"I forgot to say," he spoke up as Ryunosuke took him back down the elevator. "I am Yujin Mikotoba. My friend is known as Herlock Sholmes."
The boy smiled shyly. "My name is Ryunosuke."
When they reached the end of the leaf canopy, Mikotoba turned back to the boy. "I apologize ahead of time if he's too much to handle. Don't be afraid to tell him off."
"No problem, Mr. Mikotoba," Ryunosuke assured. "Oh, make sure to take the same path I took to get here. It's the only way to the tree—you'll get lost trying any other way."
Haru had warned him that the particular path was the only one that would lead him back to her tree, no matter which direction he walked.
Mikotoba nodded and offered the boy a small smile. "Thank you, Ryunosuke, truly. Take care of him—and of yourself."
Only when the man was back in the enchanted forest, and Ryunosuke was taking the elevator back up the tree, did Haru materialize at his side.
"Your guest is sleeping peacefully," she said in a soft tone.
Ryunosuke grabbed her arm tightly. It was the first time in nearly five years that he had spoken to anyone other than Haru. "Did I do everything right?"
She pet his hair gently. "You did wonderfully, mouse."