I realized I’ve never sung any hymns before.
Ever since I entered the convent, I’ve been super busy. Most of the nuns’ schedules had nothing to do with me.
As soon as I became a nun, I started taking classes to attend the academy, and while other nuns did their prayers and Bible studies, I often ended up studying alone in a subtly twisted schedule.
Once I figured out I was getting special treatment, the other nuns stopped approaching me as well. I still live in the convent, but the only nuns I’m close to are Aurora and Linea. Even they weren’t originally nuns; we first met because they were assigned to keep an eye on me.
If we’re being picky— I’m actually closer to Andrea than the regular nuns living in the convent. If you can even call it ‘close,’ that is.
Since this is the first time I’ve sung since coming to this world, it’s less that I couldn’t sing and more likely that I thought there was no need to learn. I don’t look like I can’t sing, do I?
…Or do I? Do I look like I can’t?
After getting feedback that my singing wasn’t really ‘singing,’ I started having those thoughts.
Plus, with Aurora right in front of me, singing beautifully without any lyrics, that only made it worse.
When I was looking for someone to sing, Aurora was the first to volunteer, and she sang the hymn in a gorgeous tone.
The problem is, hymns are songs that the knights hear so often they get tired of them.
According to the knights sitting here, they hear hymns as often as soldiers hear military songs.
They play hymns non-stop at events, when the military band is dispatched, and even during personal upkeep time after work.
At first, it was about to drive me nuts, but then at some point, when I found myself humming along with the hymns, I was taken aback— it felt just like a military song, in that position.
While the choir’s hymns are nice to listen to on commemorative days…
It’s not that different from the feelings of Soviet troops listening to military songs sung by the Red Army Choir.
…Well, at least I’m not a conscript.
Anyway, when I asked Aurora to sing something other than the painfully familiar hymns, after a long bit of thought, she suggested such songs.
When I listened closely, they were songs I’d heard somewhere.
Actually, they were more like music than songs.
Music played by the human voice instead of instruments.
I’m not really familiar with the music of this world. I’ve never been the type to listen to music with earphones, but sometimes I could pick up on popular song titles when they became trendy. I only knew classical pieces like the Canon Variations.
Moreover, this world has nearly 500 years of history since the era I lived in. The classical music referred to here didn’t exist in my understanding of music.
An interesting point is that classical music here is still very ‘classical.’
Even after 500 years since the emergence of modern instruments like electric guitars and keyboards, classical music is played with wooden string instruments, pianos, and brass instruments— the very ‘classical’ instruments.
Could it be that my understanding of classical music was used while writing this story? But given the nature of this world where unwritten parts are arbitrarily pieced together, that seems unlikely.
Oh well, as long as it sounds good, it doesn’t matter.
Aurora’s voice, in fact, was very pleasant to listen to.
While I wasn’t addicted to smartphones, I’d sometimes listen to this and that during breaks, and it turned out to be classical music. Despite her lively appearance and personality, she had a slightly refined taste.
After all, watching her actions did give off a vibe of a pure young lady who grew up sheltered and knows nothing.
Given that she lives in a convent, though, it’s not like her life has been entirely smooth.
“Is this a song?”
Rene asked seriously.
“A song… is it a song?”
Grace pondered seriously. The one who recommended Aurora’s song was Grace herself.
“It’s definitely a song. If you hear a song with meaning, you probably won’t recognize it as a song.”
I answered while hugging my knees and wearing a pouty face as I listened to Aurora’s song, but it seemed Grace didn’t agree.
“Well, it does seem like a song, but it feels different, doesn’t it?”
In the world I originally lived in, there were songs made entirely of gibberish, and even games comprised only of such songs for their OSTs. There was even a composer who specialized in such songs. Did the voice count as an instrument, I wonder?
It really sounded good, but as I mentioned, I didn’t have a hobby of listening to music, so I didn’t remember any titles. I liked the OSTs I heard while gaming and would sometimes search for the game titles on YouTube, but…
Well, many people prioritize the meaning behind songs.
“You know, like the meaning of the song, or the message it tries to convey, that sort of thing?”
Grace, looking quite frustrated, seemed very serious. Well, most of the music these people usually listen to consists of hymns. The content in hymns is incredibly important. After all, hymns were created to praise God, to begin with.
“Hmm.”
Intrigued, I thought carefully.
To be honest, isn’t the language of the elves already like a song? No matter how much their everyday speech resembles song, the absence of real songs or poetry feels a bit questionable. Is there really nothing like casually humming, like Aurora is doing now?
“Rene, do you feel like Aurora’s song holds any meaning?”
“Yes. It’s not entirely meaningful, but I occasionally hear awkward words; it kind of sounds like someone mumbling at first glance.”
“…….”
Ah, I could see that perspective.
If so, would expressing it in a different script devoid of meaning make sense, I wondered, but then again, depicting art this way is extremely difficult.
Every script has sounds that can and cannot be expressed. In most cases, the sounds that cannot be expressed are attempted to be mimicked and written similarly, but some sounds can be expressed only in that script.
For example, the clicking sounds often used to mimic clock sounds can be an actual pronunciation in some African languages. Sometimes this sound is even used in personal names, but in languages other than that, it’s seen merely as a kind of trick that can be done with the tongue.
For elves, who use a twelve-tone system in their language, that thing might not be a trick, but simply common sense.
If the language itself fits melodically like a poem, recognizing it as a song might be significantly challenging.
Aurora’s nonsensical song being heard as a silly miss-translation of a foreign song by elves might have been quite laughable.
“Hmm.”
This is tricky.
Telling a race that talks like they sing what a song is —
Huh?
Now that I think about it, with twelve tones and words that rhythmically fit and also hold meaning, there shouldn’t be a reason not to call it a song, right?
In musicals, even when delivering lines through songs, no one claims it’s ‘not a song.’ Each musical number gets labeled as a song when included in albums.
When observing elves in conversation, it often sounds like they’re chanting. Naturally, there’s meaning, too. Provided that suitable instrumental play is laid beneath, can’t it just be called a musical?
I snapped back to reality as a round of applause erupted from the knights. Aurora’s song had finished. Aurora, playfully responding with exaggerated gestures, truly looked happy.
I spoke to Rene, who was clapping absentmindedly following the crowd.
“Rene, is there any story passed down among elves?”
“A story?”
“Yes, a story. Something like old tales told to children.”
“Oh, there is something like that. I often begged my parents to tell them to me as a child.”
“Then, could you share that story with us?”
To be honest, I was curious. I had only briefly noted the elven society, and I knew nothing about the stories or the myths and beliefs they created as they lived.
Besides, I never planned to ask a high-ranking elf to tell me.
Something like an old story, like the fairy tales humans hear sitting on their parents’ laps as kids— I never found anyone kind or gentle enough to share those. Given their intense elder-like behaviors, they might say they were ‘not interested in such childish things.’
Though I believed those ‘things’ encapsulated the cultural essence of their nation.
“However, please tell it in the elven language. No need to translate, just the story as you heard it as a child.”
“If it’s in the elven language— then you might find it hard to understand…”
Seeing Rene worry, I smiled at her.
“No, I have some thinking to do.”
“Is that so?”
Rene tilted her head, but still, pushed to stand.
Watching her rise, the knights’ applause gradually faded. Eyes began to focus on Rene.
Fortunately, there was no hostility. Instead, curiosity sparkled in their gazes.
Aurora, noticing Rene’s stand, subtly smiled at her and quietly stepped aside.
Nervously standing in the center of the audience, Rene looked around at everyone sitting around her, placed her hand on her heart, and took a deep breath.
“Then, at the request of the Saintess, I will tell an old tale of the elves.”
One of the knights whistled. A small round of applause followed.
“The tale is about the beginning of the world that elves believe in.”
Rene, glancing at me with slightly tense eyes, resumed. As I nodded my head, Rene, with a look of determination, nodded too and cleared her throat.
And then, with an exceptionally pleasing tone—
She began to sing.
However, the elves wouldn’t recognize this as music or a song. They imbue distinct meanings onto every note they can easily produce and create words with similar sounds to build the rhythm. That commonality for elves is, to us, nothing but song, poetry, and music.
So, thinking about ‘telling elves what a song is’ is akin to strutting in front of a cocoon.
For elves, song and poetry are as natural as breathing; they’re simply parts of life.
Nothing special, yet perfectly beautiful.
With Rene’s gentle voice, everyone sitting around held their breaths. No one here could understand what she was saying. To be more accurate, nobody here could recognize that as language.
But precisely because of that, the story she shared became beautiful lyrics to all present.
How many minutes passed?
Though Rene’s ‘story’ was incomprehensible, it wasn’t boring at all. It was already one long song.
There were parts where the song took a break in between, and pauses between words. All this flowed with a steady rhythm, not haphazard like merely conveying speech.
It wasn’t just a language composed solely of pitch variations.
Elves, with their keen senses and excellent musicality, not only created a completely different beautiful language system but also ventured into the arts.
Once Rene’s tale ended, silence took over because no one had understood her words, and slowly one knight began to clap, recognizing that Rene’s tale was over.
Then his applause blended with others, eventually leading everyone to clap.
“What? You don’t know how to sing?”
Grace muttered in a slightly deflated tone.
It seemed she was somewhat disappointed that she couldn’t express something like, ‘Ah— this is music and song— a beauty you all don’t know.’ After all, how could anyone endure that? In the world I came from, psychological satisfaction through such means was trendy.
Even though some individuality among nations remains, borders have blurred in 500 years. Having no chance to feel superiority this way isn’t entirely impossible, but it’s indeed much less than 500 years ago. Good policies gradually spread across regions under the central government.
“Was it… okay?”
Rene, with a slightly flushed face, approached me and asked.
“It was wonderful.”
I replied with a smile.
“But, I merely shared a tale. Isn’t it a bit different from the songs you speak of?”
Rene, raised in an elven village since birth, manipulates pitch and tone subtly even when speaking human languages. Even our seemingly thoughtless speech might sound different to elves. I should inquire more about that later.
“No, to us, you sang a song. If that was the story you typically tell in elven cultural settings,”
I was certain as I explained to the still puzzled Rene.
“Elves, live their lives in a manner where it’s completely natural to compose poetry and sing.”
*
In a world where nothing existed, time began to flow for the first time.
Time that had been flowing down from the bottom of the void below gradually began to accumulate at the very bottom of the world.
For a long while, as time slowly gathered, it eventually filled the world entirely.
Even though the world was filled with time, the time that continuously flowed in somewhere pressed through the already brimming space.
The oldest time at the very bottom filled with time ultimately became a dot, pressed and compressed by new time.
Even after the dot appeared, time continued to accumulate. Receiving more and more old time, that dot grew and expanded.
Eventually, the dot became too heavy and became lodged firmly at the world’s bottom.
Unable to bear its own weight, the dot eventually cracked open.
From the split of the dot, a portion of compressed, solidified time flowed out.
The flowing time constantly burrowed into the ground of the world, with the dot being the first seed and time being the first root.
Taking nutrients from the continuous inflow of new time, the root constantly dug into the bottom of the world, eventually piercing through to the other side of the bottom and stretching into the void.
Within that space of nothingness, unrestricted, nurtured by the continuous nutrients entering through the root, the ‘great tree’ grew, eventually sprouting immense branches and many leaves.
The world we inhabit rests atop one of those leaves, the outermost tip of the ever-growing tree.
Thus, we cannot defy time.
Because we live outside of the world, we can never reach the truth.
As we split off from one root into countless worlds, we will always yearn for different worlds,
thus, we continually depict and share other worlds through stories.
*
Rene’s story interpreted was truly an elven myth.
The crux of this tale is that the Arlil we see is the tip of that great tree— or so they believe.
“Although very few take it seriously.”
Rene, feeling shy, playfully stuck out her tongue.
Well, it seems Rene is definitely a woman. At least, that’s the impression I’ve formed from her actions thus far.
I could understand why even elves don’t take this story seriously.
If Arlil really were a branch from an unknown true world, moving it means ‘transplanting,’ and that’s impossible. It doesn’t mean it won’t break or fall apart. That’s to say, there’s no significance in transplanting it. With a tree that penetrates worlds, it should have always been in that world in the first place.
Of course, while it may just be a ‘tale of yore’ now, it might have once held deep religious significance. Before it was known that Arlil could be ‘planted,’ the tree itself would have been sacred, making it forbidden to harm.
Still, I bet elves would rise up if someone broke off a branch. In that sense, their faith remains intact.
A belief that has slowly changed over time, adapting to revealed truths. Yet, the faith still persists. The object of that faith has been separated and transformed throughout a historically rich religion.
It’s a tempting subject for anthropologists.
However,
Even if most elves believed that myth, those who occupied the higher echelons of the past Elven Empire might have known better.
Did they flee after breaking off a branch? Was that truly an act of ‘gambling with what’s unsure?’ If so, wouldn’t it have been better to bring back fruits instead? Planting seeds to grow a sprout. Such common sense is something elves, having built a civilization, should know.
Moreover, instead of breaking off several large branches, it’d be more worthwhile to pack away as many fruits as normally kept. They would also take up significantly less space than branches. That’s why seed preservation research facilities exist.
The elves in the upper echelons understood how to transplant Arlil.
So, rather than protecting that sacred tree to the end, they committed the blasphemy of wounding its flesh while breaking branches to escape to another world.
All the while doing so through a gate under the ongoing invasion of demons.
Hmm, that’s extremely suspicious.
Even someone as dim-witted as me can recognize such facts— couldn’t the subjugated elves grasp this as well?
Are the elves who can learn human languages ‘easily’ unable to fathom this?
Questions keep tailing each other, growing unceasingly.
Yet, I couldn’t possibly draw any conclusions about those questions.
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