High & Half and the Town of Wheat (9)

"Come to think of it, doesn't Win-kun go to church?"

It was around the time a full year had passed since Win and I had begun living together in Jampemon.

That question made me tilt my head without thinking.

Of course, it wasn't that I didn't understand why someone would attend church.

I just wondered whether Nonna had forgotten that we'd probably be leaving town before long.

When Nonna saw the gesture, she looked as though she'd suddenly remembered something, then her expression twisted sadly.

Apparently, she really had forgotten, but... wait.

Though that hadn't been my intention at all, it had somehow ended up looking as though I were making Nonna sad.

Well, no—but mourning the fact that our parting was drawing near and regretting it was also proof that Nonna was enjoying our present days, so it was actually something I should be grateful for.

Our days had become not only enjoyable but ordinary to Nonna—so ordinary that she'd forgotten the day we'd leave.

"Well, church is... I'm grateful that it teaches reading, writing, and arithmetic, and I suppose it would give Win more chances to interact with other children, but..."

With a strange, prickling sense of guilt, I pretended not to notice the change in Nonna's expression and moved the conversation forward for the time being.

Still, I wasn't very keen on sending Win to church.

It certainly wasn't simply because we'd eventually be leaving on a journey.

Until now, I hadn't had much to do with it, but the church's role in this world was extremely broad and closely connected to people's lives.

First, when a baby was born, the parents would inform the church of the child's birth and name even before notifying the town office, and have the deity worshiped by the church acknowledge the child's existence.

In small villages with no town office, the church apparently sent word to the lord who governed the village, and the child's name might be entered in the village register.

Marriages, meanwhile, took place at church, and the couple's union likewise had to be acknowledged by the deity.

And at the end of a person's life, a funeral would be held at a church, followed by burial.

But that wasn't all the church did.

It taught children reading, writing, and arithmetic, ran orphanages, and served free meals to aid the vulnerable.

And, of course, above all, it was a place of worship and faith.

So, in this world, churches played an extremely broad and important role.

Incidentally, academies and schools existed in some countries and regions, but they weren't places for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. They were places to study more advanced subjects, or specialized fields and skills such as military science, magic, and politics.

Like the three magic academies in Odyne, the nation of magic—though I never attended them.

Anyway, I had three reasons for being reluctant to send Win to church.

The first was that, no matter how you looked at it, the church was a religious institution.

The religion followed in this region was, as far as I knew, one that worshiped the Fertility God—or perhaps the Fertility Goddess—whom Martena had served as a priest.

Its teachings were gentle: all people were equal as children of the earth, and everyone should live each day with gratitude.

I'd heard that far to the west, beyond the Pulha Great Forest, some religions taught that humans held the highest position among all living things. So it was fortunate for us that this land hadn't been steeped in such thinking.

Thus, in practice, I probably wouldn't have considered it much of a problem if Win said he wanted to become a follower of the Fertility God.

But I wanted to avoid having those teachings imprinted on him as unquestioned values while he was still too young to distinguish things for himself.

Even if the Fertility God's teachings were egalitarian toward other races, their foundation was still a human way of thinking and a human set of values.

Those who tilled the land and lived from it, and those who lived in the forest, naturally differed in their feelings of gratitude toward the earth.

For those who worshiped the Fertility God and lived by cultivating the land, the harvest they obtained from it was surely a blessing bestowed by the earth.

But for those who lived in the forest, the plants that grew from the earth and the beasts and animals that roamed it were all equally living beings.

Of course, though both obtained and ate food from the earth, their values differed in subtle ways.

It wasn't a question of which was right or wrong.

Ah, this may be taking things to an extreme, but I don't even think the western religion's beliefs—the ones that place humans at the highest rank—are wrong.

I'd heard that beastfolk, people with animal features, wielded great power in the western lands and had constantly threatened human territory.

So the humans there united, developed the idea that they themselves were in the right to oppose the beastfolk, and made it a faith to give them spiritual support.

Besides, apparently demons had existed in this world in the distant past, back in the age of mythology.

So while the western religion was inconvenient for me, I had no intention of declaring it wholly wrong.

I'd gotten off track, but in short, I wanted Win, who made spirits his friends, to see the world through values of his own rather than being steeped in human values.

If, after growing up, he decided that he wanted to devote himself to the teachings of the Fertility God, I wouldn't oppose him then.

That first reason had gone on quite long, but the second was the existence of divine arts.

Divine arts, also called sacred arts, were miracles brought about by mental strength honed through severe training or by a heart filled with strong faith—in short, supernatural abilities.

As part of teaching children reading, writing, and arithmetic, churches tested the children gathered there for talent in the divine arts, and sent any gifted children they discovered to headquarters.

The child's family would be paid a substantial reward, while children sent to headquarters would receive an advanced education alongside the development of their divine-art abilities, as future pillars of the church organization.

I didn't need money, and I didn't want even the remotest chance of being separated from Win for something like that.

That was why I didn't want to send Win to church.

Of course, it wasn't something I could say openly.

Finally, the third was the greatest difference between Win and the other children: their lifespans—or rather, the speed at which they grew.

For example, when I was a child, being a High Elf, it took me ten years to grow as much as a human did in one year.

Win, as a Half-Elf, wasn't as extreme, but he would still need two or three years to grow as much as a human did in one.

Put simply, if he stayed surrounded by many human children, Win would be left behind by every one of them.

That was a problem Win would eventually have to face entirely on his own.

After all, Win was a Half-Elf, and humans, elves, and... even I, a High Elf, all moved through time at different speeds.

Still, I thought there was a more suitable place for him to become aware of that problem and confront it.

At the very least, he shouldn't be forced to face it in front of a crowd of children who knew nothing of his circumstances and whose innocent curiosity was cruel nonetheless.

But I didn't know how to explain that to Nonna.

She probably knew that the different races had different lifespans.

She also knew that elves and humans didn't share the same religion.

But if you asked whether she truly understood the differences in how time passed and in our values, the answer was surely no.

What was ordinary for Nonna wasn't ordinary for me.

Probably not for Win, either.

The easiest thing would have been to gloss over the whole matter.

If I told her it was because I was a traveler, because we were different species, or simply because I didn't feel like it, she probably wouldn't press further.

In the meantime, the day we left town would arrive.

But there was no doubt we were able to enjoy our life now so much because she supported us, and I didn't want to fob Nonna off with an easy excuse.

"...I haven't quite managed to put this into words yet, so it'll be a rather long explanation, but will you hear me out? I'm an elf—or, more accurately, a High Elf—and Win is a Half-Elf, so our lives run at a different pace from humans'. It's not just a matter of lifespan."

So I decided to face the issue instead of avoiding it, had Nonna sit in a chair, and began explaining things one by one.

First, I'd have to tell her that I wasn't simply an elf, as she'd thought, but a slightly different kind of creature—a High Elf.