WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 577

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The Day the World Tree Burned

What is a witch? They are commonly known as a wicked sort who deal in medicine and poison, keep beasts as familiars, and curse humans, but in truth, it is not quite that simple.

Among most animals, females live longer than males. Humans are no different. Tyr and the great witch do skew the average, but even setting aside such exceptional cases, women survive longer on average.

An old woman who has outlived her partner lives on alone, tending small animals on the outskirts of the village through what remains of her life. Her aged body holds no particular value, but the knowledge drawn from long experience is worth its weight in gold. Drawing on that experience, she helps those in need as midwife, herbalist, and counselor.

Their knowledge passes down through word of mouth, is refined over time, and grows into a discipline of its own.

The ones who carried that tradition forward were witches.

Witches are those who commune with life and death more deeply than anyone.

[That makes no sense. How can "life is nothing special" count as enlightenment? Something that doesn't matter could never become a Demon God!]

The great witch was bitter enough about failing to become a Demon God that her feelings came through even speaking through a parrot. The parrot relayed her words with an air of grievance.

[I created life. Shouldn't I have more of a claim to the title than anyone?]

"You created life?"

[Yes.]

That was genuinely remarkable. No wonder she felt wronged about not becoming a Demon God.

"Just to be clear, this isn't wordplay where you mean you gave birth to children and call that creating life, right? By that logic, every mother would be a Demon God candidate."

[What are you saying to an unmarried maiden? Vampires can't have children in the first place!]

"Then where is the life you say you created?"

[You saw it just a little while ago. The meat fruit.]

Meat fruit, she must mean those fruits that grew meat, the ones I had seen in the room earlier.

"You made those?"

[Yes. They were my masterwork, meant to become a new hope for the Kingdom of Ten Thousand.]

Sensing the conversation would run long, the parrot stopped to wet its throat. Once it had finished drinking, it began to talk.

[The great jungle is blessed land, but it is not easy land to live in. The earth itself, touched by the World Tree's blessing, teems with so much vitality that it is actually difficult for humans to settle. The trees are dense, the flatlands are scarce, and farming is hard, as is raising livestock. Dangerous beasts lurk everywhere, and they do not spare humans any more than they spare livestock.]

Using tools to reshape the environment to your advantage, that was the human gift. Which was precisely why a jungle teeming with every sort of plant and beast was ill-suited for building civilization.

[The Kingdom of Ten Thousand was a brilliant and great nation, but its population was terribly thin compared to its vast expanse. The worst shortage was food. The land was too difficult to farm, so hunting was the only means of supply.]

"Hunting is no easy thing."

Small animals yield too little, large animals are dangerous. It was common enough for a party of able-bodied men to go out hunting and never come back.

[Exactly. And how could I ever bring myself to consume such adorable creatures for nothing more than a single meal?]

"...That is the problem?"

[If that's not the problem, what is? They say eating and being eaten is the way of the world, but a life that has struggled to survive for years being swallowed up and gone in an instant is just too fleeting and sad.]

"So you made the meat fruit?"

[Sadness alone wasn't what drove me. I, Hexia Agartha, am a woman destined to become the Warrior of the Kingdom of Ten Thousand. I could not forsake my people out of pity for beasts, now could I? My disciples and subjects are also ones I raise.]

To say she raised her subjects might sound a bit much, but then again, there have been plenty of rulers who sacrificed their people for a pet. By that measure, the great witch was fairly even-handed.

[The meat-bearing trees were to be cultivated and spread throughout the kingdom. Producing a single meat fruit required only four percent of the fodder a real animal would eat. No pastureland needed, either. A spot with good sunlight and clean running water was enough. No waste, no risk of escaping. They were a great seed that would become the hope of the Kingdom of Ten Thousand.]

"A tree that grows meat? That is remarkable. Something that would revolutionize how people eat. So where did it all go?"

[It burned.]

The great witch said it shortly and left it at that. She clearly had no interest in elaborating. I pieced together a rough picture and asked.

"Someone set the fire, then. Was it the druids of the great forest you mentioned before?"

[Yes.]

Just watching the parrot gave you some sense of the personality behind it. The great witch never stopped talking about things she wanted to talk about, but anything she disliked she refused to bring up at all. There was something childlike about her, or something like a simple animal.

[The only flaw in the meat-bearing trees was that they were too perfect. Every sort of pest and beast came after those nutrient-rich fruit. Without human hands to tend them, they died off quickly. So we decided to grow the meat trees in the shade of the World Tree first.]

"Why the World Tree?"

[The World Tree holds an immense vital energy. Even insects and beasts won't approach it. We grew the meat trees in the earth between the World Tree's roots, in soil full of its blessing.]

Between the World Tree's roots, that place would certainly have no beasts or insects or competing trees. But wait.

"Hmm? Trees would struggle to grow near the World Tree, wouldn't they? The branches and leaves would block out the sunlight."

[You know your stuff. Yes, exactly. So I borrowed a bit of the World Tree's blessing.]

"What?"

[I had the meat trees drink in the World Tree's vital energy.]

She revered the World Tree as sacred, yet felt no hesitation whatsoever about drawing on its power. A picture was starting to form.

For the people of the great jungle, every moment was a struggle. The reason black magic, taboos, and hexes still flourished across the lands of the Kingdom of Ten Thousand was that the environment left no room to be choosy about how you survived.

By comparison, the great forest of the northern metasequoia was relatively peaceful. That cool forest was beautiful and tranquil, stirring deep feeling in all who passed through it. And in that forest, humans were usurpers, cutting down trees and trampling grass to carve out their territory.

The ones who had defended that forest from those humans were the druids of the great forest. They were a group bound by a fastidious love for the World Tree and an unshakable belief that nature must be preserved.

"...Don't tell me the druids of the great forest saw all of that."

[They did. Those druid wretches apparently had nothing better to do, whenever they had a spare moment, they made pilgrimages between the two World Trees. The ones who came from out there saw our World Tree and started meddling as though it belonged to them. Telling us we must not commit such desecration!]

The parrot's feathers all stood on end as it threw itself into a rage.

[There's only so long you can let things slide before grace runs out. They interfered with everything, and then they tried to pull the meat trees up by the roots! I should have killed them all then and there. Letting banishment be the end of it was my mistake! I won't make that mistake again!]

"Don't tell me they were the ones who burned the World Tree?"

[I wish they had been!]

So they hadn't. Well, druids would never burn a World Tree. But then, why had it fallen in flames?

[They incited the remote savages who had never accepted the Kingdom of Ten Thousand's rule and stirred them into revolt!]

"That far? They actually went that far?"

[It was an attack no one saw coming. They used their status as druid pilgrims to fool the border guards and slip inside. While the traitors attacked my mother and her retainers, they burned every last meat fruit!]

And the meat trees had been growing in the gaps between the World Tree's roots. The fire they carelessly lit spread through the roots and reached the World Tree itself.

[The flames spread beyond all control! Tongues of fire climbed the trunk and dyed the blessed ginkgo in a blazing autumn of flame! Carried on the wind the fire made, sparks scattered across the entire jungle! The World Tree's leaves, which had sheltered the whole jungle, became seeds of catastrophe and burned the entire land!]

"So that was how the World Tree burned and fell."

[The Kingdom of Ten Thousand burned until the fire went out. The palace, the cities, the people, all turned to ash in an instant. Everything vanished in an autumn of falling leaves. My mother, who fought desperately to put out the flames, was killed by the traitors. Those vile creatures had always been jealous of her!]

"How terrible. I am sorry for your loss."

[I don't need that. You are not the one meant to mourn her.]

Not even a little comfort. The great witch's parrot rejected my sympathy and spoke with nothing but hatred.

[The metasequoia of the great forest. I will use their World Tree to console the souls of my burned country and my mother.]

The great witch's wish was the kind that would spread into a great fire. I wasn't reading her thoughts at that moment, so I couldn't feel it directly, but I offered the parrot my warm encouragement all the same.

"Good luck. I hope you bring the World Tree down and see your wish through."

"Hey! You can't say that!"

The startled regressor jumped in to argue.

"She said it was a different group of druids who burned the World Tree! If you want revenge, go after them, not an innocent tree!"

[Do you think I'm foolish? Did you think I couldn't tell the difference?]

The regressor's question was reasonable enough, but the great witch had heard that question more times than she could count. The parrot tilted its head and answered.

[Naturally, I hunted every one of them down. One by one, I set my hounds on them. I caught every last one before they could escape this jungle.]

The reason the great witch came to be called the great witch was the long and relentless hunt that followed the World Tree's burning. Countless druids and barbarian tribes were swept away in that blood purge. The burning World Tree may have been what brought down the glorious Kingdom of Ten Thousand, but it was the enraged great witch who stamped out even the new shoots that might have grown.

[Killing them all still wasn't enough to satisfy me, but I had a question, so I kept one alive and dragged them before me. I put my teeth to their throat and asked why they had set the World Tree on fire. And do you know what they said?]

The parrot let out a small, exhausted sound and spoke with disbelief.

[They said they hadn't actually meant to burn the World Tree. Apparently it was an accident. An unfortunate accident.]

But the World Tree had burned, and the kingdom along with it. Those words were no comfort at all to someone who had lost everything.

[Then what was the burned World Tree? If it was an accident and no one has to answer for it, does that mean anyone can set fires wherever they please? By that logic, I should be allowed to kill the World Tree.]

"No you shouldn't!"

[Go tell the people who would be furious at me for killing the World Tree that they can't be angry because it was an accident. Your words have a special gift for making people's blood boil, so they should come in very useful.]

She was absolutely right. The regressor's words had a particular talent for making blood boil precisely because they came from pure good intentions.

Not that the regressor was the type to pick and choose whose blood she boiled.

"That's not what you really want! You don't actually care about toppling the World Tree. What you want is the despair and chaos that comes after it falls!"

[Yes. Isn't that the same thing?]

"It isn't! Even if the World Tree withers and dies exactly as you plan, if they don't suffer enough, you'll just do something even worse!"

[Maybe. But nothing worse is going to happen. If my plan goes as I intend, they'll suffer plenty.]

The great witch answered plainly and let her feelings carry through the parrot.

[Because they are going to kill the World Tree with their own hands.]

"Great witch-nim. You have said far too much."

Walpurgisnacht, who had been waiting outside the door, rushed in to stop the parrot. The parrot, which had been swept up in emotion and on the verge of spilling everything it knew, came back to its senses and covered its beak with a wing.

[Oh, have I?]

"Yes. Anything more and there is no point in keeping it secret."

[...Fair enough.]

Walpurgisnacht raised her perch with practiced ease. The parrot settled onto it naturally and began to shiver, preening its feathers with its beak.

[Eek. It was a good meeting, King of Humanity. We each learned what we needed to learn, yes?]

"It was a good meeting for me too. I hope we can face each other openly someday."

[Eh? That's, um. The King of Humanity is a little overwhelming for me.]

"The great witch is a little overwhelming for me too, for what it's worth."

I'd need to meet her in person to read her mind and hear what she actually wants.

Before they left, the parrot gave a sudden flutter from its perch, as though something had just come to mind.

[Oh, right! You there, woman. I'm not especially curious, but could you tell me where you found my mother's mask?]

"...The elephant graveyards."

[Hm? There? Why there?]

The elephant graveyards, where every elephant in the southeast came to die before the end. The final resting place of those great beasts that had trampled the world. In some ways, more dangerous ground than the Mountain Lord's mountain. An enraged elephant is more fearsome than a tiger.

[Well, I suppose that's why no one found it all this time. Without the Mask of Agartha, no creature except elephants can set foot on that land. I'll have to go check on it eventually. Thank you!]

The parrot swept its wings wide and headed out the door.

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