Volume 4, Chapter 5 – Transmission Beacon

“I see.”

The Elf King didn’t sound as bad as Fia had previously thought.

“But the Elf King doesn’t seem to like these consorts very much.”

“They are all your mothers. If the Royal Consorts were to hear you refer to them as ‘these,’ they would surely be heartbroken. They have spent a very long time with you and have grown attached,” Anastasia said with a wry smile.

“So stepmothers are better than a real mother, huh.”

Fia couldn’t help but retort. If you spend enough time with something, you’d be reluctant to throw it away even if it were just a stuffed toy.

“However, it is true that His Majesty the Elf King is not fond of any of the consorts besides the Queen. His Majesty is devoted only to Queen Veronica; the rest of the consorts are the products of political marriages.”

These women are so pitiful, Fia lamented internally. If she were to sit on the Elf King’s throne, she would never get involved in political marriages. Love could only be born from being with someone you truly liked.

Fia pursed her lips.

“Then what is the Elf King’s attitude towards me?”

“Like that of a normal father,” Anastasia answered without hesitation.

“He pays close attention to you without doting on you excessively. If you do something that His Majesty deems wrong, he will first ask for your reasons. If your reasons can persuade him, he will not question you further. Except for certain specific matters, this subordinate has never seen His Majesty use his status as a father to pressure you. He is a man of both reason and wisdom.”

Seeing Anastasia’s resolute expression, Fia concluded that she wasn’t just intentionally praising the Elf King.

“Specific matters? For instance?”

“Uh…” Anastasia lowered her gaze, her usual serious expression tinged with shame. “On… on matters concerning this subordinate. If there is one point of conflict between you and His Majesty, it is his attitude towards me… When you brought me back from the Land of Exile, you had a fierce dispute with His Majesty and gave him the cold shoulder for several years. That was the first time I saw His Majesty tell you that you should obey his will, because you are his daughter.”

So it’s all because of a past romantic entanglement, Fia sighed softly. Before the current queen, Veronica, was married to the Elf King, she and Anastasia’s father were, if not husband and wife, at least lovers. And from that relationship, Anastasia was born.

From what she had heard from others, the Elf King had later forcibly taken Veronica from Anastasia’s father, which led to the Queen becoming melancholic and, at the same time, hating Fia, the child who carried the Elf King’s blood.

Veronica’s reaction likely gave the Elf King a sense of inferiority, a blow to his masculine pride, as if to say he was not as good as Anastasia’s father. That was why the Elf King was so sensitive and quick to anger on the subject of Anastasia. Fia could completely imagine the reasons behind it.

“Hah, I get it. Let’s leave it at that. It isn’t your fault, Anastasia. It’s just my Father being stubborn.”

“Your Highness, you shouldn’t speak of your Father that way,” Anastasia corrected Fia with a slight frown, like an older sister.

Fia waved her hands dismissively.

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“Forcibly snatching a married woman to be his own wife, while also exiling her husband and daughter—no matter the reason, it was his fault. I’m just making an objective evaluation.”

If she remembered her own history with the Elf King, perhaps she wouldn’t be so critical. But to her now, the Elf King was like a stranger.

“But your personality was also shaped by Queen Veronica’s hand. His Majesty’s anger is understandable. If the Queen had been kinder to you, you could have experienced a normal elf childhood. But the reality is that she never cared for you. It is because of this that you give outsiders a cold impression; you projected the Queen’s attitude towards you onto yourself.”

“That’s an ‘if.’ Queen Veronica certainly did not do what a mother should have done, but the ‘effect’ here came from the ’cause’ my Father sowed long ago. Let’s end this topic here. It’s still early. I want to take advantage of the fact that no one is around to experiment with some magic.”

Fia wasn’t trying to speak up for the Queen; she had no intention of offering a warm cheek to be slapped.

If Queen Veronica ignored her, then she would ignore Veronica, just as the original princess had. Ultimately, both the Elf King and Veronica were “strangers” to her. She was merely fulfilling the princess’s obligations, and if the relationship was terrible from the start, then that obligation didn’t exist.

With that said, Fia looked down and gently patted Liti, who was breathing quietly while leaning against her.

“Liti, it’s time to go sleep in the carriage.”

“Mmm… is it nighttime already?” Liti mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

“Mhm.”

“Okay~”

“Wait, Milu is still leaning on you.”

Fia reached an arm around Milu and pinched her ear—or rather, the white wing that took the place of an ear. The wings of a Stellacryst Beast were always wonderfully warm and exquisitely soft to the touch, making it hard to let go.

“Milu, wake up.”

Unlike the sleepy Liti, Milu instantly opened her crimson, vertical pupils like a light-sleeping cat, tilting her head to look at Fia.

“What is it?”

“Go to the carriage with Liti to sleep.”

“What about Master?”

“I’m going to stay outside for a little while.”

“Then I’ll wait for Master.”

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Her cat-like eyes stared at Fia’s face as Milu insisted stubbornly.

Liti then stood up and pulled Milu’s arm. Having just woken from a dream, Liti’s movements looked completely listless.

“Don’t bother Sister.”

“I’m not going.”

“…Then I’ll just stay outside for a bit too.”

With that, Liti sat down next to Anastasia on the other side of the campfire, not forgetting to let out a big yawn along the way. However, she seemed to be too tired, as she soon lay down sideways on Anastasia’s lap and fell fast asleep, her long purple hair spilling onto the grass.

How enviable.

Fia grumbled to herself.

I want to sleep on Anastasia’s lap too.

Of course, wishing was one thing, but Fia hadn’t forgotten what she needed to do. She stood up from the stump and walked to a spot about ten meters away from the campfire.

Although something rather delicate had happened earlier, she couldn’t forget the important tasks at hand.

As for what that delicate matter was, it was, of course, Renee’s inquiry that afternoon. At the time, she had acted on the principle that “it takes countless lies to cover up one lie, so it’s better to tell the truth early to prevent things from escalating,” and told Renee that she had lost her memory. She had even prepared herself to be scorned by Renee, feeling she would have to apologize even if Renee said, “How pathetic.”

However, Renee had reacted in an incomprehensible way, wearing a look of immense admiration and saying things like “Lady Erin Slate will arrange everything.” Even when Fia tried to explain, Renee gave her no chance, saying things to herself like “so you had a plan all along,” which was completely baffling.

Even when pressed, Renee just said that she didn’t know the details either, but Lady Erin Slate did, and that Fia could get all the answers from her when they returned. Her defense was like an iron wall.

Fia had no better strategy than to just let it be. The whole thing was inexplicable, and she would only find out the truth when she met the former duke’s daughter, Erin Slate.

“What is Your Highness trying to test?”

Anastasia first placed a soft cushion on the stump for Liti to rest her head on, then stood up and walked over to Fia.

Fia, who had just drawn her magic sword, Laevateinn, turned her head.

“I want to try out [Enchanted Blade] and the [Transmission Beacon]. Also, [Magic Weapon Forging].”

“[Transmission Beacon]? Is that the teleportation magic you got from the Witch Hall’s treasury?”

“Mhm, that’s the one.”

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With a troubled expression, Anastasia spoke tactfully.

“Teleportation magic… Your Highness, it is best not to have too high hopes. Teleportation magic was developed by the Darkborn, and no one knows its principles. As for [Enchanted Blade], this subordinate can offer some guidance.”

As Anastasia had said, the [Transmission Beacon] was something Fia had obtained from the Witch Hall’s treasury—it was an item, not a spell.

On the night before leaving Byrne City, Lianne had taken Fia to the Witch Hall’s treasury and let her pick something she was interested in. Although Lianne had just said it was “a farewell gift,” Fia could sense that Lianne wanted to repay one of the two favors she owed by letting her choose a treasure.

Fia had already felt that it was fine if the favor went unpaid, so she graciously picked something out with care, ultimately choosing this [Transmission Beacon] that was related to teleportation magic.

To summarize, it was a mother-child type of item. Its appearance was similar to a scaled-down Witch’s Heart Core, an opaque, deep-blue bipyramid. The two pyramids on the top and bottom could be rotated horizontally. The lower pyramid was further divided into many small pieces, giving it the feel of a Rubik’s Cube.

To use it, one first needed to inject a massive amount of mana into the beacon to activate it. Then, at a location where a coordinate was to be left, a small piece from the lower pyramid was removed and crushed. A spatial beacon was thus created. The “mother” pyramid on top would remember this coordinate for five to ten years. When Fia wanted to teleport to that coordinate, she just needed to infuse mana into the mother pyramid, and she could choose to teleport to the location of that beacon.

Because it was extremely convenient in many ways, Fia considered this item even more amazing than Laevateinn, the sword left behind by the Witch of Hope.

Lifting the bipyramid, which now glowed with a dark light after being infused with a massive amount of mana, Fia once again confirmed the number of small pieces on the bottom—a total of thirteen. There had originally been fourteen, but Fia had crushed one inside the Witch Hall.

“Are you going to crush one here to test it?”

“This place is too remote. I don’t want to waste one.”

“That’s true. But this subordinate doesn’t think this item can teleport over a distance as great as from Byrne City to Blossom. The mana consumption for teleportation magic increases exponentially with distance. Even for the Darkborn, unless there is a large teleportation gate at the destination, teleporting a hundred meters at once is already remarkable. If one gets lost in the spatial fog, the only outcome is death.”

If something like a spatial fog really exists, I’d quite like to see it.

Fia answered playfully in her mind.

In the Human Alliance, if people had to abort a space jump due to insufficient energy or a failed coordinate, the result was simply appearing in an unknown star system. There was no so-called spatial fog.

As if remembering something, Anastasia quickly asked again.

“Then when you said you wanted to test the [Transmission Beacon], you meant…”

Fia couldn’t help but chuckle at Anastasia’s tilted head and confused expression.

“As long as I infuse mana into this bipyramid, I can sense the location of the coordinates. If I can’t sense the coordinate’s location, doesn’t that mean the distance is too great and it can no longer sense the beacon? I can test its limits without actually using it.”

“And the result is…”

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“The distance is too great. I can no longer sense the coordinate.”

“So you are going to return the way we came to drop a second coordinate? This subordinate has avoided cities as much as possible along the way, so the news of your return has not been exposed. The people in the palace should not yet know that you are about to arrive at the capital.”

“I’ll use [Flight] to return in a moment. You don’t need to follow me, Anastasia. I could still sense the coordinates this morning, so it shouldn’t take long to fly to the maximum range of the teleportation. Hah, I thought it would be a teleportation item I could use from anywhere, but it turns out it has magical limits just like everything else.”

Although Fia had expected this, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of regret now that it was confirmed. If teleportation distance was determined solely by the amount of mana, she could have traveled between the northernmost and southernmost ends of the continent, or at the very least, back and forth between Byrne City and the Elf capital of Blossom without a problem.

However, this teleportation item, just like the magic, has its limits. The straight-line distance is only a few hundred kilometers, not as convenient as I had imagined.

“Oh well, having it is better than not. I’ll set one up at Estelle’s place later. For now, let’s learn some new magic. Anastasia, did the old me ever use [Enchanted Blade]?”

Putting the bipyramid away in her space pack, Fia asked Anastasia, who was standing behind her, while gently swinging Laevateinn.

“Of course. Although [Enchanted Blade] isn’t as common as [Flight], almost everyone who surpasses the Fourth-Rank tries to learn it. Your Highness was previously most skilled with the fire-elemental [Enchanted Blade].”

“Then I’ll start with the fire element as well.”

Claire used an ice-elemental enchanted blade, and she would use a fire-elemental one. It sounded like a perfect match.

Truly a match made in heaven.

As for what [Enchanted Blade] was, Claire had explained it in the past. It was a close-combat magic that imbued a weapon with an element, making it indestructible.

For example, if one used physical magic—that is, non-elemental magic—to enchant a weapon, it could increase the weapon’s length and width, and make it sharp enough to cut through iron like mud. If one enchanted it with the fire element, in addition to those two properties, it would also gain burning damage.

Because the weapon’s length could be increased at any time depending on the mana output, and it could be adapted to the changing conditions of the battlefield, [Enchanted Blade] was extremely versatile. Even a magic-caster who only specialized in long-range attacks could use it as a deterrent if an enemy got too close.

Of course, such a convenient magic was not without its flaws. Just as [Flight] magic wasn’t very fast, the weaknesses of [Enchanted Blade] were its high mana consumption and difficulty to learn.

Among ordinary people, if someone could learn [Enchanted Blade], they would be hailed as a genius. Among adventurers, a warrior who could use [Enchanted Blade] would instantly become the focus of every party’s recruitment efforts. The per capita ownership rate was less than one in a hundred. Some people couldn’t grasp the knack for it even after reaching the Fourth-Rank.

It was worth mentioning that the [Enchanted Blade] Fia knew of was different from the one Claire had described. The one Claire spoke of involved directly forming a weapon from elements and could only be learned by those above the Third-Rank. The [Enchanted Blade] that Fia knew, the one common on the World Tree Continent, was about condensing elements onto an existing weapon. Even a First-Rank person could learn it; whether they succeeded or not depended purely on their insight and talent.

This was likely related to what Claire had once said, that the magic she used might not be from the same system as the magic of the World Tree Continent. She could only be sure once they met again.

At this thought, Fia suddenly turned to look at Anastasia.

“Anastasia, do you still remember Claire?”