Chapter 028: Beast Mount Child and Princess Sumina’s Tale

The child was a deer-type, Rufusrukus and it was considered small amongst the beast mounts. It was an unpopular beast mount, same as cat-types. Because there was a limit to how one could ride them, for example, a bulky man wearing armour would find it difficult to ride the mount. Instead, it was popular as a pet. Shiu remembered this from his association with Cassa.

He knew this from appraisal; her name was Ruco and she was female. Even though she had only been born 3 months ago, she seemed to understand what Shiu was saying. She was tame and smart. She never parted from him and he constantly checked her mood.

Even though Feles will be 5 months old soon, he was still simple-minded and Shiu thought that it was tragic. Ruco may have begun to understand her position from how people around her acted. He could guess that their treatment of her wasn’t good from the fact that they didn’t hire a tamer for her.

Still he was happy that she was walking cheerfully around the park.

Incidentally, he had expected her to have a conversation with Feles when they met since they were both beast mounts and young ones at that, but ――. Feles’ mind was still very young and Shiu felt like they didn’t actually have a proper conversation.

“He’s really easy going, isn’t he? Feles that is.”

Horses treated Feles as if he was their own beloved grandchildren, but beast mounts kept him at a distance. The beast mounts kept at the shop had high mentality probably because they were proud of their work. They didn’t bother with a kitten like Feles’, or were they troubled at how to treat him? However, he could see that Ruco was probably perplexed at how carefree Feles was.

“Ruco, if you get hungry you can eat the grass. They allow it around here.”

She glanced at Shiu and began to eat the grass after hesitating.

Feles was ran around in circles next to her. He didn’t mind that someone was eating next to him and purred happily.

“Feles, you’ll get sleepy again if you play too much.”

He laughed and Feles cried out, “Myu.” Whatever, was probably what he said.

Ruco watched him and sadly cried, “Kyu kyu kyu.”

“Even if I ask you what’s wrong. You won’t understand it……”

Recently, Shiu became able to understand their emotions, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. I’m troubled, he thought as he squatted down to pet Ruco then Laetitia appeared.

 

Laetitia, who was like a stalker, told Shiu what Ruco had said.

“She said she wants to get along with Sophia too.”

“You understand her feelings?”

“The tree spirits tell me the voice, the sounds as they are. They just tell me what they see and hear. As for me, I can understand them somehow.”

Come to think of it, elves live in the forest. He read in a book that a lot of them understood the feelings of animals.

“She’s an ojou-sama from a merchant house, she’s still a kid. I feel like she wasn’t allowed to take her out on a walk.”

“So they hired an adventurer instead of a specialist? They treat her horribly.” Laetitia snorted and said.

“Well, but thanks to that I got to walk such a cute kid.” He returned as he petted Ruco. Laetitia looked shocked and sighed.

After that, they slowly walked through the park and returned to the merchant shop. He got a confirmation signature from the barn manager and the request ended.

 

In the evening, he went to his regular study group at Hawk Eye Cottage.

It went well apart from Gradius’ depressed state. Shiu decided to talk to him about it since he was so depressed and Gradius replied, “Agricola keeps running away.” If he continued his visits then Agricola might actually flee into the night. Anyway, “How about becoming his friend?” Shiu suggested.

Gradius was surprised, in the first place it was strange for a blacksmith to want to become a farmer. Why a farmer? It was a good idea to become friends with Agricola to find out this reason and also understand his personality.

Kiahi laughed boisterously beside him, but Kirch and Laetitia encouraged Gradius, “Might be a good plan.”

 

Emina was lying in wait for him when the study group finished and Shiu returned to Bariado Tool Shop. She was ‘accompanying them for drinks’. When he went to the main residence, old man Stan and Dmitr were also there all set to go.

Emina talked about elves.

“An elven girl appears in 『Princess Sumina’s Tale』, and I’ve always admired them since then.”

“Ah, that story. There’s certainly an elf in there.”

“Her appearance is exactly the same!”

“Tia’s?

YES! She raised her voice enthusiastically. Her eyes were sparkling so much, it was as if she was admiring an idol. It seemed that there were intense fans in every world.

“To be able to become friends with such a cute kid! Shiu, you’re so amazing!”

She had said cute ‘kid’, but Laetitia was already 115 years old. She was older than old man Stan. Shiu turned towards Stan who pretended not to notice and inclined his glass.

Dmitr was also used to this and focused on his meal.

“―― And when she’s in danger, Viride helps her out!”

‘Viride’ meant green and was the name of the half-elf. She travelled with Princess Sumina and helped her out along her journey, they even partied together. As her name suggests, she specialised in nature magic, such as re-growing trees.

Emina seemed to like such grand stories like that.

“The knights around them got all love drunk at Viride’s beautiful appearance. But the hero didn’t choose her. He confessed to Sumina even though she wasn’t good looking and had freckles!”

Well, even if I say grand it’s still a love story after all.

Princess Sumina was the crown princess of Satafes Kingdom, a small kingdom that was said to exist a long time ago. Half of her life was extremely dramatic. Although her kingdom was destroyed by an attack from demons, she managed to live for a long time because she was given a magic bag by the hero who she met when she was little. Just by having this, she managed to survive without being troubled over food. Afterwards, she made comrades and set out on an adventure. She eventually met the hero again. They fell in love and got married. Then she returned to her desolated kingdom and rebuilt it.

Shiu wondered how the story would turn out since they stuffed so much content into it, but it was interesting from another viewpoint. Not the romantic part, there was also historical facts such as the living conditions of that time and the political tactics used to rebuild the kingdom at that time were very interesting.

For Shiu, the usefulness of the magic bag made him think of something.

“Half-elves also appear in『The Tale of Loire’s Seven Greatest Heroes』. A girl called Green Fingers.”

“Yes, that’s right. Elves are amazing and they’re all beautiful.”

Shiu ignored her fascinated expression and grumbled, “Did you try to imitate them?”

Emina was still smiling as she looked at Shiu.

“I was just wondering if it was based on someone. I need something that it’s based on.”

“Do you want to know?”

“Cause 『Princess Emina’s Tale』is based on a real story, you know? She was the one who revived Fesnia Kingdom the predecessor of the current Latrisha Kingdom. 『Princess Henrietta’s Academy Life』 is also a work of fiction, but it was based on Steigbahn’s Loire. “

“That’s true, but……”

“A half-elf who exceeds in tree magic, enough to be called 『Green Fingers』probably doesn’t exist in history. They’re also both very beautiful.”

“I guess, but it’s a bit different from how it’s depicted.”

Emina looked up at the ceiling as if she recalled something. What Shiu wanted to say was this, “『The Tale of Loire’s Seven Greatest Heroes』is a closer model for the basics of magic. I think that the author of 『Princess Sumina’s Tale』, Inoma Uslov doesn’t use magic much. The descriptions of how magic is used is strange.”

“…… I don’t care of words that hold no dreams!”

Shiu smiled wryly. Old man Stan laughed and placed his glass on the table.

“The point is the magic used by the half-elf in the stories is more exaggerated than those used by elves.”

“Huh?”

Emina looked at old man Stan and returned her gaze to Shiu who nodded. Old man Stan continued, “Tree magic, if done with magic attributes would need water, wood and earth, but light and dark attributes are also needed. And the tree magic in stories can’t be used without the sufficient amount of MP. But there has been no half-elves so far with that much MP. I also tried to calculate it with magic conservation. Also because of the race attribute, elves can’t use dark magic.”

“…… Isn’t there a gift for it? Something like tree magic.”

“No, even if it was like that then their MP would be a problem. Half-elves also have the blood of humans, isn’t that right? If they had that much MP, they probably won’t make it to adulthood.”

For the earlier story, Shiu thought that it wasn’t tree magic.

Old man Stan had the same opinion, so he smiled and nodded. Emina was the only one who looked unsatisfied.

Translator: Blushy
Editor: Sam