episode_0034

In the warm elf base, where the sun felt as if it could turn its head to gaze at me at any moment, an alien presence sat like a black dot embedded in pure white cloth.

I tapped the ground with my staff, trying my best to gauge the distance to the World Tree and find a human form.

Perhaps this was the best time to explore, with no magic-sensitive elves around.

As I thought this, my staff was only tapping the ground.

“I have some business to take care of nearby. Stay put here.”

Those were her words after she left me in the warm, sun-drenched base.

Though I was already ignoring her words, thinking about how I could make contact with the World Tree before she returned.

“It’s too alien…”

The World Tree, the elves, and the beings of the [Garden].

What do these words symbolize?

They symbolize pure white.

A clean, pure white that tolerates no stain, not even a single black speck.

However, nature is not that monotonous.

There would surely be discords in the [Garden] and monsters of the [Garden] that the World Tree couldn’t deal with.

That’s why, when I was deeply immersed in the game, I encountered grotesque monsters that, despite their appearance, somehow fit into this [Garden].

After entering this [Garden], I felt only one thing.

The magic was incredibly monotonous, and at the same time, not a single foreign substance was visible.

As if someone was artificially manipulating it.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I stood up.

Isn’t [Garden Erosion] originally this kind of story?

I had predicted it, but deep down, I might have held out hope.

That it was just an anomaly in the [Garden] and no external force had influenced it.

I had harbored only such complacent thoughts.

That’s why I hadn’t thought of immediately searching for the remnants of the [Demonic Cult] and was instead scouting, enjoying the warm sunlight.

Perfect pure white.

The most fitting description for the World Tree’s garden, and at the same time, something that shouldn’t exist.

A concentration so dense that pure white natural energy would cling to my magic.

It wasn’t far from this base.

I spread my magic as delicately as possible, pushing aside the green masses that were slowly becoming familiar, and walked towards the place where the pure white concentration emanated.

Clouds drifted down,

Trees whispered deep conversations,

A station where birds briefly rested.

As the World Tree’s form grew clearer, something alien was drawing closer.

An awkward tree stood rooted in the sandy desert, a single tree rising haughtily before my eyes like a mirage, with no oasis in sight.

An alien tree in a desert formed by nature—it was enough to light the fuse of my suspicion, and a sufficient reason to wield my Heart Sword immediately.

[Heart Sword]

BOOM!

Was this the sound of a tree breaking?

Of course not.

This unpleasant mass of magic felt along with the breaking sound.

What was going on?

The tree that had stood nobly on the desert had rotted.

I lifted my head and swept my long staff over the broken thing in front of me.

A hard texture, not the soft one I would expect in a place full of trees.

I retrieved my staff from the objects that had been touched by human hands and magic.

What I had hoped for, having been quiet for a while, was a reaction from someone inside, but I was soon disappointed to realize it was an empty place, a kind of laboratory.

Walking a little further, a slight ledge blocked my path.

As I stepped over the ledge, I suddenly felt something from below staring at me.

Was that the abyss, or a desert sandstorm?

For a moment, an unpleasant, eerie darkness, as if my magic would return corrupted if I sent it into that deep place, stared directly at me.

But standing still before it, I had no other choice.

Step by step, I carefully descended towards the underground, trying to prevent my magic from being drawn into the black pit.

Step by step.

The lingering echoes of magic on the walls screamed at me.

Step by step.

The remnants of magic on the floor tried to grab my feet and pull me into the abyss.

How could the magic of the dead remain so deeply?

I concluded that these souls had coalesced with the single thought of wanting to live because so many had died, so I pushed through it all and descended.

Was it because I had seen a pawn of the [Demonic Cult], steeped in chuunibyo like a grim reaper?

Was it because I had seen a person from the [Demonic Cult] whom I could accept as a comrade?

The child clutched its mother’s cold collar and burst into tears.

A grown man was screaming, his brain entangled with magic.

Elves, who react sensitively to even a single bit of magic, watched all this magic entanglement from inside the prison and went into shock.

I paused for a moment.

The [Demonic Cult] was originally a place like this.

While it’s unfortunate for the remaining magic remnants and souls, this is an organization that deserves thanks for being killed so quickly.

It is indeed the cancer of this world, an organization best described by the word ‘darkness’.

I moved my halted legs forward, pushing past the returning magic remnants.

This must be one of the many small branches of the [Garden].

Then they must have attempted to send all this information somewhere.

I guessed that place would be the ones who created the current World Tree and the driving force that set the clock in motion.

Thump, thump

My magic was returning to me, carrying all of this.

Even without encountering the essence of this laboratory, I felt like I could collapse from fatigue at any moment.

My body was already exhausted from walking all day in the desert, filled with natural energy.

No matter how good natural energy is as a medicine, too much is harmful.

A grassland turning into a grassless desert happens in an instant.

For a magic user, having their magic stained is akin to being buried themselves.

My steps had by now led me through the long laboratory towards a certain room.

It was a place where screams, from remnants that needed to be harvested right next to me, could be heard even from afar.

Something sticky clung to my shoes, refusing to come off, and machines, whose abandonment duration was unknown, were still humming and generating heat.

‘Wait… it’s working…?’

I turned my head and focused my magic on the humming machine.

Though screws were loose and there was a crackling noise, it was clearly a machine running for some purpose.

‘Were they in such a hurry that they couldn’t even turn off the machine before leaving…?’

I quickly spread the magic that had been concentrated only on the machine.

‘Everyone was affected by what was created here…?’

This conjecture gradually turned into certainty.

Because the screams of the people from that deep place were getting closer.

[SCREEEEEECH!!!!!]

A face that seemed made by extracting only a deer’s skull.

A body patched together with flesh, making it impossible to guess how many human souls were crammed into its creation.

Mixed within the flesh was something that was both the energy of a grassland and the energy of a desert.

The only thing I had slightly hoped for was this:

That the vast desert of the World Tree would suppress this creature, even just a little.

[SCREECH!!!!]

So many teeth, it would be rude to count them, were rushing to crush me.

With claws that seemed made of human bones fully extended, it dripped strange black liquid, apparently unable to control its salivary glands at the sight of a long-awaited meal.

This monster is a creature that lives in the desert.

A creature for which the desert is an advantage, not a disadvantage.

A single tree standing haughtily in a place without a single oasis.

I turned my head towards the monster rushing powerfully towards me, as if greeting a long-lost friend.

My hand was already reaching out towards it.

[Heart Sword]

Wasn’t this sword art originally modeled after beings that roamed the sea?

Even this desert must need an oasis.

[Cetacean Style, Form 1]

No one would dare think of creating a lake by pouring a single cup of water into the desert.

No one would dare even think of staying long in a place where outside life cannot survive.

Each grain of desert sand makes it difficult to reveal one’s strength, so confronting someone within the [Garden] would be one of the maddest things to do.

Surging waves dwelled in each swing of the Heart Sword.

The surging waves, threatening to swallow the desert at any moment, would be less than a single cup of water’s worth of magic compared to the [Garden].

To confront a monster with the desert at its back, armed with only a single cup of water.

The surging nature imbued in each swing of the Heart Sword killed the waves.

Nature, seemingly capable of raising a sandstorm to extinguish my magic at any moment, would be a colossal entity I could not handle.

Now, let’s thoroughly soak that one tree.

Thump, thump, thump

For the first time in a long while, the heartbeat of a whale echoed in the desert.