The Baby Isn’t Yours

ed around the bodies of Kalia’s party.

[Liella]

At the king’s word, a fist-sized space beside him blurred and someone popped out of the portal.

Black hair shining with starlight and eyes of pure black where even the sclera4 was black.   A fairy, who had the form of a heavenly woman, hovered around the king.

“Lead these children out of the woods safely.”

Liella was an intermediate fairy of night and starlight. She flew into the woods with her beautiful wings fluttering behind her and she motioned for the group to follow.
Specks of light scattered in her wake, leaving a trail for Kalia’s party. 5

“Ah,” Kalia uttered, feeling a touch on her wrist.

At that moment, Gaia shook free from her father’s hand and grabbed Kalia’s wrist. Her mouth moved to spit out just three silent syllables.

-Let’s go together.-

Kalia’s bewildered eyes met the eyes of the king standing behind Gaia.

***

‘… fairy… money… tremendous… foreign… noble… gold ….’

‘Missing… ..no one… knows… …’

‘Elixir……all illnesses……….power…….’

‘…The Ten Fairies……the Forest……the Fairy King…don’t know… the Crown Prince…the Duke of Mado… arrogant… General… without Kalia.’

When he heard that far, Simon opened his eyes wide. A flash of gold temporarily lit up the surrounding darkness.
He frowned and let out a simmering sigh.

Whoo. 6

He opened his eyes but it was still dark in front of him and a momentary headache throbbed in his head.
With every blink, the vision in his cloudy eyes recovered little by little.
He took a few slow breaths and blinked several times.

Feeling his headache subside and his vision was completely clear, he stood in front of a large spread of  paper. As he stretched his hand out over the paper, all the raucous voices that had vibrated around Simon’s head awhile ago unfolded itself onto the paper.

[If you sell fairies, you’ll get a fortune.
There’s a foreign nobleman who is crazy about fairies and pays high prices for them.
Didn’t we hit jackpot?

[Nobody’s gonna find him.
Even if he goes missing.
Why don’t we proceed without anyone knowing?]

[You said it would be an ingredient for the elixir? It has the mysterious power to cure every disease!]

[How wide is the Fairy Forest? You only need to search the ten fairy forests on the outskirts of the fairy realm.
That way, the Fairy King won’t know.]

[The Crown Prince? How powerful is a man who is not even emperor? As long as you don’t run into that damn mage, Duke of Mado.
Rumor has it that General Kalia’s gone…vanishes into thin air… ..Are you afraid of everything?]

The black ink moved around the paper like snakes to create sentences.
Surprisingly, there was only one person uttering these words.

Marquis of Aonti

The Marquis of Aonti was the owner of huge wheat and sorghum7 fields.

He was an immigrant aristocrat whose family had been living in the Lohas Empire for the past four generations. The last time Simon had seen him, the marquis had stared at Simon like he was going to kill him. He hated Simon because he had the power to cure his illness, but wouldn’t help him.
To him, Simon grew more cold-blooded and unscrupulous as his condition worsened and he absolutely refused to help a sick nobleman in need.

Simon wasn’t the only one the marquis hated.
The priests of Argarcin, who were supposed to alleviate the suffering of the common people through the protection of divine power, were another group he hated.
The reason was similar. They had the power but used it to heal commoners instead of taking care of him, a nobleman. A deep enmity burned in him and his life seemed to be fueled by hating someone.

He had a disease called ‘Tartakan’ in which his hands and feet were rotting, and it was not an easy disease to treat. It wasn’t impossible though.

But for what reason should Simon step up and help him?

At the time, he had been pouring out his mana for days on end.
The same was true of the priests of Argarcine. Argarcine was the patron deity of wanderers and mortals. They put the poor and grieving first. It’s not like divine power was in overflowing abundance.

After treating the Marquis Aonti, they would be unable to care for the sick for ten days.
Nonetheless, the Marquis Aonti hated Simon and the priests of Argarcine for all the reasons.

This happened about a year ago.

From recent news, Simon heard that he has become noticeably healthier recently. His personality also changed a little and he seemed to be busy with the noble’s social gatherings. From records, it was suspicious that he was only mingling with local aristocrats outside the empire and to Simon, he seemed to be involved in something bad.

Simon looked down at the black letters wriggling on the paper with cold eyes.

The magic he was using now is a type of information magic called ‘Informatization’ which he had created himself.
It was a technique that spread one’s mana at a desired location and collected specific words, syllables or mana traces.
His brain felt like it was going to explode when using the magic, even compared to more sophisticated attack or healing spells but his harvest this time was good though.
It collected an overwhelming amount of info to sort through.
The spell itself didn’t require much stamina so he was quite satisfied that it could be used several times a day.
As long as your brain doesn’t explode from the overload.

“Iru, Tierra,” Simon called out the fairies’ name in a low voice.