Atop a Tree That Reaches the Clouds (9)

In the country of Fusang, humans, merfolk, and winged folk had lived alongside one another since before the oni appeared.

Of course, their spheres of activity differed, so apparently they kept much farther apart than they do now.

Even so, there have long been stories of winged folk rescuing humans who wandered into the mountains and guiding them down to the foothills, or of humans falling in love with merfolk who were accidentally caught in fishing nets.

But when different races draw closer, problems occasionally arise.

Yes—the existence of hybrids, born from the mingling of both races' blood.

Children are rarely born between different races, but the possibility is not nonexistent.

Of course, I don't want to say—and won't say—that there is anything wrong with children born that way.

But when it comes to how they are treated, problems inevitably arise because humans, merfolk, and winged folk all live in different environments.

Win, my stepchild, could see spirits, and his ability to call on their aid was greater than that of an ordinary elf.

But that was undoubtedly because he had been blessed with good fortune.

As far as I know, every elf can see and sense spirits, but that is not necessarily true of half-elves.

In fact, apparently half, or perhaps even more, of all half-elves lack the ability to see spirits.

The same is true of hybrids among humans, merfolk, and winged folk... No—in their case, the problem is even more serious because their living environments are so utterly different.

Most human-merfolk hybrids have a single, fishlike lower body, though the exact form varies.

Naturally, that makes living on land difficult, just as it is for merfolk.

But the real problem was that about half of merfolk hybrids lacked both the ability to breathe underwater like merfolk and the ability to control water currents.

Yes, merfolk hybrids could not live on land, but neither could they live in the underwater towns of the merfolk. They were beings who fell outside both ways of life.

Human-winged-folk hybrids had it considerably better. The size of their wings and whether they could fly still varied from individual to individual, but either way, they could live on land.

Humans and winged folk also differed only slightly in lifespan, so a hybrid's lifespan was not all that different.

The one piece of good fortune for human-merfolk hybrids was that merfolk had an exceptionally strong affection for their own kind and counted hybrids among them.

Hybrids could live only in shallow coastal waters.

Even to live a better life there, however, they absolutely needed human assistance.

For that reason, merfolk drew closer to humans, seeking interaction with them and protection for their hybrids.

The differences in lifespan and living environments were major problems for both sides, but conversely, that very distance also helped them interact.

Merfolk's beauty and longevity were overwhelmingly alluring to humans, but the fishermen who lived along the coast understood that if they angered the merfolk, every one of their ships could be sunk and their livelihoods ruined.

Precisely because the two groups lived in different environments, their interests did not conflict.

It was not true of every village, but apparently there were several coastal villages where a number of human-merfolk hybrids lived in the shallows.

In other words, the groundwork for cooperation had already existed.

The reason merfolk now cooperate with humans and winged folk to fight the oni is that the coastal villages where merfolk hybrids lived in the shallows were attacked and destroyed by the oni.

Apparently, the existence of the oni was scarcely known at first.

The northern region was mostly mountainous, and humans did not venture into the deep interior.

Villages where people lived, and countries that nominally brought those villages together, did exist, but the settlements were not in particularly close communication.

If anything, the northern mountains were home to many winged folk who could fly. At the time, they lived in small settlements, each community separate, rather than gathering in large numbers as they do now.

Monsters also existed in Fusang, so even if someone happened to see an oni, they probably assumed it was simply an unusual monster.

As a result, people did not realize that the oni were expanding their power until after several small northern countries had been destroyed.

And even then, they initially regarded them as nothing more than dangerous, troublesome monsters nesting in the northern mountains. Humans, the most numerous race, were divided among several countries at the time and made no attempt to act on their own to deal with them.

Apparently, the winged folk were the first to begin a full-scale war against the oni, after the oni had destroyed several settlements in the north.

But by the time the winged folk began fighting, the oni had already produced half-oni and built up their numbers. The winged folk, who fought the oni army alone, were defeated and suffered heavy losses.

The surviving winged folk gathered at Tengaku, their largest settlement, and sought to make a comeback.

The winged folk's short lifespans were, in other words, an advantage in that their children grew up and became warriors in a correspondingly short time.

Humans were the ones who panicked when the winged folk were defeated and the existence of the oni and half-oni became known to them.

They were no mere monsters.

They were an unknown threat: highly intelligent, overwhelmingly powerful, and, most horrifyingly, able to use us to reproduce, then attack with ever-growing forces.

Amid the confusion, even the large countries on the northern plains were destroyed, and the oni greatly expanded their territory.

This was also when the coastal villages were attacked and the merfolk hybrids were killed.

If the three races had joined forces from the very first battle, the war against the oni might have ended then and there.

But in Fusang, where even the human race was fragmented and unable to unite, that was naturally impossible. They had to wait for a hero to be born before they could truly come together.

That hero's name was Takato.

He was said to have been a human-winged-folk hybrid with especially small wings and, of course, no ability to fly.

But because his wings were small, they did not get in the way on the ground as other winged folk's did, and apparently he could move on land just as well as a human.

Takato went to the battlefields against the oni while he was still a boy and survived for a long time despite the odds being against him.

Then, together with comrades he had made on the battlefield, he defeated a great oni known for bringing down entire countries and made a name for himself.

At the cost of many lives.

But Takato was not content simply to make a name for himself. Instead, he used his newfound fame to first persuade the winged folk, or so I was told.

If things continued as they were, all of Fusang would soon fall into the hands of the oni.

Humans could flee to the continent where their fellow humans lived.

Merfolk, too, should be able to find another home in the vast ocean.

Indeed, merfolk did not live only in Fusang.

But the winged folk would have nowhere else to go if they lost Fusang.

That was why they had to cooperate with the other races and fight the oni.

After that, Takato persuaded the merfolk.

Merfolk could display their strength near water, while the oni lived on land, most of them in the mountains.

No matter how much they hated the oni, the merfolk's hatred could not reach the oni on land.

If things continued this way, the oni would ignore the merfolk and eventually take Fusang for themselves.

That was why the merfolk, too, had to cooperate with the other races and fight the oni.

Finally, with the cooperation of the winged folk and merfolk behind him, Takato pressured all the human kingdoms, dismantled them, and consolidated them into a single power.

Takato devised tactics that allowed the winged folk and humans to cooperate, and put the merfolk's power to use in transportation, completely transforming the way the war against the oni was fought.

He also established laws to reduce friction between the races, creating the conditions for Fusang to unite and fight the oni.

Takato truly displayed talent in both civil and military affairs and left behind a hero's legacy. Unfortunately, he was a human-winged-folk hybrid, and his lifespan was short.

Takato also had no children. In his later years, he sought to prevent disputes among humans and between the races—and ensure Fusang would not be destroyed by a power struggle after his death—by establishing laws, teaching a guiding philosophy, and distributing authority rather than concentrating it.

As a result, the time Takato could devote to fighting the oni was inevitably reduced.

Thus, the war against the oni was not brought to a conclusion during the lifetime of the hero Takato and has dragged on like a quagmire to this day.

In other words, Fusang already had the groundwork for different races to mingle while keeping their distance; then a powerful enemy appeared, and a hybrid hero united them all.

And after that hero died, the front lines stopped moving and the war settled into a stalemate.

I see.

I had assumed that the human side had been steadily pushed back, with the front line retreating to its current position. But if even Chinju, the forward base, was built by Takato, then the war really must have remained evenly matched ever since he emerged.

The current state of Fusang is sustained by the various balances that exist precisely because the oni are its enemy.