Leaves, Stars, and Passing Hours

For some reason, my hunger never went beyond a certain limit. In other words, I didn’t think I could ever actually starve to death.

Even so, that didn’t mean hunger didn’t exist for me. In fact, even with a limit, going without food was still a rather painful experience for my stomach...

Which was why my second meal in this world was a joyful occasion… or so I would have liked to claim.

"Zendal, which is better, the boar or the kuranos?" Merite asked, taking a bite of roasted boar.

"Mmm… the boar definitely takes less mental preparation to chew… But if we’re talking about flavor… both tasted like they lacked salt…"

"If I’d gone all the way to the ocean, I could have extracted some salt from the water…" Coletto said after giving up on chewing a particularly tough, gristly piece. "Do you want me to go now, master?"

"Sorry, on the way to the mountain I sensed the presence of a rock salt vein, but it didn’t occur to me to extract it at the time…" Lirilien apologized.

You can pull minerals out of the ground with magic? Don’t the dwarves complain about that?

"Don’t worry, what matters is that we found something to eat… maybe a little too much… and the bay leaf and the other herbs Lirilien brought really make a difference," I said after swallowing a fairly large piece I’d grown tired of chewing. "But getting back to the subject of spirits… I didn’t imagine you ate food like humans do."

Lirilien was a nature spirit, like elves in some legends. But Merite and Coletto were elemental spirits…

"But you’re eating human food too, Zendal!" Merite exclaimed, feeling discriminated against.

I guess when you’re a mythical being who lived thousands of years in the past, you lose your status as human… Not that I think I have the arguments to debate it anyway…

"It’s not strictly necessary, but it’s a good source of energy," Coletto replied. "We could also absorb the magical energy that’s so abundant here, but…"

"But that would be like eating you, Zendal," Merite said with a smile, licking the glossy sheen of boar grease from her lips.

Her smile seemed provocative in a more intimate sense of the word. But the short time I’d known her was already enough to assure me she was being literal and just trying to scare me.

"Ahem!" Coletto interrupted, blushing. (Apparently, she’d had some improper thoughts herself.) "Don’t mind her, master. What I meant to say was, ‘but we wanted to have dinner with you.’ Once everyone becomes aware of your existence, we might not get that chance..."

"Even if I become ‘Zendal di Ameritia,’ that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to prefer eating alone at some gigantic empty table..."

"Now that I think about it, the Veilkeeper is going to be part of Master’s harem, and I’m already his; all that’s left is the pact," Coletto said with a mischievous smile. "The only one who’ll be eating alone is Merite."

"Ugh!" the redhead blurted, choking on a piece of meat. "I’m already Zendal’s too! Of course we’re going to make a pact as well!"

"I haven’t heard anything about that!" Coletto replied, sticking her tongue out at her.

"A pact is something very important for a spirit, and there’s no greater honor than to make one with our lord," Lirilien cut in. "So stop playing around with the subject. You sound like you were born only a couple of decades ago."

Both girls lowered their heads at Lirilien’s words. For my part, I would have liked to add that I still hadn’t agreed to have any kind of harem… but I kept that to myself.

***

The bed of leaves Lirilien had prepared was far more pleasant than I would have imagined. It even made me forget the fact that the night’s starry sky looked a lot like the inside of the mysterious space where I kept the sphere of light, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

Speaking of discomforts, I woke up with Merite’s leg on my face, as she had somehow moved over to my bed during the night for reasons unknown, and her sleeping posture left much to be desired.

I must mention that she was apparently caught by Coletto, who, whether out of rivalry or for some other reason, had also ended up moving to my bed and was clinging to my arm while sleeping with an angry expression.

I would have said something, but both of them were thoroughly scolded by Lirilien in the morning.

In fact, I was forced to say that I wasn’t bothered in the slightest so their mentor would forgive them... Which, now that I think about it, might have been a trap from the strategist princess, who, since I “wasn’t bothered by it,” made me promise that the next night I would sleep with her...

"But that next night might be at the sanctuary," I said, surprising all three of them.

"Have you already found a way to return, master?" Coletto asked with a smile.

"This is Zendal’s world, of course he knows how to return," Merite claimed as she stretched her legs, sore from kneeling for so long under Lirilien’s scolding.

"It’s not that simple, Merite," Lirilien explained with a smile. "How long did it take you to attain your current form after being born as a tiny spark? It’s ourselves we understand the least. And every now and then in more than one way."

For my part, instead of answering with words, I raised my hand, and from nothing an opening formed in the air.

What could be seen through it was the chamber from which we had vanished.

***

"An hour!"

Merite ran into Lirilien’s chambers after contacting a Stella and instructing her to alert the others to stop the search (later I found out I was the prime suspect in our vanishing).

"An hour?" asked Coletto.

"What do you mean, Merite?" added Lirilien.

"She said only an hour has passed since the light explosion! The Stellas don’t know how to keep track of time!"

It seemed ridiculous, but without a day-night cycle in the cavern, anyone could lose track of time. Of course, not to that degree.

All but Merite quickly realized that time inside the sphere of light passed much faster than outside (though I already had a vague feeling while building the connection to the outside).

Lirilien immediately started thinking about how much and how quickly the foundation of the kingdom would progress while the rest of Ameritia "rested on its laurels," as she put it…

For my part, I still couldn’t understand why they were so excited to live in something no one truly understood and that seemed to have a will of its own. I was convinced that the rest of the sanctuary would never support such a reckless idea.

But soon, I would realize just how much I had underestimated the spirits’ appreciation for pure primordial magic…