◇

I"m pulled from my sleep by the sensation of hair tickling my noses.
This must be Mia.

Let me sleep for a bit more.
I catch Mia while fumbling and hug her to stop her prank.

Huh~?
It"s different. It"s not Mia. Someone who moans "Au au" must be high elf-sama. Mia can"t put out this soft feeling.

I"ll likely be judged guilty like this, but my reasoning can"t be restored enough to release these hands. Dozing off while enjoying the wonderful sensations and the cute voices, I return to the blissful sleep once again.

◇

"Wake up~!"
"Mwu."
"Master, it"s morning. Umm, please wake up."

I wake up from the slightly deep sleep by the sensations of getting my hair and cheek pulled.

"I"ve conjectured that his fatigue is high. To rest please."
"It"s certainly very rare for master to wake up late, he must be quite tired."

Liza and Nana are voicing their worries. It"s alright, I"m only sleepy, give me another five minutes. No, please let me sleep for just another 10 minutes.

"Tired~?"
"Should I call Zena nodesu?"

What are you calling Zensan for?

"Mwu, Aaze."
"That"s right, erofu. How long are you going to enjoy it, get awayy~"
"Uu, I mean, I mean, I can"t move ndamon. It can"t be helped. I mean, I can"t move ndamon."

For some reason, Mia and Arisa are angry to Aialize-san. Did she empty another can of sweets in secret again?

Come to think of it, Aialize-san"s voice sure is close.
I slightly open my eyes, and there"s the reddened face of Aialize-san before me. Wait, isn"t it too close?

"Good morning."
"G, good morning."

What kind of situation is this.

There"s Aialize-san on top of my body that"s sleeping on bed. I can see Arisa and Mia on my view, so it"s probably not in the middle of an attack.

"How long are you going to hug, get separated already~"
"Satou."

Arisa and Mia grab my hands and move it. Huh? Did I capture Aialize-san when I was half-asleep?

"Please excuse me for this."
"N, no, you were half-asleep after all, it, it can"t be helped!"

Even after she"s escaped from my restraint, Aialize-san can"t quite get up, so I help her sit on the bed.

Arisa and Mia are holding guilty festival until after I get up. Please give some leniency since I was half-asleep.

◇

"And so, have you accomplished your objective at the duchy capital?"
"Yeah, perfectly."

I"ve acquired the soy-sauced pickles, and perfected the adjustment of curry powder!
For some reason, Arisa"s gazes are cold.

I"d likely get told, "Seiza", if I tell her the detail about the soy-sauced pickles, so I show her a glimpse of the scrolls I"ve obtained from the scroll workshop.

I did contact you several times with [Telephone] magic from duchy capital didn"t I. The range for this magic seems to depend on the skill level as [Telephone] from Arisa didn"t reach me since it was too far.

Looks like the breakfast is pseudo-french breads.
On top of having no vanilla essence, the bread was hard so it felt lacking. I wanted to eat breads since we always eat rice lately.

"Do you like soft bread more?"
"Why don"t you ask Kua? You haven"t asked the way to make natural yeast?"

Oh, soft bread seems to exist.
That reminds me, we"ve always eaten my dishes, so we haven"t tasted the local cuisines of elf hometown. I"ll ask Mia"s mother to teach me and Lulu some recipes next times.

◇

Lusan who has come here after the breakfast is going to tell the result of observation on the observatory. Since they don"t want to publicize the matter about jellyfish, I lead her to the parlor instead of the living room. Lusan isn"t the only who tags along, Aialize-san whose face is still burning also follows.

"--and so, the ice cage lasted for half a day, and the stone cage lasted for two days, before the jellyfish escaped from them. The cages from the s.p.a.ce magic of Aialize-sama are going strong even now for both the intermediate and advanced ones."

Fumu, s.p.a.ce magic barrier is powerful after all. I checked the number of elves that can use s.p.a.ce magic cages to Lusan, but it seems that only Aialize-san and one of the elder can use it among those who are awake. There are only about 100 people who can do that even if we count the ones sleeping.

"However, the sleeping ones won"t want to be counted among it."
"Why is that? Since it"s the world tree"s crisis, they shouldn"t complain even if we wake them up right?"
"They are people who have chosen to sleep in order not to forget their memories."

I can"t quite comprehend Lusan"s word. Lusan seems to have guessed it as she begins to talk about the detail a bit more.

It seems that elves encode old information every 1000 years.

In my vocabulary, it"s probably like changing [Episodic Memory] into [Declarative Memory]. Simply put, after a millennium has pa.s.sed, [Memory] is irreversibly changed into [That short word called "Memory"] it seems.
Of course the [Semantic Memory] seems to also be consolidated, but since there"s no elf who does research to the point that it"ll become a problem, this is omitted.

Thus, the elves who don"t want to lose their memories no matter what are put to a long sleep. The place where those elves sleep look more like a cemetery than beds. It"s caskets rather than cradles huh.

Of course there are also way to make the memory remain by force with magic, but the memory becomes disorderly and can"t maintain its integrity, the elf who does so becomes emotionally unstable, and so there is no one who undergoes it without approval from the elders a.s.sembly.

It"s difficult to live long huh.

"The seven high elves will be fine even if they wake up though. Those kids are sleeping because they 『Got tired』."

The high elves can entrust their memories to the world tree, so their memory won"t be deteriorated. However, they won"t be able to remember if they are not connected to the world tree, so it"s not like it"s all-mighty.

"Even though I"ve never directly met them in person, there seem to be high elves who hate every race beside elf, and some radical ones, so please think the way without waking them up if possible."
"I~guess, like Iflueze will absolutely say, 『Huhh? Pests you say? Just burn those things. Kuhahaha, it"s a festival!』, and then proceeds to continuously fire 『DEL Inferno』 to make big fires."

I see, it doesn"t seem to be the specialty of Biroanan clan.

Lusan seems to pretend that Aialize-san"s insider story doesn"t exist, as she coughs to clear her throat, and returns to the topic.
The results about the matter that I asked the elder to inquire back then seemed to have come.

"First, they had tried investigating substances that the jellyfish hate, but they couldn"t discover it. They can"t find attracting substance beside mana. The jellyfish seemed to be attracted to magic tools that had been filled with MP and artificial life-forms like wisp, as they tried to reach it with their feelers when those closed in. However, to peel them off the world tree means that we need MP that exceeds the world tree, so it"s realistically impossible. Those are their replies."

They can"t find the way to make the jellyfish readily go huh, unfortunate.
I"ll carefully read the written reports regarding the jellyfish. There might something that we have overlooked after all.

"About Satou-san"s plan to use cages for the jellyfish, the clans that are interested with it are not only Beriunan clan and Burainan clan which are clans that like to do research, but also Zuwakanan clan, they"re going to help during the experiment and the investigation."

It seems that although it was a plan that anyone could come up, there wasn"t anyone that had tried it.
Unexpectedly, someone who thought of it might not said it out loud.

This is the first time I"ve heard Zuwakanan clan, but they seem to be a clan that live on the same continent as Biroanan clan. I see, this must not fail huh.

"Um, and the others are."

Lusan reports other matters while turning the report paper.

About getting obstructed by other jellyfish when a jellyfish was separated for a certain distance away, it seems that the jellyfish around the area attacked with lightning together. At that moment, the jellyfish that was being pulled away would roll up its feelers and made an electric barrier to protect itself from the lightning attack.

When the jellyfish released strong electric attack, they seemed to rob the required MP from the world tree branches, and several branches that were caught by the jellyfish seemed to wither because of it.

I"m concerned with the relapse prevention after the jellyfish have been exterminated, but Biroanan clan have already thought about it. It seems that they"re having artificial life-forms made by the high-elves to go on patrols outside the world tree.

"Artificial life-form like Behemoth is it?"
"Ufufu, that"s not it. Behemoth shouldn"t be able to fly, Biroanan should be using >, and the summoned Ifrit should be using > to summon flame b.u.t.terflies."

Ah, not Behemoth, but wisp huh. Beside Lusan, Aialize-san has reddened up to her ears, and she"s slightly trembling due to embarra.s.sment.

Since it"s cute, I"ll leave her as she is.

"However, isn"t the duration short?"

If I"m not mistaken, the mana on the void sky is scarce they said.

"Yes, if they can replenish the initially needed MP that"s large, it can be maintained for ten days, it"s going on patrols to attract the jellyfish. Of course, when battle begin, it"ll quickly dry the caster"s MP, so they use the s.h.i.+p when it"s the time to exterminate the jellyfish."

I see, it"s more like a bait than a light trap huh.
It seems that the discovered jellyfish are to be exterminated by the s.h.i.+p that departs from the observatory. They seem to call it Light s.h.i.+ps.

"Every world tree has eight light s.h.i.+ps each, but Boruenan only has four left. The goblin demon lord was rampaging a little over 100.000 years ago. Heroes didn"t exist yet at that time, so three light s.h.i.+ps were destroyed before the demon lord could be defeated."

Huh? What about one other s.h.i.+p?

"That was given to the hero as a reward for exterminating the demon lord.  I think it"s still at the Saga empire even now since it"s been pa.s.sed on every generation."

There are four other s.h.i.+ps that are the same type as Jules Verne huh.

"E, even if you look at me with those eyes, you can"t."

Aialize-san has given a warning ahead of time.

"I, I"m resolute you know!"

Ah, it"s about that huh.
I think Lusan who"s giggling knows what I have in mind, but let"s not correct Aialize-san"s misunderstanding here.

However, if this world tree has less s.h.i.+ps than the other world trees, I think it"d be better if they think about the forces to hold the line of defense against the jellyfish, post-extermination.