Episode 72 — High-Resolution Despair

One week. That was how much time had passed since Elishua had taken Bartos and headed for the elven village. I was in my Throne of Sloth, surrendering myself to the steady, rhythmic rotation of the ceiling fan, fully expecting Elishua to come bursting in noisily with a camera storage full of self-portraits.

Instead, what greeted me was a heavy, stagnant silence that ruthlessly trampled over the mental blueprint I had drawn.

Ding-dong.

When Elishua appeared on the monitor, I instinctively knit my brows. I invited her into the living room, but she didn't even spare a glance for the mirror she usually rushed toward. Instead, she slumped onto the sofa with a ghostly gait.

"...Master Zect..."

There wasn't a fragment of her usual brilliance in her voice. Her clothes weren't disheveled, but the excessive confidence and radiance that defined her had been completely extinguished from the inside out. Her eyes were unfocused, wandering through the empty air.

"What’s wrong, Elishua? Bartos, did something happen on the way back?"

"No... safety on the road was guaranteed. The problem is the state of the elven village."

Bartos reported with a face full of bitter agony. Beside him, Gustav—who had apparently abandoned his lordly duties to come here—placed a pained hand on Elishua’s shoulder.

"Mr. Zect. The Ern Forest is dying. According to Elishua, the Ern Pods—the fruit that serves as the village's staple food—are suffering from a continuous, mysterious blight. The village elves are calling it the 'Curse of the Forest' and are offering prayers to the spirits, but the situation is only getting worse."

"A curse, huh?"

"Mr. Zect, I am already prepared to send emergency food aid from Felsen. ...But at this rate, the very system of the Ern Forest will collapse. If that happens, there’s no telling what the impact on the elven village will be."

Gustav looked at me with an expression that mixed the cold judgment of a Lord with the personal concern of a relative.

Before I could speak, Elishua reached out with a trembling hand and offered the camera.

"...Please, take this back."

I turned on the camera’s LCD and began scrolling through the preview screen. The first few dozen shots were the usual Elishua. Photos of her holding her staff at perfect angles against the backdrop of the forest, flaunting her beauty with everything she had. But past a certain point, the trend changed dramatically.

Elishua had vanished from the frame.

In her place were records of vast farmlands turned a sickly brown. Cracked, shriveled fruit. Leaves hanging limp and lifeless. These images were recorded from every possible angle, numbering in the thousands, as if driven by pure obsession.

(The selfie-addict stopped taking photos of herself.)

That fact alone loaded the severity of the situation into my brain more heavily than any formal report ever could.

"Elishua, this is..."

"...Master Zect, please. I am begging you. I could not save them with my magic. I tried formulas to revitalize plants, magic to purify the land—I tried everything. But nothing... nothing changed. I thought that if it was you... looking at these records... you might see something... understand something..."

Elishua covered her face and bowed her head in silence. She wasn't putting her faith in my "magic." She believed in me as the mysterious "analyst" on the other side of this recording device. An inescapable silence settled over the living room.

"Gustav, take Elishua and go home for now."

I purposefully used a cold, dismissive tone.

"Wha—?! Master Zect, what are you saying? Lady Elishua is so clearly...!"

"Bartos, be quiet."

I cut Bartos off and placed the camera on my desk.

"If emotional arguments could fix bugs, I’d cry right along with you. ...But what we need right now isn't prayer or food. It’s identifying the root cause. Go home and sleep like the dead. We’ll talk after that."

Elishua stared at me with wet, shimmering eyes. Finally, she gave a single, small nod and stood up with Bartos’s support.

"...Please. ...Master Zect."

The three of them departed with heavy footsteps. Once again, the only thing that remained in the living room was the faint hum of the ceiling fan spinning slowly above.

"Mrrp. (Is that really the only way you can talk to her?)"

Tama let out a sound from my lap, sounding exasperated but also as if she had seen through my true intentions.

"The job of a Director is to make sure the panic on-site doesn't follow you home. ...Now then."

I crawled out of the Throne of Sloth and moved to my study's cockpit—my PC. I dimmed the room lights and hit the power.

Whirrrrr...

The cooling fans began to hum quietly, and the triple monitors cast a pale blue glow, severing me from reality. I took the SD card out of the camera and slotted it into the reader.

"Alright. Let’s start the debugging."

The 'Loading' bar on the screen began to stretch. The sight that the elves called a 'curse' and that had driven Elishua to 'despair.'

Identifying the true culprit lurking behind that high-resolution data—that is the one and only 'job' for me, the master of this sanctuary.

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