WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 568

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Surviving the World Tree

Capturing a powerful being is far harder than killing one. A strong one who has mastered energy can channel a thin current of it through ropes or handcuffs and corrode them from the inside, and if it comes down to it, they can dislocate their own joints at will or compress their body and slip free.

Managing prisoners has always been a genuinely difficult problem, for that reason. Without another fighter of equal caliber standing watch at all times, you might as well have left them in a cheap roadside inn. You might think breaking both arms would do the trick, but a strong one who has reached the energy-sensing ability can control their own body through energy and even heal it. That still isn't enough to hold them.

But what if you tore the arms off entirely? No matter how formidable the fighter, without arms they cannot resist. That might sound reasonable in a cold sort of way, yet...

What is the difference between tearing a warrior's arms off and killing them?

The arms had been wrenched away by pure force, and the regressor's condition was brutal. Even the Heavenly Mirror, that peerless energy technique, was no match for the blood loss.

I barely managed to recover the regressor's two arms, still twitching and reaching for their owner. I circulated blood through them using the Demon God's power so the severed limbs would not go necrotic.

As long as the arms were still intact, they could be reattached. It would not be a perfect restoration, but a master of energy, given enough rest and proper treatment, could still recover.

"We are almost there. I came without any prior notice, so preparations to receive you may be lacking. Please forgive me."

...Whether Nevida would actually give us time for any of that, I had no idea.

A flower bud rising from the earth wrapped around the regressor and me. Nevida set off without a word of warning. I nearly dropped the arms and managed to steady myself while bracing the regressor.

The druid's power shaped what she called a 'blossom passage,' a unique method of travel that carried us through it at a pace that was hard to believe. We cut through that dense sea of trees as if swimming.

But even through all of that, the regressor's life was hanging by a thread. Suppressing my anxiety, I kept the blood circulating through her arms for hours.

Then the bud abruptly lurched and swayed. It squeezed tight and began forcing itself upward through a narrow gap. I grabbed the wall and barely kept my balance while we were rapidly drawn somewhere, and then, without any warning at all, the bud burst open in full bloom.

My ears went numb. My body registered the sudden change in altitude before anything else. I squinted against the flooding light and stepped outside.

A hollow in an enormous tree. I could see a room carved out of the wood's inner flesh. Leaves, vines, and raw-timber stairs filled the interior. This was probably what a home looked like to a fairy who lived inside a tree.

I turned and looked out beyond the hollow.

"This is the World Tree. A tree this humble self dared to cultivate by grafting it from a seedling of the World Tree itself."

What spread before my eyes was an endless sea of leaves. And from somewhere beyond the edge of my vision, pushing inward from every direction, came massive branches.

They were so vast that my sense of distance warped just looking at them. Stairs ran along their thickly outstretched surfaces, and people could be seen moving across them. Trunks that dwarfed any ordinary road or building. Each branch split into dozens of further branches, each carrying different clusters of leaves as they reached outward.

Just the branches visible from here numbered in the thousands. Below, where I could not see, there were surely far more. Though no animal, a strong, pulsing vitality radiated from it all.

"Welcome to the World Tree. You who are the Lords of All Creation."

This was the World Tree, the Root Tree. And within it, the highest level where Nevida dwelled.

The Spirits' Chamber.

Whether the Spirits' Chamber was not built for humans to live in, I could not say, but far fewer thoughts than usual were reaching me. I read them quickly, as I always do. Around twenty people, each one absorbed in something.

At that moment, an unfamiliar resonance hit me. I had been reaching out with my mind reading when a wave of dizziness struck and I staggered.

"Wait. What is this?"

Something was wrong.

My mind reading had always been absolute. It had limits, yes, but the ability itself was honest and exact, showing me the human heart as it truly was. That had never changed.

'Nevida's wish. She's already nearly fulfilled it with her own hands. And somehow the last piece turns out to be me. The irony. It feels like I'm just swooping in at the end to take credit.'

But this resonance I was feeling now was different. Unlike anything I felt when reading a person's thoughts. An empty voice echoed inside a hollow consciousness. What I was hearing right now felt wrong, out of place.

'Still, Nevida's approach itself is sound. There's nothing wrong with me filling in that last piece. It's purely Nevida's achievement. So what matters isn't that side. Right now, the arms first....'

"Wait. What is this?"

Nevida watched me in my confusion and looked pleased, as if things were going exactly as expected.

"My lord. Forgive this humble one for speaking so plainly, and forgive the presumption..."

"After all the presumption you've already committed so freely? And you weren't planning on calling it presumption, either! Just say it. What is this?"

"As you have surely felt, my lord, this humble self is attending to you. Not the you standing before me now, but the you who was betrayed and wounded long ago."

Humans are called the Lords of All Creation. And at the top of the Root Tree is the Spirits' Chamber. But this place was not a space built for humans. It was a space built for the King of Humanity.

At the very top of the Tree of Corruption. That was where the remains of the King of Humanity Nevida had once served were kept. The same girl's body I had read about in the patron deity's memories.

"My lord. The power has been torn from your physical body. The servants of the treacherous temptress, the Five Lords, stole your 'strength' and dared to seize the throne in the king's name. A sacrilegious rebellion... the temptress made the king into something common and ultimately brought disgrace upon you."

Nevida raised her head and thought of what lay even higher above, what she had placed at the very peak of the World Tree so that no one would ever dare look down upon it.

"A loyal subject could not stand by and watch. This humble self has been protecting your royal body, awaiting the day you return."

It was the reason the regressor was hostile to Nevida, and the reason the King of Humanity who had appeared in the past wore the form of a woman. Nevida, who held the King of Humanity's remains, was no different from a priest summoning the King of Sin back into the world.

And that was surely why Nevida had brought me here.

"Then the reason you brought me along is somewhere above this."

"I trust you have an interest in it, my lord."

"Yes, I do. But before that."

I gestured toward the regressor, barely clinging to consciousness, and the two arms lying apart from her.

"Could you treat Shei? She's going to die at this rate."

You said you'd keep her alive. Wounds still need treating. Nevida looked indifferent to whether the regressor lived or died, but she recalled her own words and raised a hand.

The Root Tree rearranged itself according to the Demon God's will. The wooden walls curled upward on their own, and stairs grew out from both sides. Someone came walking down the newly formed steps: a middle-aged woman in loose, wide clothing, carrying a broad broom, wearing a pointed hat that was half-folded over.

The woman looked at Nevida and felt neither fear nor dread. It was not simply familiarity.

She, too, was a being who had touched this land's mysteries.

She was a witch.

"Great Druid. You called?"

"Walpurgisnacht. Treatment. Just keep her alive."

The witch Walpurgisnacht looked at the two torn-off arms and had only one reaction: mild annoyance. Only in her thoughts, though, not in her expression or her posture. Walpurgisnacht moved the broom with no change in her manner. The broom slid under the regressor on its own as though it were alive and lifted her up.

Walpurgisnacht looked at the remaining arms and asked.

"Should I reattach the torn-off arms?"

Oh. They have a technique for reattaching arms here too. Witches. I nodded right away.

"Yes, if you can, please..."

"Better without the arms."

"No, that's a bit harsh. You can always take them off again, so you might as well put them back. If too much time passes, reattachment won't be possible anymore!"

"It will be easier to manage her without the arms. Do not trouble yourself, my lord."

She was going to ignore me while using honorifics. That was a little infuriating. Was she joking?

'Conflicting instructions from the clients. Even if I don't reattach them, I should at least keep them safe.'

The witch mulled over whether to follow me or Nevida and ultimately decided to account for both. A wise call.

Walpurgisnacht gave a slight bend of her knees in a bow and gathered up the regressor's arms as well. Nevida did not so much as glance that way and flicked a small branch.

"Then this humble self will guide you to the royal bedchamber."

"By 'my lord,' do you mean somewhere for me to sleep, or are you referring to someone else?"

"...It is the bedchamber of the lord this humble self serves."

A large lucky bamboo rose from the ground, its broad leaves lifting both Nevida and me, and slowly began to grow upward.

Even a tree as vast as the World Tree had a peak. The trunk, large as a building, gradually narrowed, and past a certain point, nothing remained as a backdrop but open blue sky.

Sky and the World Tree. Between them sat a single bud. Nevida grew the lucky bamboo all the way to the top of that bud. The closer we got, the more an unknown noise crept into my mind reading.

'The King of Humanity meeting the King of Humanity. When a wish reaches its extreme, even this kind of irony becomes possible. That's why wishes matter. Whatever form they take.'

The bud, shaped like a lotus blossom, was large enough for a person to enter. I reached out and lightly touched one of the petals. The layers felt dense and hard, not something that could be peeled away by force.

"Step back."

Nevida raised a hand and swept it in a slow circle. The tightly closed lotus petals swayed gently and yielded to her will. The layers peeled back one by one, slowly unfurling to reveal what had been carefully cradled inside.

Nevida knelt toward the interior and pressed her forehead low.

"Nevida begs to enter for a moment."

Inside the flower was a 'girl,' slightly more grown than when I had seen her in the patron deity's dream. Curled up like a child, with vine tendrils like umbilical cords attached to her mouth and nose, supplying her with nourishment. Her heart did not beat and her breath had stopped. If asked whether she was alive or dead, I was certain it was closer to dead.

But thanks to Nevida's care, the King of Humanity had persisted across an unfathomable span of time.

'The King of Humanity Nevida cherishes, the one she served in the distant past. She is fixated on that King of Humanity, not on me, whose face and memories are both unfamiliar to her. Nevida's true wish is probably not me, but...'

The voice coming through my mind reading grew louder. As I had suspected, the thoughts I was reading right now felt wrong. My head ached as if I were listening to a piece composed entirely of dissonance.

Before I realized it, I was following an instinctive pull.

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