Chapter 3: Malice

Hiiro does have laws, at least nominally.
Compared against Earth’s history, though, they came awfully late and are underdeveloped.

If I recall, the oldest laws on Earth were Mesopotamian—established around the twentieth century BCE.

By contrast, what you could clearly call “laws” in Hiiro only came about roughly two hundred years ago—around Dragon Era 700.

Around the time Ruful built the Hiiro Grand Highway and interaction with other races grew lively, differences in customs and culture caused all sorts of problems. So we began by making agreements so everyone could live together as comfortably as possible.

That said, I’m just an occult otaku—I can’t pretend to understand law.

「A license, is it…?」

At my proposal, Misera—the thirty-third Head of the Sword Clan—rubbed her chin, pondering.

The Sword Clan are the ones who conceived and codified the law, who have operated it, and who have judged offenders. It’s a political form far from any separation of powers—an autocracy, really—but so long as it works, that’s probably fine.

「Right. We issue a certificate to people who can properly handle spirits, and forbid making spirits at will without that certificate.」
「That’s acceptable, but…」

Misera looked a little troubled.

「Who decides whether someone should be granted a license?」
「I’m thinking we’ll create the method and the apparatus for that from here on. You can’t just suddenly say, ‘From now on we’ll punish you for using spirits you’ve been using as usual,’ or everyone will be at a loss, right? We need to publicize it thoroughly in advance—that’s why I came to you first, Misera.」
「I see…」

She nodded as if convinced, yet still wore a complicated look.

「Sensei. Law is something paired with punishment. A law that merely says one must not do something doesn’t have much force.」
「Right. I was thinking the fine points of sentencing and such are better left to you, though…」
「Yes, well— I do think you can leave that to us, but…」

She cut herself off there and fell silent.

「Misera?」
「If I may ask, when do you intend to put that law into effect?」

Wondering if I’d said something odd, I called her name; she asked me with a grave expression.

「Including notifying everyone, within about ten years, I suppose.」

Since I hadn’t really thought about the timing, I answered offhandedly; she showed a slightly relieved look.

「Understood. I shall stake my very life on handling it.」

Then she straightened up, set her face, and declared as much.

「No, just do it normally.」
「Sensei always says such difficult things.」

I said there was no need to take it that heavily, and she gave me a wry smile. Well, it does concern running the village, so doing it slapdash would be a problem—but is it really that hard to relax your shoulders…?


* * *


「Good work, Onii-chan.」

Leaving the Sword Clan’s main estate, I heard a familiar voice from overhead.
When I reflexively looked up, a girl fluttered down from a tree.

「Huh? Yuuka—rare to see you around here.」

Yuuka is an unusual case as far as the Sword Clan is concerned. As a rule, apart from the direct line—the Head—people don’t like to use the Tsurugibe surname. It functions less like a family name and more like a name‑inheritance system. Well, people in Hiiro generally don’t have surnames, so maybe that’s just how it ended up.

Amid that, Yuuka the half‑elf, who bears Tsurugibe and has lived on across several generations, nevertheless cannot become Head and tends to float a bit. It’s not as if she’s ignored or excluded, but perhaps out of consideration she herself seems to avoid approaching the main house much.

「Yeah. You said you were going to consult Misera, so I figured I should at least tell you this.」
「Tell me what?」

Yuuka leaned her face in close as I cocked my head. At a distance close enough to touch, my heart gave a start.

「...Those kids can’t beat a spirit.」

But at that small whisper, I drew in a breath and stared into her eyes.

「Eh? Why?」

Coming from Yuuka of all people, it was surely true. Even so, I couldn’t make sense of it and ended up asking back.

「I knew it…」

She pressed her forehead and let out a deep sigh.

「See, Onii-chan. Humans basically can’t beat spirits.」

She told me in a tone like explaining things to a slow child.

「Spirits don’t have a physical body, so even if you cut them, stab them, or crush them, they’ll just return to form right away, and burning or freezing them is pointless.」
「I know that, but... if you rename them or eat them, you can erase them.」
「You’re the only one who can do that, Onii-chan!」

In the end, she scolded me.

「But you can cut them, right, Yuuka?」

Back then Yuuka had been about to cut the spirit horse. I stopped her because there was a child in the carriage, but otherwise she would have cut it down.

「...Well, I can cut it...」

As expected, she answered a little awkwardly. See? I knew it.

「Listen, Onii-chan, I’ve been swinging a sword for over two hundred years now, and people even call me a Sword Saint. Compared to that, you have to admit it’s a bit pitiful to measure Misera and the others against me.」

Yuuka lowered her voice again. So she’d been called that, huh.

「Your baseline’s weird, Onii-chan. Right now in this village, the only ones who could force their way through a spirit are me and you... and at best, Nina Onee-chan.」
「Not even Tia or Ruful?」

I opened my eyes wide in surprise.
Tia is probably the village’s most skilled mage in a fight. Her magic arrows, fired while she’s concealed and darting about, are hard to block or dodge, and landing a hit on her from our side is close to impossible.

Ruful, on the other hand, has a body whose toughness leaves everyone else behind. Half-baked attacks can’t even scratch her, and the great hammer swung by that giant body is a lethal blow to any living thing.

「No. Spirits are magic itself with a will, so turning invisible with magic is meaningless. And a spirit’s attacks are faster and stronger than the spells Tia‑chan fires, and no matter how much you hit or crush them, they don’t die. Those two can’t win no matter what they try.」
「Hearing it like that, spirits sound almost invincible.」

Come to think of it, that first spirit I ever saw—Jack Frost—gave me a hell of a time. In other words, even a fire dragon had his hands full with a spirit, even in a juvenile form. Thinking of it that way, maybe it’s only natural humans can’t beat them.

「Not ‘sound’—they’re actually nearly invincible. You casually rename spirits, but normal people can’t do that.」
「...Is that how it is? It’s not like I’ve got any naming sense...」

I just slap on names of fairies or monsters from my previous‑world knowledge whose images are close. You’d think there’d be plenty of people much better at naming than me.

「It’s not a matter of sense... If someone told you to start calling yourself Dalga tomorrow, would you obediently go along with it?」
「That’s quite a nostalgic name to bring up... I like Dalga, and I don’t think the name is bad, but being told to call myself that would be a bit hard to accept.」
「Right? Only you and Onee‑chan could force something like that through.」

Yuuka nodded as if to say, Now you finally get it, at my wry smile.

「And even that’s dealing with ones that are running wild—in other words, unstable spirits. They weren’t made with malice.」
「...Malice?」

For a moment I didn’t really get what Yuuka was saying.

「If you make it illegal to create spirits without permission, then the people who get called out for it might sic their spirits on you, right? Which is why the side doing the enforcement has to be able to defeat spirits.」

Only after she explained that far did I finally understand.

I have this habit of forgetting that even in this village there are bad people. Probably because I think of all the villagers as my own children. But as a matter of fact, there are those who won’t obey the law and don’t mind causing trouble for others.

If someone like that created a spirit with a genuine intent to harm others—yes, that could become a terrifying threat. It hadn’t even occurred to me.

Having just promised to somehow deal with it within ten years, I finally understood Misera’s grim resolve.