Part 2: The Branch in the Coffin, Mistilteinn (1)

Night was steeped in darkness.

A woman walked quietly onward. Moonlight fell on her long, straight blond hair, leaving her alone aglow amid her surroundings.

Her eyes were slightly downcast, her steps composed. Her gaze seemed tinged with melancholy as it gently swept the scenery aside, possessing an alluring charm that would make any man look back.

She continued at that leisurely pace until...

"... Huh."

Her eyes opened. No, they had been open all along. She woke up.

A few strands of hair were stuck to her lips.

"... Oh, I'm here."

Elin looked at the entrance to her house and checked her clothes.

"Doesn't look like I bumped into anything. Good."

Last time, she had walked all the way home with a leaf sitting on her head.

She let out a broad yawn, still sleepy. Though when was she ever not sleepy?

She opened the front door.

"Oh, you're home?"

Her younger brother greeted her from the sofa. If it counted as a greeting when he didn't even look away from the Wizerview.

"Aster."

Elin gave her younger brother, Aster Evans, a suspicious look.

"What?"

"Do you know that first-year from the Roach family?"

"Who's that?"

"Frondier. Frondier the Human Sloth."

Aster tilted his head farther at her words.

"... Who's that?"

Elin sighed.

Her brother was far too indifferent to what went on around him. To think he didn't even know who Frondier was.

"Someone said they saw you with Frondier. At the training rooms."

"... Oh, that guy?"

Aster spoke as though something had come to mind.

"But we weren't together. I just said hello as I passed by. He looked like he was waiting for someone."

"Hmm."

With a brief hum, Elin walked past him. Aster watched her head toward the refrigerator in disbelief.

"Wait, that's it?"

"I was worried you were picking up some strange habits."

Elin took out a water pitcher and filled a glass. Behind her, she heard Aster scoff.

"That's rich, coming from someone who does nothing but sleep all damn day—"

Elin flicked her hand.

The glass left her fingertips, water and all. It flew toward Aster in a perfectly level line, as though she had set it on a table and pushed it across.

Aster caught it and leaned backward with its momentum. Redirecting the force slightly, he spun all the way around.

The water sloshed inside the glass.

Elin watched impassively.

"You spilled some."

"That's because you threw it like that!"

"Like that? Want me to throw you like that, too?"

Damn it. Aster swallowed his frustration and drank the water.

If he used his Divine Power, she wouldn't even last a single punch.

He turned back to the Wizerview to put those pointless thoughts out of his mind.

"Huh?"

The news was playing on the Wizerview. What he heard made him freeze.

["Our next story. A party that cleared a dungeon near Solgitov has reportedly discovered a Divine Relic. The relic is a tree branch nearly two meters long, and its resemblance to Mistilteinn has caused quite a stir—"]

"Mistilteinn?"

Elin reacted to Aster's murmur as well. Setting down the glass she had been drinking from, she came over to his side.

On the screen, a member of the party was holding a transparent coffin. A long branch lay within it.

An interview was underway.

["Why did you put it in a coffin?"]

["We didn't. This is how we found it in the dungeon."]

["Did you consider breaking the coffin open?"]

["Certainly not. If the coffin is part of the Divine Relic, we could risk incurring a god's wrath."]

["I see. People have been speculating that this might be Mistilteinn. What are your thoughts?"]

["We really couldn't say. But we'd be delighted if it were!"]

The party leader laughed cheerfully.

Listening to that voice, Aster studied the branch inside the coffin.

Elin watched his expression as she asked,

"... What do you think?"

"I don't know. I've never seen the real thing."

"Has he... reacted at all?"

Aster shook his head.

By "he," Elin meant Baldur. Since this was the weapon that had killed him, she had hoped he might tell Aster something.

Most gods, incidentally, had experienced "death," just as gods had throughout their long histories and myths.

That did not mean they had ceased to exist entirely, however. They had left the human world.

They now existed in the "World of Salvation," a concept somewhat higher than the Greek "Underworld" or the Norse "Helheim" of their respective mythologies.

Baldur, too, would be there, and if he so wished, he might be able to offer Aster a word of guidance or a hint.

Unfortunately, Aster had received no hints from Baldur.

Yet his eyes remained riveted to the branch.

"You still want to check it out, don't you?"

"Yeah. If that's really Mistilteinn, I have to have it."

The branch that had killed Baldur.

For Aster, who enjoyed Baldur's love, it was just as much a weakness.

Conversely, if he could get his hands on it, his greatest weakness would disappear.

No, more than that—if he could actually wield it...

If anyone could use that Divine Relic, if anyone could gain a god's permission to wield it, wouldn't it be him alone?

["What do you intend to do with the Divine Relic, then? You won't be able to use it as it is."]

["We feel it's too great a weapon for the likes of us to possess. We're considering selling it if we can get the right price."]

"... Aster."

"I know."

That weapon would undoubtedly fetch an astronomical price. Whether it was real or fake didn't matter. Even if it was fake, it would be the real thing until the genuine article appeared.

A family uninvolved in combat would probably never use it. They would never prove its authenticity, merely enshrine it in their home.

That alone would enhance their prestige. That use alone would drive up its price.

To a sum Aster Evans, a commoner, could never dream of affording.

* * *

"Did you hear? About that Mistilteinn thing."

"Oh, they canceled the auction, right?"

A few days later, Mistilteinn was the talk of Constel.

Students and professors alike had their attention fixed on it.

The party that had discovered Mistilteinn had put the Divine Relic up for auction, only to cancel it soon afterward.

This had been inevitable. What the great houses offered could not simply be converted into monetary sums.

Ultimately, the heads of those houses were to gather and reach an agreement. Lesser nobles would not even be allowed to attend.

That gathering of nobles was today.

For once, all eyes in the classroom were on Frondier.

Whatever his character, he was undeniably the son of a great house.

His father, Angper de Roah, was said to love his son dearly.

The son in question was not Frondier, but his older brother, Atzier.

Then there was Frondier's recent remark.

Word of his baffling boast—"Mistilteinn doesn't look like that"—had spread throughout their year. The moment when his bluff would be exposed was fast approaching.

All these reasons combined to send interest in Frondier soaring at Constel that day.

The young man himself, of course, wore the same quiet, languid, sleepy expression as always.

"Frondier."

After school, Elodie came to Frondier's classroom.

Constel had six classes in each year. Though Elodie and Frondier were in the same year, they were in different classes.

Frondier was in Class Five, while Elodie was in Class Two with Aster.

Since Aster was, after all, the protagonist of the game Etius, many of its named characters were concentrated in Class Two.

As Elodie approached Frondier, the students' eyes converged on them.

In a way, though, her actions were only natural.

She, too, was the daughter of a great house—the Richae family, rivals of the Roach family. Naturally, she would be attending today's meeting.

"Don't go saying anything strange at the meeting, too."

Elodie's tone was warning.

"Anything strange?"

"Like how Mistilteinn doesn't look like that, or whatever."

"I won't say anything like that. Don't worry."

"Who's worried? I just don't want to be the one left feeling embarrassed. Well, as long as you won't talk nonsense, that's good."

Elodie let out a pointed sigh.

Frondier smiled. For the briefest moment, a light played across his languid face.

"Even without doing that, it's mine."

"... Huh?"

What had he just said?

It was his?

"Oh, you mean the Roach family's?"

"You could put it that way."

"Then say that. Don't make it sound so strange."

* * *

Frondier and Elodie headed toward the school gates together.

Many students watched them, as though watching a bride and groom leaving their wedding.

Their actual relationship, of course, was closer to the opposite.

"Elodie."

Someone approached them. It was Aster.

As two promising students in the same class, they were naturally acquainted. In a playthrough, too, this was about when Aster and Elodie would start talking.

"Hope it goes well."

"Thanks. Not that there's anything for me to do."

Elodie smiled as she joked.

Aster smiled back, but there was a slight stiffness to it.

"Elodie, can I ask you a favor?"

"Hmm?"

"I know it's a lot to ask, but if you can, get Mistilteinn. I'd feel safe if you had it."

Elodie smiled wryly at his request. She wasn't unaware of his situation, but it wasn't as simple as he made it sound.

From the Richae family's perspective, Mistilteinn wasn't something worth coveting to that extent. They would take it if they could, but it wasn't worth bleeding their coffers dry over.

The Roach family was probably the most likely to acquire it.

She had heard that its head, Ampere, would do anything for Atzier.

Frondier had good reason to say that Mistilteinn was his.

"... Well, I'll try," Elodie said.

Depending on how the meeting went, she might be able to speak up once. Though she didn't know how much difference that would make.

"Don't worry, Aster Evans."

Frondier suddenly spoke.

Aster looked at him.

Aside from their encounter at the training rooms, they were practically strangers. Yet Frondier calmly told him,

"I'll put an end to your worries."

With that, Frondier walked on. Elodie followed a little later.

"What on earth does that mean? Putting an end to his worries?"

"Exactly what it sounds like."

What on earth was it supposed to sound like?

Elodie looked uneasy.

In truth, Frondier currently had a problem more important—and more nerve-racking—than the meeting itself.

That problem was the person waiting for him at the school gates.

"Frondier."

A cold voice called to him from in front of a waiting carriage.

Frondier's first impression of the man could be likened to a honed blade.

His sharp yet unyielding eyes and tightly pressed lips embodied that image.

Judged by beauty alone, his handsome features would rank among the finest on the continent. Yet few could approach someone who looked so keen-edged that a touch might draw blood.

"... Brother."

This was Frondier's older brother, Atzier de Roach.

An officially overpowered character in Etius, he had inherited every shred of talent possessed by Ampere, the Iron Wall and head of the family, and was growing beyond even him.

"We've wasted enough time. Get in the carriage. Father is waiting."

Atzier moved without giving Frondier a chance to answer one way or the other. His movements conveyed the certainty that this was simply what Frondier ought to do.

Elodie, who had come with him, had already boarded the carriage sent by the Richae family.

"... Yes."

Frondier climbed into the carriage.

This man, whom he had seen for the first time today, was his older brother—and the person most likely to discover who Frondier really was.