# 59
* * *
A girl with mint-green hair braided all the way to her feet sat in a meadow making a flower crown. Her white skin sparkled as if dusted with pearl powder, and her round eyes shone with vitality. Her delicate features had a peculiar quality that drew people’s gaze.
It was a strange charm that would make it impossible for anyone who faced the girl to look away immediately.
Tiny fairies were gathered in clusters on the hem of the girl’s white dress, all with mischievous expressions as they considered what to play next. A fair vote was in progress on game options like tag or waterfall jumping.
Around the girl, five fairy knights stood at a distance, and a bit further away, tiny fairy servants were busy filling a table with food.
Riyekan handed the bread basket he had brought to the servants and sat down on the ground beside them.
“How did this happen?”
“How did what happen?”
The girl, still not taking her hands off the flower crown she was making, tilted her head and asked.
No one in the tower could address him so casually, but this girl was different.
“Show respect to the Queen, Master of the Tower.”
For she was the Queen of the fairy realm. At the same time, she was the one who, through a contract with Master Senistry, lent various spaces to the Noon Moon Tower and enabled the use of portals.
Riyekan twitched his eyebrow at the knight who had threateningly drawn his sword and was hovering like a bee, then placed his hand on his left chest to greet the Queen. The fairy knight, seemingly satisfied, landed on the ground again.
“They say my lost soul had seeped into those objects.”
“Oh my, you found out already?”
The girl turned to look at Riyekan with sparkling eyes. Interest and amusement were evident in her gaze.
Riyekan realized that the girl had been hiding this fact for nearly ten years for today’s amusement. But this wasn’t unusual, as fairies were naturally such beings.
Riyekan silently glared at the Queen.
“…You could have told me.”
“But had you known, it would have been much harder, wouldn’t it?”
“I could have found them more quickly.”
“And that’s why it would have been harder.”
The Queen, who smiled with her eyes at Riyekan as he closed his mouth in displeasure, whispered:
“Because you would have destroyed everything to possess them.”
The Queen’s eyes sparkled sharply as she tilted her head as if seeking agreement. Deep green eyes, difficult to read and ill-fitting with her childlike appearance, reflected Riyekan’s face.
“You can only get about half by breaking things. The rest would just crumble and become irretrievable forever. But you never had the patience to wait, did you?”
Riyekan couldn’t help but nod.
When he wanted something, he was no different from a lion starved for ten days—violent and left with only longing, wary of everything around him. After finally finding what he wanted through searching, he would cling to it and threaten his surroundings hostilely.
He endured by keeping things close because he thought that was the only option, but if he had known he could devour them at once by breaking them, he would have done so without hesitation.
Whether stone or broom, he might have broken it, and upon seeing the sheep, he might have immediately slit its throat. And in that state, if he had seen Jin-ha, perhaps Jin-ha too.
“So be grateful.”
“…Was that also Master Senistry’s request?”
“No, she made no such request. It was purely my goodwill.”
The fairy Queen, famous for not showing herself in her own world, was lending power to the tower and to Riyekan all because of a request made by Master Senistry, the previous tower master.
Following Master Senistry’s advice, Riyekan came to the tower, entered as an apprentice wizard, and built his name and achievements over ten years. Even when suffering from occasional thirst, he had no choice but to endure and suppress it.
When Riyekan finally rose to the position of Master, the fairy Queen appeared. She asked if he would inherit the contract that Master Senistry had established as the Master of the tower, and Riyekan finally understood why fairy power persisted in the Noon Moon Tower even after Senistry’s disappearance. When contracting with the fairy Queen, Master Senistry approached not as an individual magician but as the entity holding the position of Master of the tower, which is why the contract could continue even if the tower’s Master changed.
The contract terms were as follows:
In exchange for borrowing the spatial power of the fairies, they would stay in part of the tower and use the surrounding forest and meadows. The Master of the tower was obligated to employ gardeners to maintain the surrounding landscape, and additional requests would be negotiated by both parties.
There was no reason not to accept a contract that was all gain.
Upon accepting the contract, the Queen smiled with pleasure and tossed a small stone to Riyekan.
The moment he caught it, Riyekan felt an intense satisfaction. He could feel that this was what he had been wanting all along. Only then could he understand that what he had thought was a purposeless craving actually had a clear purpose.
Later, when they met again, the Queen smiled and said, “Senistry asked me to take good care of you.” She also mentioned that this time she had given it freely because it was the first time, but in the future, he would have to pay a price.
That was the subsequent relationship between Riyekan and the Queen, and how Riyekan came to ask the Queen to bring Jin-ha to this world.
“…Is it true that what Jin-ha has is the last piece?”
“It’s true. You’re now ‘almost’ complete.”
The Queen, who had finally completed the flower crown, breathed life into it with a soft “whoo.” Then, buds grew from the stems woven into the crown, opened up, and bloomed like a splendid tiara.
The Queen placed it on Riyekan’s head.
“Congratulations, Riyekan.”
Riyekan tried to remove the flower crown with a displeased face, but when it wouldn’t come off his head, he left it alone. The Queen had clearly played an unnecessary prank. The Queen seemed dignified for a fairy, but in fact, the fairies’ mischievousness was all a result of resembling their Queen.
Riyekan sighed deeply and asked:
“Why don’t I feel any difference even though I’ve recovered quite a bit of my soul?”
“That’s because you’re not yet completely whole. A broken soul is like a jigsaw puzzle. Until the last piece is put in place, no matter how much you recover, it doesn’t hold much significance.”
“What about the minor significance?”
“My, you’ve become quite sharp now.”
The Queen smiled, her eyes sparkling with interest.
Riyekan had fallen for her wordplay more than once. Perhaps the Queen had contributed to his worsening temperament.
“As your soul becomes more complete, you’ll crave the remaining pieces more strongly. The instinctive desire to become whole will surge up, and when only the last piece remains, it will be truly unbearable.”
“…That’s fine.”
“Will it be fine for that child too?”
“Jin-ha and I have a contract.”
“There wouldn’t be what you want in the contract terms, would there?”
“I can make additional requests.”
“I see. Well, good luck with that.”
The Queen nodded lightly with eyes like those of a human watching a puppy play. It sounded as if she was waiting for a mistake, making Riyekan frown.
Riyekan changed the subject to the other purpose of his visit today.
“What happened with what I asked about last time?”
“The fairy who gave that child the key? I told you then too. There is no such fairy. You must have been mistaken.”
It was clearly a lying face.
Though it was annoying to see her tell lies with an expression that didn’t even try to hide the truth, there was no way to press the Queen further, so Riyekan simply gave up.
As Riyekan irritably stood up and headed toward the door, the Queen’s voice coldly warned from behind:
“Take good care of that child.”
When Riyekan turned around, the Queen smiled.
“I like that child. To the extent that…”
The Queen grabbed handfuls of small fairy children rolling around on her skirt and showered some with kisses. The small fairy children burst into cheerful laughter.
“If circumstances allowed, I’d like to turn him into a fairy.”
Riyekan twisted his face severely as he turned away.
Fairies were beings who roamed around with pranks and pleasure as their life purpose. Becoming a fairy was no different from losing love and instead coming to like everything. At the same time, it meant that Jin-ha would escape from his grasp.
He could never allow such a thing.
It seemed there was no definite intention to make him a fairy yet, but one never knew when the capricious Queen’s heart might change. There was a need for vigilance.
* * *
In a small garden on one side of the second floor of the Noon Moon Tower.
Jin-ha, seated at an outdoor table, was organizing today’s schedule by the light of a small lantern. Usually, he would handle paperwork throughout the morning and then have lunch with Riyekan who would wake up late, but today he had hurriedly come out after receiving a message to have breakfast together early.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
