episode_0092

You may be wondering why you’re wasting questions when it’s either the World Tree or Prinia anyway. However, it was also true that the previous answer really bothered me.

‘If I were to be specific, it would be closer to the former.’

To put it another way, it means that it is neither one nor the other. I was having a conversation with someone I didn’t even know who I was.

“Didn’t I tell you earlier?”

“I just want to be more certain. Honestly, that wasn’t a very accurate answer, right?”

Her voice became a little sulky at my words. The way he spoke clearly became more childlike.

“It’s my fault that the question wasn’t accurate!”

“So, I’m asking again by encompassing all of those things. Who you are.”

“…I am a member of Prinia. As I said before, it is in charge of stabilizing space.”

“…? So isn’t it closer to Prinia than the World Tree?”

“It is meaningless to distinguish between them. The medium that Prinina uses to convey her will to this world is the World Tree. The World Tree is Prinia’s alter ego and will.”

In other words, it meant that it was a divine being. It wasn’t as bad as Stella, the object of people’s faith, but in any case, I felt uneasy because it was my first time encountering a person called ‘God’, whom I had always denied.

“Does being in charge of stabilizing space mean that there are also people in charge of other things?”

“That’s right. For example, the residual thought that chooses the owner of the bow of the World Tree.”

I stared at the bow in my hand. Since there was a separate thought that allowed me to use this bow, I lost confidence that the person I was talking to at least viewed me favorably. Her voice became even more humorous, as if my caution was evident in her expression.

“Hee hee! Don’t look at me like that. I noticed you as soon as you came to this world, so I too have been watching you for a long time. I felt a little bad that others couldn’t see you while I was watching, but it worked out for the better, right?”

After wondering for a moment what the random noise meant, I realized that the ‘others’ she was talking about did not refer to ordinary beings.

“…Stella?”

“Ding dong deng!”

The reason why Stella’s sacred power, including the holy sword, did not work on me has finally been revealed. Until now, I thought it was ridiculous that God didn’t even realize my existence, but now I see that there was a reason for everything.

“Wait a minute. So that means you have been watching my movements without stopping for a moment…”

I suddenly recalled the past days. Most of them were hot nights shared with Arjen. As she suddenly stopped talking due to embarrassment, she spoke in a bright voice to change the mood.

“You have great energy!”

“Ugh! Why do you even bother saying that!”

Even if I raised my voice too late, I couldn’t stop the dirty talk that had already reached my ears.

“Ha… Ah, I have a question about that… You said you were watching me the whole time, right? Then, do you know why my energy has improved?”

“Of course. Is that your last question?”

“Oh….”

I later remembered that there was one question left. The reason I came out of Lair was because I was curious about the cause of my stamina improvement, but the reason I flew here with Arjen was to lift the curse of the free elves.

‘Hmm… what should I do?’

Considering the severity of the task, lifting the curse was a higher priority. This was because it was the first time I had made a promise to another person as ‘Arjen’s love doll’, and above all, it was an issue that involved the lives of many people.

“…Yes. That’s the last question.”

However, compared to the possibility of getting an answer, what was much more difficult was the change in my body. To put it simply, the curse problem was a problem that could be solved somehow by robbing the High Elves who were the ones who put the curse on the free elves, but there was a high possibility that the High Elves were not aware of the changes in my body.

In that case, since I had already received confirmation from Prinia’s residual thoughts that I already knew, the right answer was to ask about my body. It would be a very terrible thing if, by chance, something else were to go wrong in exchange for the improvement in physical strength and stamina.

“Hehe, nothing special. As mana continues to accumulate in the body, the body uses it for physical activities. Is it some kind of body strengthening magic?”

“…Huh? Is that the end?”

I was so frustrated that I accidentally spoke informally. She continued answering without paying attention to my mistake.

“Strictly speaking, it’s a bit different. Normally, when it comes to physical strengthening, you use your mana with your will, but in your case, the results are different because it feels like the cells in your body are operating on their own. It is not done with will, but is done naturally during the metabolic process, so it is natural that no one notices.”

I didn’t know it had anything to do with the bow.

‘Anyway, is that a reason why Sirocco and Argen won’t notice?’

As he said the latter part, his voice was full of pride, and it felt very unreliable, but I had no choice but to believe it.

“Then the answer ends with this. Now it’s my turn to ask a question, right?”

“Ah, yes.”

Clearly, the question over there was about the world I lived in. Although I asked several questions, I only had to answer one question, so I thought it wasn’t a loss-making business, but I was entirely mistaken.

“That place….”

“If you don’t have mana….”

“Then the principle is…”

“Nuclear fusion….”

“Awareness about damage to nature…”

The endless questions were grouped into one category, ‘Stories about the world I lived in,’ and required countless answers. It seems that the name God is not an empty thing, but even if I answered appropriately, it was very extraordinary to understand principles and phenomena that even I was not familiar with.

“…Hey, Prinia.”

When I was explaining my existence, she gave me pause when she said that she didn’t think there was a need for us to show respect to each other, so I called her in an easy-going tone.

“Huh?”

“My mouth is so dry while talking that I feel like I’m dying of thirst… Can’t I stop talking now?”

“Ugh… there are still a lot of stories I want to hear…”

It’s not a joke, it felt like we just talked for half a day and I was on the verge of death mentally. Because it was a disconnected space, the sun didn’t rise and set so I didn’t notice the passage of time, but my body didn’t lie. When I widened my eyes, Prinia took a step back.

“Okay, okay. Don’t look at me so scary. I was about to quit because ‘10 seconds’ had already passed.”

“…10 seconds?”

As I was about to ask what he was saying, my vision began to blink with light once again. When I reflexively closed my eyes again and opened them, nothing had changed.

“Eugene. What’s going on?”

The only thing that has changed is that Arjen and the high elves have begun to appear again. That also meant returning to the original space.

“Huh? No, it’s nothing…”

“Why is your voice so locked?”

“Keuhum! Big!”

At Arjen’s point, I cleared my throat a few times to get my voice back. Looking at the situation, it seemed that the time I spent talking with Prinia was hardly reflected in reality.

‘He really looks like a god…’

I was in awe of the tree in front of me for no reason at such a miraculous event that even Arjen could not imagine. Of course, that didn’t mean I really believed that Prinia was a god.

Slurp…

“Oh…!”

At that moment, the high elf tilted his head upward and let out a single exclamation. When I looked up to see what was going on, I saw a twig of the World Tree slowly coming down.

“…Apology?”

At the end of the twig was a shining golden apple. It seemed like this was the fruit of the World Tree or something.

“Woah, fruit…! The fruit of the World Tree…! Ugh….”

Sure enough, the high elves standing behind were shocked in real time. I picked the fruit and ate it without thinking. It tasted like mangosteen without any fishy smell at all.

“Oh. This is delicious.”

The thought that the sour and sweet thing was truly like a fruit, combined with the fact that I was thirsty, made the fruit disappear into my mouth in an instant. After eating all the fruit, I felt heat spreading throughout my body, as if I had just eaten wild ginseng.

“Wow!?”

In a way, it was natural, but the effect of eating the fruit occurred first not on me, but on Sirocco inside my body. Sirocco jumped out in surprise at the energy spreading through his body, and instead of being small enough to use the palm of his hand as a bed, he had grown to the size of a child who had just entered elementary school.

“Eujin, what on earth are you eating? …Hi! It’s the world tree!?”

“Hello Sirocco. It has grown so much…?”

“Who can say anything… By eating the fruit of the world tree, did Eugene suddenly become such an incredible person?”

“What the hell, I just received a gift…?”

All the high elves nearby bowed to me, ignoring my intention to brush it off as nothing special.

“Meet the greatest elf!”

“……Yes?”

I am human.